Students
My name is Katie Ilene Bratcher. I am 22 years old and am a junior at Western Washington University studying communication. I was born and raised in the bay area of California near San Francisco and transferred up to Washington February 2012. I love to read anything I can get my hands on and write poetry.
Allison Epstein is a junior studying English, creative writing, and French at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is also a contributor for the body-image support website adiosbarbie.com, and self-published her first novel, Na Zdarov’ye, in February of 2013. Besides writing, Allison enjoys knitting gratuitous amounts of winter wear, watching Bravo TV, reading in the sunshine, and waking up with fresh-brewed coffee.
James Koblenzer – I am James Koblenzer and I was born in New York City on June 11, 1994. I am currently working on a Politics major at Oberlin College in Ohio. I have made several short films. My focus on politics and media makes journalism a likely profession for me. I am also working my way to becoming an editor for The Grape, an Oberlin news and humor publication. Infotainment to the core. In addition to my course work, I joined Kid Business, an Oberlin comedy troupe that does gigs in the Cleveland area.
Jonathan King is a senior English major at North Greenville University. He contributes heavily to the NGU literary publication, The Mountain Laurel, and was the editor-in-chief this past semester. His short play, “Therapy,” received a Certificate of Merit from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Jonathan also maintains a blog at iamnerdking.wordpress.com, featuring segments such as “Based on the Trailer” and “Over-Analysis.”
Savanna Maue Nineteen (Journalism) I am a senior at Southeast Missouri State University and the Editor of the student-run publication The Arrow. I have had a few creative works published but my focus is reporting news. I have lived in the midwest all my life and am ready to get away from the countless cornfields. I enjoy any type of creative work whether it is poetry, plays, novels or movies. For more information here is my online portfolio: smaue.weebly.com. Can’t wait to meet everyone!
Chloe McDaniel is an English major at University of Baltimore with a focus on creative writing.
Kelsey McGrath
Kelsey, 21.
U of Illinois; Theatre Studies + Cinema/Media Studies.
Aspiring everything. Insatiable.
i carry your heart [i carry it in].
Christopher Warman is a rising MFA graduate student at the University of Baltimore. He has been featured regularly in UB’s literary journal, Welter, and served as editor-in-chief of the publication in 2011. Additionally, his short play, Die Walküre, and monologue, A Portrait of My Father in Repentance, were featured in the 2011 Emerging Voices Project. He also designs and develops video and board games.
Faculty
Terri Ciofalo (Program and Site Director) is a professional theatre artist and experienced Production Manager teaching graduate and undergraduate theatre at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign. She earned her MFA from the Yale School of Drama and has toured theatrically both in the United States and overseas.
Kimberley Lynne (Playwriting) A published author and playwright, Kimberley has had over 30 works staged andpresented in professional, community, and university theatres. A staff and faculty member of the University of Baltimore, she has worked in theater as an actor, director, scenic designer and producer. Her professional affiliations include Actors’ Equity and the Dramatist Guild. Kimberley’s published books include Something With a Crust, Dredging the Choptank and her play A Dickens of a Carol. She earned her MFA from University of Baltimore.
Nessa O’Mahoney (Creative Writing) lives in Dublin, where she works as a freelance teacher, editor and administrator. She teaches creative writing as an associate lecturer with the Open University, and also teaches at Oscail, the Dublin City University distance learning programme. She is a regular facilitator of creative writing classes for the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin. She was Writer in Residence at the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, University College Dublin, in 2008-2009. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Bangor University. She is the recipient of literature bursaries from Arts Council of Ireland and received the Simba Gill Fellowship in 2005. She has published three volumes of poetry; a fourth is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry.
Joan Weber (Dramaturgy and Cultural Research) is Co-Founder, with actress Rain Pryor, of Baltimore Theatreworks, a theatre education non profit. She is also Education Director of Creativity & Associates where she creates and implements theater education programs in Baltimore City Schools for CENTERSTAGE and University of Baltimore Truancy Court Program, among others. Joan has taught drama, theatre integration and process drama in many Baltimore City Public Schools. She is an adjunct faculty member with Towson University’s Arts Integration Institute certificate program for public school teachers, as well as a visiting artist with the Drama Department’s Theatre Infusion program. She received a Best Actress award from Baltimore Playwrights Festival.
John Zibluk (Journalism) is professor and chair of the Department of Mass media at Southeast Missouri State University, where he oversees one of two accredited journalism programs in the state, which offers degrees in advertising, multi-media journalism, public relations and TV/film. He is a working journalist who has done photography for Rolling Stone and commentary for the Chronicle of Higher Education. His teaching specialty is photojournalism and he is a former vice president of the National press Photographers Association, and his work for the NPPA as in-house ethicist for News Photographer magazine and his teaching work earned him the organization’s Garland “educator of the year” award in 2005. He also won the Arkansas Scholastic Press Association’s Lemke teacher of the year award in 2008. He was National Geographic magazine’s faculty fellow in 2002, spending a summer working at the magazine. He organized and led a student trip to India with Arkansas State University in 2011. ASUindia2011.blogspot.com
