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Part-Time Faculty
Carson Grace Becker earned her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa.
She has been commissioned from the Goodman, Nebraska Repertory, and
Riverside Theater, won two Illinois Arts Council awards and a Jeff
award for Best New Work. In 2004 her historical play about the Lewis
and Clark expedition premiered in a Nebraska statewide celebration. She's been a resident artist at the William Inge Center
for the Arts and a guest artist at the International Thespian Festival.
She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a member of
Famous Door Theater Company.
Bobby Biedrzycki is
an adjunct faculty member of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia
College Chicago where he teaches classes in both fiction and film.
He also teaches Story Workshop® classes for the Schultz Group, Inc. He
received his BA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago after
attending film school at The City College of New York. He is currently
completing his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia. Bobby's writing has
appeared in The Black Bear Review, Hair Trigger, The Banana King, and Ante:thesis Volumes I & II. He has worked as a book reviewer for both Time Out Chicago and Punk Planet Magazine, and is now at work on his first novel, The True Confessions of an 80's Media Child. Bobby also thinks it is weird to write about himself and his accomplishments in the third person.
Julia Borcherts is a professional writer whose work has appeared in Time
Out Chicago, Chicago Tribune/Metromix/Red Eye, Chicago Fighting Arts
Magazine, Chicago Life, Chicago Journal, ChicagoBoxing.com,
BoxingKingdom.com, Inkstains, Hair Trigger, The Story Workshop Reader,
BowWow, My Angels and Demons at War, the Chicago Golden Gloves program and
other publications. She is the recipient of a Follett Fellowship, a
Getz Graduate Award, two Schultz-Shiflett Scholarships for Academic
Excellence and a first-prize award for non-fiction from the Columbia
(New York) Scholastic Press Association. Borcherts is a co-founder of
the Reading Under the Influence monthly performance series and also
teaches writing workshops to 3rd-12th grade students through the Story Workshop Institute.
Marcia Brenner is an adjunct faculty member of the Columbia College
Chicago Fiction Writing Department. She teaches Story Workshop classes
for the Schultz Group, Inc., and has served as Co-Lead Artist for Chicago's
Gallery 37 Summer Arts Program. She received her MFA in Creative
Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Brenner has been an editor for
two award-winning issues of Hair Trigger, was a recipient of
the Dwight D. Follett Fellowship, and has published short stories,
nonfiction, and selected works from her first novel, Stalking Nirvana. Her story, "Arizona/Chicago/St.Louis", was awarded third place in Traditional Fiction by the Columbia
(University) Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). Brenner is currently
at work on a nonfiction memoir recounting her 15 years in the
restaurant business. She grew up in Evanston and currently resides in Logan Square.
Jotham Burrello is an adjunct professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago, where he directs the Publishing Lab. His fiction has appeared in various journals. He is at work on his second novel. Burrello is the former editor of Sport Literate magazine and the Vice President of Elephant Rock Productions, Inc., a video production company specializing in instructional videotapes. He is currently publishing Hands on, the 2ndHand Reader, and producing a series of writing videos.
Mort Castle has written or edited fourteen books including the novel Cursed Be the Child, about which Rave Reviews wrote "...a classic of its kind," and the essential reference work On Writing Horror: The Handbook of the Horror Writers' Association. He's published 500 or so "shorter things," mainly stories, in anthologies and magazines including Still Dead, Cemetery Dance, Cavalier, Best Underground Fiction: Volume 1, Le Livre des Livres de Stephen King, Writer's Digest, The Spider Chronicles, Bombay Gin #32, and all five editions of the acclaimed Masques series edited by J. N. Williamson. He's won or been nominated for the Bram Stoker award, the Pushcart Prize, the International Horror Guild award, the Emerson Fiction Award, the DeMarco Prize, and others, has had several dozen stories cited in Year's Best complications in the horror, suspense, fantasy, and literary fields. As writer-in-residence, Castle teaches in two Chicago area high school districts and in the Fiction Writing Department of Columbia College Chicago.
Brian
Costello is the
author of the novel The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs, and his second
novel, Losing in Gainesville,
is slated for publication through featherproof books in late 2008. His work has appeared in Analemma Magazine, Bruiser
Review, Chicago Reader, New City,
the2ndhand, Hair Trigger, F Magazine, Sleepwalk, Bridge, and other publications. Since 2001, he has been the host of The Brian
Costello Show with Brian Costello, a live talk show held in various venues
around Chicago.
When not teaching, writing, or talk showing, Costello plays guitar and sings in
Johnny and the Limelites, a prom band.
Mark Davidov received his Ph.D. in Semiotics from the Institute for Standardization in Moscow. He is a writer; poet; linguist and translator. Mark's publications include Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears: Reflections of Moscow’s Mayor Yri Luzkov and The Island of the Sweet Dew, a book of poems, 1999.
Chris DeGuire transferred to Columbia College Chicago after a brief stint as an English major at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, receiving his BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia in 1996. He has worked since then as the assistant coordinator of the Fiction Writing Department's Tutoring Program, tutoring and advising Fiction Writing students. In 2003 he returned to Columbia as a graduate student, still commuting from his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, pursuing the Combined MA/MFA degree in Fiction Writing and the Teaching of Writing. He is an adjunct faculty member and has taught Story Workshop classes for the Story Workshop Institute.
Robert Duffer
teaches part-time at Columbia College Chicago, freelances as an editor
and writer, bartends part-time and writes. His first novel, A Place to Call Home, is looking for a home; he's relieved to be working on his second novel. Duffer's work has appeared in The Taj Mahal Review, Flashquake, Pindeldyboz, Legends, Blue Lit, Hair Trigger, and others. He is a contributing reviewer for New Pages and Centerstage Chicago, was a staff writer for The Tap, and has had other freelance pieces published in print, online and for NPR's morning show, 848.
Every first Wednesday of every month he can be found at RUI: Reading
Under the Influence, a reading series he co-founded and co-hosts.
Phyllis Eisenstein earned her B.A. at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A writer, editor, and reviewer, she is the author of Sorcerer’s Son, The Crystal Palace, Born to Exile, In the Red Lord’s Reach, Shadow of Earth, and In the Hands of Glory (novels) and Overcoming the Pain of Inflammatory Arthritis (nonfiction), as well as more than forty short stories in Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and other magazines and anthologies. Her short fiction has been nominated multiple times for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. She is the editor/publisher of Spec-Lit: Speculative Fiction, an anthology of science fiction writing. Phyllis has taught at the Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop at Michigan State University and other venues. She received the Columbia College Chicago Excellence in Teaching Award, 1999.
Gina Frangello is the author of the novel My Sister's Continent (Chiasmus 2006), as well as the Executive Editor of the literary journal Other Voices and its book imprint, OV Books. Her stories have been widely published in the literary magazines, recently including Swink, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Blithe House Quarterly, Clackamas Literary Review, and the anthology Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader. She has been a frequent contributor to the Chicago Reader and a book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune. She was also the guest-editor of the fiction anthology Falling Backwards: Stories of Fathers and Daughters (Hourglass 2004).
Kevin Freese is an adjunct professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. He also teaches elementary and high school students, using the Story Workshop® approach to writing. An excerpt of his essay, “The Ike,” was published in the Columbia Chronicle’s Fiction Supplement. The first chapter of his novel, Greatness at the Gate, is in Hair Trigger 26. Kevin is currently working on a novel based on his experiences as a wedding disc jockey.
Meredith Grahl has lived all over the Midwest
but came to the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department
five years ago and has refused to leave. She is at work on a novel
called The Ruiner and a story for children called "You and Your Zoo." Her work has appeared in Inkstains, Ante:thesis, Substratum, and Hair Trigger 28.
Jeff Jacobson teaches in the Fiction Writing and Film/Video Departments of Columbia College Chicago, as well as a number of writing classes around Chicago. His fiction has been published in f Magazine, Hair Trigger, and Spec-Lit. He lives with his wife and far too many animals in the northern suburbs.
Cynthium Johnson-Woodfolk received her BA from Columbia College Chicago and is currently completing both an MA in the Teaching of Writing and an MFA in Creative Writing. She is a teaching artist with the Arts Integration Mentorship Program (Project AIM), and has worked with Columbia's Office of Community Arts Partnerships, as well as Saturday Scholars, Act/Write, and the Story Workshop® Institute (SWI). Cynthium won the Academic Excellence award, Hermann Conaway Leadership award, Dwight Follett Fellowship and was a fellow in the Illinois Consortium for Educational Opportunity Program for 2004/2005. Her work appears in Hair Trigger 9, 10, 25, and 26.
Lawrie Lawlor graduated from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, and got her M.A.T. at National-Louis University. She has sold thirty-one books for children and young adults since 1986. Her work, both nonfiction and fiction, has won numerous prestigious awards including the Carl Sandburg award in 1995 for Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis and the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her latest biography, Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit (Holiday House) has been commended with several starred reviews and was recently selected for the New York Public Library's Children's Books 2001, 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing. Nominee — Excellence in Teaching Award.
Deb R. Lewis has earned a B.A. in English Rhetoric from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her novel, These Mundane Freaks, recently made top-25 semi-finalist in the Project: Queer Lit competition (excerpts appear in past issues of Blithe House Quarterly, Velvet Mafia.com, and Hair Trigger.) Her novella, Asylum 9-1-1, was a semi-finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and "Waiting at One End of Time" made top-ten finalist in the Many Mountains Moving Flash Fiction Contest. She has additional stories published or forthcoming in many journals, including: OutsiderInk.com (Artist Spotlight), Zahir: Unforgettable Tales, The2ndHand.com, Gertrude, Pigeon, Sleepwalk, Mobius, Dyversity (UK), International Drummer, and Bad Attitude. Her poetry, articles, and essays appeared in The Windy City Times Pride Literary Supplement, PoeticVoices.com, Little America, Word Volleys, Sandmutopia Guardian, and the Third Side Press anthology, The Woman-Centered Economy: Ideals, Reality, and the Space Between. Deb is currently working on her second novel and a number of short stories. She is a Certified Story Workshop Director and a former Artist-in-Residence at Columbia College. For additional information and updates, see: www.DebRLewis.com.
Lila S. Jokanovic's work has appeared in Hair Trigger,
Kavithalaya, Gravity Magazine,
and NPR's WBEZ, among other places. She has won a number of awards for
her writing, and is currently putting the finishing touches on her
novel, Indian
Summer. She teaches Fiction Writing at Columbia College
Chicago and has acted as Assistant Director of Story Week Festival
of Writers.
Tom Mula
is an MFA candidate in the Fiction Writing Department and teaches at
Columbia as an Artist-in-Residence. He has been an award-winning
playwright, actor, and director for nearly 30 years. In 1991 he
received two Joseph Jefferson Awards for his play, Golem, at the National Jewish Theatre and for his work on Nicole Hollander’s hit musical, Sylvia's Real Good Advice. In 1995, Adams Media published his novel, Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, and it became a Chicago Tribune
bestseller; the play version premiered at the Goodman Theatre and
received an After Dark Award and the Cunningham Prize from the Goodman
School of Drama at DePaul. Mula’s most recent work, W!, a
cabaret-style satire on the Bush administration, recently played in
Chicago and Portland, and received a Jeff Nomination for Outstanding
New Work.
Timothy McCain has a BFA Theatre and an MFA Playwriting from Roosevelt University.
He was a founding member of the Scan, and Goat Island Performance
Group. As an actor, writer, and director, his work has been seen
throughout the U.S. and Europe.
He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts,
National Performance Network for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, the
City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Community Arts Program,
and British Arts Council Grant for his work in theatre/performance and
playwriting. His theatre process has been written about in The Drama Review, Theatre Journal, and The Analysis of Performance Art.
Michael McColly's essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Sun, Ascent, In These Times, The Chronicle Of Higher Education and many other journals. His new memoir, The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism has just been released this fall by Soft Skull. He has also worked on documentary projects on AIDS in Vietnam. He began his artistic career as an actor, performing here in Chicago until he entered the Peace Corps and served in Senegal. He has degrees in Religious Studies from The Divinity School at the University of Chicago and Creative Writing from the University of Washington. He's won numerous awards and fellowships for his blend of activism, the study of spirituality and creative nonfiction: Pen America grant for writers with HIV; fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, Ragdale and Blue Mountain;
Lisagor Journalism Award for editing radio essays for WBEZ on Chicago
Neighborhoods; Illinois Arts Councils awards for Nonfiction; and a
Puffin Foundation Grant for his collection of immigrant essays, The World Is Round.
He frequently lectures around the country to college audiences on role
of spirituality in AIDS activism. He is also a trained yoga instructor
and has taught workshops around the world for people living with HIV.
Feeling that justice is all too rare in real life, Patricia Pinianski,
writing as Patricia Rosemoor, drives her characters to seek justice, no
matter the personal sacrifice. Her fascination with "dangerous love" — combining romance with danger —
has led her to bring a different mix of thrills and chills and romance
to Harlequin Intrigue, Harlequin Blaze, and Silhouette Bombshell.
Patricia has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and
Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards from Romantic Times Book
Club, and she teaches Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing.
One of her graduate students who developed and wrote most of his
character-driven thriller in her classes signed a six-figure deal with
a major publisher. She has also taught novel workshop classes at the Graham School of the University of Chicago. Red Carpet Christmas, her 75th publication was a November 05 Harlequin Intrigue, and her June 06 release is Slater House. In December 06 she published Security Breach: Triggered Response, from Intrigue
Devon Polderman teaches fiction writing at Columbia College. With the Schultz Group, Inc., he directs creative writing programs in the city and suburbs for children grades 4 through 12. Portions of his current novel-in-progress, Famous Kalamazoo Bullshit Stories, appear in Hair Trigger 23, Hair Trigger 24, and f5. In 1998 he won the John Schultz and Betty Shiflett Story Workshop® Scholarship. He is from southwest Michigan but now lives in Chicago.
Tom Popp has taught Critical Thinking, Interpersonal Communications, English Composition, and Creative Writing. He currently teaches core Fiction Writing workshops along with Story & Journal and Dreams & Fiction Writing. He was a columnist and the Fiction Editor for Velocity Magazine. His short stories have appreared in various publications. He was a winner in the Red Sky Books contest, "Writing About the Teaching Experience." His winning story, "A Hasty Conclusion," appeared in the anthology Pass/Fail. He has been a moderator and panel member for panels discussing the writing process. He is currently the Associate Director of Fiction Writers at Lunch, Associate Editor of F Magazine and at work on his debut novel, Naked.
Arnie Raiff, writer, has taught at the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department and at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside since 1989, came to the teaching of writing from a background of social activism that has included organized protest, social work, union organizing, and work in an adolescent treatment center. His involvement in the arts has roots in acting (with Friends Mime Theater and other venues) and play and poetry writing. His poem "The Awakening" has been published and translated into Spanish and Polish. His fiction appears in The Best of Hair Trigger. His political pamphlets have found their ways into hearts and hands across communities and cultures. His recent projects include writing a poetry chapbook, serving on the P-Fac (part-time faculty union) Negotiation Committee, and participating with colleagues at Columbia in a teach-in about the War on Terrorism.
Lisa Redmond received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Roosevelt University. She is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing here at Columbia College. She is a Teaching Artist in Columbia's Office of Community Arts Partnerships. She has worked with the Arts Integration Mentorship Program (Project AIM) and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR-UP). Lisa has consistently proven her ability to engage students working at, above, or below their assigned grade level. Her students' writing and photography were recently displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. The exhibit was entitled, "Talkin' Back: Chicago Youth Respond." She was a student editor for the Fiction Writing Department's anthology, Hair Trigger 25, which won the Columbia (University) Scholastic Press Association's Gold Crown Award. Lisa is a fellow in the Illinois Consortium for Educational Opportunity Program (ICEOP) for the years 2002/2003 and 2003/2004. She has also won the finalist award for the John Schultz and Betty Shiflett Story Workshop® Scholarship for the years, 2002, 2003, and 2004.
Chris Maul Rice earned her BA from Valparaiso University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Bandit-Lit.com, Pigeon, Chrysallis, The Beacon, Emergence II, MetroTimes, and Hair Trigger. Her feature stories have appeared in Chicago Tribune’s Health and Family Section, Chicago’s Gravity magazine, and Detroit’s MetroTimes and MetroParent newspapers. Rice has been an adjunct professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago since 1992. She has chaired the Young Author’s Writing Contest since 2000 and has served as the faculty advisor for Hair Trigger 23 through 30.
Christine M. Semenow is a freelance writer and educator living in Chicago, where she teaches fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago and English at Loyola University. For 15 years, she worked in Advertising/Marketing, as a copywriter, editor-in-chief, and account director for some of the nation's largest retailers. She earned her BA in Communications from DePaul University and her MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago, where she was a Follett Fellow and managing editor for F Magazine. Christine was a finalist in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Contest and she has been invited to read her work at the Printer's Row Book Fair, Neutral Turf Poetry Festival, The Guild Complex, and the Green Mill. Her work has appeared in Hyphen Magazine, Hair Trigger 25, and Hair Trigger 26. Christine recently spent five weeks in Russia researching and writing her family history.
James Sherman is the author of the plays Magic Time, The God of Isaac, Mr. 80%, The Escape Artist, Beau Jest, This Old Man Came Rolling Home, Jest a Second!, Romance in D, From Door to Door, The Old Man's Friend, and Affluenza! He began his professional career as a writer and performer with The Second City in Chicago and received an M.F.A. degree from Brandeis University. He is currently a member of the Victory Gardens Theater Playwrights Ensemble. James has been a teacher of Playwriting and Acting on the faculties of The Second City Training Center, Chicago Dramatists Workshop, Victory Gardens Theater and at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He was a visiting professor for the spring '01 semester in Seoul, South Korea, at the Korean National University of the Arts. James was awarded a Playwrighting Grant from the Illinois Arts Council for 2002 and The Old Man's Friend won the Streisand Festival of New Jewish Plays in La Jolla, California. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo.
Claire Shulman received her M.A. in Literature and Linguistics, from the University of Florida. She is a Part-time Faculty Teaching Excellence Award winner, Columbia College Chicago. She is currently working on a book, Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain: The Power of Speech in the African-American Community, part of the African-American Literary Series for Greenwood Press. She has been a presenter at national conferences, and is a fellow of the Columbia College Chicago Center for Teaching Excellence. Claire is a certified Story Workshop Director, Master Candidate.
Germania Solórzano graduated from Columbia College Chicago’s M.F.A. program in Creative Writing. She has taught in the Chicago Public Schools both as a full-time instructor and as a teaching artist. In addition to teaching Fiction Writing at Columbia College, she works at the Chicago Teacher’s Center as a Writing Specialist. Her writing can be found in Hair Trigger, The2ndhand, and Sleepwalk magazines.
Megan Stielstra
is the Director of Story Development for the Serendipity Theatre
Collective's monthly 2nd Story Reading series, and is
artist-in-residence for Barefoot Productions where she creates
collaborative storytelling with musicians and filmmakers. She's
performed for Neo-Solo at the Neo-Futurarium, the Story Week Festival of
Writers, Undershorts Film Festival, Collaborations at the Bailiwick
Theatre, Piece by Piece, The Dollar Store, Sunday Salon and Reading
Under the Influence; her fiction has appeared in recent issues of Otium, Venus, The 2nd Hand, and Punk Planet.
Currently, she teaches in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia
College and is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of
Chicago, and has presented papers at AWP, The National Association of
Writing in Education in London, and the Center for Art in Public Life
in San Francisco. She spent 2005 in Prague, teaching Kafka for Columbia College's study abroad program and working on a novel.
Elizabeth Yokas has been a member of adjunct faculty since 1995. Her work has been featured in The Selected Papers from the Sixth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf and the Arts, Sleepwalk, Glasshouse, The Tap, Pigeon, The Temporary Binder Project, various editions of Hair Trigger, among others. She has also taught various workshops for children with Schultz Group, Inc. and at-risk youth with Kaleidoscope, Inc., a social services agency. Elizabeth is currently working on a collection of essays, and a novel in stories.
