Meet Our Staff & Instructors

Courtney Gillette is a writer and teacher whose essays and book reviews have appeared in BuzzFeed, Tin House, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Lambda Literary and Medium, among others. Before joining the Writing Institute, she worked behind the scenes at the NYU Summer Publishing Institute at the NYU SPS Center for Publishing and the National Book Foundation. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an MS in Education from Mercy College. Courtney was named an Emerging Writer Fellow at Aspen Words Summer Words in 2017 and serves on the Aspen Words Creative Council.  An adjunct professor of creative writing at Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program, she lives in the Hudson Valley with one librarian and three cats.

email: cgillette@sarahlawrence.edu

Ava Robinson is a writer, educator and podcast producer. She is the Assistant Director of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and a graduate of The New School’s MFA program. She is represented by Jamie Carr of The Book Group. Her debut novel, Definitely Better Now, will come out in late 2024 from Mira Books.

email: arobinson@sarahlawrence.edu

Cléo Charpantier is a tried and true Californian trying out the East Coast for size. She is currently getting her MFA in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Cléo writes short stories and personal essays that often focus on friendship and home (and the way friends can sometimes become homes). You can find some of her recent essays in her Autodidact Newsletter. Previously, Cléo worked at 826 Valencia, a writing-education non-profit in foggy San Francisco. She attended Occidental College in sunny Los Angeles, where she studied Philosophy and Economics. In her downtime, Cléo can often be found on a bike on her way to the park, or at the beach, book in hand. 

Marcia Bradley, MFA, Sarah Lawrence College, writes fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Her novel, The Home for Wayward Girls, will debut from HarperCollins Publishers in April 2023. Marcia won a Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award for fiction and has been published numerous literary journals including Drunk Monkeys, Electica, The Writing Disorder, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Hippocampus Magazine. She received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and her memoir essay about her brother was published in The Capital Gazette. Marcia has received scholarships to Community of Writers in the High Sierra, Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College, and Ragdale outside of Chicago. Marcia also teaches creative writing for New York area high school students in programs sponsored by Sarah Lawrence College, the Yonkers School District, and the Greater New York Chapter of the Fulbright Association. Marcia’s roots are in Chicago; she lived in Los Angeles before her move to New York where she resides in the Bronx. See more at marciabradley.com

Suzanne Chazin is the award-winning author of nine suspense novels and dozens of personal essays, short stories, and magazine articles. Her novels have received glowing reviews in People Magazine and USA Today and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Her short fiction appeared in the anthology, Bronx Noir, which won the 2008 Book of the Year Award for special fiction from the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. Her tenth novel, a young adult thriller, is currently out on submission. She is also working on a book about motherhood.

Serrana Laure Gay (she/her) has work published or forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, The Hunger Journal, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, and Prometheus Dreaming, and she is the author of the illustrated book "Fatty Fatty No Friends" (Mind the Art Entertainment), adapted from her operetta of the same name. "Fatty Fatty No Friends" was a New York Innovative Theatre Award Nominee for Best Musical, a selection of the New York International Fringe Festival and FringeNYC Excellence Award Winner, a National Alliance of Musical Theater semi-finalist, and winner of the Best of Fest prize at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Her musical, “Whiskey Pants: The Mayor of Williamsburg,” won the Frigid NY Audience Favorite Award. Other work of hers has been workshopped/featured at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, the National Opera Center, the HERE Arts Center, and Feinstein’s 54 Below, among others. She has worked as a tutor at Westchester Community College, a teaching assistant/intern at SUNY Purchase, and she has taught at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. She holds a BFA from Ithaca College and an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches creative writing in NYC at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

Jimin Han is the author of The Apology, a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick; named a best audiobook of the year by Booklist, a best book of the summer by the LA Times, Vanity Fair, Shondaland, Apple Books and more.  She is also the author of A Small Revolution. Additional writing of hers can be found at American Public Media's Weekend America, Poets & Writers, and other media outlets. She teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Pace University, and community writing centers. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she grew up in Providence, Rhode Island; Dayton, Ohio; and Jamestown, New York. Her work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts. 

Molly McGhee is from a cluster of unincorporated towns outside of Nashville, Tennessee. She completed her M.F.A. in fiction at Columbia University where she teaches in the undergraduate creative writing department. She has worked in the editorial departments of McSweeney’s, The Believer, NOON, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Tor. Currently living in Brooklyn, her work has appeared in The Paris Review.Her debut novel, JONATHAN ABERNATHY YOU ARE KIND, is forthcoming from Astra House in October 2023. 

Kristine Marx is an artist and writer. She has exhibited her work in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and Tokyo. Her fiction has appeared in Peripheries and Variant. Her art criticism is published in MIT Press PAJ: Journal of Performance Art and Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art: Materiality. She is a recipient of grants from New York State Council of the Arts, the Goethe Institut, and the Experimental Television Center and was a resident artist at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Kolin Ryynänen Centre for Arts & Culture in Finland and Herrman & Wagner in Berlin. She has taught art theory and studio courses at Pratt Institute, Parsons, the Whitney Museum in New York, and at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She earned her MFA in visual art from Hunter College, a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and is working on her second master’s degree in Sarah Lawrence’s Graduate Writing Program.

Ben Purkert’s debut novel, The Men Can’t Be Saved, was named one of Vanity Fair’s Top 20 Books of 2023. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, Poetry, Kenyon Review, and he has been featured by NPR, Esquire, and The Boston Globe. He is also the author of the poetry collection, For the Love of Endings. He holds degrees from Harvard and NYU, where he was a New York Times Fellow. He teaches in the Sarah Lawrence College MFA program.

Ines Rodrigues is a journalist and fiction writer, currently doing her MFA in creative writing at Columbia University, in New York. She published her first novel, "Days of Bossa Nova" in 2017 and she's now writing her second work of fiction. Ines has been an instructor at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College since 2016. She is the former editor of Scarsdale Living Magazine and also teaches at Bronxville Adult School. She is the curator of "The Scarsdale Salon" (Scarsdale, NY), a quarterly literary event in partnership with the Salon de Belleville (Paris, France).  Read more about Ines Rodrigues and enjoy her blog at https://www.inesrodriguesauthor.com/.

Barbara Solomon Josselsohn is a best-selling author of five novels: THE CRANBERRY INN, THE LILY GARDEN, THE BLUEBELL GIRLS, THE LILAC HOUSE and THE LAST DREAMER. Her articles and essays appear in a range of publications including New York Magazine, Parents Magazine, Consumers Digest, The New York Times, and Writer’s Digest. She currently teaches novel writing at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and is also a private book coach. In addition, she founded and serves as coordinator and instructor with the Scarsdale Library Writers Center. She is a member of Novelists Inc. and the Women's Fiction Writers Association, where she has held leadership positions. Barbara has a B.A. in English from Binghamton University, and an M.A. In English from the University of Connecticut, and studied novel writing at The Writing Institute and Manhattanville College. Visit her online at www.BarbaraJosselsohn.com, @Barbara_Josselsohn_Author (Instagram), @BarbaraJoss (Twitter) or Facebook.com/BarbaraSolomonJosselsohnAuthor.    

Joann Smith’s collection of short stories A Heaven of Their Choosing was published by 7.13 Books in September 2021. Her stories have been anthologized and published in many literary journals. Best American Short Stories 2000 named one of her stories as one of the 100 Notable Stories of the year. Her novel of historical fiction, When I Was Boudicca, is available online. She is currently at work on a novel which began as a short story. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts: Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MA in English from Lehman College, CUNY. She has taught creative writing for many years and mentors writers through the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), of which she is a longtime member.

Jenessa Abrams is a writer, literary translator, and practitioner of Narrative Medicine. Her fiction, literary criticism, and creative non-fiction has appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, Tin House, Electric Literature, Guernica, BOMB Magazine, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships and grants from MacDowell, the Ucross Foundation, the Norman Mailer Center, the Vermont Studio Center, the New York Public Library, and Columbia University, where she earned her MFA in fiction and literary translation and her MS in Narrative Medicine. She has taught writing at Catapult, Columbia University, Rutgers University, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center.

Janine Annett is the author of I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo?” Years Old: Adventures in Aging. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New York Times, Real Simple, The Rumpus, The Wall Street Journal, and in the forthcoming anthology Embrace the Merciless Joy: The McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Guide to Rearing Small, Medium, and Large Children. She lives in the lower Hudson Valley with her husband, son, and dog.

Rachel Aydt is a part-time Assistant Professor of writing at the New School University. She's lived in New York for over 25 years, working for national magazines in staff positions; writing and editing; and teaching across many genres of writing (nonfiction, literature, journalism). In 2017, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in Creative Nonfiction. She's published essays and stories in The White Review, Post Road, Green Mountains Review, Broad Street Journal, HCE Review, and many other publications.    

Cindy Beer-Fouhy is a writing instructor, freelance writer and arts consultant who has taught in schools and community facilities for over 35 years. She was founder and director of the Literary Arts Department at the Northern Westchester Center for the Arts and curator of the award-winning Creative Arts Café poetry series for which she received The Michael and Helen Schaffer Foundation Honorable Award for Work in the Arts. Her poetry, essays, articles, and interviews have been published in Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough (Rutgers University Press), Westchester Arts Council’s Arts News, Roll Magazine and Westchester Family. Her poems have been winners of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Greenburgh Poetry Competitions. Cindy has served as a judge for the National Jewish Book Awards and as a consultant for the Master of Arts in Writing program at Manhattanville College. On the advisory committee of the Hudson Valley Writers Center’s Slapering Hol Press and member of the National Writers Project, Cindy is a Teaching Artist through ArtsWestchester, BOCES, and Lifetime Arts’ Creative Aging.

Kathy Curto teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and Montclair State University, as well as several nonprofit organizations and community centers in the NY metropolitan area. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood, published by Bordighera Press. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR, in the essay collection, Listen to Your Mother:  What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now, and in Barrelhouse, Toho Journal, The Mom Egg Review, HerStry, La Voce di New York, Drift, Talking Writing, The Inquisitive Eater, Voices in Italian Americana, Ovunque Siamo and Lumina, among others. She has been the recipient of the Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship and two fellowships at Montclair State University, both promoting engaged teaching and community writing projects. Kathy also serves on the faculty of the Joe Papaleo Writers’ Workshop in Cetara, Italy. Kathy and her family live in the Hudson Valley. Please visit her site: www.kathycurto.com.

Terri Linton is a mother, writer, and professor. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers School of Law-Newark. She teaches writing and criminal justice at universities in New York and Connecticut. Terri writes about black girlhood, womanhood, and motherhood as well as disparities in the criminal justice system. She is a 2021 Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund nonfiction awardee. Her writing can be found in the anthology SoloMom Stories of Grit, Heart and Humor; Catapult; Ninth Letter; Mothermag; and other online sites.   

Janet is a creative non-fiction writer and teaching artist. After breast cancer and depression, she turned to writing where she discovered the transformative power of story and staged readings. She is finalizing her debut memoir. A graduate from Cornell University, Janet is completing her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College in creative non-fiction. She has taught writing workshops for cancer patients at Mount Sinai Hospital where is also an advisory board member.

Amelia Possanza is a full-time book publicist and part-time writer. Her award-winning debut book Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives came out in 2023 from Catapult in the US and Square Peg in the UK and was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, Shelf Awareness, and Publishers Weekly. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, LitHub, Electric Literature, The Millions, and NPR’s Invisibilia.

Amelia has more than a decade of experience as a book publicist, including posts at Little, Brown and Company, Touchstone Books, and, most recently, Flatiron Books, where she was the Associate Director of Publicity.

She teaches creative writing through Lambda Literary’s Writers in School program, coaches swimming with Team New York Aquatics, and occasionally volunteers aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

She currently lives in Flatbush with her cat.

Margo Steines is a native New Yorker and a journeyman ironworker. She serves as mom to a wildly spirited small person. Margo holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona and lives and writes in Tucson. Her work was named Notable in Best American Essays and has appeared in The Sun, Brevity, Off Assignment, The New York Times (Modern Love), the anthology Letter to a Stranger, and elsewhere. She is the author of the memoir-in-essays Brutalities, published in October 2023 by W.W. Norton. Margo is a creative coach and facilitator, and is faculty at the University of Arizona Writing Program. Read more about her practices at margosteines.com.

Kuhu Joshi is the author of My Body Didn't Come Before Me (Speaking Tiger, 2023), a collection of poems exploring disability/deformity and girlhood, selected by renowned Indian poet Arundhathi Subramaniam as the recipient of a first-book award. Kuhu traces her lineage to the mountains of Kumaon in Uttarakhand, India, and has lived in New Delhi most of her life before migrating to New York.

Tyler Mills is a poet, essayist, and teacher. She is the author of City Scattered (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo Press 2022), Hawk Parable (Akron Poetry Prize winner, University of Akron Press 2019), and Tongue Lyre (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award winner, Southern Illinois University Press 2013), and co-author with Kendra DeColo of Low Budget Movie (winner of the Diode Editions Chapbook Prize, Diode Editions 2021, and the New England Poetry Club’s 2021 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize). She is also the author of an in-progress essay manuscript, The Bomb Cloud, winner of a 2021 Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC Literature Grant. Her poems have appeared in The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Believer, and Poetry, and her essays in AGNI, Bennington Review, Brevity, River Teeth, and The Rumpus. The recipient of residencies from Yaddo, Ragdale, and the Vermont Studio Center, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Tyler Mills teaches for the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a founding editor of The Account and lives in Brooklyn. www.tylermills.com

Melissa Petro is a freelance writer whose work has been featured in national publications such as Allure, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Good Housekeeping, The Guardian, InStyle, the Kitchn, Marie Claire, Narratively, New York Magazine, Pacific Standard, TIME Magazine, Real Simple, Salon, Washington Post, Vice, and The Writer. She was a finalist for the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize, and she holds a bachelor in Women’s Studies from Antioch and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School. Her first book, Shame on You: How to be a Woman in the Era of Mortification, will be published in Fall 2024 by Putnam. She lives with her husband and two young children in upstate New York.

Chris Steib is startup consultant, teacher, web designer, entrepreneur, and bookseller. He has been building websites both large (e.g. theknot.com) and small (e.g. chrissteib.com) for 20-ish years. He has taught in the Los Angeles Unified School System, General Assembly, and the Parsons School of Design Strategies and Management. He owns and operates Transom Bookshop in Tarrytown, NY, and is the creator of a free iPhone app, also called Transom, designed to help writers capture and organize their thoughts. An amateur ukuleleist, one-time karaoke champion, and mediocre chess player, Chris can be found at chrissteib.com. 

Samantha Steiner is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Program and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. Her writing appears in the print anthology ​Best Microfiction 2021 and received Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions nominations. She is a Featured Fiction Writer by ​Lammergeier Magazine for “Pinky Monster,” a short story she wrote and illustrated. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @Steiner_Reads.

Arriel Vinson is a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and others. A Tin House YA Scholar, 2020 Walter Grant recipient, and 2019 Kimbilio Fellow, her work has been nominated for Best New Poets 2020, Best of the Net 2019, and a Pushcart Prize. You can connect with her on Twitter @arriwrites.

Elaine Sexton's fourth collection of poetry is Drive (Grid Books, 2022). A long-time member of the faculty at the Writing Institute, she frequently teaches workshops & seminars in poetry, the chapbook, bookmaking, and text & image at various writing and art programs in the U.S. and abroad, including New York University, City College, Poets House, and Arts Workshop International. An editor and micro-publisher, she is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle. elainesexton.org​