FACULTYe

The faculty for SLS Italy 2009 is as follows:


Writer-In-Residence

Robert Coover

 Robert Coover's first novel, The Origin of the Brunists, won the 1966 William Faulkner Award. His other works include the collection of short fiction, Pricksongs and Descants, a collection of plays, A Theological Position, such novels as The Public Burning, Spanking the Maid, Gerald's Party, Pinocchio in Venice, John's Wife, Ghost Town and Briar Rose. His latest honor is the Dugannon Foundation's REA award for his lifetime contribution to the short story. As a university professor, Mr. Coover teaches courses in electronic writing and mixed media as well as standard workshops.
Poetry

Moira Egan

 Moira Egan’s first book, Cleave (WWPH, 2004) was nominated for the National Book Award and was a finalist for ForeWord Book of the Year. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2008. La Seta della Cravatta, a bi-lingual edition of her work will be published in 2008 (Edizioni L’Obliquo, Italy). She lives in Rome with her husband, Damiano Abeni, with whom she co-translated Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie scelte 1956-2007, a substantial selection of poems by John Ashbery (Sossella Editore, Italy, 2008).
Mary di Michele

 Mary di Michele was born in Lanciano, Italy, in 1949 and immigrated to Canada with her family in 1955. She is a currently a full professor in the English Department of Concordia University in Montreal, where she teaches in the creative writing program. Her publications include several novels and eight books of poetry. She has won numerous awards including the Air Canada Writing Award and first prize for poetry in the CBC literary competition.
Non-Fiction

Binyavanga Wainaina

 Binyavanga Wainaina lives in Nairobi, Kenya. He is the founding editor of the literary magazine Kwani? and won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and National Geographic.
Fiction

Francine Prose

Francine Prose is the author of fifteen books of fiction, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. She is the president of PEN American Center. She lives in New York City.

Josip Novakovich

Josip Novakovich came from Croatia to the United States at the age of twenty. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Paris Review, Threepenny Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, an Ingram Merrill award, a Vogelstein fellowship, and the Cohen/Ploughshares award. He last published Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys from White Pine Press.
Playwriting

Vittorio Rossi

 Born in Montreal in 1961, Italian-Canadian playwright Vittorio Rossi grew up in the district of Ville Emard and graduated from Concordia University in 1985 with a BFA specializing in theatre performance. In 1987 he was playwright-in-residence at Montreal’s prestigious Centaur Theatre, during which he completed his first full-length play, The Chain, which opened Centaur’s twentieth-anniversary season in October 1988. From 1990–91 Rossi was writer-in-residence at Concordia University where he also taught playwriting. His plays have been produced in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, and New York City. He is published by TalonBooks.
Lecturers in Cultural Studies

Edwin Frank

 Edwin Frank has been the editor of the New York Review Books Classics series since it was started nearly ten years ago. He is a fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and has published poems, essays, and criticism in Threepenny Review, The New York Review of Books, and The Nation, among other periodicals. He is the author of two chapbooks, The Further Adventures of Pinocchio (with George Woodman) and Stack.

Mikhail Iampolski

 Mikhail Iampolski is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. His main area of research is the theory of visual representation. His latest book The Memory of Tiresias was published by the University of Calfornia Press in 1998.

Eugene Ostashevsky

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-born American poet and translator currently residing in Florence. His two-and-some-odd books poetry include The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, released by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2008 to universal acclaim. He also edited and co-translated OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, containing writings by Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms, and others. Recordings and videos of his work may be found at http://fishouse.org/archives/eugene_ostashevsky/index.shtml.

Adam Leith Gollner

 Adam Leith Gollner¹s first book, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Obsession, Commerce and Adventure, was published in the summer of 2008 by Scribner in the United States, Doubleday in Canada, and Larousse in Brazil. His writing appears in The New York Times, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Orion, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, Good Magazine, V and many others. The Canadian correspondent for Gourmet Magazine, he has been the editor of New York¹s Vice Magazine and the associate editor of Maisonneuve Magazine. His next book, about immortality and the quest for neverending life, will be published in 2010, again by Scribner USA/Doubleday Canada. He lives in Montreal.

Additional faculty will be announced at a later date.

Visit the Links section to discover more about Vasto, Italy.