Alumni/Student Chronicles

Publications and Awards

Teaching Positions

Publications and Awards

Writing for Stage & Screen students Mary Conroy, Robbi D'Allessandro, Catherine O'Neill, Amanda Shaffer, and Rhea Leman will present staged readings of their work at the Boston Playwright's Theater from November 5-9, 2009 as part of the Lesley University MFA Reading Series for the Kennedy Center.

Writing for Stage and Screen students Mary Conroy, Robbi D’Allessandro, and Charlene Donaghy have been honored with recognition by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for their ten-minute plays. Conroy’s Deer Crossing, D'Alessandro’s Last Call, and Donaghy’s Who You Got To Believe were staged this January at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg, MA. Charlene Donaghy’s play, Who You Got to Believe, is one of sixteen Regional Ten-Minute Play Award winners—chosen from the eight regions throughout the United States—in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

• Amy Akillian ('07) published a story, "Lost in the Details," in The Jamaican Observer.
• Abbey Baker's ('08) short story "So Much the Same" will be published in Eleven Eleven.
• KB Ballentine's ('07) second collection of poetry, Fragments of Light (Celtic Cat Publishing) was publsihed in June 2009. Her poems have also appeared in MO: Writings from the River, American Diversity Report, Bent Pin, Naugatuck River, and River Poets' Journal. She published her first book of poetry, Gathering Stones, with Celtic Cat Press in February 2008. Awards include $1,000 from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, second place in the Poetry Contest in the 2006 Tennessee Mountain Writers Competition, first and second place in Pennwriters' poetry contest, and she was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award, presented by Cutthroat. KB's poems have also appeared in Heart Rhythms, an anthology of Chattanooga writers; Poetic Praise, Touchstone, and Apocalypse.
• Bryan Ballinger ('05) writes scripts for an educational animated DVD series and doing some cartoon and character design work for a new cartoon series which will be airing on NBC. Visit his illustration website at www.bryanballinger.com and his blog for his cartoons and artwork at www.breadwig.com

• Amanda Bauch ('06) is Assistant Editor for Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression. Her essay, "A Love Affair With Hair Bands" was published in MOTIF: Writing By Ear, an anthology. Her Nonfiction Pedagogy Paper, presented at AWP in NYC, was selected as one of the “Best AWP Pedagogy Papers 2008.”  Awards include Honorable Mention in The Writers' Workshop of Asheville, NC Memoir Contest, first place in the "Picture Worth 500 Words" contest for Tattoo Highway, and second place in the 2006 Lantern Books Essay Contest. A nonfiction piece combined from two portions of her thesis was accepted for publication in Tainted Mirror: An Anthology.
• Jessica Belt's ('08) essay, "Dead End," which was published in Relief, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her essay "Salvadoran Graphics" has been accepted for publication in Prism International.
• An excerpt from Jim Bildner’s ('06) interview with Jonathan Kern, former executive producer of All Things Considered, was published in the Dartmouth Alumni magazine. The Middlesex Beat published Bildner’s interview with Ray Magliozzi entitled King of the Car Waves in the February 2005 issue. Bildner published the book A Visual Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast with McGraw Hill in 2006. His latest book, A Visual Cruising Guide to the Southern New England Coast is forthcoming from McGraw Hill in November 2009.
• James Bishop's poem “What They Left Behind” was published in the September/October, 2007 issue of the North American Review.  His poems  “Conversation” and “Clearwater”  were published in the June 2008 issue of  Audience. His reviews “To See the Earth” and “Planning for Conflict in the Twenty-First Century”  and his essay “She Whose Eyes Are Open Forever: Does Protest Poetry Matter?” appear in the Fall 2008 issue of War, Literature and the Arts.
• Tavi Black’s (’08) short story, "The Flame," was a finalist in the Alligator Juniper National Fiction Contest and was published in the Summer 2009 issue. Her story, "South Philly, 1960," won second place in the Halifax EMS short story competition and was published in a volume of winning stories in July 2009.
• Christopher Bock ('06), who completed a Graduate Assistantship at the George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, published his review of Louis Simpson's The Owner of the House in the Harvard Review. Chris's review of Daniel Tobin's The Narrows appeared in Issue #30 of the Harvard Review. Other new work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Noise Boston and at frigidember.com.
• Robyn Bradley ('08) published a short story, "Support Our Troops," in Fiction Weekly.

• Susanna Brougham ('06) was awarded a St. Botolph Emerging Artist Grant in Literature.
• Christopher Clark ('05) published "An MFA Student Ponders His Navel and Life After the Degree" in The Valve, a literary blog sponsored by the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. Chris also serves as the Office Manager for the ALSC, where, among other duties, he assists with the editing and production of the ALSC Newsletter, with the implementation of fundraising initiatives, and with the organization and preparation for the Association's annual conference.
• Suzanne Cope's ('07) essay "Gold Shoes" appeared in the anthology Single State of the Union: Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness, from Seal Press.
• Christopher Crew ('08) has work forthcoming in Sycamore Review.
• Katherine Critelli ('09) was the runner-up in Harvard Book Store’s “Love and Dumpsters” Writing Contest. http://www.harvard.com/events/thingsivelearned.html
• Robbi D'Allessandro's short film Last Call premiered at the 15 Minutes of Fame Film Festival in Palm Beach, Florida. 
• Jenny DeBell's ('07) review of Per Patterson's Out Stealing Horses was published in the Harvard Review #33. Other reviews have also appeared in previous issues of the magazine.
• The Journal of New Jersey Poets Today published Sandy DeRose’s ('05) poem, "Crowning". Her poem "Cere Lament" has been selected by Philadelphia Stories.
• Poetry from Penny Dickerson’s ('05) graduate thesis, Hermonious, was published in Philadelphia Stories. Her interview with Lesley MFA faculty mentor Thomas Sayers Ellis was published in Mosaic.
• Charlene Donaghy's poem, "Drift", was recognized as one of 4 Honorable Mentions, out of over 100 entries from across the country and Canada, in the 20th Anniversary Poetry Contest for The Writer's Workshop of Asheville, NC.
• Nonfiction writer Jodi Dougherty ('07) won first place in the "Three Genres Contest" at Black Rock & Sage, the literary magazine at Idaho State University, for her story, "Applesauce."
• Bradley Dunbaugh’s ('06) interview with David Elliott was published “live” in January Magazine.
• Six of Marty Elwell's ('08) poems from his thesis have been accepted for publication in Evening Street Review. His poem "Excel Poem" was published in SPECS Journal.
• Jennifer Flescher ('06) has published poems, interviews, and reviews in the Harvard Review, the New Hampshire Review, Small Spiral Notebook, Agni Online, Eclipse, Jubilat and Perihelion. She has launched a new small journal devoted to original poetry and artwork called Tuesday: An Art Project. Go to www.tuesdayjournal.org for more information.
• Denise Fontaine-Pincince’s ('09) poem, “The Way I Like Them” was chosen by City Works Press for their poetry anthology, Lavanderia: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Word.
• Yolanda Franklin (’09) won scholarships to attend the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and the Indiana University Writers’ Conference. She is a writer for the Tampa Bay Area Restaurants Examiner.
• Jen Girdish's ('08) essay "Red Dog" was published in venuszine.com in Spring 2006. Her review of Stacy Richter's Twin Study, was also published there in Spring 2007, and her interview with Lydia Davis was published in the Summer 2007 issue.
• Beth Raisner Glass’s ('06) picture book, Noises at Night, illustrated by Bruce Whatley and co-written with Susan Lubner, was published with Abrams in October 2005. It was nominated for the Parent's Choice Award, and won the Mother's Choice Award. Her next picture book, Blue Ribbon Dad will be out in 2010. She has also written a fourth grade social studies book for Houghton Mifflin called Power of the People: the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis,Tennessee. She teaches a graduate-level writing course for the Metrowest Cooperative, as well teaching writing to children in grades 2-5 at the Sudbury Public Library.
• Sara Oliver Gordus' ('05) short story "Why Have the Jellyfish Lived So Long?" appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review in April 2009. Her story "Have Some Cake" appeared in the December 2006 issue of The Blood Orange Review (www.bloodorangereview.com).
• Michael Graves' ('07) essay on on Rabih Alameddine's short story collection The Perv will appear in the anthology, The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered. His short story, "Fort Knox," is forthcoming in Jack Magazine's summer 2010 issue. His short story, "Seahorse," was accepted for publication in the Running Press anthology, Cool Thing: Gay Writers Under Thirty.  His fiction has appeared in several literary journals, including Velvet Mafia, Lodestar Quarterly, Cherry Bleeds, The Armchair Aesthete, Naked Poetry, Eclectica Magazine and Bastard Genres. His work is also featured in the print anthologies, Eclectica Magazine’s Best Fiction Volume One, Best Gay Love Stories 2006 and a forthcoming collection by Carroll and Graf.  In 2006, one of his pieces, "Seahorse," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and The Million Writers Award.  His book reviews and non-fiction articles can be found in numerous publications such as Lambda Book Report, Philth Magazine, Edge Boston and Grub Street’s Free Press.

• Patricia Lynn Gutman ('08) has signed a contract with the Canadian publisher Wolsak and Wynn for her book The Work of Her Hands. A memoir piece was published  in SOJOURN. She was a 2006 Literary Awards for Writers finalist in the University of Missouri-Kansas City New Letters "Dorothy Churchill Capon Nonfiction Award" competition with her story, "Dave and Me." She has been appointed Co-Director of the "Young Adult Writing Project," a community partnership program out of Arizona State University, which holds writing workshops for 8th - 12th Grade students each summer.
• Rosemarie Harmon ('05) published an extract from her thesis, titled Working for The House, in the Sunday Arts Supplement of The Jamaican Observer.
•  Melanie Haney ('07) will have stories featured in the June issues of The Summerset Review  and elimae. Another story ("The Last Thing Before Dirt") is forthcoming in Relief Journal.  Her story, "Leaving Altoona" was published in the Spring/Summer edition of Fifth Wednesday Journal. Her story "Sweltering" appeared in Eureka Literary Magazine. Her story "Only in Bellington" was selected as the winner of the Ann Arbor Book Festival 2007 Short Story Contest. Her story "The Simplest of Acts" won the Grand Prize in the 2006 Family Circle magazine fiction writing contest. Another story, "Dodd," won 12th place in the 2006 Writer's Digest Short-Short Story competition and will be published in their upcoming short-short story collection. One of the stories from her thesis, "An Ordinary Evening" has been selected for publication in an upcoming issue of Quality Women's Fiction magazine.
• Kelly Harris's ('07) poem "If you're a woman take notes..." was published in Southern Women's Review. Her article, "Young Poets' Society", appeared in the June 06 issue of Cleveland Magazine. She received Honorable Mention in the Best of Ohio Writers poetry prize for her poem "Lessons."
• Melanie Henderson is a winner of the Larry Neal Writers' Award, 2009 Adult Poetry Category. She has had photography and poetry published in Reverie and poems forthcoming in Jubilat and Tuesday, An Art Project.
• Ginny Hendry ('08) won the New Southerner literary essay contest with "Threads of Meaning," an excerpt from her memoir. 
• Philip Holland's ('08) short story "Jump" was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Cottonwood.
• Daniella Irvine’s ('09) short story, “A Female's Touch” was published in The Strip, an annual tabloid featuring poetry, short fiction and images from graduate students nationwide.
• Tracy Isaacs ('08) was awarded an artist's residency at the UCross Foundation in Wyoming. Her radio essay, "What Not to Wear," aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's program, Outfront, in June 2009. Her radio documentary based on an Interdisciplinary Studies project, "According to Form," aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio One. Her article, "First Time Fears, First Time Facts," has been accepted for publication in the magazine, Going Natural.
• Celia Jeffries' ('08) story, "the wrong end of the knife" will be published by Westview, a Journal of Western Oklahoma. Her interview with Anita Diamant will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Writer's Chronicle.
• Gail Jeidy’s screenplay "H.O.G." was accepted into the Polar Film Festival, in Turku, Finland and was short-listed in the screenplay competition. It was also a semi-finalist in the writemovies.com international script contest. 
• Joyce Johnson ('07) was published in the 2010 Poets Guide to New Hampshire: More Places, More Poets.
• Anna Kirwan ('09) has published retellings of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, by Real Reads, a British publisher with a line of "chapter book"-sized re-tellings of literary classics.
• Cole Krawitz ('09) had a poem published in Ocho #24, and won a Be’chol Lashon media award for excellence in coverage of Jewish ethnic diversity in new media. He has published articles in The Advocate and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Jewish Review. He also also had two poems published in The Queer Collection: Prose and Poetry 2007. His essay  "Ease Patients' Suffering with Access to Medical Marijuana: A Cancer Survivor's Story" was published on The Huffington Post. 
• Hayley Krischer’s essay, "We're Divorced, But Still See A Couples Counselor" will be published in Parenting Magazine.
• Melissa Lambert has been awarded a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. Her story, "On the Edge of Mozambique" was published in the August 2008 edition of Driftwood literary magazine.
• Sara Latta's ('06) picture book, Stella Brite and the Dark Matter Mystery was published with Charlesbridge Publishing in spring 2006.
• Joanna "jojo" Lazar has been performing on tour with music group Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys, as "the burlesque poetess." She and the band have drawn the attention of local and national press. She was interviewed in the Boston Globe Arts, and more recently appeared on the WMFO radio program, "On The Town."
• Lyz Lenz' story, "Juhachiban" was published in the Septemebr 2009 issue of StoryGlossia.
• Sara Levine's ('06) essay, “Conceiving" will be in the anthology And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents and Our Unexpected Families. "Bat Mitzvah" will be published in the journal, Memoir (and). "The Body of a Cow," was published in the Massachusetts Review.
• Alyssa Lovell's ('09) poem "American Afterlight" was a finalist in the Split This Rock Poetry Festival Contest for political poems of "provocation and witness."
• Scott McCabe ('05) published a review of Jocelyn Lieu's Potential Weapons in Harvard Review #28. His interview with Dennis Lehane appeared in The Writer's Chronicle.
• Deborah Milstein ('07) won the 2009 creative nonfiction prize sponsored by Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, judged by Philip Lopate.
• Jeanne Miner's ('06) essay, "The Treatment of Women in Selected Works of Jamaican Fiction," was published in three parts in the Jamaican Observer's Sunday Literary Supplement. Three of her poems were published by the Endicott Review.
• Corwin Moore's ('06) was selected as a finalist of the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers for his short story excerpt “Challenger.”
• Melissa Morris (’07) had a poem published in the 40th Anniversary Issue of Field.
• Naomi Mulvihill has an article, "A View Into Literacy in Cuba's Early Grades" in the summer 2008 issue of Lesley's Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice. 
• Jan Nerenberg's article "Gentlemen, Please" was published in the Northwest Literary Review.
• Lauren Norton (’09) was named a finalist in the 2009 Summer Literary Seminars Writing Contest judged by Lynne Tillman for her short story “On the Bridge.” She was also selected as one of five finalists in the Arts & Letters 2009 Fiction Prize sponsored by Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture, also for the story “On the Bridge.” That story and another story, "Dive," were names as semi-finalists in the 2009 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Short Story Creative Writing Contest. 
• Buki Papillon ('07) received a scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center, and a partial scholarship to attend the 2008 Key West Literary Seminars and Workshops. Her short story, "Sheherazade for Natasha" was published in the Del Sol Review (Issue 13, Winter 2006)
• Kathy Park has been published in the anthology The Creative Epiphany: Gifted Minds, Grand Realizations.
• Janet Pocorobba ('06) will publish her article, "Confessions of a Writing Book Junkie," in the March 2010 issue of The Writer. Her  review of Sven Birkerts’ Reading Life: Books for the Ages was published in the Harvard Review #33. Other reviews have appeared in previous issues of the Harvard Review. Her review of Keith Althaus's Ladder of Hours: Poems 1969-2005 appeared in the 2006/2007 issue of Provincetown Arts, and her review of Thomas Sayers Ellis's The Maverick Room was published in the Winter 2005 issue of Indiana Review. Her memoir piece, "Strangers Don't Speak in Japan" was published in Caribbean Writing Today.
• Laura Polley's ('09) poem, "Winter Accident," appeared on Slate along with a recording of her reading the poem. Her poem "Learning Your ABC's" won first place in web del sol's Interboard Poetry Competition in November, 2006. Two of her poems are featured in Crab Orchard Review's "Adolescence" issue.
• Dan Portincaso ('08) published his short story, "7pm: Room 71 - Melissa" in Pank Magazine www.pankmagazine.com/?p=108 .
• Diane Randolph ('05) published two poems in Abafazi, the Simmons College Journal of Women of African Descent.
• Sandra Rouse's ('08) story "Green Animals" will appear in The Chattahoochee Review. She published an interview with Gary Corseri in Snake Nation Review issue number 20, under the pen name Sylvia Melville.
• Ashley Rousseau’s ('09) "A Fish-Eye Country" was published in Calabash, A Journal of Caribbean Arts & Letters.
• Claudia Rueda was awarded a Levy Research Grant, from the Archives & Special Collections of the University of Connecticut Libraries. This grant is awarded once a year, on a competitive basis, to promising graduate and post-doctoral students, authors and illustrators who plan to conduct research at the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. Her picturebook, My Little Polar Bear was published by Scholastic Press in 2009. 
• Alana Ruprecht’s (’08) story “Igloo” was published in The Westchester Review.
• Rebecca Silverman's ('09) story "Dane Them Down" wil be included in the anthology e-universe. Another story was published in the Dark Distortions II anthology.
• Two of Anna Simon's ('06) poems have been published in the Litchfield Review in Connecticut.
• Jason Steeves ('06) Has published poems in The Smoking Book, The Blood Orange Review, and The Hiss Quarterly. His feature article, "The Fox and The Fly" was published in Billiards Digest. His poetry/art object called "The Zig-Zag E-Z Reader Poetry Sampler," was picked up by the Proteus Gowanus Gallery in New York.
• Barbara Strauss ('09) won honorable mention in the Glimmer Train short story award for new writers.
• Charrolee Thompson ('06) published excerpts of her fiction in The Jamaican Observer.
• Daniel Toulouse's ('06) story "Pillaged," will be published in the Spring 2008 issue of the Bellevue Literary Review.
• Jana Van der Veer's ('08) essay, "A Needle in the Head is Worth Two in the Back" appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of The Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice.
• Amanda Veautour's ('08) story "With a Capital H" was published in the Arts & Leisure section of the Jamaica Gleaner.
• Gili Warsett's ('08) story, "The Giraffe Knocking Over the Elephant Knocking Over the Leopard Knocking Over the
  Ostrich,"  will appear in the literary mag, Pindeldyboz.
• Congratulations to Kristin Willis-Halabi ('06) on receiving a New York City Teaching Fellowship. Kristin, under the name K.T. Hallaway, has published two articles—“A Tale of Two Souks in The City of Merchants” and “Top 10 Expatriate Resolutions”—in Liberty, a magazine published in Dubai, U.A.E. Her interview with Roland Merullo  appeared in the AWP Writer's Chronicle.
• Amy Yelin ('05) read her essay “On Magic,” as part of  National Public Radio’s This I Believe Women's History Month special: This We Believe. Her interview with Amy Krouse Rosenthal will appear in The Writer’s Chronicle. Excerpts from the interview also appear in The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir. Her essays and interviews have appeared in publications such as The Baltimore Review, New Letters, The Gettysburg Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, and the Boston Globe.

Teaching Positions

• Bryan Ballinger ('05) teaches at Huntington University in Huntington, Indiana.
• Amy Bohler ('06), Christopher Clark ('05), Suzanne Cope ('07), Beth Glass ('06), Cassandra Goldwater ('06), Celia Jeffries ('08), Sara Levine ('06), Robin Linn ('09), Janet Pocorobba ('06), Elizabeth Young and other Lesley MFA students and alumni have taught expository writing and creative writing at Lesley College’s undergraduate Humanities Division.
• Rebecca Cook teaches screenwriting at Emerson College. She is developing her third independent feature film as writer/director/producer, Hickory Nation, featuring Molly Sims, Aimee Teegarden, Jesse James, Brian White and Kris Kristofferson.
• Jodi Dougherty ('07) is teaching expository writing at Colorado College and nonfiction and expository writing at Pikes Peak Community College.
• Jennifer Flescher ('06) is teaching writing at Lasell University.
• Jennifer Girdish ('08) is volunteering and teaching at Capitol Letters, a creative writing center for children in Washington, D.C.
• Alicia Hyland ('09) is teaching a course at Brandeis University based on her graduating seminar, “Adapting and Revising.”
• Cole Krawitz ('09) will be teaching at UC Berkeley while Aya de Leon is on maternity leave.
• Michelle Parnett (’07) is teaching Introduction to Creative Writing at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY.
• Dan Portincaso (’08) will be a tenure track Full-Time College English Instructor at Waubonsee Community College.
• Brooks Winchell ('08) is teaching English Composition and Introduction to Literature at Suffolk University, Boston.