Full-Time Faculty
Laura Elrick
Laura Elrick is the author of What This Breathing (The Elephants 2020). Previous books include Propagation (Kenning Editions 2012), Fantasies in Permeable Structures (Factory School 2005), and Skincerity (Krupskaya 2003). Her transmedia performances Stalk (2008) and Blocks Away (2010) explore the psychogeographical terrain of post-9/11 New York and have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work has appeared in Bomb, Mandorla, The Brooklyn Rail, XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics, LINE, and Aufgabe, among other journals, and in the anthologies Viz. Interarts: Interventions, and The Eco Language Reader. She lives in Brooklyn..
James Hannaham
James Hannaham is a writer and visual artist. His novel Delicious Foods (Little, Brown 2015) won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. His criticism, essays, and profiles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Spin, Out, Buzzfeed, 4Columns, and Travel+Leisure. He received a 2015 Pushcart Prize for a piece that appeared in Gigantic. He co-founded the performance group Elevator Repair Service and worked with them from 1992–2002. He has exhibited text-based visual art at Open Source Gallery, 490 Atlantic, Kimberley-Klark, and The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and won Best in Show at Main Street Arts’ Biblio Spectaculum. Pilot Impostor, a multigenre book inspired by the work of Fernando Pessoa, will be released in 2021, followed by Re-Entry, or What Happened to Carlotta, a novel, in 2022. Still curious?
Christian Hawkey
Christian Hawkey has written two full-length poetry collections: The Book of Funnels, which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Citizen Of, both from Wave Books. He’s published several chapbooks, as well as the widely reviewed cross-genre book Ventrakl (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). A collaborative bi-lingual erasure made with the German poet Uljana Wolf, Sonne from Ort, appeared in 2013 (kookbooks verlag, Berlin). A selection of Ilse Aichinger’s short prose, Bad Words, also translated with Uljana Wolf, appeared in 2019 (Seagull Books). He’s received the Creative Capital Innovative Literature Award, a NEA grant, and a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellowship, and his own work has been translated into over a dozen languages. A member of the WeTransist translation collective (www.wetransist.org), he is currently co-translating a selection of essays by the Moroccan philosopher Abdessalam Benabdelali, and his newest book of poems is forthcoming from Action Books in 2021. More info here.
Samantha Hunt
Samantha Hunt is the author of The Dark Dark: Stories, and three novels. Mr. Splitfoot is a ghost story. The Invention of Everything Else is about the life of inventor Nikola Tesla. The Seas, Hunt’s first novel, was republished by Tin House Books in 2018. Hunt is the recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction Prize, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Prize, the St. Francis College Literary Prize and she was a finalist for the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner. Hunt writes for the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Guardian and a number of other fine publications. A book of Hunt’s non-fiction will be published in January 2022.
Rachel Levitsky
Rachel Levitsky is the author of the book length serial poems Under the Sun (Futurepoem 2003) and NEIGHBOR (UDP 2009), as well as five poetry chapbooks. Her prose publications include Renoemos (Delete Press 2010), and a novel, The Story of My Accident is Ours (Futurepoem 2011); she is co-curator of Belladonna Series. Four mini-essays on The Poetics of Confinement can be found online at the Poetry Project Blog.
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts is the author of Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America. The first volume of a planned trilogy on African-Americans and utopia (Harlem, Haiti, and the Black Belt of the American south), it was a New York Times Notable Book of 2011, a National Book Critics Circle Finalist, and cited by BOOKFORUM as the “Best New York Book” written in the twenty years since the magazine’s founding. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Chimurenga, Bidoun, A Public Space, Creative Time Reports, Harper’s, Essence, and Vogue, among many others. She has received grants and awards from Creative Capital, the Whiting Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. Her 2015 book for young readers Jake Makes a World: Jacob Lawrence a Young Artist in Harlem (commissioned by MoMA and illustrated by Christopher Myers) was named by Booklist among the year’s top books about art for children. Rhodes-Pitts organizes projects through The Freedwomen’s Bureau, gathering collaborators across the fields of visual art, music, theater, film, and education to produce events at venues like Harlem Stage, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The New Museum, PS 1 / MoMA, and public spaces in Harlem. Photograph by Marcus Werner.
Ellery Washington
Ellery Washington holds a DEA in Comparative Literature from the Sorbonne University, in Paris, France. He is the author of Buffalo, a novel forthcoming with Creston Books, a recipient of a PEN Center West Rosenthal Award, and Fellowship and an IBWA Prize for short fiction.
Part-Time Faculty
Fulla Abdul-Jabbar
Fulla Abdul-Jabbar is a writer, artist, and editor. She is Managing Editor at The Green Lantern Press, a nonprofit publisher specializing in art and poetry to produce exhibitions and experimental publications. Her work has been supported by the Vermont Studio Center and Zaratan Arte Contemporânea. She has performed or exhibited at SPACES, Defibrillator, Woman Made Gallery, ACRE, BBQLA, St. John University in York, the University of East London, the Electronic Literature Organization, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bad at Sports, DIAGRAM, Emergency Index, Bombay Gin, and Prairie Schooner. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan and M.A. in Visual & Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Daphne Beal
Daphne Beal is the author of the novel, In the Land of No Right Angles (Vintage/Anchor, 2008). Her short stories have appeared in Open City and American Short Fiction and been anthologized in the KGB Bar Reader and Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short Stories. Her essays and reported pieces have been published by The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney’s, Vogue, and the London Review of Books. Beal was a New York Times Fellow at NYU’s Graduate School in Fiction Writing, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellow, and a writing fellow at the Vermont Studio Center.
Anselm Berrigan
Anselm Berrigan is the author of ten books of poetry – most recently Don’t Forget to Love Me, from Wave Books. He was the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail from 2008-2024, and Artistic Director of The Poetry Project from 2003-2007. He is the 2025 lecturer for the Bagley-Wright Lecture Series.
Em Card
Em Card is a poet, translator and bibliographer living in Jackson Heights, NYC. Their first collection, Duties of an English Foreign Secretary, is out from Fence (December 2009). A new chapbook, The Archers, is forthcoming from Song Cave. With Andrew Maxwell they were co-editor of The Germ: A Journal of Poetic Research, from 1997-2005. They are an associate editor of the MLA International Bibliography.
Peter Catalanotto
Peter Catalanotto has published forty-nine books for children, eighteen of which he has written, including Ivan the Terrier, Matthew A.B.C., Question Boy Meets Little Miss Know-it-All, Monkey & Robot, and Emily’s Art. His book, The Painter, was featured on PBS’s Storytime. In 2008, First Lady Laura Bush commissioned him to illustrate the White House holiday brochure. Peter was recognized by Drexel University for his outstanding contribution to children’s literature and he currently teaches Columbia University’s first children’s book writing course. Peter is currently working on the fourth book in his Monkey & Robot series.
Gabriel Cohen
Gabriel Cohen’s debut novel Red Hook was nominated for the Edgar award for Best First Novel, and he is also the author of the novels The Ninth Step, The Graving Dock, Boombox, and Neptune Avenue, and the nonfiction book Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky. He has written journalism and essays for The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Time Out New York, Gourmet.com, Shambhala Sun, and other publications.
Claire Donato
Claire Donato is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of two books: Burial (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2013), a novella, and The Second Body (Poor Claudia, 2016), a collection of poems. She also wrote the introduction to The One on Earth: Selected Works of Mark Baumer (Fence Books, 2021). Recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Chicago Review, Forever, GoldFlakePaint, The Brooklyn Rail, DIAGRAM, The Believer, BOMB, and Harp & Altar. Beyond the page, her art practice includes illustration, 35mm photography, and songwriting. She teaches psychoanalytically-inflected courses and advises theses in the MFA/BFA Writing Program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she received the 2020 Distinguished Teacher Award.
Jackie Ess
Jackie Ess is a teacher and novelist. Her first book, Darryl, was published in 2021, and other work has appeared in the Recluse, the Chicago Review. In addition to this, she has led several short independent workshops, most recently, through the Poetry Project. She holds a PhD in mathematics from Northwestern University.
David Gordon
David Gordon was born in New York City. He attended Sarah Lawrence College, holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University, and has worked in film, fashion, and publishing. His first novel, The Serialist, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2010 and was named a finalist for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
Laura Henriksen
Laura Henriksen’s first book, Laura’s Desires, is forthcoming from Nightboat Books, and an excerpt is available now as a chaplet from Belladonna*. Her writing can be found in LitHub, The Brooklyn Rail, Newest York, and other places. Along with teaching at Pratt, she also works as the Program Director at The Poetry Project.
Silvina López Medin
Silvina López Medin was born in Buenos Aires and lives in New York. She has published five books of poetry including La noche de los bueyes (Loewe Foundation International Young Poetry Prize), 62 brazadas (City of Buenos Aires Poetry Prize), That Salt on the Tongue to Say Mangrove (tr. Jasmine V. Bailey, Carnegie Mellon University Press), and the chapbook Excursion (selected by Mary Jo Bang as the winner of the Oversound Prize). Her hybrid poetry book Poem That Never Ends was a winner of the Essay Press-University of Washington Bothell Book Contest. Her play Exactamente bajo el sol (staged at Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires) was granted the Plays Third Prize by the Argentine Institute of Theatre. She co-translated Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet and Robert Hass’s Home Movies into Spanish. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Hyperallergic, Lit Hub, BrooklynRail, Harriet Books/Poetry Foundation, and MoMA/post, among others. She is an editor at Ugly Duckling Presse.
Max Ludington
Max Ludington’s novel Tiger in a Trance was a New York Times Notable Book, and his fiction has appeared in Tin House, Meridian, HOW Journal, Nerve, and others. He received an MFA from Columbia University.
Megan Milks
Megan Milks (they/them) is the author of the novel Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body, finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction, and Slug and Other Stories, both published by Feminist Press in 2021; as well as Tori Amos Bootleg Webring, a personal history of early internet music fandom published by Instar Books as part of their Remember the Internet series. Their next book Mega Milk: On Family, Fluidity, Whiteness, and Cows, is forthcoming from Feminist Press in 2026. They live in Brooklyn and teach in the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pacific Northwest College of the Arts as well as at The New School and Pratt.
Anna Moschovakis
Books include They and We Will Get Into Trouble for This, You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets), and I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone (finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America); translations include Commentary by Marcelle Sauvageot (co-translated with Christine Schwartz-Hartley), The Jokers by Albert Cossery, and The Possession by Annie Ernaux; awards include the Howard Fellowship from Brown University’s Howard Foundation; the Holloway Fellowship from University of California, Berkeley; a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship; and two grants from the Poetry Fund.
Dianca Potts
Dianca London Potts earned her MFA in fiction from The New School. She is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a VONA Voices alumna, and the former online editor of Well-Read Black Girl. Her words have been featured in Lenny Letter, The Village Voice, Vice, Shondaland, and elsewhere. Her memoir, Planning for the Apocalypse, is forthcoming from 37 Ink / Simon and Schuster.
Christopher Rey Pérez
Christopher Rey Pérez is a poet from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. His book, gauguin’s notebook, received the 2015 Madeleine P. Plonsker Prize from Lake Forest College. His most recent publications include Compendio palestino-puertorriqueño en proceso, while in residence as a 2017-18 La Práctica fellow with Beta-Local; Aliens Beyond Paradise/ Alienígenas más allá del paraíso, a book on the alien as foreigner and extraterrestrial that was jointly published by Wendy’s Subway & Queens Museum; and Todo el amor del mundo con todas sus sangres y todos sus virus, an online essay in response to the coronavirus pandemic. His writings have appeared in Mexico, Brazil, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, the U.S., and China, and he has led poetry workshops with Ashkal Alwan’s Home Workspace Program, The Garden Library for Refugees & Migrant Workers in South Tel Aviv, Beta-Local’s La Iván Illich, Queens Museum, Wendy’s Subway, & Loudreaders Trade School. Since 2012, he has edited a nomadic publication in, of, and around Latin America, called Dolce Stil Criollo.
Eric Rosenblum
Eric Rosenblum’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Guernica Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, Playboy.com, and Dossier Journal. Eric holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Syracuse University and a BA in English from Ohio University.
Adrian Shirk
Adrian Shirk is the author of And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy (Counterpoint) a hybrid-memoir exploring the lives of American women prophets and mystics, as well as the forthcoming Heaven is a Place on Earth (Counterpoint, 2021). She works in a wide variety of creative nonfiction forms. Her essays appear frequently in Catapult, and have otherwise been published in The Atlantic, among others. She splits her time between the Catskills and an adjunct flophouse in Brooklyn.
Sofi Thanhauser
Sofi Thanhauser is the author of Threads: A People’s History of Clothing (Pantheon: January 2022). She has received fellowships and residencies at MacDowell, Ucross Foundation, and the Millay Colony for the Arts, and has contributed writing to The Establishment, Essay Daily, Wag’s Revue, The Spectator, whitehot magazine of contemporary art, The Conversant, Entropy, Dilettante Army, and Edible Vineyard, among other publications. She received her MFA in Nonfiction Writing and Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, and her B.A. in American History from Columbia University.
Gina Zucker
Gina Zucker grew up in Vermont, went to college in St. Louis, and has her MFA from The New School. Her fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in anthologies, journals and magazines such as Fantastic Women, Tin House, Tin House Online, Salt Hill, Elle, Self, and many other publications. She loves working with students, collaborating on cross-disciplinary projects, and is writing a novel.
Uljana Wolf
Uljana Wolf is a German poet and translator based in Brooklyn and Berlin. She published four books of poetry with kookbooks, most recently meine schönste lengevitch and SONNE FROM ORT, a collaborative erasure of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s sonnets with Christian Hawkey. English translations of her work appeared in three chapbooks, my cadastre (Norby Press), false friends (Ugly Duckling Presse) and ALIENS: an island (Belladonna*). Wolf received several grants and awards for her work, among them the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis for her debut, kochanie ich habe brot gekauft in 2006. Wolf translated numerous poets into German, among them John Ashbery, Charles Olson, Matthea Harvey, Christian Hawkey, Erín Moure, and Cole Swensen, and was the co-editor of the Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2009.