Seattle Pacific University Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Thanks to the close relationship between Image journal and SPU’s MFA program, each residency will feature a host of visiting writers who will give readings and conduct craft classes. And because writers so often find their work stimulated by other art forms, we’ll be taking advantage of those Image contacts to invite visual artists and musicians to enrich our times together.

Following are some of our recent and upcoming visitors.

	Bruce Beasley is the author of five collections of poems, most recently The Corpse Flower. He teaches English at Western Washington University and has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Artist Trust, as well as two Pushcart Prizes in poetry.

	Ann Copeland’s stories have appeared in Best Canadian Stories, Best American Short Stories, The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women, and others. Her many short story collections include The Golden Thread and Season of Apples. She has also written two novels, House of Wisdom and Glory.
	Robert Cording has published five books of poetry: Life-List, What Binds Us to This World, Heavy Grace, Against Consolation, and Common Life. He teaches English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and recently received his second National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in The Nation, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Poetry, DoubleTake, Orion, Paris Review, and The New Yorker, as well as many other magazines.

	Charles D’Ambrosio is the author of the essay collection Orphans and the short story collections The Dead Fish Museum and The Point. His fiction has been published to wide acclaim and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, and other journals and anthologies.

	Madeline DeFrees is the author or seven poetry collections. Her most recent, Blue Dusk (Copper Canyon), won the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize for 2002. She has poems forthcoming in New Letters, The Atlantic Monthly, Hubbub, and Puerto del Sol. She lives and writes in Seattle.
	David James Duncan is the author of the novels The River Why and The Brothers K, the collections River Teeth and My Story as Told by Water, and, most recently, the book God Laughs and Plays. Honors include the Western States Book Award, a National Book Award nomination, and inclusion in three volumes of Best American Spiritual Writing. He lives with his family on a Montana trout stream.

	Dana Gioia is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. He is also an accomplished poet, translator, essayist, and long time commentator for the BBC. His 1991 book of essays, Can Poetry Matter?, received critical acclaim and national attention for its critique of the state of letters in America. His most recent book of poetry, Interrogations at Noon, won the American Book Award.
	Patricia Hampl is the author of the memoirs I Could Tell You Stories, Virgin Time, A Romantic Education, and, most recently, The Florist’s Daughter, along with numerous acclaimed poetry collections. She is also the author of Blue Arabesque, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Los Angeles Times Favorite Non-fiction Book of the Year.

	Paula Huston is the author of Daughters of Song (Random House) and the co-editor of Signatures of Grace: Catholic Writers on the Sacraments (Dutton). Her short fiction has appeared in journals including Story, American Short Fiction, and Missouri Review, and her awards include an NEA fellowship. Her book The Holy Way: Practices for a Simple Life is forthcoming from Loyola Press this November, and she is now at work on a book about her solo trip.

	Arlene Hutton, a member of New Dramatists, is the author of As It Is in Heaven , a play about nine Kentucky Shaker women, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It played off-off-Broadway, ran four months at the Actors’ Co-op in Los Angeles, and has been seen at theatres across the U.S. Hutton’s first full-length work, Last Train to Nibroc, received a Best Play 2000 nomination from the New York Drama League. See Rock City, a sequel to Nibroc, was given full development at the 2004 New Harmony Project. Hutton lives in New York City and teaches playwriting for The Barrow Group.


	Thomas Lynch is an essayist, poet, and funeral director. His books include The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, Bodies in Motion and at Rest, Still Life in Milford, and Booking Passage: We Irish & Americans (all four books are from Norton). He is regularly featured on the op-ed page of The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Times of London, as well as in the pages of Harper’s. He has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC, the NBC "Today" program and the PBS series "On Our Own Terms." He lives in Milford, Michigan.

	Erin McGraw is the author of the collections Bodies at Sea, Lies of the Saints (a New York Times Notable Book of 1996), and most recently The Good Life, as well as a novel, The Baby Tree . Her awards include Yaddo and Wallace Stegner Fellowships, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, and the Pushcart Prize. She teaches at Ohio State University.

	Barry Moser’s work can be found in numerous collections and libraries around the world, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Vatican Library, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. His engraved illustrations of the King James Bible, Moby-Dick, The Divine Comedy, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have received international acclaim.

	Suzanne Paola is the author of four books of poetry and several nonfiction works. Her prose memoir, Body Toxic, was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2001 and won the American Book Award. Suzanne teaches in the English department at Western Washington University.

	Eugene H. Peterson is a pastor, scholar, writer, and poet. He has authored more than twenty books, including A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, The Contemplative Pastor, and Leap Over a Wall, and developed the popular paraphrase of the Bible, The Message. He is Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. Peterson founded Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, where he was the pastor for twenty-nine years. He lives with his wife, Jan, in Montana.

	Pierce Pettis, hailed as one of America’s most thoughtful and moving singer-songwriters, is known for his exquisitely wrought lyrics and virtuosic guitar-playing. As William Michael Smith has written in Rockzilla World : "Across the entire range of his styles, Pettis constantly reinforces the sensation that he is a thoughtful, sensitive, serious poet, a man who looks deep and ponders long."
	Over the Rhine Musicians-in-Residence, Glen Workshop Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler are Over the Rhine, the lush, literate, Ohio-based band whose songwriting Paste magazine calls "deep and wide, playful and serious, sad and joyful - full of tiny experiments, rabbit trails, and the wine-dark sparkle of inspired phrase." They’ll give a concert and play in the evening worship services. For more, visit www.overtherhine.com.

	Luci Shaw’s books include nine volumes of poetry and several nonfiction works. She is writer-in-residence at Regent College in Vancouver, BC and a frequent retreat facilitator and writing workshop leader. Her poetry has appeared in Weavings, Image, Books & Culture, Christian Century, First Things, Harper’s Best Spiritual Writing anthologies, and others.

Last Modified: 2/7/2008