Creative Writing at Maricopa Faculty Jed Allen Phoenix Jed Allen was born on the road between Heaven and Hell and walks there still. He took an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. His writing has appeared in numerous journals and in Fever Dreams: contemporary arizona poets. He has raised goats, worked as a janitor, sold firewood door-to-door, cut and shaped vigas, made adobes, and is an improvisatory pianist who worked for a decade in the Phoenix blues scene. He teaches general writing classes at Phoenix College. He has written across his back: Somos todos ilegales. jed.allen@pcmail.maricopa Martin Etchart Phoenix An award winning screenwriter and novelist, Martin Etchart is currently Director of the Creative Writing Program at PC. His novel The Good Oak was recently translated into Spanish (El Roble Protector) and released in Europe. Along with a Bachelor s and Master s degree from Arizona State University, he completed his Ph.D. in Creative Writing. martin.etchart@pcmail.maricopa.edu
Patrick Michael Finn Chandler-Gilbert Coordinator of Chandler-Gilbert Community College's Creative Writing Program, Patrick Michael Finn completed his B.A. at the University of California, Riverside, and his M.F.A. at the University of Arizona, where he was a Dean's Teaching Fellow. His first book, the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich, was selected as winner of the 2006 Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Competition and published by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. His second book, From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet: Stories, won the 2009 Hudson Prize and will be published by Black Lawrence Press, an imprint of Dzanc Books, in 2010. Finn's fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Third Coast, Quarterly West, The Clackamas Literary Review, Punk Planet, and Houghton Mifflin's Best American Mystery Stories 2004. His fiction has also received citations in the 2005 Pushcart Prize and The Best American Short Stories 2008. He has taught writing at the University of Arizona, Western Nebraska Community College, and the University of North Carolina, Asheville, where he was awarded the 2006 Teaching Excellence Award. patrick.finn@cgcmail.maricopa.edu Johnnie Clemens May Johnnie Clemens May has an M.A. in creative writing from Indiana University and is presently pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry.. She has been advisor of the school poetry club and an advisor and poetry judge of the Traveler. Along with publishing her own poetry, she has hosted poetry readings at a local coffeehouse, has delivered lectures on poetry to community organizations, and has been a student of nationally recognized poets. Several of her students have won awards in poetry and the personal essay. johnnie.may@gcmail.maricopa.edu Hershman John Phoenix Hershman John is both a poet and a short fiction writer. He is Navajo born for the Deer Spring People and the Bitter Water People. He was born in California and raised on the Navajo Reservation, near Sand Springs. He enjoys reading poetic theory and comic books. Hershman received his BA in English and MFA in Creative Writing, both from Arizona State University. He has been teaching for the past 12 years. As a full time faculty member at Phoenix College, he teaches composition, poetry, and American Indian Studies courses. Many of his works reflect his Navajo heritage. His works have been widely published by anthologies and literary journals including Arizona Highways, Flyway-A Literary Review, Hayden s Ferry Review, Journal of Navajo Education, Puerto del Sol, Wicazo Sa Review, O Taste and See: Food Poems, Family Matters: Poems of our Families. The University of Arizona Press published his first collection of poems, I Swallow Turquoise for Courage. Lisa K Miller Phoenix Lisa K. Miller founded the Creative Writing Program at Phoenix College. She is currently the Certificate Track Coordinator at PC. She has published many book reviews and articles of literary criticism. Her children s novel, The Range of Light, was published in 2005. She recently finished a second novel. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri and has taught at PC for 25 years. She enjoys hiking, bird watching, and painting. lisa.miller@pcmail.maricopa.edu
Mike Mullins Mike Mullins teaches journalism and English and is the faculty adviser to The Voice, GCC s newspaper. A freelance writer and former public relations executive, he is the author of "Syracuse University Football: A Centennial Celebration." In addition he has published hundreds of newspaper articles on topics ranging from college athletics to theatre, music and raising his twin daughters. michael.mullins@gcmail.maricopa.edu David Nelson David Nelson has a B. A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing (poetry) from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, and a M. F. A. in Creative Writing (fiction) from Arizona State University where he was an associate editor of the Hayden s Ferry Review. He enjoys all sorts of writing, though his main concern continues to be fiction. david.nelson@gcmail.maricopa.edu Josh Rathkamp Mesa Josh Rathkamp was born in Saginaw, Michigan. He received a BA from Western Michigan University and an MFA form Arizona State University. His book of poems Some Nights No Cars At All was published by Ausable Press and is now distributed by Copper Canyon. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Indiana Review, Meridian, Passages North, Puerto Del Sol, Gulf Coast, Sycamore Review, Verse Daily, and The Drunken Boat. Rathkamp has received awards from the Arizona Commission for the Arts, has been named the Arizona representative for the National Arts and Letters Society and a Virginia G. Piper writing fellow. He is currently the Coordinator of Creative Writing at Mesa Community College. Jim Sallis Phoenix In his forty-plus year career, Jim has published twelve novels, multiple collections of poems, essays, and stories, an acclaimed biography of Chester Himes; and a translation of Raymond Queneau's novel Saint Glinglin. For several years he wrote a books column for the Boston Globe; he contributes a long-standing column to The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction and reviews regularly for the L.A. Times, Washington Post and others. This September he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the international mystery convention in Anchorage, Alaska. All six Lew Griffin novels recently sold to Hollywood, and Drive, which the New York Times called "a perfect noir novel," is in production at Universal Studios with Hugh Jackman set to star. jim.sallis@pcmail.maricopa.edu
ChristySkeen Rio Salado christy.skeen@riosalado.maricopa.edu Laura White Schuett Laura White Schuett has taught at GCC since 1993. Her work has appeared in Northwest Review, Black Warrior Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Confrontation, Pennsylvania English, Original Sin: The Seven Deadlies Come Home, Women Behaving Badly, Calyx, Event, Kaleidoscope, and elsewhere. laura.schuett@gcmail.maricopa.edu JohnVentola John Ventola s work has appeared in numerous national publications such as The Baseball Review, The Rust Belt Review, Art Voice, and Raven Chronicles, a college composition textbook, and an anthology of working-class literature called The Workplace: Robinson s View of the Literature of the Worker. john.ventola@gcmail.maricopa.edu