“How to Survive as a Writer Under American Capitalism” Reading & Talk by Rita Banerjee – University of North Dakota * October 7, 7pm CT on Zoom

Dr. Rita Banerjee will be reading from her personal essay “American Caste” and presenting a short lecture on “How to Survive as a Writer under American Capitalism” for the University of North Dakota Virtual Speakers Series in Writing, Editing, & Publishing on Tuesday, October 7 at 7 pm CT via Zoom. Audience members can join the Zoom webinar by scanning the QR Code above. And here’s more information about the talk:

How to Survive as a Writer under American Capitalism

In the 21st Century, creative writers in the United States are facing unprecedented challenges to their discipline, craft, and survival. In 2025 alone, writers have witnessed large cuts in government funding for universities and humanities departments, the suspension of the NEA Fellowship for Creative Writers, and a number of class-action lawsuits against Artificial Intelligence companies, such as Bartz vs. Anthropic, in which A.I. companies are accused of illegally downloading 7.5 million literary and scholarly books and 81 million research papers to train their Large Language Model systems.[1] In this era of late capitalism, how can writers find viable ways to maintain and grow in their craft, seek the education in the humanities they desire, and create sustainable careers and communities in creative writing? As a multi-genre writer who is deeply inspired by world literature and transnationalism, Dr. Rita Banerjee will discuss her journey as a writer and literary citizen, and will share resources on how creative writers can create sustainable, nurturing, and viable careers, writing practices, and literary communities despite the pressures of American capitalism.

About the Author:

Rita Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. She is editor of the forthcoming anthology Disobedient Futures (University Press of Kentucky) in which writers imagine what the future cultures of the United States and the world could look like if folks disobeyed gender, tribal, and class paradigms, and explored disobedient forms of environmentalism and borders. She is also the author of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, the poetry collections Echo in Four Beats and Cracklers at Night, the novella โ€œA Night with Kaliโ€ in Approaching Footsteps, and is co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre, a forthcoming documentary film about race, tribalism, and intimacy in the United States and in France. Her work appears in Sign & Breath: Voice and the Literary Tradition, Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, PANK, Nat. Brut., Hunger Mountain, Tupelo Quarterly, Isele, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She serves as Senior Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde and Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop, which she co-founded at Harvard in 2008. She received a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the bookโ€™s opening chapters โ€œBirth of Cool,โ€ was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays, and another chapter, โ€œThe Female Gaze,โ€ was a Notable Essay in the 2023 Best American Essays.


[1] Reisner, Alex. โ€œThe Unbelievable Scale of AIโ€™s Pirated Book Problem.โ€ The Atlantic. Online. March 20, 2025.

What the Universe Is Reading feat. Rita Banerjee & Amanda Shaw – February 11, 2025 * 7:30 pm EST on Zoom

Poet Michael Mercurio hosts and curates “What the Universe Is,” a poetry reading series featuring poets and writers Rita Banerjee and Amanda Shaw reading at 7:30 pm EST on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Register for the reading on Zoom and join the reading live at: bit.ly/WTUIFeb2025! And here’s more information about the reading & writers below:

Make some time for poetry during this shortest of months. Come hear two exceptional poets read for you on Zoom, so you donโ€™t have to leave the house in these cold & dark days. Let these poets bring you light & warmth! ย 

Rita Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is author of Disobedient Futures, CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, Echo in Four Beats, โ€œA Night with Kaliโ€ in Approaching Footsteps, and Cracklers at Night, and co-writer of the documentary Burning Down the Louvre. Her work appears in Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, PANK, Nat. Brut., Hunger Mountain, Tupelo Quarterly, Isele, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She serves as Senior Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde and Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop. She received a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the bookโ€™s opening chapters โ€œBirth of Cool,โ€ was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays, and another chapter, โ€œThe Female Gaze,โ€ was a Notable Essay in the 2023 Best American Essays

Amanda Shaw is the author of It Will Have Been So Beautiful (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2024). Based in Washington, DC, she is a teacher and editor at the World Bank and other international organizations. Her poems have appeared in LEON Literary Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Mid-Atlantic Review, and Lily Poetry Review, which she recently joined as the reviews editor. Over the last 25 years, she has taught students of all ages and backgrounds in New York, Boston, Detroit, and Rome, Italy. 

Itโ€™s very easy to register at bit.ly/WTUIFeb2025 โ€” make sure you donโ€™t miss out!

January 2025 Faculty Lectures from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College Now Available

Theย MFA Program for Writersย recently celebrated its annual winter residency this past January. The residency featured inspiring lectures and classes from both faculty and graduating students. And writers and readers can access the wonderful craft discussions and lectures from the MFA Program for Writers facultyย online here. All MFA Store proceeds directly support graduate student scholarships in the MFA Program for Writers.

Rita Banerjeeโ€™s Opening Lecture,ย “The Poetry and Power of Witness” asks, “How do we as writers process the various kinds of social trauma that inform and affect our daily lives?” In Against Forgetting, Carolyn Forchรฉ argues against an easy descent into forgetfulness or a culture of oblivion as espoused a constant carousel of rotating news headlines. She instead introduces the notion of โ€œpoem as trace, poem as evidenceโ€ and how the work of a writer can serve as a witness to and record of history. And in her introduction to Playing in the dark, Toni Morrison writes that, โ€œWriting and reading mean being aware of the writerโ€™s notions of risk and safety, the serene achievement of, or sweaty fight for, meaning and response-ability.โ€ Some authors, studied in this talk, who wrestle with both their response and responsibility as witness to their particular social and historical moment, include Carolyn Forchรฉ, Solmaz Sharif, Fatimah Ashgar, Paul Celan, George Abraham, Noor Hindi, Jo Ann Beard, Yoko Tawada, Julio Cortรกzar, Agyeya, James Baldwin, Carvell Wallace, and Carl Phillips.

The Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers store features a rich archive of faculty lectures and craft discussions from January 1992 โ€“ January 2025, and can be accessed here: https://www.wwcmfa.org/store/

South Asian Avant-Garde’s 2024 in Reading feat. Rita Banerjee

In describing the complex and thought-provoking readings of the SAAG Masthead in 2024, Associate Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde Iman Iftikhar writes, “Reading in 2024 often felt like fumbling for grounding amidst relentless upheaval. At times, it offered escape and solace. At others, it demanded grappling, interrogation, and a necessary confrontation. Whether through poetry, history, fiction, or essays, our reading this year insisted on engagement: on seeing, feeling, and remembering to live, even when it felt unbearable.

“These reflections do not aim to present a neat list of 2024โ€™s ‘best; books or ‘essential reads.’ Instead, they are fragments of what stayed with us: works that lingered and called us back. Our favorites include a novel set in Baltimore tracing the lives of the Palestinian diaspora, texts that provide much needed clarity on revolutionary politics, a quiet yet searing study of sound and space, some comfort reads, and much more. These books held mirrors to the year and world we lived through, compelling us to look even closer when we could not look away. Here, in the voices of those who read and felt with these works, we share not only our most loved reads of the year but the struggles they opened up for us, allowing us to see anew.”

And of her selected readings in 2024, SAAG Editor Rita Banerjee writes:

“This year, every book I read felt like a knock-out including: Animal by Dorothea Lasky, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, Letters to a Writer of Color edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, Fling Diction by Frances Canon, Riambel by Priya Hein, Dumb Luck and Other Poems by Christine Kitano, Letter to the Father by Franz Kafka, Another Word for Love by Carvell Wallace, Cloud Missives by Kenzie Allen, A Fish Growing Lungs by Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn, and The Psychology of Supremacy by Dwight Turner, among many others. Each book I read challenged and changed my approach to creative writing craft, human psychology, how we process social trauma, and what we can learn from community, as well as demanding systemic change. 

One poetry collection that showed me how form could explode on the page, and how polyvocality and the acknowledgement of our ancestors could be conveyed, was JJJJJerome Ellisโ€™s Aster of Ceremonies. The collection plays with the idea of โ€œMaster of Ceremoniesโ€ as someone who both entertains and has authority over the stage. With his stutter, Ellis has difficulty pronouncing ‘master’ (which then becomes ‘aster’ in his work). Throughout the collection, Ellis interrogates the notion of master, both as the figurehead who controls the lives of others, often under authoritarian or tyrannical rule, and as a symbol of accomplishment and the mastery of craft.”

Check out the South Asian Avant-Garde‘s 2024 in Reading here.

KCAW Raven Radio’s “The Library Show feat. Rita Banerjee” airs May 7, 2023 – 10:30 am AKDT

During the the Tongass Mist Writing Retreat (April 12-16, 2023) in Sitka, Alaska, Visiting Rita Banerjee sat down with Brooke Shafer, one of the hosts of “The Library Show” on Raven Radio (KCAW, 104.7 FM Sitka, Alaska). Brooke Shafer asked Rita Banerjee about her favorite books, current reads, what drew her to writing, what it’s like to teach creative writing, and the memoir and manifesto on female cool that she currently working on. Banerjee also got a chance to read from “Cool as Kin,” a new chapter from her memoir on-air.

KCAW Raven Radio will be airing Brooke Shafer’s interview and conversation with Rita Banerjee on Sunday, May 7, 10:30 am Alaska Time (2:30 pm EDT, 11:30 am PDT). And you can listen to “The Library Show” broadcast live (or download it) on May 7 on Raven Radio at:

https://www.kcaw.org/program-schedule/

Tongass Mist Writing Retreat featuring Visiting Writer Rita Banerjee in Sitka, Alaska (April 13-16, 2023)

The Tongass Mist Writing Retreat featuring Visiting Writer Rita Banerjee will take place at the Tongass Fine Arts Campus in Sitka, Alaska from April 12-16, 2023. Applications are now open through March 19, 2023 at tongassmist.com.

Tongass Mist Writing is owned and operated by Ruth Underhill @ruth_elizabeth_underhill, a local Sitkan with a dream to see more writers experience and cherish the mists of the Tongass National Forest with the knock of raven call and sound of rocks rolling up the shores of this beautiful Tlingit Aรกni land where she lives as a very lucky guest. Ruth shapes retreats and writing resources to allow #artists to carry its wild and beauty into their diverse and empowered writing. The retreat includes lodging on an oceanfront campus, daily meals, wilderness excursions, six literary salons, fireside readings, a wildlife cruise, and sauna. Tongass Mist welcomes its second visiting writer to Sitka in April 2023. Rita Banerjee will join the Sitka Fine Arts Campus April 12-16th for a four day retreat featuring wilderness excursions, generative writing salons, readings by a fire, literary craft talks and the incomparable experience of creating, enjoying a welcoming art community in the heart of the Tongass National Forest. Rita comes to visit us with incredible experience writing, film making, teaching, publishing and directing writing programs across the country. To apply, submit an application on the Tongass Mist Writing Retreat website by March 19, 2023 at 3 pm Alaska Standard Time.

July 26, 2018: Paris Lit Up feat. Rita Banerjee

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is delighted to have our writing faculty from our 2018 Summer in Paris Writing Retreat featured at SpokenWord Paris and Paris Lit Up this summer!

Paris Lit Up featuring Rita Banerjee
Culture Rapide * July 26, 2018 * 8:45 โ€“ 11:00 pm
103 rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris, France

Paris Lit Upย will host Rita Banerjee as their featured writer on July 26, 2018 from 8:45 โ€“ 11:00 pm!ย  Banerjee will read from her new poetry collectionย Echo in Four Beatsย (FLP, march 2018),ย which was selected by Finishing Line Press as their 2018 nominee for the National Book Award in Poetry, and her edited volumeย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).ย  Banerjee will also read from her new collection of essays on race, sex, politics, and everything cool, and her novel-in-progress about a Tamil-Jewish family in crisis during a post-authoritarian regime.ย 

Writers from the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer in Paris (July 25-30, 2018) Writing Retreat will also read during the open mic portion starting at 8:45 pm.

Paris Lit Upย ย is a non-profit community organization that aims to intensify collaborative artistic practices through community events, performance and publication.ย  With emphasis on transnational writers, artists and musicians, Paris Lit Up promotes the importance of artistic synergy through transparent, democratic, consensus-based decision making.

ritabanerjeeRita Banerjeeย is the Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop andย editor ofย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).ย  She is the author of the poetry collectionย Echo in Four Beatsย (Finishing Line Press, March 2018),which was named one ofย Book Riotโ€™sย โ€œMust-Read Poetic Voices of Split This Rock 2018โ€, was nominated for the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was selected by Finishing Line Press as their 2018 nominee for the National Book Award in Poetry.ย  Banerjee is also the author of the novella โ€œA Night with Kaliโ€ inย Approaching Footstepsย (Spider Road Press, 2016), and the poetry chapbookย Cracklers at Nightย (Finishing Line Press, 2010).ย She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and she is a recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Artistโ€™s Grant, the Tom and Laurel Nebel Fellowship, and South Asia Initiative and Tata Grants.ย Her writing appears in theย Academy of American Poets,ย Poets & Writers,ย Nat. Brut.,ย The Scofield,ย The Rumpus, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mass Poetry,ย Hyphen Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books,ย Electric Literature, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, AWP WC&C Quarterly, Queen Mobโ€™s Tea House, Riot Grrrl Magazine, The Fiction Project, Objet dโ€™Art,ย KBOO Radioโ€™sย APA Compass, and elsewhere.ย She is the Director of the MFA in Writing & Publishing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, an Associate Scholar at Harvard, and theย judge for theย 2017 Minerva Rising โ€œDare to Speakโ€ Poetry Chapbook Contest.ย She is currently working on a novel, a documentary film about race and intimacy, a book on South Asian literary modernisms, and a collection of lyric essays on race, sex, politics, and everything cool.

More information about Rita Banerjeeโ€™sย Echo in Four Beatsย andย CREDOย Book Tours available here!

Split this Rock 2018 Festival: Fantasy as Reality: Activism and Catharsis through Speculative Writing Panel feat. poets Rita Banerjee, Christina M. Rau, Marlena Chertock, and Alex DiFrancesco

Poetsย Rita Banerjee, Christina M. Rau, Marlena Chertock,ย andย Alex DiFrancescoย will be featured in the panel โ€œFantasy As Reality: Activism and Catharsis Through Speculative Writingโ€ย at the 2018 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.ย ย Split This Rock: Poems of Provocation & Witnessย will take place fromย April 19-21, 2018 in Washington, D.C.ย  You can read more about the festivalย hereย and the panel below:

Fantasy As Reality: Activism and Catharsis Through Speculative Writing
Split This Rock: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2018 Festival
Saturday, April 21, 2018 * 9:00 am – 10:30 am
National Housing Center Room B
1201 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

Speculative literature, at its core, is about giving voice to โ€œThe Other.โ€ Speculative writing, in prose or poetry, focuses on not only imagined realities of the future, past, and present, but also gives voice to bodies and individuals who are disabled, alien, marginalized, menial workers, and more. Terms like solarpunk and sco-speculation are becoming more used and explored. Often times, speculative and science fiction is stereotyped as futuristic, extraterrestrial, and fantastical romps through universes using space travel, time travel, and super-advanced technology involving mostly cis white males. However, women, non-binary, and activist writers of Speculative Fiction are purposefully ย subverting this stereotype, diversifying and owning the fantastical worlds that they imagine. Sci-fi and fantasy characters and voices can and should represent the underrepresented to create a sense of community as well as rail against injustices in this world.

RitaBanerjeeRita Banerjeeย is the author of Echo in Four Beats (2018), CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (2018), the novella โ€œA Night with Kaliโ€ in Approaching Footsteps (2016), and Cracklers at Night (2010). She earned her doctorate from Harvard, and she is the Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop. Her writing appears in the Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers,ย Nat. Brut., Painted Bride Quarterly, Hyphen Magazine, LARB,ย Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Follow her at ritabanerjee.com or @Rita_Banerjee

 

Marlena Chertock has two books of poetry,ย Crumb-sizedย (Unnamed Press, 2017) andย On that one-way trip to Marsย (Bottlecap Press, 2016). She lives in Washington, D.C. and uses her skeletal dysplasia and chronic pain as a bridge to scientific poetry. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Paper Darts, Rogue Agent, Wordgathering, and more. Marlena often moderates or speaks on panels at literary conferences and festivals. She serves as the Communications Coordinator for the LGBTQ Writers Caucus. Find her on Twitter atย @mchertock.

 

Christina M. Rauย is the author of the sci-fi fem poetry collection,ย Liberating The Astronautsย (Aqueduct Press, 2017), and the chapbooksย WakeBreatheMoveย (Finishing Line Press, 2015) andย For The Girls, Iย (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Her poetry has also appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, and in various literary journals both online and in print. She is the founder of the Long Island reading circuit, Poets In Nassau, and has read and run workshops for various community groups nationwide. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College where she also serves as Poetry Editor forย The Nassau Review. In her non-writing life, she teaches yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions.

Alex DiFrancesco is a writer, activist, and baker. Their first novel, The Devils That Have Come to Stay, is an acid western that deals with social justice histories of the California Gold Rush. Their current project is a climate-change fiction sci-fi novel set in a future New York City, and deals largely with socio-economic disparity and alternative utopias. Their work has appeared in The Washington Post, Tin House, Brevity, Longreads, The Heart Podcast, and more. They have recently relocated from New York City to rural Ohio, where they are still adjusting to things like โ€œSweetest Day.โ€ They are currently an MFA candidate at a consortium program in Northeast Ohio.

Disobedient Futures – Call for Submissions

The Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop welcomes submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, mixed-genre work, plays, and screenplays on the topic of โ€œDisobedient Futuresโ€ for our new speculative literature anthology. Writers are encouraged to imagine what the future cultures of America and the world might look like, and submit their work on the following topics:

Disobedient Women: How might women, feminists, and/or non-binary individuals disobey and reconfigure our understandings of power and femininity and masculinity in the future?

Disobedient Tribes: What if Americans found a way to subvert racial categories and challenge tribalism and cultures of fear? How might tribes disobey the rules of the game and create new types of community identities and cultural bridges?

Disobedient Class: Could Americans in the future overcome systems of class oppression and capitalist gluttony? How might individuals in the future subvert class hierarchies?

Disobedient Futures: Tell us what the future cultures of America and the world have in store. How might the emerging generations of today and tomorrow reconfigure todayโ€™s value systems, challenge todayโ€™s modes of violence, oppression, and power, and create new visions of society? Give us your best speculative writing which explores the possibilities and disruptions of disobedient futures.

Writers are welcome to submit utopian, dystopian, parallel history, futuristic, alternative reality, speculative essay, and even purely speculative fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and theatre. Optimistic and pessimistic tales of the future are welcome in equal measure, but gratuitous violence and discrimination are not. Poetry submissions should be 3-5 pages in length. Prose submissions can be 10-20 pages in length.ย  Excerpts from longer works with synopses are welcome.ย Visual art related to these categories of Disobedient Futures isย also welcome.ย  Submit your retelling of the future today!

Submit your work at cww.submittable.com
Deadline: February 14, 2019

Celebrate the Pre-Launch of CREDO with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, C&R Press, and Women’s National Book Association at AWP 2018!

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is delighted to celebrate the pre-launch of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing at theย Spontaneous Reading Party, at the AWP 2018 Conference in Tampa, Florida.

SPONTANEOUS READING PARTY presented byย C&R Press,ย Women’s National Book Associationย andย Cambridge Writers’ Workshopย will take place on Friday, March 9 from 7-11 pm at the historicย The Centre for Womenย Hyde Park Mansion.ย  The party will featuring readings from C&R Press authors and CREDO Contributors, and will feature a full bar and food.ย  The location for the party is less than one mile from the AWP Convention Center.

To register for free tickets to the Spontaneous Reading Party, please register via Eventbrite here.

From C&R Press, readers include:ย Brian Leung,ย Kristina Marie Darling, Earl Braggs,ย Katie Rogin,ย Sybil Baker,ย Laura Catherine Brown,ย Ariel Francisco,ย Valerie Tomaselli,ย Brenna Womer, Erik Rasmussen and more.

From the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, we’re proud to feature ourย CREDO contributing authorsย Rita Banerjee,ย Alexander Carrigan,ย Ariel Francisco,ย Janine Harrison,ย Nell Irvin Painter,ย Anca L. Szilรกgyi, andย Diana Norma Szokolyaiย at theย Spontaneous Reading Party!ย  Read more about our featured CREDO authors below!

Rita Banerjeeย is the author ofย Echo in Four Beatsย (Finishing Line Press, February 2018), the novella โ€œA Night with Kaliโ€ inย Approaching Footstepsย (Spider Road Press, 2016), and the chapbookย Cracklers at Nightย (Finishing Line Press, 2010).ย She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard and her MFA from the University of Washington. Her writing appears in theย Academy of American Poets,ย Poets & Writers,ย Nat. Brut.,ย The Scofield,ย The Rumpus, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mass Poetry,ย Hyphen Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books,ย Electric Literature, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts,ย and elsewhere. She is the Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop, editor of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, and the judge for theย 2017 Minerva Rising โ€œDare to Speakโ€ Poetry Chapbook Contest, and is currently working on a novel, a documentary film about race and intimacy in the United States and in France, and a collection of essays on race, sex, politics, and everything cool.ย  Banerjee teaches at Ludwig-Maxmilian University of Munich in Germany. Banerjee is author of the essaysย โ€œCREDOโ€ย andย โ€œRasa: Emotion and Suspense in Theatre, Poetry and, (Non)Fiction,โ€ย inย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Alexander Carriganย is the Communications and PR manager for the Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop and has been with the organization since 2014. He is currently a news copy editor for Rare.us. He has had fiction, poetry, reviews (film, TV, and literature), and nonfiction work published inย Poictesme Literary Journal, Amendment Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, Rebels: Comic Anthologyย at VCU,ย Realms YA Literary Magazine, andย Life in 10 Minutes. He lives in Alexandria, VA. Carrigan is the author ofย โ€œFirst Person Perspective Flash Fiction Promptsโ€ย in theย Exercisesย section ofย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Ariel Franciscoย is the author ofย All My Heroes Are Brokeย (C&R Press, 2017) andย Before Snowfall, After Rainย (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he completed his MFA at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming inย The Academy of American Poets,ย The American Poetry Review,ย Best New Poets 2016,ย Gulf Coast,ย Washington Square, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches in South Florida. Franciscoโ€™sย poemsย can be found in theย Craft of Writingย section ofย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Janine Harrison, M.A., M.F.A., poet, nonfictionist, and fiction writer, teaches creative writing at Purdue University Calumet and leads the nonprofit organization, Indiana Writersโ€™ Consortium.ย ย Her work has been published or is forthcoming inย A&U;ย Veils, Halos, and Shacklesย (Kasva Press, 2016); and other publications. She is currently finishing her first poetry collection,ย The Weight of Silence.ย ย Janine lives with husband, fiction writer Michael Poore, and daughter, Jianna, in NW Indiana. Harrisonโ€™s essay,ย โ€œIn Ink: Tattoo Images and Phrases,โ€ย appears in theย Exercisesย section ofย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Nell Irvin Painterย is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University and author of several books includingย Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, The History of White People, andย Standing at Armageddon: The United States: 1877-1919.ย In additiona to a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, she holds a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, both in painting. Her art school memoir is entitledย Old In Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over. Painterโ€™s essays,ย โ€œLeaving My Former Lifeโ€ย andย โ€œYouโ€™ll Never Be A Painter!โ€ย appear in theย Manifestoย section ofย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Maya Sonenbergย is the author of the story collectionsย Cartographiesย (winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature) andย Voices from the Blue Hotel.ย ย 26 Abductions, a chapbook of her prose and drawings was published in 2015 by The Cupboard, and her newest chapbook of prose and photographs,ย After the Death of Shostakovich Pรจre, won the PANK [Chap]book contest and will appear in 2018. Other fiction and nonfiction have appeared inย Fairy Tale Review,ย Web Conjunctions,ย DIAGRAM, New Ohio Review,ย The Literarian,ย Lady Churchillโ€™s Rosebud Wristlet,ย Hotel Amerika,ย and numerous other journals, both in print and online. Her writing has received grants from the Washington State Arts Commission and King County 4Culture. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Washington. Sonenberg is the author ofย โ€œBeyond The Plot Triangleโ€ย inย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

Anca L. Szilรกgyiโ€™sย debut novel isย Daughters of the Air. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming fromย Los Angeles Review of Books,ย Electric Literature, andย Lilith Magazine, among other publications. She is the recipient of the inaugural Artist Trust / Gar LaSalle Storyteller Award, a Made at Hugo House fellowship, and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, 4Culture, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and the Jack Straw Cultural Center.ย The Strangerย hailed Anca as one of the โ€œfresh new faces in Seattle fiction.โ€ Originally from Brooklyn, she currently lives in Seattle with her husband. Find her on Twitter @ancawrites. Szilagyi is the author ofย โ€œSummer-Inspired Writing Prompts,โ€ย inย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).

DianVersion 2a Norma Szokolyaiย is author ofย Parallel Sparrowsย (honorable mention for Best Poetry Book, 2014 Paris Book Festival),ย Roses in the Snowย (first runnerยญup, Best Poetry Book, 2009 DIY Book Festival), and a feminist rewriting of a classic fairytale for Brooklyn Art Libraryโ€™s The Fiction Project, entitledย Beneath the Surface: Blue Beard, Remixed. Szokolyaiโ€™s poetry and prose has been published in MER VOX Quarterly, VIDA Review, Quail Bell Magazine, The Boston Globe, Luna Luna Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and has been anthologized inย Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, Teachers as Writersย & elsewhere. Her edited volume isย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, 2018). Sheโ€™s founding Executive Artistic Director of Cambridge Writersโ€™ Workshop. Szokolyai is author ofย Introduction, and the essayย โ€œWhatโ€™s At Stake?โ€ย inย CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writingย (C&R Press, May 2018).Celebrate the Pre-Launch of CREDO with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, C&R Press, and Women’s National Book Association at AWP 2018!