Alumni Opportunities

Do you have a manuscript you’d like to polish, or a new book-length project that you’d like to finish? If so, return to Bennington Writing Seminars for a Post-MFA term, attend one residency, and have the benefit of focused attention and mentorship at a higher level. 

Join us at the residency for workshops, nightly readings, master classes, and lectures. The residency begins your Post-MFA term and you’ll work one-on-one with a teacher we pair you with, exchanging packets and receiving detailed feedback each month. The Post-MFA term is tailored to your needs, focused on your goals, and designed to take your manuscript to the next level.

The Post-MFA term may not be combined with your graduate term. You must have taken at least one term off after graduation to begin as a Post-MFA student.

Tuition: $7,500 includes one residency, room and board, and one term of 1:1 faculty consultation. The Post-MFA is non-credit-bearing and therefore not eligible for financial aid. Students will be assigned a room in one of our campus residence halls. Tuition cannot be discounted if students choose to stay off campus.

Register: Please fill out this registration form. Upon receipt of this form, the business office will be notified and you will receive a bill with payment instructions and deadline.

Deadlines: March 1 to reserve your spot at a June residency/Summer term | September 1 for January residency/Winter term

Genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

Contact: writing@bennington.edu     

We maintain a robust social media presence. Our students and alumni are talented and friendly, so please follow us on all platforms. If you have a recent publication, please send the link, a description of the work, a short bio, and a photo to goodnewsmfa@bennington.edu (follow the prompts when you get the automated return email). We want to support and publicize your stories, essays, poems, etc. We do that by a combination of postings and a running list of submitted publications.

Join us:

• Instagram @benningtonwritingseminars 
• Facebook @benningtonMFAinWriting
• Twitter @Benn_MFAwriting

In addition to social media, we keep a list of alumni/student/faculty publications here. It is updated on a bi-weekly basis.

Transcript requests, Alumni cards, and Bennington Connects app

The College's Office of Alumni Relations is where you can request an alumni card or your transcript, among other things. You may also connect with the greater Bennington alumni community via an app called Bennington Connects. Contact the Alumni Relations office if you have questions.

Alysse Kathleen McCanna (Poetry '15) is the author of FishWife, published by Black Lawrence Press. Her poetry has appeared in North American Review, The Rumpus, Poet Lore, TriQuarterly, and other journals. She holds a PhD in English from Oklahoma State University, an MFA from Bennington College, and serves as Associate Editor of Pilgrimage Magazine. Alysse is an Associate Professor of English at Colorado Mountain College in the Vail Valley.

Kelly Sather (Fiction '15) is the author of Small in Real Life (University of Pittsburgh Press, Oct. 2023), her debut story collection and winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She is a former entertainment lawyer and screenwriter, and her fiction has appeared in Santa Monica Review, J Journal, Pembroke Magazine, PANK, and elsewhere. She grew up in Los Angeles and lives in Washington, D.C.

Puloma Ghosh (Fiction '20) is a fiction writer based in Chicago. She was a 2020 Bennington Residential Teaching Fellow and a 2021 Tin House Summer Workshop Scholar. Her work has appeared in One Story, CRAFT Literary, Cutleaf, and elsewhere. Her debut collection of short fiction, Mouth, is forthcoming in June 2024.

Katie Marya (Poetry '17) is a writer from Atlanta, Georgia. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and translation have appeared in literary magazines such as Southern Indiana Review, North American Review, Guernica, Waxwing, Salamander, Fence, and on the national poetry podcast The Slowdown Show. Her debut poetry collection Sugar Work was the Editor's Choice for the 2020 Alice James Book Award. Marya lives in Nebraska where she teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Mara Naselli (Nonfiction '13) is a writer, editor, and recipient of the 2014 Rona Jaffe Writers’ Foundation Award. Her work has appeared in Agni, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and lives in Michigan.

April Darcy's (Fiction/Nonfiction '16) fiction can be found in Shenandoah, where she was awarded the Shenandoah River Fiction Prize, and her nonfiction can be found in Cutleaf and in North American Review, where she was a finalist for the Torch Nonfiction Prize. She was a fellow in the 2020 BookEnds novel revision program at Stony Brook University, and she received a 2020 Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and a 2022 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, both in support of a novel in progress. Photo by Catalina Fragoso.

Larissa Pham (Fiction '23) is an artist and writer in Brooklyn. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Nation, the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, and elsewhere. She is the author of Fantasian, a novella, and the essay collection Pop Song, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize.

Guillermo Rebollo Gil (Poetry '23) is a writer, sociologist, translator, and attorney. His publications include poetry in Fence, Poetry Northwest, Second Factory, and Whale Road Review.He serves as an editor at the Autoethnographer and associate CNF editor at JMWW. In 2020, the Spanish publisher Ediciones Liliputienses published a selection of his poetry under the title Informe de Logros: poemas 2000-2019. He is the author of Writing Puerto Rico: Our Decolonial Moment (2018) and Whiteness in Puerto Rico: Translation at a Loss (2023).

Rena Mosteirin’s (Poetry '18) most recent book, Experiment 116 (Counterpath) is a book of experimental poetry that sets out an argument for a global refugee idiolect. Mosteirin is the co-author of Moonbit (punctum books, 2019) an academic and poetic exploration of the Apollo 11 guidance computer code. Her novella Nick Trail’s Thumb (Kore Press, 2008) won the Kore Press Short Fiction Award, judged by Lydia Davis. Her chapbook Half-Fabulous Whales (Little Dipper, 2019) explores Moby-Dick through erasure poetry. She teaches at Dartmouth College and owns Left Bank Books, a used bookstore in Hanover, NH.

Leena Soman Navani (Fiction '18) writes fiction, poetry, and reviews, and her writing has been featured with Pleiades and Muzzle among other publications. She's the poetry reviews editor for The Rumpus. She's received support from the National Book Critics Circle, Catapult, Brooklyn Poets, BOAAT, Bread Loaf, the Visible Poetry Project, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she earned her MFA. She is also a graduate of Columbia University’s School for International & Public Affairs.

John West (Nonfiction '18) reports the news with code at the Wall Street Journal, where his work has won awards and been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. His first book, Lessons and Carols—a long essay on addiction and ritual—is forthcoming from Eerdmans in May 2023. In addition to an MFA from Bennington College, he holds degrees in philosophy and music performance from Oberlin College.

Albert Abonado is the author of the poetry collection Jaw (Sundress Publications 2020). He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has appeared in the Colorado Review, Hobart, Poetry Northwest, Zone 3 and others. He lives in Rochester, NY, where he teaches creative writing at SUNY Geneseo and RIT.

Ruth Mukwana is a fiction writer from Uganda. She is also an aid worker currently working for the United Nations in New York. She’s a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars (MFA) and a 2020 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil NYC Emerging Fellow. Her short stories have appeared in several magazines including Solstice, Consequence, and Black Warriors Review (BWR where her story, “Taboo” was a runner-up in the BWR 2017 fiction contest. She lives with her daughter in New York and co-produces a podcast, Stories and Humanitarian Action that investigates how storytelling can raise awareness and galvanize action to address the causes and consequences of humanitarian crises.

Shawna Kay Rodenberg is the author of Kin, a debut memoir deemed “essential reading” by the Washington Post and “gorgeously gritty” by Oprah Daily. Her essays have appeared in Salon, the Village Voice, and Elle. In 2016, Shawna was awarded the Jean Ritchie Fellowship, and in 2017 she was the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A registered nurse for retired nuns, mother of five, and grandmother of two, she lives on a hobby goat farm in southern Indiana.

Lydia Martín (Fiction ’16) is an award-winning journalist and fiction writer who spent 25 years covering Miami’s growth and cultural evolution for The Miami Herald. Her work has appeared in Masters Review Anthology, Ploughshares, Fifth Wednesday Journal and Origins Literary Journal; in books such as Presenting Celia Cruz, and Louis Vuitton City Guide Miami; and in magazines such as Billboard, Esquire, InStyle, Oprah, Latina (as a contributing editor), Hispanic and Out. Martín, born in Havana and raised in Yonkers, Chicago, Flint and Miami, was part of the Miami Herald team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Hurricane Andrew. She was twice a finalist for journalism’s Livingston Award, and won a GLAAD Media Award for Spanish-language magazine writing.  She was a 2016 Ploughshares Emerging Writer; and received the 2016 Editor’s Prize from Fifth Wednesday Journal, which nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. Martín, a Yaddo and MacDowell Colony fellow, has a BA in English and journalism from the University of Miami (1987) and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars.

Angelique Stevens (Nonfiction '16) is a Six Nations Cayuga living in Upstate New York where she teaches Creative Writing, Literature of Genocide, and race literatures. Her nonfiction has appeared in Lit Hub, The New England Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and a number of anthologies. She won the grand prize in the Solas Award for Best Travel Writing in 2018. She has received support from The Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and the Bennington Writing Seminars where she earned her MFA. She also holds an MA in literature from SUNY Brockport. She finds her inspiration in wandering—being in places that push the boundaries of comfort, experience, knowledge, and hunger. She is currently writing a braided travel memoir about her trips to South Sudan and her experiences growing up within a family plagued by mental illness and addiction.

Brian Tierney’s (Poetry ’13) work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, AGNI, New England Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. A former Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University, he was named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30” emerging writers in 2013, has been a finalist for awards from the Poetry Society of America and The National Poetry Series, and won the 2018 George Bogin Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. He lives in Oakland, where he teaches poetry at The Writing Salon. He is a 2013 graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Keith Lesmeister is the author of the story collection We Could’ve Been Happy Here (MG Press, 2017). His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, North American Review, Redivider, Slice Magazine, and the anthology New Stories from the Midwest, among others. His nonfiction has appeared in River Teeth, Sycamore Review, The Good Men Project, Tin House Open Bar, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere. He lives and works in northeast Iowa. He is a 2014 graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars and is the June 2019 Alumni Fellow in Fiction.

Cassie Pruyn is the author of Bayou St. John: A Brief History (The History Press, 2017) and the poetry collection Lena (Texas Tech University Press, 2017), winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry and finalist for the Audre Lorde Award. Her poems, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous publications, such as AGNI Online, The Normal School, and The Los Angeles Review. Born and raised in Portland, Maine, she lives and teaches in New Orleans. She is a 2014 graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars and is the June 2019 Alumni Fellow in Poetry.

Walter M. Robinson is a writer and physician in Massachusetts. He is a 2014 graduate of BWS and a 2015 PEN-New England New Discovery in Non-Fiction. His recent essays have been published in The Sun, The Literary Review, and Harvard Review; each essay was named as a "Notable Essay" in Best American Essays (2015, 2016, 2017) He was a fellow at The MacDowell Colony and at Yaddo in 2016. He has just completed a book-length manuscript of essays entitled What Cannot Be Undone. His research has been supported by the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, and the Project on Death in America. He was the executive producer for Nancy Andrews’ film The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes; which won the 2017 IFP/Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series. More about his research and writing is available here. He runs a retreat for writers and visual artists in southeastern Massachusetts (EastOverArt.com). He is the June 2019 Alumni Fellow in Nonfiction.

A prize-winning poet, critic and performer, J. Mae Barizo's (Poetry, '11) recent work appears in AGNI, Bookforum, Boston Review, Hyperallergic and Los Angeles Review of Books.  She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Bennington College, the New School, the Jerome Foundation and Poets House. Phillip Lopate wrote that Barizo's "exquisite poems display throughout a mastery of poetic form and a thoroughly professional command of surface and tone.  It is clear we are in the hands ofa highly cultivated, intelligent writer."

A classically-trained musician and a champion of cross-genre work, J. Mae has performed sound/text collaborations with musicians from The National, Bon Iver, and the American String Quartet. As a musician she has performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye West and Pharrell, among others. 

Hannah Howard (Nonfiction, '18) is a writer and food expert who spent her formative years in New York eating, drinking, serving, bartending, cooking on a hot line, flipping giant wheels of cheese, and managing restaurants. She writes about delicious things, appears in food videos, teaches cheese and cooking classes, and hosts culinary events. Her memoir, Feast: True Love in and Out of the Kitchen, debuted as Amazon's #1 bestselling memoir in spring of 2018. Her work has been featured in New York Magazine, VICE, SELF, mic.com, Thrillist, Serious Eats, Bust, refinery29, Salon, and the Chicago Review of Books. 

Erin Kate Ryan's (Fiction, '14) fiction has been published in hundreds of real and imaginary journals, such as Glimmer Train, Conjunctions, and The Normal School (see Writing, above). Her fiction has further been honored with a Pushcart nomination, fellowships and grants from the Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, Hinge Springboard for the Arts, and the Dickinson House (Belgium). She is the 2017 James Jones First Novel Fellow, a McKnight Fellow, and recipient of a Minnesota Emerging Writers' grant, multiple Minnesota State Arts Board Artist's Initiative grants, and scholarships to the Sewanee and BreadLoaf Writers' Conferences. She is represented by Dorian Karchmar of William Morris Endeavors.

Jia Oka Baker (Poetry, June ‘14) (pictured left)is a poet and photographer from Phoenix, Arizona. Her poetry chapbooks are Crash Landing in the Plaza of an Unknown City and Well Enough to Travel.  She is the recipient of the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award and an artist grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

Amber Caron (Fiction, June ‘16) (pictured right) is a fiction writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in PEN America Best Debut Short Stories, Southwest Review, Kenyon Review Online, AGNI, and The Greensboro Review. She is the recipient of a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, the McGinnis-Ritchie Award for fiction, and a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation.

 Hugh Ryan (Nonfiction, January ‘09) (pictured left) is a writer based in Brooklyn, whose book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, is due out in March of 2019 from St. Martin's Press. He is the recipient of the 2016-2017 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the NYPL, a 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, and a 2018 residency at The Watermill Center

Christopher Frizzelle (Nonfiction, January ’17) (pictured right) has been a writer and editor at The Stranger for fourteen years, including nine years as editor-in-chief. He edited a feature story in 2012 that won a Pulitzer Prize. He is a co-author the book How to Be a Person, along with Dan Savage and Lindy West. He is the founder and host of the silent-reading party, a monthly event in Seattle that has been replicated in cities around the world.

Chelsea Hodson (Nonfiction, January ‘17) (pictured left) is the author of the essay collection Tonight I'm Someone Else and the chapbook Pity the Animal. She teaches nonfiction at Catapult in New York and at the Mors Tua Vita Mea Workshop in Rome.

Tiffany Steward Melanson (Poetry, June ’15) is a poet and arts educator who teaches poetry workshops and oral interpretation at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, where she is also the faculty sponsor of Élan, an international student literary magazine and co-director of the Douglas Anderson Writers’ Festival. She is the author of the audio chapbook What Happens (EAT Poems), and her work has recently appeared in Bridge Eight Magazine, Coda Quarterly and Compose Journal. Her poetry has also been featured on Swamp Radio, a live radio show and podcast, and as part of The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens’ exhibit, Reflections: Artful Perspectives on the St. Johns River, as a self-produced video installation and oral interpretation. Her poem “Delivery” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016 and she was awarded the Art Ventures Individual Artist Grant for her poetry project, “Burning Anna Kingsley” by the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida.

Libby Flores (Fiction '14) was chosen as one of eight writers in the United States to receive the PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship in 2008. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, The Rattling Wall, Post Road Magazine, FLASH: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Bridge Eight, Tin House/ Open Bar, Coda Quarterly, The Guardian Books and Paper Darts. Her short story "The Table," published by The Rattling Wall, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. She teaches creative writing workshops at San Diego Writer's Ink and PEN Center USA. Libby was selected as a semi-finalist in the American Short Fiction Short(er) Contest judged by Stuart Dybek. She was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Story Contest and a finalistGigantic Sequins 4th Annual Flash Fiction Contest. She was selected in 2017 as Bennington Writing Seminars first Fiction Fellow. She is the former Director of Literary Programs at PEN Center USA (PEN America's LA). Currently, she is the Director of the Believer Festival and the NYC Director of the Freya Project.

Morgan Jerkins (Nonfiction, '16) is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, This Will Be My Undoing. Her next two projects, Why We Get Out and Caul Baby, are forthcoming from Harper Books. She is a contributing editor at Catapult and a former Book of the Month judge. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, ELLE, Lenny Letter, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and BuzzFeed, among many others. She runs a TinyLetter called Meraki that you can subscribe to here

Safiya Sinclair (Bennington '10) is a poet, memoirist, and librettist whose other honours include a Pushcart Prize, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, fellowships from Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Granta, The Nation, New England Review, Boston Review, Oxford American, the 2018 Forward Book of Poetry, and elsewhere. 

Tiffany Briere (Fiction, '11) has been awarded a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a Pushcart Prize. She holds a PhD in genetics from Yale University and an MFA in fiction from Bennington College. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Tin House, The Cut, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.