Take a look at our 2027 tentative faculty below. Stay tuned for more! Sign up for our email list to receive updates for the 2027 conference.

Poetry Faculty

The Winter Getaway is well known for its challenging and supportive workshops led by accomplished writers and artists. Get to know our poetry faculty by reading some of their work online, and then working with them in January.

Jan Beatty

Jan Beatty’s work has been published in the Atlantic, New York Times Sunday Magazine, and Best American Poetry. In 2024, her eighth book, Dragstripping, was published by University of Pittsburgh Press. She was recently featured in POETRY, and her poem, Stripshot, won the Editor’s Award in Copper Nickel and was named one of the best poems read in 2024 by 50 Contemporary Poets on LitHub. Beatty is the winner of the Red Hen Nonfiction Award for American Bastard, and the Paterson Prize for Jackknife: New and Selected Poems. She worked as a waitress, abortion counselor, and in maximum security prisons. She is Professor Emerita at Carlow University, where she directed creative writing, the Madwomen in the Attic workshops, and the international low-residency MFA program. Read a poem by Jan and learn more on her website.

Jiordan Castle

Jiordan Castle is the author of Disappearing Act, a memoir in verse. Her poetry and prose appear in The New Yorker, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, including the anthologies Best New Poets and What My Father and I Don’t Talk About. Originally from New York, she studied writing at the University of San Francisco and received her MFA in Poetry from Hunter College. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their dog. Read poems by Jiordan and learn more on her website.

Ysi González

Newark, NJ native Ysabel Y. González (she/her), received her BA from Rutgers University, an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, and serves as Producer, Poetry & Social Impact at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Dodge Poetry. She is a CantoMundo fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee, author of Wild Invocations (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and Sing This Body Out (FlowerSong Press, forthcoming 2026). Ysabel is her ancestors’ dream. You can find her in New Jersey, with her husband and two furbabies, resisting, writing, crafting, gardening and reading oracles. Read a poem by Ysi and learn more on her website.

R.G. Evans

Poet, songwriter, and educator R.G. Evans is the author of Overtipping the Ferryman, The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His albums of original songs, Sweet Old Life, Kid Yesterday Calling Tomorrow Man, and Haunted, are available on most streaming platforms. Listen to a song by R.G. and learn more on his website.

Luray Gross

Luray Gross, storyteller and writer, is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently With This Body from Ragged Sky Press. Her love of the spoken and written word began during her childhood on a busy dairy farm in Pennsylvania. She was the recipient of a Fellowship in Poetry from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and named one of their Distinguished Teaching Artists. She was the 2002 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, PA, and resident faculty at the Frost Place Festival and Conference on Poetry in Franconia, NH. Her poem, “The Perfection of Zero,” was featured by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Public Poetry Project. Known for her engaging teaching style, she has worked with thousands of students ranging in age from three to eighty-three. Read a poem by Luray.

Eugenia Leigh

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) and Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023), longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award and awarded Honorable Mention for the AAAS Book Award in Poetry. Poems from Bianca received Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize and have appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, and the Best of the Net anthology. Her essays have appeared in TIME, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. The recipient of fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers Magazine, Kundiman, the Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere, Eugenia serves as Senior Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as Board President of Brooklyn Poets. She teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. Read a poem by Eugenia and learn more on her website.

Peter E. Murphy

Peter E. Murphy was born in Wales and grew up in New York where he managed a night club, operated heavy equipment and drove a taxi. He has been awarded six creative writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, which might be a record, as well as multiple residencies at Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Millay Colony and other artist retreats. He has published a dozen books and chapbooks of nonfiction and poetry including A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption (Toplight Books, 2024). Read “Their Last Argument” in The Sun and have a look at peteremurphy.com.

Peter will lead New Year, New You: A Pre-Getaway Writing Workshop, and facilitate and lead feedback sessions for Poetry Incubator: A Generative Writing Workshop.

Christine E. Salvatore

Christine E. Salvatore received an MFA from The University of New Orleans where she taught in its undergraduate college as well as at Tulane University. She is a thesis advisor in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden, and teaches literature and writing in the MFA Program at Rosemont College, Stockton University and at a public high school in South Jersey. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including [Pank], The Cortland Review, Diode, The Literary Review, Mead Journal, The Southeast Review and elsewhere. Her work is also included in the craft book More Challenges for the Delusional and is featured in the art book Mother Monument by Holly Trostle Brigham and Maryanne Miller. Learn more on her website and read poems by Christine.

Christine will lead Poetry Incubator: A Generative Writing Workshop sessions and the Poetry Round Table Workshop add-on.

J. C. Todd

J. C. Todd’s books include the bilingual (English/Lithuanian) What Kept Me Awake? (PDR, 2024) and Beyond Repair (Able Muse Press, 2021). J. C.’s poems have appeared in One Art, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Virginia Quarterly Review and have been anthologized in From the Belly, Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Poetry, Vol 2 (Word Works, 2024) and Keystone Poetry: Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press, 2025). She is co-editor of Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2025). Fellowships include the Pew Foundation, Leeway Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and national and international artist residencies, including Bemis and the Baltic Art Center for Writers and Translators, Visby, Sweden. She has taught at Bryn Mawr College and in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Rosemont College. Read a poem by J. C. and learn more on her website.

J. C. will lead Tutorials in Poetry, Poetry Incubator: A Generative Writing Workshop sessions and the Poetry Round Table Workshop add-on.

Vincent Toro

Vincent Toro is the author of three poetry collections: Hivestruck (Penguin 2024), Tertulia (Penguin 2020), and Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta 2016), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He has won the Caribbean Writer’s Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize, the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and the Spanish Repertory Theater’s Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. Vincent is a Letras Boricuas writing fellow, and has also received writing fellowships from the Poets House, the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications including the anthologies Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon, Best American Experimental Writing, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, and Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. Read a poem by Vincent and learn more on his website.

Gretna Wilkinson

Gretna Wilkinson, Ph.D., began her career as a missionary teacher in the jungles of her native Guyana. She has authored five chapbooks and one full-length book, Opening the Drawer (Cool Women Press). For many years, she edited the poetry of New Jersey inmates. A Dodge Foundation Poet, she has performed on radio and local television and is published in Saranac Review, The Literary Review, and Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary, among others. She was featured in The New York Times, The Star Ledger, Courier News, and others. Her honors include: Honorary Eagle Scout, Red Bank Regional High School Teacher of The Year, Monmouth County Arts Educator of the Year, and Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction. She has also received several Pushcart nominations. Visit her literary magazine website or read a poem by Gretna.