2015 - 2016
Andrea Chapin
Andrea Chapin has been an editor at art, movie, theater, and literary magazines, including The Paris Review, Conjunctions, and The Lincoln Center Theater Review, and has written for More, Redbook, Town & Country, Self, Martha Stewart Living, Marie Claire UK, and other publications. Her work as also appeared in several anthologies, and she was the co-editor of The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage & Divorce (Warner Books). Chapin taught fiction writing workshops at NYU's SCPS for ten years. She is also a private book editor and has edited over 200 books novels and memoirs. Her novel, The Tutor, which imagines a year in the life of William Shakespeare, was published by Riverhead Books/Penguin in February, 2015 and is forthcoming from Viking/Penguin UK in March 2015.
Aja Monet
Aja Monet has two books of poetry. Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers (June 2015) is a music and EBOOK collection in which Monet “explores the double consciousness, or two realms, that those who are oppressed, especially women of color, manage everyday: confronting the everyday physical realities of their situations and the mental travel needed to cope, survive, and transform bleak situations” (Modern Griot). It is a testimony to family and self, memory, loss and remembrance, home and the journey away from home to find one’s self—and to build a stronger community. The Black Unicorn Sings was independently published in 2010. In 2012, she collaborated with poet/musician Saul Williams on a book entitled, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape: “the anthem of a new generation of poets unified by the desire to transcend the identity politics of the day and begin to be seen as one,” published by MTV Books/Simon & Schuster.
Robin Beth Schaer
Robin Beth Schaer was born and raised in New York. She received a B.A. in Religion from Colgate University and an M.F.A. in Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her first book of poetry, Shipbreaking, received the Robert Dana-Anhinga Poetry Prize and will be published in September 2015 by Anhinga Press. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Saltonstall Foundation, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Bomb Magazine, Paris Review, Denver Quarterly, Washington Square, and Guernica, among others. For five years, she worked at the Academy of American Poets, directing the online programs. She has led panels and workshops at Lit Crawl NYC, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference, PEN American Center, Connecticut State University Writing Conference, University of Rhode Island, and CLMP Writer’s Conference. She currently teaches at Cooper Union and The New School in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Anthony Tognazzini, and their son, Faro.
Bruce Bond
Bruce Bond, of Denton, Texas, has been named winner of the 2014 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry for Black Anthem. Bruce Bond is the author of fifteen books including, most recently, For the Lost Cathedral (LSU Press, 2015) and The Other Sky (Etruscan Press, 2015). Four of his books are forthcoming: Immanent Distance: Poetry and the Metaphysics of the Near at Hand (University of Michigan Press), Gold Bee (Crab Orchard Open Competition Award, Southern Illinois University Press), and Sacrum (Four Way Books). He has received numerous honors including the Allen Tate Award, the New South Award, the Knightville Poetry Award, the Richard Peterson Prize, and fellowships from the NEA and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Presently he is Regents Professor at University of North Texas and Poetry Editor for American Literary Review.
