Prose Writing Faculty

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

 

 

Nicole Callihan

Nicole Callihan, winner of the 2023 Tenth Gate Prize and a 2023 Alma Award, has two forthcoming collections: chigger ridge (The Word Works, 2024) and SLIP (Saturnalia, 2025). Her most recent book, This Strange Garment, navigates her 2020 breast cancer diagnosis and was published by Terrapin Books in March 2023. She is also the founder and curator of Braving the Body, an ongoing collaboration with Thomas Dooley’s Poetry Well which invites writers to reflect on embodied experience and includes workshops, ekphrastic experiences and the Braving the Body anthology which was released by Harbor Editions in March 2024. A frequent collaborator with artists around the world, she has received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Read nonfiction by Nicole and learn more on her website.

Nicole will lead Tutorials and The Braided Narrative: Weaving Creative Nonfiction.

 

Jiordan Castle

Jiordan Castle is the author of Disappearing Act, a young adult memoir in verse, which was recognized as a Gold Standard Selection by the Junior Library Guild. Her poetry and prose appear in The New Yorker, The Millions, HuffPost, The Rumpus and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor to the LA-based food and culture magazine Compound Butter and has led cross-genre workshops for Blue Stoop, Writing Co-Lab and other organizations. Originally from New York, she has a BA in Writing from the University of San Francisco and an MFA in Poetry from Hunter College. She lives in Philadelphia with her family. Read an essay by Jiordan and visit her website.

Jiordan will lead The Art of Obsession: A Memoir Workshop.

 

Tyrese L. Coleman

Tyrese L. Coleman is the author of How to Sit, a 2019 Pen Open Book Award finalist published with Mason Jar Press in 2018. She is also the writer of the forthcoming book, Spectacle, with One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Writer, wife, mother, attorney and writing instructor, she occasionally teaches at American University. Her essays and stories have appeared in several publications, including Black Warrior Review, Literary Hub, The Rumpus and the Kenyon Review, and noted in Best American Essays and the Pushcart Anthology. She is an alumni of the Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University. Read a piece by Tyrese and learn more on her website.

Tyrese will lead Tutorials in Prose and A Flash of Truth: A Nonfiction Workshop.

 

Libby Cudmore

Libby Cudmore is the author of NEGATIVE GIRL (Datura, 2024) and The Big Rewind (William Morrow, 2016), as well as the Wade & Jacks PI series in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Tough. Her short fiction has been published in The Dark, Orca, Reckon Review, The Coachella Review, MonkeyBicycle and others. She is the recipient of the 2023 Shamus Award and the Black Orchid Novella Award, and teaches short fiction with the Writer’s Circle workshops. Read a story by Libby and learn more on her website.

Libby will lead Tutorials in Prose and Tales Told Tiny: Flash, Micro and Hermit Crab Fiction.

 

Hugo dos Santos

Hugo dos Santos is the author of Then, there (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), a collection of Newark stories, and the translator of Homecoming (Arquipelago Press, 2024) and A Child in Ruins (Writ Large Press, 2016), a staff pick at the Paris Review Daily. Hugo’s poetry and fiction shine a light on the beauty, complexity, and pain of the immigrant experience and of life in the inner city. In his translations, Hugo celebrates contemporary Portuguese literature. Hugo lives in New Jersey with his wife and three children. Visit his website, and read a piece by Hugo.

Hugo will lead Tutorials in Prose and the Fiction 101 add-on workshop.

 

R.G. Evans

R.G. Evans’ debut collection of original songs, Sweet Old Life, was released in 2018. His original music has been featured in the poetry documentaries All That Lies Between Us and Unburying Malcolm Miller. He has performed his songs at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, at the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, in Los Angeles for RATTLE magazine, at the Smithsonian Institution and all over the state of New Jersey. Also a poet, Evans’ books include Overtipping the Ferryman, The Holy Both and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. He teaches creative writing at Rowan University. Learn more on his website and YouTube channel.

R.G. will lead Tutorials in Songwriting and Poetry and Hitting the Right Note: A Songwriting Workshop.

 

Sam Heaps

Sam Heaps is a writer living in Philadelphia. Their debut essay collection, Proximity, was released in 2023, and they have published fiction and essays in Write or Die, Communion Arts Journal, Entropy, Rejection Letters, Taco Bell Quarterly and many other journals. They have received support from VCCA and Gullkistan and were a Tin House Scholar. Read a piece by Sam and learn more on their website.

Sam will lead Tutorials in Prose and Beyond the Self: Character Development in Novels.

 

Anndee Hochman

Anndee Hochman is a journalist, essayist, storyteller and teaching artist. In addition to her weekly column, “The Parent Trip,” in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Anndee’s work has appeared in Poets & Writers, Purple Clover, Broad Street Review, the Moravian University magazine and numerous anthologies, including the recent Best Short Stories of Philadelphia. She is the author of Anatomies: A Novella and Stories (Picador) and Everyday Acts & Small Subversions: Women Reinventing Family, Community and Home (The Eighth Mountain Press). She is also a six-time Moth Story Slam winner and appeared last fall in This Is My Brave, an ensemble performance about experiences with mental health and illness; her story was about panic attacks.  For more than 25 years, Anndee has taught writing to people of all ages in schools, senior centers and a small fishing village on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Visit her website and read an essay by Anndee.

Anndee will lead Tutorials in Prose, Out Loud: Storytelling for the Page and Stage and the Nonfiction and Memoir 101 add-on workshop.

 

Heather Lanier

Heather Lanier is an essayist, poet, educator and thrift-store shopper. She is the author of the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She has also published two award-winning poetry chapbooks and the full-length poetry collection, Psalms of Unknowing, which Kirkus Reviews calls “a powerful poetic reckoning with motherhood and religion.” Her essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic, TIME, The Sun, Longreads, The Southern Review and elsewhere. A recipient of a New Jersey Artist Fellowship, she works as an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Rowan University. Her TED talk has been viewed three million times. Read an essay by Heather and learn more on her website.

Heather will lead Our Many Voices: Persona in Creative Nonfiction.

 

 

 

 

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