MFA in Writing: Related Content
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Anna Gazmarian (MFA, ’20, Nonfiction) began work on what would become her debut, Devout: A Memoir of Doubt (Simone & Schuster, 2024), while she was a nonfiction student in the Bennington Writing Seminars. The book chronicles her struggles with bipolar disorder as a member of the Evangelical community, where prayer was posited as the only solution to mental health distress. I talked to Anna on the heels of her book tour. Among other things, we discuss writing, publishing, and going to church at the gym.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Jason Sebastian Russo is currently studying fiction and poetry in the Writing Seminars as a dual-genre MFA candidate. He’s also the residential teaching fellow for the Spring term. But before he came to Bennington, he had a long and flourishing career in indie rock—he was a member of the legendary Mercury Rev as well as a number of other bands, including Hopewell, Guiding Light, and Pete International Airport. As he begins his semester on campus, he and I talked about how he found his way from the stage to the page, the differences between songs and poems, and the power and importance of teaching.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Ten amazing writers have recently joined the Writing Seminars faculty, and we’re thrilled to introduce them. We asked them to tell us about the last thing they wrote, among other things. Read their answers, as well as some brilliant first sentences from their books and essays.
Etan Kerr-Finell, a fourth term MFA student in poetry, has been selected to be the eleventh Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Sarah Zoric, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the tenth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
In 2022, undergraduate and Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and faculty published over 50 books. Their writing spanned a wide range of genres from nonfiction essays, memoirs, and biographies, to novels, poetry, young adult literature, and short stories.
Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift for a loved one or for yourself this holiday season (you deserve a ‘lil treat), we’ve rounded up a handy list of new and classic books written by the Bennington community to delight even the pickiest of readers.
Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Eula Biss has been selected as a 2023 New America National Fellow.
Bennington College is pleased to announce the following promotions and staffing at the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Kim Cooper, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the ninth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Mark Wunderlich, Director of Bennington Writing Seminars, faculty member Craig Morgan Teicher, and past faculty Paul Yoon, Ephraim Asili, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and Alexander Chee are recipients of the prestigious 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships.
Peter Cameron is the author of seven novels and three collections of stories. His short fiction and poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Mademoiselle, Rolling Stone, Grand Street, The New Republic, and The Yale Review. Photo by Orson Santos.
Craig Morgan Teicher is the Director of Special Projects for the Writing Seminars and the author of four books of poetry, most recently Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey. He was a 2021 Guggenheim fellow, and his next book of poems will be published in 2026.
Shawna Kay Rodenberg is the author of the memoir Kin. She has been the recipient of a Jean Ritchie Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, and her essays have appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, and Elle.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Carole Maso is revered by readers and fellow writers for her boundary-breaking novels, including The Art Lover, AVA, and most recently, Mother & Child. She joined the faculty of the Writing Seminars this past June and, on the first day of residency, gave a remarkable lecture that set the mood for the whole ten days. We talked about that lecture and the relationship between a writer’s life and her work.
Stacey D’Erasmo is the author of the novels Tea, A Seahorse Year, The Sky Below, Wonderland, and The Complicities; and the nonfiction books The Art of Intimacy: The Space Between and The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry.
Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity and Some Say the Lark, which won the 2018 William Carlos Williams Award.
Garrard Conley is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Boy Erased and the novel All the World Beside, as well as the creator and co-producer of the podcast UnErased: The History of Conversion Therapy in America.
Carole Maso is the author of ten books including the novels The Art Lover, AVA, and Mother&Child as well as the forthcoming Why So Soon Asleep? She is also the author of Aureole, poems in prose; essays Break Every Rule, and a memoir, The Room Lit by Roses.
Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World, and the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness.
Lance Richardson is the author of House of Nutter (2018) and True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, which will be published internationally in September 2025.
Moriel Rothman-Zecher is the author of the novels Before All the World, which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and Sadness Is a White Bird, for which he received the National Book Foundation's '5 Under 35' Honor, among other honors.
Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the poetry collections Tsim Tsum and The Babies, the story collection Wild Milk, and the essay collection Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales.
In 2003, Spencer Reece authored The Clerk's Tale, selected by Louise Glück, awarded the Bakeless Prize, and recognized with an award from the Library of Congress. In 2014, The Road to Emmaus was published, long-listed for the National Book Award, and short-listed for the Griffin Prize. He is the vicar of St. Paul’s, Wickford, Rhode Island. More than a decade in the making, Acts is his long-awaited third collection of poems.
Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions for You, as well as the novels The Great Believers (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal), The Borrower, and The Hundred-Year House, and the story collection Music for Wartime.
Téa Obreht is the author of the novels The Tiger’s Wife and Inland. She was the recipient of the Rona Jaffe fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and a 2016 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other honors.
Greg Wrenn is the author of the queer ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership and the Brittingham Prize-winning poetry collection Centaur. His work has appeared in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He was a recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University.