Get excited! The Ashland University 2020 MFA Summer Residency is going virtual this year. From July 13 - 31st, we’re hosting workshops, readings, panels, craft classes, open mics, and more--all from the safety and comfort of your home. Stay tuned for schedule updates and registration links!
Students and faculty share a laugh at last year's residency
Poetry Reading: Tuesday, July 21, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Wednesday, July 22, 5pm EST
Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition (2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in Buzzfeed, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Time, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.
Rebecca Makkai, Visiting Writer in Fiction
Fiction Reading: Monday, July 27, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Monday, July 27, 3pm EST
Rebecca Makkai is a novelist and author of The Great Believers, shortlisted for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018 National Book Awards and winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal. A phenomenal speaker who is beloved by readers, booksellers, and critics, Rebecca has previously published The Hundred-Year House (winner of the Chicago Writers Association Award), The Borrower, and a short-story collection called Music for Wartime. In her engaging and instructive talks, Makkai discusses the strategies she uses in her writing process, from overcoming writer’s block to turning research into realism.
Terese Marie Mailhot, Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction & Graduation Keynote Speaker
Nonfiction Reading: Tuesday, July 28, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Wednesday, July 29, 3pm EST
Terese Mailhot is from Seabird Island Band. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Pacific Standard, Granta, Mother Jones, Medium, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She is the New York Timesbestselling author of Heart Berries: A Memoir. Her book was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for English-Language Nonfiction, and was selected by Emma Watson as the Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick for March/April 2018. Heart Berries was also listed as an NPR Best Book of the Year, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a New York Public Library Best Book of the Year, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year, and was one of Harper's Bazaar's Best Books of 2018. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award, the Electra Quinney Award for Published Stories, a Clara Johnson Award, and she is also the recipient of the Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature. She teaches creative writing at Purdue University.
Creative nonfiction faculty Lauren Markham killing it in her class
Christopher Feliciano Arnold, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon (Picador USA, 2018)
Dexter Booth, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of Scratching the Ghost (Graywolf Press, 2013)
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of Children of the Land: A Memoir (Harper Collins, forthcoming 2020), Cenzontle (BOA Editions LTD, 2018), and Dulce (Northwestern University Press, 2017)
Kirstin Chen, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Bury What We Cannot Take (Little A/Amazon Publishing, 2018), and Soy Sauce for Beginners (New Harvest/Amazon Publishing, 2014)
Garrard Conley, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Boy Erased (Riverhead, 2016)
Brian Conn, MFA Faculty in Fiction (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
Author of The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous Season
Kate Gale, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of The Goldilocks Zone (University of New Mexico Press, 2014), and Echo Light (Red Mountain Press, 2014)
Kate Hopper, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Silent Running: Our Family's Journey to the Finish Line with Autism with Robyn K. Schneider (Triumph Books, 2015), and Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood (University Of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Christian Kiefer, Director and MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Phantoms: A Novel (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2019), One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide (Nouvella Books, 2016), and The Animals (W.W. Norton, 2015)
Lauren Markham, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life (Crown, 2017)
Sarah Monette, MFA Faculty in Fiction (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
Author of The Goblin Emperor (Tor Books, 2014), and
The Iskryne Series (with Elizabeth Bear, Tor Books)
Angela Morales, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of The Girls from My Town (University of New Meixo Press, 2016)
Derek Palacio, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of The Mortifications (Tim Duggan Books, 2016), and
How to Shake the Other Man (Nouvella Books, 2013)
Katherine Standefer, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Lightning Flowers (Little, Brown & Company, forthcoming in 2020)
Naomi J. Williams, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Landfalls (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015)
Visiting Instructors
Aaron Coleman, Guest Instructor in Poetry
Author of Threat Come Close (Four Way Books, 2018) winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and St. Trigger (Button, 2016)
Students and faculty share a laugh at last year's residency
Visiting Writers
Jericho Brown, Visiting Writer in PoetryPoetry Reading: Tuesday, July 21, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Wednesday, July 22, 5pm EST
Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition (2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in Buzzfeed, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Time, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.Rebecca Makkai, Visiting Writer in Fiction
Fiction Reading: Monday, July 27, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Monday, July 27, 3pm EST
Rebecca Makkai is a novelist and author of The Great Believers, shortlisted for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018 National Book Awards and winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal. A phenomenal speaker who is beloved by readers, booksellers, and critics, Rebecca has previously published The Hundred-Year House (winner of the Chicago Writers Association Award), The Borrower, and a short-story collection called Music for Wartime. In her engaging and instructive talks, Makkai discusses the strategies she uses in her writing process, from overcoming writer’s block to turning research into realism.Terese Marie Mailhot, Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction & Graduation Keynote Speaker
Nonfiction Reading: Tuesday, July 28, 7:30pm EST
Craft Class: Wednesday, July 29, 3pm EST
Terese Mailhot is from Seabird Island Band. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Pacific Standard, Granta, Mother Jones, Medium, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She is the New York Timesbestselling author of Heart Berries: A Memoir. Her book was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for English-Language Nonfiction, and was selected by Emma Watson as the Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick for March/April 2018. Heart Berries was also listed as an NPR Best Book of the Year, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a New York Public Library Best Book of the Year, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year, and was one of Harper's Bazaar's Best Books of 2018. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award, the Electra Quinney Award for Published Stories, a Clara Johnson Award, and she is also the recipient of the Spalding Prize for the Promotion of Peace and Justice in Literature. She teaches creative writing at Purdue University.Creative nonfiction faculty Lauren Markham killing it in her class
Participating Faculty
Christopher Feliciano Arnold, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon (Picador USA, 2018)Dexter Booth, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of Scratching the Ghost (Graywolf Press, 2013)Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of Children of the Land: A Memoir (Harper Collins, forthcoming 2020), Cenzontle (BOA Editions LTD, 2018), and Dulce (Northwestern University Press, 2017)Kirstin Chen, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Bury What We Cannot Take (Little A/Amazon Publishing, 2018), and Soy Sauce for Beginners (New Harvest/Amazon Publishing, 2014)Garrard Conley, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Boy Erased (Riverhead, 2016)Brian Conn, MFA Faculty in Fiction (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
Author of The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous SeasonKate Gale, MFA Faculty in Poetry
Author of The Goldilocks Zone (University of New Mexico Press, 2014), and Echo Light (Red Mountain Press, 2014)Kate Hopper, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Silent Running: Our Family's Journey to the Finish Line with Autism with Robyn K. Schneider (Triumph Books, 2015), and Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood (University Of Minnesota Press, 2013)Christian Kiefer, Director and MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Phantoms: A Novel (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2019), One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide (Nouvella Books, 2016), and The Animals (W.W. Norton, 2015)Lauren Markham, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life (Crown, 2017)Sarah Monette, MFA Faculty in Fiction (Sci-Fi/Fantasy)
Author of The Goblin Emperor (Tor Books, 2014), and
The Iskryne Series (with Elizabeth Bear, Tor Books)
Author of The Girls from My Town (University of New Meixo Press, 2016)Derek Palacio, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of The Mortifications (Tim Duggan Books, 2016), andHow to Shake the Other Man (Nouvella Books, 2013)
Katherine Standefer, MFA Faculty in Creative Nonfiction
Author of Lightning Flowers (Little, Brown & Company, forthcoming in 2020)Naomi J. Williams, MFA Faculty in Fiction
Author of Landfalls (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015)Visiting Instructors
Aaron Coleman, Guest Instructor in Poetry
Author of Threat Come Close (Four Way Books, 2018) winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and St. Trigger (Button, 2016)