Columbia College Chicago : Part-Time Faculty

Robert Duffer (www.robertduffer.com) has written for WBEZ's 848, TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Parent, New City, Chicago Artists Resource, Chicago Scene and others. Stories, essays and novel excerpts have appeared in journals like MAKE Magazine, Annalemma (3 and 4), Flashquake (Winter ’05, Spring ’09), Word Riot, Pindledyboz, The 2nd Hand, The Taj Mahal Review. He is the Chicago literary correspondent for The Examiner and can be found at the award-winning monthly reading series, RUI: Reading Under the Influence.

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).

Lott Hill is a poet, fiction writer, photographer, and a strong believer in active citizenship. He received his MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago, where he now serves as the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. He is a teacher of Creative Writing, Poetry, and community-based learning and Service-Learning classes. Lott's fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in multiple issues of Hair Trigger, Columbia Poetry Review, Fish Stories, B-City, Metropolitan Universities, The Spoon River Poetry Review, AdBusters, Demo, and the Association of American Colleges and Universities Peer Review and is a regular featured reader at Serendipity Theater's Second Story reading series.

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.

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 regional 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 is the Managing Editor of F Magazine, a nationally distributed literary journal with a unique emphasis on publishing excerpts of novels-in-progress. He is the Faculty Coordinator of Fiction Writers at Lunch, a successful program of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago that hosts readings, visiting writers and editors, and open forum discussions on student life and writing process. He was a featured reader and speaker for the Writing Life series at Binghamton University/SUNY and has hosted and been a featured reader and panelist at various literary and publisher events in the U.S. and Canada. He was the Fiction Editor and a columnist for Velocity Magazine, a nationally distributed publication of "accelerated culture." 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 is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago, having taught all levels of the core Fiction Writing Department classes as well as three specialty classes: Dreams and Fiction Writing, Story and Journal, and Small Press Publishing.

Mica Racine, Midwestern son, earned an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago, a BA in Communications/Advertising from Sioux Falls College, and attended Marquette University Law School. He currently teaches fiction writing and film classes at Columbia College Chicago, literary appreciation classes at the Illinois Institute of Art, and creative writing and film classes at the International Academy of Design and Technology -- all in Chicago's Loop. In addition, he teaches a variety of English and liberal education courses online. And as a member of the AmeriCorps program, he taught and supervised after-school programs for Atlanta Public Schools. Work outside of the classroom includes award-winning design and layout contributions to Columbia College Chicago's annual lit anthology Hair Trigger, as well as the fiction writing department's F Magazine. He also served as fiction editor for bowwow¸ a Chicago-based zine that was recognized with a Writer's Digest small press publishing award. His writing and photography have been featured in Pigeon, Sleepwalk, Hair Trigger, The Atlanta Citizen, Chicago Life, and for four years he was a regular contributor of fiction and nonfiction to South Dakota Public Radio. His parody of Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose" was given a first place award for experimental fiction in college magazines by the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association. At the institutions he teaches at, Racine has been nominated four times for recognition as educator of the year, and in 2002 he was recognized as Educator of the Year at IADT, Chicago. A native of Wisconsin, Mica now lives just outside Chicago with his wife, son, daughter, and Lucie, their little black cat. In his spare time he likes to read, fix things, drink coffee, and play guitar.

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.

A native of San Francisco California, Gus Rose earned his MA in creative writing at University of California, Davis, and has published fiction and non-fiction in f7, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Readymade Magazine, Whole Earth Review, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He won F Magazine's first novels-in-progress contest for an excerpt from his novel Revolutionaries. Rose has received fellowships to the Squaw Valley Writer's Conference and the Eastern Frontier Society's Norton Island Residency. He currently teaches at University of Chicago's creative writing program and at the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department.

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 a writer, storyteller, and Director of Story Development for 2nd Story, an urban storytelling series held in wine bars around Chicago. She’s performed for The Chicago Poetry Center’s No Love For Love show featuring Ira Glass, Looptopia at The Goodman Theatre, Neo-Solo at the Neo-Futurarium, Storyweek Festival of Writers, Literary Gangs of Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Dollar Store, WBEZ’s Writer’s Block Party and 2nd Story, among others. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in recent issues of Other Voices, Fresh Yarn, Pindeldyboz, Swink, Perigee, In the Fray and Punk Planet. She currently teaches fiction writing at Columbia College and the University of Chicago, is a teaching artist with the Goodman Theatre, and an associate in CCC's Center for Teaching Excellence.

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.