Take a look at what our alumni have been up to since graduation!

Alumni by Genre:

Fiction

Crystal Carey is a graduate from Oklahoma State University who received her MFA in fiction from St. Mary's College in 2005. She teaches high school English in Tulsa, OK, and instructs continuing creative writing courses at Tulsa Community College. Her fiction has received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train and New Letters and her poetry received a 2010 Illinois Writer's Guild Award.

Benjamin Russack holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California as well as an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, which he received in 2001 and 2009, respectively.

Katherine Maxfield is a retired marketing executive from Silicon Valley. Her short stories have appeared in American Way, Room of One’s Own, Other Voices, Ontario Review, Jabberwock Review and her personal essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. She has an MBA from Santa Clara University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College.

Antonio K. Watkins, Jr. received an MFA from Saint Mary’s College.  Since then, he has taught in the composition and Seminar departments there, as well as English courses at Laney Community College and City College of San Francisco.  Tony occasionally submits work for publication, but is more often found reading student essays and editing the work of past classmates and current friends. 


Poetry

Jason Bayani is a 2010 graduate of Saint Mary’s MFA program. He is a Kundiman fellow and a highly regarded veteran of the National Poetry Slam scene. His work has been published in Maganda the 2005 National Poetry Slam anthology, Seventeen Hills, and Muzzle Magazine. He has been on 7 National Poetry Slam teams and is the 2010 IWPS representative for Oakland. He is also Literary Death Match’s 100th episode winner. He currently lives in Austin, TX.

Claire Becker is the author of the book Where We Think It Should Go (Octopus Books) and the chapbooks Untoward (Lame House Press), Get You (Duration Press), Young Adult (Boxwood Editions), We Know in 2010, We Survive (Mondo Bummer), and The Werld (Horse Less Press).  Her poems have been published in Tarpaulin Sky, The Cultural Society, Octopus, Typo, The Poetry Project, Cannibal, and elsewhere.  She attended Pomona College for her BA and St. Mary’s College of California for her MFA.  She teaches high school at the California School for the Blind and, with Lily Brown, co-edits RealPoetik.  Originally from Kansas City, Missouri and Merriam, Kansas, she lives in San Francisco, California.

Sally Delehant received her BA in English from the University of Iowa. While attending Iowa she had the privilege of taking poetry workshops under G.C. Waldrep, Dean Young, and Emily Wilson. Sally is a graduate of Saint Mary's College of California's MFA program in Creative Writing and was awarded The Academy of American Poets' Russell & Yvonne Lannan Poetry Prize during her first year. Her work was published in series one of Calaveras and is forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review. Sally has recently moved to Chicago where she works in commercial real estate and, of course, writes poetry.

Gillian Olivia Blythe Hamel lives in Oakland, California, and holds an MFA in Poetry from St. Mary’s College.  Her work has appeared in the chapbook series Calaveras and will appear in the forthcoming anthology phrases/fragments.  She has worked on various small print and online publications around the Bay Area, including Mary, A Journal of New Writing, and is a poetry editor and web publicity manager for Omnidawn Publishing.

Jennifer Jean received her MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California where she won the Academy of American Poets Agnes Butler Award.  Her poetry, essays, literary interviews and reviews have appeared in such journals as North Dakota Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, Awakenings Review, Santa Clara Review, Southern California Review, Caketrain, The MOM Egg Journal, and Art Throb.  Currently the Poetry Editor of Art Throb, she is the author of the chapbook In the War (Big Table Publishing, 2010).  Jennifer is a key organizer of the annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and she teaches creative writing and literature at Salem State University. For more information go to: www.fishwifetales.com.

Nathaniel Mohatt has published poems recently in MiPOesias and Literary House Review.  He also completed his PhD in Creative Writing and Community Psychology through the University of Alaska Fairbanks' interdisciplinary program. His dissertation is a collection of poems and a long essay on cancer, health care, and healing. And soon he will start a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine, where he will be conducting research on the role and impact of a community arts initiative on the recovery of people in behavioral health services.

 

Brian Mornar received a BA in English from Beloit College.  After taking an MFA in Poetry at St. Mary’s College in 2003, Mornar was admitted to the PhD program in English/Poetics at the State University of New York at Buffalo.  While completing his dissertation on the poetics of Lorine Niedecker, Charles Olson, Larry Eigner, and Susan Howe, Mornar teaches in the English Department at Columbia College of Chicago. The chapbook Repatterning was published by Punch Press in 2007 and full-length Three American Letters was published by Little Red Leaves in 2010.  Poems have appeared in many journals including, most recently, With+Stand and O Sweet Flowery Roses. 

Rusty Morrison’s the true keeps calm biding its story won the 2008 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, selected by Rae Armantrout, Claudia Rankine, and Bruce Smith. It also won The Ahsahta Press 2007 Sawtooth Poetry Prize, selected by Peter Gizzi, and the 2007 Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, selected by Susan Howe. Rusty Morrison’s first poetry collection, Whethering, won the Colorado Prize for Poetry (Center for Literary Publishing 2004), selected by Forrest Gander. She has been a recipient of the Cecil Hemley (2006), and Robert H. Winner (2003) Memorial Awards from The Poetry Society of America. She has also been a co-winner of the Five Fingers Review Poetry Contest (2003). Her poems, essays, or reviews have appeared in Boston Review, Chicago Review, Coconut, Colorado Review, Columbia: A Journal of Art and Literature, Denver Quarterly, Eleven Eleven, First Intensity, The Modern Review, New American Writing, Parthenon West, Tinfish, Verse, VOLT, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor for Poetry Flash and co-publisher of Omnidawn.

Sara Mumolo received an MFA in Poetry from Saint Mary’s College of CA and a BA in English from University of CA, Berkeley.  She co-publishes the chapbook journal Calaveras with Alisa Heinzman and is a Poetry Editor at Omnidawn Publishing.  Mumolo has curated the Studio One Reading series in Oakland, CA since 2008.  Her chapbook March was published by Cannibal Books in 2011.  Her poems have been published in Action Yes, Eleven Eleven, Typo, 1913: a journal of form and The Offending Adam, among others.

Kaya Oakes’ nonfiction book, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, was published by Henry Holt in 2009 and was selected as a San Francisco Chronicle notable book. She’s also the author of a collection of poetry, Telegraph, which received the Transcontinental Poetry Prize from Pavement Saw Press. Her memoir about radical faith, Ordinary Time, is forthcoming from Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press in 2012. In 2002, Kaya co-founded Kitchen Sink Magazine, which received the Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Magazine in 2003. Since 1999, she’s taught writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned an MFA in creative writing at Saint Mary’s College. Kaya has been the recipient of teaching fellowships from the Mellon Faculty Institute and the Bay Area Writing Project, as well as writing awards from the Academy of American Poets. She’s also twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in nonfiction. Her website is http://www.oakestown.org.

Kristen Sbrogna graduated in 2004 in Poetry. She received her BA in English and Women’s Studies from Boston College in 1999. In addition to being a poet, writer, and teacher, she is also passionate about sustainable agriculture and is certified in Permaculture Design and trained as an Alameda County Master Gardener. Her work has appeared recently in The Portland Alliance and The Berkeley Poetry Review. She lives in Berkeley with her family.

Non-Fiction

Challen Clarke has recently worked as a travel writer for the Ministry of Tourism in Ecuador and a guidebook writer for Viva Travel Guides. She currently lives in Quito, Ecuador and does freelance writing for various marketing companies.

Vicki Hudson’s photographs as well as excerpts from a book in progress, Weekend Warrior, will be exhibited as part of the Swords to Plowshares SHOUT for Women Veterans in May at Hilliard Architects & Gallery in San Francisco. The exhibit will run through June.

Juan Alvarado Valdivia was awarded a 2011 Fellowship from The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, where he served a six-week residency earlier this year.  He was also selected to participate in the Voice of Our Nations Arts Foundation weeklong fiction Workshop with ZZ Packer. 

 

 


 

 

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