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STEPHAN EIRIK CLARK
Fiction and Screenwriting, Program Director
Stephan Eirik Clark is the author of the short story collection Vladimir’s Mustache, a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and the novel Sweetness #9, which was named one of the twenty-five best books of 2014 by the editors of Amazon Canada, featured on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and The Colbert Report, and reviewed by The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Oprah, and The Toronto Star, among others. A one-time member of USC Film School, Stephan worked on the film adaptation of Sweetness #9 for Mar-Key Pictures. A former Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine, he holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and a Master’s Degree in Literature (creative writing emphasis) from the University of California, Davis. Born in West Germany, Stephan split much of his childhood between England and the United States. He has lived in five states and five countries, and now resides in St. Paul. Find him online at www.stephanclark.com.
Lindsay starck
Fiction, Program Director
Lindsay Starck, Director of the MFA program, earned her B.A. in Literature from Yale, her M.F.A in Fiction from Notre Dame, and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, she served as Fiction Editor and Editor-in-Chief of The Carolina Quarterly. She is the author of Noah’s Wife, and her short prose has recently appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, and the Southern Review, among other places. Her story “Baikal,” which appeared in the New England Review, won a Pushcart Prize in 2022. Her second novel, Monsters We Have Made, is forthcoming from Vintage Books. When she isn’t writing or teaching, she’s traveling with her husband or training their dog, Cedar.
Gethsemane Herron
Playwriting
Gethsemane Herron is a poet-playwright, teacher, and screenwriter from Washington, D.C. She has developed work with Ars Nova, The Fire This Time Festival, The Hearth, JAG Productions, The Liberation Theater Company, The Playwright’s Center, Roundabout Theatre Company, and WPTheater. She was a 20-22 member of Ars Nova’s Play Group, a 20-22 member of the WP Lab, and a 21-22 Jerome Fellow/22-23 Many Voices Fellow at the Playwright’s Center. Gethsemane is a winner of the Columbia@Roundabout Reading Series, a winner of the 45th Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. 2022 Recipient of the Helen Merrill Award. Finalist for the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship at the Lark and the Founders Award at New York Stage and Film. She received her MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University, where she was the Dean’s Fellow. She is a proud member of the Dramatist’s Guild. Gethsemane is currently under commission with Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, and the Drinking Gourd Collective. She will work on a new play with the Playwright’s Center as a 2023-2024 McKnight Fellow. She’s enamored with Sailor Moon & other magical girl warriors. She writes for survivors.
ANIKA FAJARDO
Creative Nonfiction
Anika Fajardo Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of a book about that experience, Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), which was awarded Best Book (Nonfiction) of 2020 from City Pages. Her debut middle-grade novel What If a Fish (Simon & Schuster, 2020) was awarded the 2021 Minnesota Book Award. Fajardo also wrote Encanto: A Tale of Three Sisters, the middle-grade tie-in novel for the Disney film Encanto. Her next book for young readers, Meet Me Halfway (Simon & Schuster) will be published in fall 2022. Her writing for adults and children has appeared in numerous publications including Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction (Norton), We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World (U of Minnesota Press), and Sky Blue Waters: Great Stories for Young Readers (U of Minnesota Press). She lives with her family in the very literary city of Minneapolis.
ANDY FROEMKE
Screenwriting
Andy Froemke is a screenwriter and filmmaker from Minnesota and is a proud member of the Writer’s Guild of America. In 2016, Andy won the IFP North/Knight Foundation Screenwriting Residency with his historical biopic about Henry Berry Lowrie, The Lowrie Gang. He followed that up with Steal Away, the story of Robert Smalls, a slave who overcame incredible obstacles to free himself and his family during the Civil War. Steal Away is currently in development at Amazon Studios with Academy Award winner Charles Burnett attached as director. In 2019, Andy got behind the camera writing and directing Song Without Words, an award-winning short at the LA Shorts Int’l Film Festival. He recently adapted the acclaimed memoir, Prison Baby, a deeply personal and inspiring memoir recounting one woman’s struggles to find self-acceptance. The script has recently been optioned by Rickshaw Films. When he’s not writing, he mentors fellow writers in the MFA program at Augsburg University.
Michael kleber-diggs
Poetry
Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. His essay, “On the Complex Flavors of Black Joy,” is included in the anthology There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis, edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman. Another essay, “There Was a Tremendous Softness,” is forthcoming in A Darker Wilderness: An Anthology of Black Nature Writing, edited by Erin Sharkey (Milkweed Editions, 2022). Among other places, Michael’s writing has appeared in Concision, Spillway, Great River Review, Water~Stone Review, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, Memorious, and several other journals and anthologies. Michael is a past Fellow with the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, a past-winner of the Loft Mentor Series in Poetry, and the former Poet Laureate of Anoka County libraries. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and has been supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
Carson Kreitzer
Playwriting
Carson Kreitzer is a playwright, lyricist, and librettist. Her musical LEMPICKA, co-written with Matt Gould and directed by Rachel Chavkin, was produced last summer at the La Jolla Playhouse. Other projects include Capital Crime!, a play with songs set in Gilded Age New York, and a trio of plays about the climate crisis: green, TIMEBOMB, and a new play inspired by her time in Svalbard, sailing with The Arctic Circle Artist and Scientist Residency Program. Immediately following the Residency this year, she will continue her research, sailing in Greenland. Her plays include The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Rosenthal New Play Prize, Stavis Award), The Slow Drag (New York and London) and Lasso of Truth (NNPN Rolling World Premiere). She is an Affiliated Writer with The Playwrights’ Center, an alumna of New Dramatists, and was the first Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. She has been a Guggenheim and MacDowell Fellow, and received support from the NEA, TCG, and the Jerome and McKnight Foundations. Her collection SELF DEFENSE and other plays is available from No Passport Press.
Lara Mimosa Monte
Poetry
Lara Mimosa Montes is a writer, editor, and teaching artist whose practice and experiences span the fields of alternative publishing and experimental writing. She is the author of two books of poetry, THRESHOLES (2020) and The Somnambulist (2016). She holds a PhD in English from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the recipient of artist residencies and fellowships from MacDowell, Jentel, and Headlands Center for the Arts. She teaches in the Creative Writing MFA program at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her most recent book, The Time of the Novel, is now available from Wendy’s Subway.
Sacha Idell
Publishing
Sacha Idell, publisher of Howling Bird Press, is coeditor and prose editor of The Southern Review. His original stories appear in Ploughshares, Narrative, and Gulf Coast.. His translations from the Japanese include stories and essays by Kyūsaku Yumeno and Toshirō Sasaki. Writing he has acquired and edited has been selected for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Mystery and Suspense anthologies, among others. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.