Michael Collier MFA Retirement Event
Michael Collier MFA Retirement Event
A celebratory reading by MFA poetry alumni spanning three decades & a reading by Michael from his forthcoming book, The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems.
Alumni Readers
Laura Neal (MFA, 2017)
Laura Neal is a poet from South Carolina. Selected publications include: Academy of American Poets, Appalachian Review, Boston Art Review, FreeBlackSpace, Green Mountains Review. Fellowships include: The Fine Arts Work Center, CALLALOO, and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. She currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Texas in Dallas.
Reginald Dwayne Betts (BA, English, 2009)
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Felon (W. W. Norton, 2019), and the memoir A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (Avery, 2009). Betts's many awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, a Soros Justice Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Ruth Lily Fellowship, an NAACP Image Award, and the New America Fellowship. He is a Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale.
Gerald Maa (MFA, 2008)
Gerald Maa is a writer, translator, and editor based in Athens, Georgia. In 2010, he founded the arts non-profit the Asian American Literary Review with Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, where he served as editor-in-chief until becoming editor of the Georgia Review in 2019.
Lindsay Bernal (MFA, 2007)
Lindsay Bernal is the author of What It Doesn't Have to Do With (University of Georgia Press, 2018), winner of the National Poetry Series. She coordinates the University of Maryland’s Creative Writing Program and the Writers Here & Now reading series.
Shara Lessley (MFA, 2003)
Shara Lessley is the author of The Explosive Expert’s Wife and Two-Headed Nightingale. Co-editor of The Poem’s Country, her honors include an NEA, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Mary Wood Fellowship, Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship, NC Arts Council Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, and Best American Poetry, among others. Consulting Editor for Acre Books, she lives in Dubai.
Joshua Mensch (MFA, 2003)
Joshua Mensch is the author of Because: A Lyric Memoir (W. W. Norton, 2018) and an editor of the literary journal B O D Y. He lives in the Czech Republic.
Hayes Davis (MFA, 1999)
Since leaving UMD in 1999, Hayes Davis has taught English and coordinated equity and social justice work at Washington, D.C. area independent schools for two decades. His first book, Let Our Eyes Linger, was published by Poetry Mutual Press, and his poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies.
Shara McCallum (MFA, 1996)
From Jamaica, Shara McCallum has published six books, including No Ruined Stone. La historia es un cuarto, an anthology of her poems translated into Spanish, is forthcoming in 2021. McCallum teaches in the Pacific Low-Residency MFA and is a professor at Penn State. She is the 2021-22 Penn State Laureate.
Patrick Phillips (MFA, 1995)
Patrick Phillips is the author of three collections of poems, including Elegy for a Broken Machine, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as the nonfiction book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America. He teaches at Stanford.
David Biespiel (MFA, 1991)
David Biespiel is the author of six collections of poetry, four books of nonfiction, and is the editor of two anthologies. He is Poet-in-Residence at Oregon State University, where he teaches in the graduate Creative Writing Program, and the president of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters.
Hoa Nguyen (BA, Psychology, 1991)
Hoa Nguyen is the author of several books including Red Juice: Poems 1998 - 2008, the Griffin Prize for Poetry nominated Violet Energy Ingots, and A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure from Wave Books. Hoa teaches for Miami University’s low residency MFA program, as Co-chair of Writing in the Milton Avery School for Fine Arts at Bard College, and as associated faculty for University of Guelph.
Kevin Craft (BA, English, 1990)
Kevin Craft lives in Seattle and directs the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. His first book, Solar Prominence, was selected by Vern Rutsala for the Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books. A second collection, Vagrants & Accidentals, was published in the Pacific Northwest Poets Series of the University of Washington Press. Editor of Poetry Northwest from 2010 – 2016, he now serves Executive Editor of Poetry NW Editions.
A celebratory reading by MFA poetry alumni spanning three decades & a reading by Michael from his forthcoming book, The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems.
Alumni Readers
Laura Neal (MFA, 2017)
Laura Neal is a poet from South Carolina. Selected publications include: Academy of American Poets, Appalachian Review, Boston Art Review, FreeBlackSpace, Green Mountains Review. Fellowships include: The Fine Arts Work Center, CALLALOO, and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. She currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Texas in Dallas.
Reginald Dwayne Betts (BA, English, 2009)
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Felon (W. W. Norton, 2019), and the memoir A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (Avery, 2009). Betts's many awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, a Soros Justice Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Ruth Lily Fellowship, an NAACP Image Award, and the New America Fellowship. He is a Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale.
Gerald Maa (MFA, 2008)
Gerald Maa is a writer, translator, and editor based in Athens, Georgia. In 2010, he founded the arts non-profit the Asian American Literary Review with Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, where he served as editor-in-chief until becoming editor of the Georgia Review in 2019.
Lindsay Bernal (MFA, 2007)
Lindsay Bernal is the author of What It Doesn't Have to Do With (University of Georgia Press, 2018), winner of the National Poetry Series. She coordinates the University of Maryland’s Creative Writing Program and the Writers Here & Now reading series.
Shara Lessley (MFA, 2003)
Shara Lessley is the author of The Explosive Expert’s Wife and Two-Headed Nightingale. Co-editor of The Poem’s Country, her honors include an NEA, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Mary Wood Fellowship, Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship, NC Arts Council Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, and Best American Poetry, among others. Consulting Editor for Acre Books, she lives in Dubai.
Joshua Mensch (MFA, 2003)
Joshua Mensch is the author of Because: A Lyric Memoir (W. W. Norton, 2018) and an editor of the literary journal B O D Y. He lives in the Czech Republic.
Hayes Davis (MFA, 1999)
Since leaving UMD in 1999, Hayes Davis has taught English and coordinated equity and social justice work at Washington, D.C. area independent schools for two decades. His first book, Let Our Eyes Linger, was published by Poetry Mutual Press, and his poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies.
Shara McCallum (MFA, 1996)
From Jamaica, Shara McCallum has published six books, including No Ruined Stone. La historia es un cuarto, an anthology of her poems translated into Spanish, is forthcoming in 2021. McCallum teaches in the Pacific Low-Residency MFA and is a professor at Penn State. She is the 2021-22 Penn State Laureate.
Patrick Phillips (MFA, 1995)
Patrick Phillips is the author of three collections of poems, including Elegy for a Broken Machine, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as the nonfiction book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America. He teaches at Stanford.
David Biespiel (MFA, 1991)
David Biespiel is the author of six collections of poetry, four books of nonfiction, and is the editor of two anthologies. He is Poet-in-Residence at Oregon State University, where he teaches in the graduate Creative Writing Program, and the president of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters.
Hoa Nguyen (BA, Psychology, 1991)
Hoa Nguyen is the author of several books including Red Juice: Poems 1998 - 2008, the Griffin Prize for Poetry nominated Violet Energy Ingots, and A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure from Wave Books. Hoa teaches for Miami University’s low residency MFA program, as Co-chair of Writing in the Milton Avery School for Fine Arts at Bard College, and as associated faculty for University of Guelph.
Kevin Craft (BA, English, 1990)
Kevin Craft lives in Seattle and directs the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. His first book, Solar Prominence, was selected by Vern Rutsala for the Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books. A second collection, Vagrants & Accidentals, was published in the Pacific Northwest Poets Series of the University of Washington Press. Editor of Poetry Northwest from 2010 – 2016, he now serves Executive Editor of Poetry NW Editions.
RSVP
Contact Joshua Weiner to RSVP:
jweiner1@umd.edu