Visiting Writers & Artists – 2016

VICTORIA AARONS
Victoria Aarons holds the O.R. & Eva Mitchell Endowed Chair in Literature at Trinity University, where she teaches courses on American Jewish and Holocaust literatures. Among other titles, Victoria Aarons is the author of A Measure of Memory: Storytelling and Identity in American Jewish Fiction and What Happened to Abraham?: Reinventing the Covenant in American Jewish Fiction, both of which received a Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Book. Her work has appeared in a number of scholarly journals, essay collections, and reference works, including the two-volume compendium Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work.Dr. Aarons is guest editor for a special issue of Philip Roth Studies titled Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud: Texts of a Relationship. She is on the editorial board of several scholarly journals and was an invited scholar at the Conference in Honor of Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel's 80th Birthday, hosted by Boston University's Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, where she spoke on "Bearing the Weight of History: Trauma and Narrative Fragmentation.” Jewish American & Holocaust Literature Symposium

ELMAZ ABINADER
Elmaz Abinader is a poet, memoirist, playwright and novelist. Her first memoir, Children of the Roojme, a Family’s Journey from Lebanon, chronicles three generations of immigrants battling dislocation and tradition. The poetry collection, In the Country of My Dreams… won the 2000 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry award. She was also awarded a Goldies Award for Literature, as well as two Drammies (Oregon’s Drama award) for her three-act one-woman show, Country of Origin. Elmaz most recently performed Country of Origin at the Kennedy Center and has toured several countries with this play and two others: Ramadan Moon and 32 Mohammeds. Elmaz’s work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The New Anthology of American Poetry, Vol. 3 and The Colors of Nature. Elmaz has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow to Egypt, taught for the Palestine Writing Workshop and a resident at the El Gouna Writing Residency on the Red Sea. Elmaz is one of the founders of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, (VONA/Voices), now in its 15th year providing workshops for writers of color. Presented in partnership with VONA Voices.

SHAMS AHMED
Shams Ahmed is a masterful arranger, music director, and educator from Cherry Hill, NJ. He is a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston, where he directed SoJamX and 2013 ICCA Champions, The Nor'easters and founded Pitch, Please, while double majoring in Finance and Mandarin. During his tenure, the group picked up several compilation placements and CARA awards, and Shams earned more arranging awards than any other collegiate arranger. Additionally, Shams delved into the world of musical theater, music directing community productions of RENT, A Tale of Two Cities, and Spring Awakening. He is currently living in Boston, arranging music for The Vocal Company and coaching local a cappella groups. [@shadnaushad] The Betsy A Cappella Festival 2016

WILLIAM ALEXANDER
William Alexander won the National Book Award for his debut novel, Goblin Secrets, and won the Earphones Award for his narration of the audiobook. His other novels include Ghoulish Song, Ambassador, and Nomad. William studied theater and folklore at Oberlin College, English at the University of Vermont, and creative writing at the Clarion workshop. He teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Like the protagonist of Nomad and Ambassador, William is a second-generation Latino immigrant to the US. Presented in partnership with The Betsy Writers for Young Readers Program.

FRANCISCO ÁNGELES
Peruvian writer, journalist and scholar born in Lima-Peru. He is currently based on Philadelphia, writing academic work at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published three novels "La línea en medio del cielo" (2008), "Austin, Texas 1979" (2014), "Plagio" (2016); and the short stories "Hollywood en doble función" (co-authored with Fernando Ampuero, illustrated by Peruvian artist Jugo Gástrico). Since 2005, he co-directs the digital journal "El Hablador". The Betsy Escribe Áqui Festival

WILLIAM ARCHILA
Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, poet William Archila immigrated to the United States in 1980 to escape his native country’s civil war. He earned an MFA at the University of Oregon. His poems engage themes of social justice, brutality and identity. Archila is the author of the poetry collections The Art of Exile (2009), which won the Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer’s Center as well as the International Latino Book Award, and The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (2013), which won the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. His poetry is also featured in the anthologies Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (2001) and New to North America: Writing by U.S. Immigrants, Their Children and Grandchildren (1997). Archila lives in Los Angeles. Presented in partnership with FIU Writer's on the Bay Series.

ANDREA ASSAF
Andrea creates original performances – from page to stage, language to embodiment, political consciousness to poetic sensibility. Art2Action supports new work by women, artists of color, and GLBTQ-identified artists and allies, from devised theater, to interdisciplinary performances, to community-based arts and performative acts. Current projects include Eleven Reflections on September, a poetry and multi-media performance on Arab American experience, wars on/of terror, and the "constant, quiet rain of death amidst beauty" that each autumn brings in a post-9/11 world. Also touring in 2012-13, Outside the Circle, a new play about sexuality and (dis)ability that she is co-creating with playwright-performer Samuel Valdez, directed by Dora Arreo. Presented in partnership with Tigertail SpeakOut.

SHAUNA BARBOSA
Shauna Barbosa’s poems have appeared in the Minnesota Review, A Bad Penny Review, Sundog Lit, The Awl, and PANK. She is currently pursuing an MFA at Bennington College. You can find her at shaunabarbosa.com.

EMANUELEE BEAN
Emanuelee "Outspoken Bean" is a performance poet, compassionate mentor and dedicated educator. Bean travels the country performing his original works and inspiring young creative minds. He is a Texas Poet Laureate nominee, ranked 9th in the Individual World Poetry Slam 2013, ranked 2nd in collaborative poetry at Group Piece Finals 2013 and, is ranked 11th at National Poetry Slam 2014 (both with Houston VIP). He started performing spoken-word in 2005. In his senior year at Prairie View A&M, Bean founded and coached the University’s first poetry slam team. In their first year, they won the title in their region and grabbed the 8th place ranking in the country at College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI '08). Bean has also worked with the Harris County Department of Education, Houston’s Young Audiences: Arts for Learning and Texas Commission for the Arts, and Houston Grand Opera. He serves as the Project Coordinator, Lead Coach and mentor for Meta-Four Houston, a project under Writers in the Schools' WITS Performance program. Tigertail WordSpeak, 2/21-26/16

JAN BECKER
Jan Becker is from a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. She didn’t stay there very long. She grew up in a Marine Corps family, on military bases all over the United States. She is currently an MFA candidate at Florida International University and has taught courses there in composition, technical writing, creative writing and poetry. Her work has appeared in Emerge, Brevity Poetry Review, Sliver of Stone Magazine, and The Florida Book Review. She is a regular contributor to the online journal Selfies in Ink and has read for Lipservice: True Stories Out Loud.

MICHAEL BERENBAUM
Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the development of historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) where he is also a Professor of Jewish Studies. In the past he has served as the Weinstein Gold Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chapman University, the Podlich Distinguished Visitor at Claremont-McKenna College, the Ida E. King Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies at Richard Stockton College for 1999–2000 and the Strassler Family Distinguished Visiting Professor of Holocaust Studies at Clark University in 2000. Presented as part of Holocaust Education Week, 2016.

ALAN BERGER
Alan L. Berger occupies the Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies, the first Holocaust chair established in the state of Florida, and is Professor of Judaic Studies at Florida Atlantic University where he also directs the Center for the Study of Values and Violence After Auschwitz. Berger founded and directed the Holocaust and Judaic Studies B.A. Program at FAU (1998-2005). Prior to this, he was a professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University where he founded and directed the Jewish Studies Program. While at Syracuse, Berger served as Acting Chair of the Religion Department and Interim Chair of the Fine Arts Department. He also was the Visiting Gumenick Professor of Judaica at the College of William and Mary. Berger has chaired the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, and guest chaired the Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust Conference in 1998 and 2010. He was series editor of “Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust,” Syracuse University Press (1998-2004). JAHLIT 2016

FRANK BIDART
Frank Leon Bidart, Jr., was born in 1939 in Bakersfield, California, where he grew up, in his words, “obsessed with his parents.” After he was graduated from the University of California, Riverside, he attended graduate school at Harvard University. He formed a close relationship with poet Robert Lowell while residing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and soon after began to write poetry with a style and content distinctive from those of his illustrious mentor. In 1972, Bidart accepted a position at Wellesley College, later becoming Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English. Presented in partnership with National Poetry Month and O, Miami.

VANESSA BLAKESLEE
Vanessa Blakeslee's debut short story collection, Train Shots (Burrow Press) is the winner of the 2014 IPPY Gold Medal in Short Fiction. The book was also long-listed for the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and has been optioned for a feature film by producer/director Hannah Beth King. Vanessa's writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Green Mountains Review, The Paris Review Daily,The Globe and Mail, and Kenyon Review Online, among many others. Finalist for the 2014 Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, she has also been awarded grants and residencies from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Banff Centre, Ledig House, the Ragdale Foundation, and in 2013 received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Vanessa earned her MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Born and raised in northeastern Pennsylvania, she is a longtime resident of Maitland, Florida.

RICHARD BLANCO
Richard Blanco is the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exiled parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity and place characterize his body of work. He is the author of the memoirs The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood and For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey; the poetry chapbooks Matters of the Sea, One Today, and Boston Strong; the poetry collections Looking for the Gulf Motel, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and City of a Hundred Fires; and a children’s book of his inaugural poem, “One Today,” illustrated by Dav Pilkey. With Ruth Behar, he recently co-created Bridges to/from Cuba: Lifting the Emotional Embargo, a blog providing a cultural and artistic platform for sharing the real lives and complex emotional histories of thousands of Cubans across the globe. Blanco’s many honors include the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press, the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center, the Paterson Poetry Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and two Maine Literary Awards. The Academy of American Poets named him its first Education Ambassador in 2015. He has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Fresh Air. He has been a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and received honorary doctorates from Macalester College, Colby College, and the University of Rhode

ANA CECILIA BLUM
Ana Cecilia Blum realizó sus estudios primarios y secundarios en el convento Stella Maris del Puerto de Manta; en 1989 para continuar con los estudios universitarios se trasladó a Guayaquil, su ciudad natal, donde se tituló como licenciada en Ciencias Políticas y Sociales por la Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte mientras integraba el taller literario de la Casa de la Cultura Núcleo del Guayas, dirigido por los escritores Miguel Donoso y Mario Campaña. Durante estos años también se inscribió en la Universidad Católica para tomar clases de teoría literaria. Ha sido invitada a leer su poesía en la Biblioteca del Congreso de los Estados Unidos dentro del marco del encuentro literario La Pluma y la Palabra en Washington D.C.; ha participado en varios festivales literarios en América y Europa, entre ellos el Encuentro de Poetas Iberoamericanos en Salamanca, y la Feria Internacional del Libro de Miami.Escribe Aqui Festival 2016

LILIANA V. BLUM
Liliana V. Blum was born in Durango, Mexico. She is the author of The Curse of Eve and Other Stories, forthcoming from Host Publications. English translations of her stories have appeared in various literary journals, including Eclectica, Mslexia, storySouth, Blackbird, and "The Dirty Goat.” She received her bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Kansas and her master's degree from Tec de Monterey. Blum has lived in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas since 1997. In 2005, Her story "Kisses on the Forehead" was selected for storySouth's Million Writers Award Notable Stories. Liliana Blum (Mexico, 19xx) is not one of those women who refuse to reveal their date of birth; she just likes coincidences. So that she was born the same year that Heinrich Böll’s The lost honor of Katharina Blum was published, is a great one. Liliana is a ginger who suffered through her childhood from that old Mexican pinch-the-redhead-in-the-arm-for-luck belief. She was born in Durango (famous for its scorpions, revolutionaries and narcos). She's the author of the short story collections La maldición de Eva (2003), ¿En qué se nos fue la mañana? (2006), Vidas de catálogo (2007), The curse of Eve and other stories (2008), El libro perdido de Heinrich Böll (2008), Yo sé cuándo expira la leche (2011), and No me pases de largo (2013).The Betsy Escribe Aqui Iberoamerican Festival

PAULA BOHINCE
Paula Bohince is the author of three poetry collections, all from Sarabande: Swallows and Waves (January 2016), The Children (2012), and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods (2008). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, POETRY, The TLS, The Irish Times, Australian Book Review, and elsewhere. She has been the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholar, the Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place, a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Clampitt House Resident, the inaugural Summer Poet in Residence at the University of Mississippi, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and a Hawthornden Fellow. She has received the "Discovery"/The Nation Award, the Grolier Poetry Prize, the George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and Second Prize in the UK National Poetry Competition for her poem "Among Barmaids." She has taught at New York University, the New School, The Poetry School, and elsewhere. Presented in partnership with SWWIM.

BEN BRAM
Ben is an esteemed arranger, music director, and producer from Los Angeles. A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, Ben sang with, arranged for, and directed three-time ICCA champions the SoCal VoCals. Since college, Ben has been working musically behind the scenes of The Sing-Off, Pitch Perfect, Glee, The Voice, and Modern Family, as well as arranging for various groups all over the world. Ben has had a hand in assembling multiple groups for The Sing-Off, including The Backbeats, Delilah, and most notably season 3 champions Pentatonix, who he continues to work with as an arranger, producer, and engineer.

PABLO BRESCIA
Pablo Brescia was born in Buenos Aires and has lived in the United States since 1986. He has published two books of short stories Fuera de Lugar/Out of Place (Peru, 2012/Mexico, 2013) and La apariencia de las cosas/The Appearance of Things (México, 1997), and a book of hybrid texts No hay tiempo para la poesía/NoTime for Poetry (Buenos Aires, 2011), with the pen name Harry Bimer. Some of his stories are collected in ESC (Miami, 2013) and Gente ordinaria/Ordinary People (Mexico, 2014). His blog is Preferiría (no) hacerlo/I Would Prefer (Not) To http://pablobrescia.blogspot.com. He teaches Latin American Literature at the University of South Florida and likes philosophy, movies, soccer, tennis and music, not necessarily in that order. Escribe Aquí Festival 2016

JOANNA CARDENAS
Joanna Cárdenas is Associate Editor at Viking Children's Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, where she acquires and edits picture books, chapter books, and middle grade novels. Among other projects, Joanna edited Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) by Julie Falatko and illustrated by Tim Miller, Archie the Daredevil Penguin by Andy Rash, and the upcoming Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya. Joanna is a San Diego native and former bookseller. For more information, visit https://www.pinterest.com/jomariecardenas/or follow Joanna on Twitter @joannananamc. To learn more about Viking, please visit http://www.penguin.com/meet/publishers/vikingchildrensbooks/.

ANDRES CARDENES
The Cuban-born violinist Andrés Cárdenes has won international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for his solo violin, conducting, viola, chamber music, concertmaster and recorded performances. Since taking Second Prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, he has appeared as soloist with over one hundred orchestras on four continents, including those of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, St Louis, Moscow, Bavarian Radio, Helsinki, Shanghai, Caracas and Barcelona. He has collaborated with many of today’s greatest conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir André Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Sir Andrew Davis,Gerard Schwarz, David Zinman and Manfred Honeck. Presented in partnership with Miami Music Festival 2016.

INDIA CARNEY
India Carney is a singer, songwriter, vocal arranger, and actress whose talents embrace a wide range of musical genres from opera to musical theater to pop. A native of Brooklyn, NY, Carney is best known for her television appearances as the Top 5 featured artist on NBC "The Voice" Season 8. Carney sang alongside Grammy-award winner Christina Aguilera, American pop artist Jason Derulo, opened for The Roots at the 26th Annual JazzReggae Festival in Los Angeles, CA, and was a featured artist at The Apollo Theater (NY), John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (DC), The Rose Bowl (Pasadena, CA), Madison Square Garden (NYC) and Yankee Stadium for the New York Yankees. Carney serves as an adjudicator on the inaugural selection committee for A Cappella Education Association (AEA) "Come Together" compilation. Carney served as music director (2015) and instructor/counselor (2014) at the A Cappella Academy (co-founder Avi Kaplan, Pentatonix). As a former member of the award-winning UCLA ScatterTones A Cappella Group, Carney was music director for two years and earned Outstanding Soloist and Arrangement awards at multiple ICCA competitions. A graduate of UCLA, Carney earned her B.A. in Music with a Music Industry Minor. Carney is a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts and YoungArts Winner in Voice & Theater.[@indiacarney] The Betsy A Cappella Festival 2016

FRANKLIN COHEN
Principal Clarinet of The Cleveland Orchestra since 1976, Franklin Cohen has distinguished himself as one of the outstanding clarinetists of his generation. His playing has been described as “hypnotic, impeccable, brilliant… with a vocal quality that would be the envy of any singer.” He first gained international recognition and acclaim when, at the age of 22, he became the first clarinetist awarded First Prize at the International Munich Competition (the other first prize that year went to soprano Jessye Norman). Since then, Mr. Cohen has enjoyed an illustrious career as soloist, recitalist, recording and chamber artist, pedagogue and orchestral principal.

ALFRED CORN
American author Alfred Corn has published ten books of poems, including Stake: Selected Poems, 1972-1992 (1999) and, most recently, Unions (2014). He has also published a novel, Part of His Story, a study of prosody The Poem’s Heartbeat, and two collections of critical essays, The Metamorphoses of Metaphor and Atlas: Selected Essays, 1989-2007. His second novel, Miranda’s Book, will be published in late 2014. As a graduate student in French literature, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study for a year in Paris. For his poetry, he has received Guggenheim, NEA, and NYFA fellowships, an Award in Literature from the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and the Dillon, Blumenthal, and Levinson Prizes from Poetry magazine.

RIO CORTEZ
Rio Cortez is a Pushcart-nominated poet, who has received fellowships from Poet's House, Cave Canem and Canto Mundo Foundations. She was a recipient of the Sarah Lawrence College Lucy Grealy Prize in Poetry and the 2012 Poets & Writers Amy Award. She is a graduate of the MFA program at New York University and co-founder of the Good Times Collective. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of journals, including Cortland Review, Prairie Schooner, Huizache, Sugar House Review, and Chorus: A Literary Mixtape. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, she daylights in Children's Publishing. Rio lives in Queens, NY. Cave Canem 2016 Residency Winner.

SILVIA CURBELO
Born in Matanzas, Cuba, poet Silvia Curbelo emigrated to the United States with her parents as a child. Her poems couple the personal with the elemental, overlaying collective and individual paths. Her poetry collections include The Geography of Leaving(Silverfish Review, 1991), The Secret History of Water (Anhinga Press, 1997) and Falling Landscape (Anhinga Press, 2015). Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Body Electric: America’s Best Poetry from the American Poetry Review (2000), Snakebird: Thirty Years of Anhinga Poets (2004), and the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010). Curbelo has served as the editor of Organica Quarterly and is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Florida Arts Council, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the Cintas Foundation, the Seaside Foundation, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, as well as Mid-American Review’s James Wright Award and American Poetry Review’s Jessica Nobel Maxwell Memorial Prize. She lives in Tampa.

KRISTINA MARIE DARLING
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over twenty collections of poetry and hybrid prose, which include PETRARCHAN (2013), X MARKS THE DRESS (2013, with Carol Guess), FORTRESS (2014), THE SUN & THE MOON (2014), GHOST / LANDSCAPE (2016, with John Gallaher), and DARK HORSE (2017), forthcoming from C & R Press. Her books have been described by literary critics as “haunting,” “mesmerizing,” and “complex.” Poet and Kenyon Review editor Zach Savich writes that her body of work is a “singularly graceful and stunningly incisive exploration of poetic insight, vision, and transformation.” Donald Revell writes of her SELECTED POEMS, “Here is a new tradition, alive in bright air.” Kristina’s books have also been reviewed widely in literary magazines, including The Boston Review, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, The Colorado Review, The Mid-American Review, Pleiades, and The Southern Humanities Review.

CARLA DELLA GATTA
Carla Della Gatta is an Assistant Professor of Critical Studies at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. She has published essays in collected editions from Oxford University Press and Palgrave Macmillan, and in journals such as Shakespeare Studies, and Bulletin of the Comediantes. She has also published reviews in Shakespeare Bulletin, Shakespeare, Theatre Journal, and Sixteenth Century Journal. With an emphasis on the performance of culture, her dissertation was entitled “Shakespeare & Latinidad: The Staging of Intracultural Theatre.” It explored how Latino culture is constructed dramaturgically and textually in recent Shakespearean adaptations and productions. Escribe Aquí Festival 2016

NATALIE DIAZ
Natalie Diaz was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. She earned a BA from Old Dominion University, where she received a full athletic scholarship. Diaz played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion to earn an MFA. She is the author of the poetry collection When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), which New York Times reviewer Eric McHenry described as an “ambitious … beautiful book.” Her honors and awards include the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from Bread Loaf, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. Presented in partnership with Home School Miami.

ROBERT DIETZ
Robert Dietz has been arranging, performing, and teaching contemporary a cappella music at all levels for over ten years. His career began in high school as director of the critically acclaimed group, Ascending Height, with whom he produced the first all-original high school a cappella album. Robert has studied at both the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney, Australia, and at the Ithaca College School of Music in Ithaca, New York where he directed the award winning all-male group, Ithacappella. In addition, Robert has been a member of the creative team for seasons three, four, and five of NBC’s The Sing-Off. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA where he sings locally with Jazz/Soul group, Level and tours nationally with The Funx. He is a co-founder of A Cappella Academy, and you can find his work online at www.human-feedback.com. [@rdietz55] The Betsy A Cappella Festival 2016

TANANARIVE DUE
Tananarive Due is a contemporary novelist who interweaves powerful themes and dilemmas among African Americans into unconventional story-telling. Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida on January 5, 1966. Her parents, John and Patricia Stephens Due, met at Florida A&M and were civil rights activists. John was a prominent attorney who eventually headed Leon County's Office of Black Affairs while her mother participated in many protests and sit-ins that led to injuries and in one instance 49 days in jail. As a child Due became a target of racism while living in white neighborhoods where she felt unsafe. These early experiences would impact her writing style in the future.

DAVID FIELD
David Field is a 2015 graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he majored in English with a Creative Writing focus. While at school he served as co-president for the college’s student-run literary magazine, Slate, and oversaw its 2012 publication. He has been writing since he was in first grade and has completed work on three unpublished novels, one of which – titled Suburban Train – began as his senior thesis project at Trinity. His self-published book, Curious Incidents: a Collection of Poe and Doyle Remixes, was written as part of the Watkinson Library Fellowship at Trinity and reimagines the classic stories of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle in new and contemporary settings. Today he is a member of the Grub Street writing community in Boston. His long-term goal is to earn an MFA and teach creative writing on the college level while continuing to write and publish his works. Trinity College Hyam Plutzik Residency Recipient 2015

CARLA FORTE
Carla Forte is a performer, scriptwriter and film director. Forte is the founder and Executive Director of Bistoury Physical Theatre and Film. She has directed internationally featured Video-Art works such as Interrupta, Official Selection at 27th Festival Les Instants Vidéo 2014. Her cinematographic work includes the Feature Film ANN, Official Selection Social Machinery Film Festival 2016; the documentary The Holders, which World Premiered at the Miami International Film Festival 2015; Short films "Imaginarium" and "Reset" selected for Cannes film festival's Short Film Corner; as well as the feature film Urban Stories, Winner of Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Feature Film at Bootleg Film Festival in Toronto; and Honorable Mention at both Los Angeles Movie Awards and Lucerne International Film Festival, Switzerland.

CARLA FUENTES
Carla Fuentes is a Spanish artist based in Madrid. She’s currently living her dream: working and doing what she loves at the same time. Fuentes has illustrated for so many cool magazines such as Nylon Mx, Vogue Spain, Nero, Yen Mag, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. With quirky lines and paint she creates fantastic characters which invite us to know more about her personal and amazing world. Presented as part of The Betsy's Escribe Aquí Festival 2016.

ROBERT GANT
Robert Gant began acting in television commercials and joined the Screen Actors Guild at the age of ten in his home state of Florida. He attended undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania and law school at Georgetown University. While studying law, he never gave up on his true passion, acting, and performed in numerous theatrical productions. Interestingly, it was his career as an attorney that brought him to Los Angeles when he accepted a position with the world's largest law firm. In a twist of fate, the firm's Los Angeles office was closed soon after. Taking that as an omen, he made the decision to focus all of his time on acting. The decision was a good one. In 2001 Grant was cast in Showtime's hit television series, "Queer as Folk” and other popular television and independent movie productions. Gant was the recipient of a special civil rights award presented to him in New York's City Hall, and has been recognized for his efforts in philanthropy and outreach for the LGBT Elder community.

CRISTINA GARCÍA
Cristina García is the author of seven novels, including: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, The Lady Matador’s Hotel, King of Cuba, and the forthcoming Berliners Who (read an excerpt in the latest issue of New Letters Magazine). García has edited two anthologies, Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. García’s work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into fourteen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. García has taught at universities nationwide. The Betsy Escribe Aqui Iberoamerican Festival

RENEE GLADMAN
Born in Atlanta, poet, novelist, and publisher Renee Gladman earned a BA at Vassar College and an MA in poetics at the New College of California. Gladman, whose work has been associated with the New Narrative movement, composes prose and poetry that tests the potential of the sentence with mapmaking precision and curiosity. Author of the poetry collection A Picture-Feeling (2005), Gladman has also published several works of prose, including Event Factory (2010), The Activist (2003), Juice (2000), and Arlem (1994). She has edited Leon Works, an experimental prose chapbook series, as well as the Leroy chapbook series. Gladman lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Brown University.

CHRISTINE GOERKE
Soprano Christine Goerke has appeared in the major opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, San Francisco Opera, and Washington National Opera, to name just a few. She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire, beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now moving into the dramatic Strauss and Wagner roles, and has won numerous awards including two Grammy Awards and the Richard Tucker Award. Ms. Goerke is Artist in Residence in partnership with the Miami Music Festival 2016.

MIRA GONZALEZ
Mira Gonzalez is an American poet from Los Angeles, California. Her first collection, I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together, was published by Spencer Madsen of Sorry House press on January 31, 2013. According to one source, she writes about "drugs, sex, loneliness, laziness, recklessness, self-loathing" in an "extremely humorous and warm manner." Filmmaker and screenwriter Lena Dunham wrote in The Guardian that Gonzalez's book I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together was one of her favorite books for 2014, and that it brings "experimental poetry into the internet age with dark, distinctly female riffs on ambition, depression and love." Gonzalez has been published in Vice, Hobart, and Muumuu House. Flavorwire named her one of "23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry in 2013.” Presented as part of The Home School Miami Beach.

RIGOBERTO GONZALEZ
Rigoberto González is the author four books of poetry, most recently Unpeopled Eden, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His ten books of prose include two bilingual children’s books, the three young adult novels in the Mariposa Club series, the novel Crossing Vines, the story collection Men Without Bliss, and three books of nonfiction, includingButterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He also edited Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and Alurista’s new and selected volumeXicano Duende: A Select Anthology. The recipient of Guggenheim, NEA and USA Rolón fellowships, a NYFA grant in poetry, the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Poetry Center Book Award, and the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award, he is contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine and is professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. In 2015, he received The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle. The Betsy's Escribe Aquí Festival, 2016

XIMENA GONZALEZ
Ximena Gonzalez is a holistic health coach, television personality, author and frequent speaker on nutrition and fitness. For three years she hosted daily segments on nutrition & fitness on Telemundo’s morning show “Cada Día”. She has hosted and appeared on several other shows in the Latin media. She writes frequently on health and fitness; her work has appeared in many print and online publications. She has published several ebooks as well as the book Lose Weight in Nature in 12 Easy Steps. She is currently finalizing a book on wellness scheduled for publication in 2016. In her appearances and writing, Gonzalez often shares her first-hand experiences with the intense pressures and bullying women face to look a certain way. In addition to experiencing these demands as a television personality, she frequently works with celebrity clients and helps them to navigate these same pressures. A native of Colombia who lived in Miami for several years, Ximena currently resides in the Dominican Republic. Presented as part of Fashion Project Bal Harbour Shops.

ALEX GREEN
Alex Green is a recording engineer, producer, and arranger from New York City He is a graduate of Tufts University with a dual degree in Music and Archaeology, where he sang with and directed the Tufts Amalgamates and with whom he recorded 2011's Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award (CARA)-winning Hands Off The Mannequin. He is a co-owner and producer at Plaid Productions, a full-service a cappella production company with dual home bases in Brooklyn, NY and Somerville, MA. Clients of Plaid Productions have had songs featured on SING, BOCA, Voices Only, and have garnered over 100 CARA nominations. Since graduating in 2010, he has regularly served as a master clinician and instructor at a cappella festivals nationwide, as well as singing with Overboard (Boston, MA) and writing for the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB). @atothegreen The Betsy A Cappella Festival 2016

ROLAND GREENE
Roland Greene is The Mark Pigott KBE Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. Greene's research and teaching are concerned with the early modern literatures of England, Latin Europe, and the transatlantic world, and with poetry and poetics from the Renaissance to the present. His most recent book is Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes (Chicago, 2013). Five Words proposes an understanding of early modern culture through the changes embodied in five words or concepts over the sixteenth century: in English, blood, invention, language, resistance, and world, and their counterparts in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Presented in partnership with Shakespeare First Folio at FIU.

I.W. GREGORIO
I. W. Gregorio is a practicing surgeon by day, masked avenging YA writer by night. After getting her MD, she did her residency at Stanford, where she met the intersex patient who inspired her debut novel, None of the Above (Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins), which is finalist for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award, a Spring 2015 Publishers Weekly Flying Start, an ALA Booklist Top Ten Sports Book for Youth, and a 2015 ABC Children’s Group Best Book for Young Readers. It was also named to the 2016 American Library Association Rainbow List and is under development as a TV series by Lifetime. She is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books™ and its former VP of Development. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and Journal of General Internal Medicine. A recovering ice hockey player, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children. The Betsy Writers for Young Readers Series.

WENDY GUERRA
Wendy Guerra (born 11 December 1970), formally Wendy Guerra Torres Gomez de Cadiz, is a Cuban poet and novelist. After a career acting in Cuban film and television, she turned to writing and won recognition more readily in international circles than within Cuba. Her works have been translated into thirteen languages. She has been described as "a kind of diva of contemporary Cuban literature". Presented in partnership with VONA Voices.

ALAN HELD
Recognized internationally as one of the leading singing actors today, American bass-baritone, Alan Held, has appeared in major roles in the world’s finest opera houses, including The Metropolitan Opera, The Vienna State Opera, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Paris Opera, The Bavarian State Opera, Teatro alla Scala, among many others. He has performed with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, and has appeared at the Salzburg and Tanglewood Festivals, as well as the BBC Proms. Mr. Held is serving as the Artist in Residence for the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at The Washington National Opera during the 2015-2016 season and also at The Wolf Trap Opera Company during their summer, 2016 season. Presented as part of the Miami Music Festival 2016.

ASDRUBAL HERNANDEZ
Asdrúbal Hernández is the founder and president of Sudaquia Editores. Based in New York, Sudaquia Editores publishes great new and recent works of Latin American literature to cater for the Spanish speaking market in the States and beyond. Thanks to them, works from Venezuelan authors including Fransisco Massiani, Hector Torres, Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles, Gisela Kozak, Lucas García, José Urriola, Salvador Fleján, Slavko Zupcic and more are now easily and cheaply available throughout the world.Escribe Aqui Festival 2016

JUAN FELIPE HERRERA
The son of migrant farm workers, Herrera was educated at UCLA and Stanford University, and he earned his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His numerous poetry collections include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1999). In addition to publishing more than a dozen collections of poetry, Herrera has written short stories, young adult novels, and children’s literature. In 2015 he was named U.S. poet laureate. Presented in partnership with O, Miami.

SYDNEY HODKINSON
A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Sydney Hodkinson received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Eastman and continued his studies at the Princeton Seminars. He received his doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1968. Before returning to Eastman as a faculty member in 1973, Dr. Hodkinson taught at the universities of Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as serving as artist-in-residence in Minneapolis through a grant from the Ford Foundation Contemporary Music Project. Among his many compositions are Tilt, an overture for orchestra commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic for its 75th anniversary, and String Quartet No. 3, commissioned by the Ying, Lafayette, and Cassatt String Quartets and funded by the Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer Project. In addition to the Ford Foundation grant, Dr. Hodkinson has received awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Canada Council, National Endowment for the Arts, International Congress of Jeunesses Musicales, Louisville Orchestra, and Danforth Foundation. Upon his retirement from Eastman in January 1999, Dr. Hodkinson was named Professor Emeritus of conducting and ensembles. Presented in partnership with FIU MBUS.

MAJOR JACKSON
Major Jackson is an American poet, professor and the author of three collections of poetry: HOLDING COMPANY (W.W. Norton, 2010) and HOOPS (W.W. Norton, 2006), both finalists for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry and LEAVING SATURN (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle. He is also a recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont and a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. He served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell and currently serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review. Presented in partnership with National Poetry Month and O, Miami.

GRETTEL JIMENEZ-SINGER
Nació en La Habana, Cuba, en 1973. A los 12 años abandonó la isla con su familia y luego de dos años en Venezuela, se instaló en Miami. Estudió Filosofía y Literatura en Florida International University. Edita el blog "Mujerongas" y colabora con diferentes revistas digitales. Reside actualmente en Nueva York. Todas las piezas que componen este libro tienen como protagonista a la mujer, o más bien, cierta fascinación por la naturaleza femenina y sus diferentes matices. Lo mismo en crónicas que abordan en tono confesional, desprejuiciado y con sentido del humor varios temas que afrontan las mujeres a diario, que en relatos intimistas donde se indaga sin tapujos en las diversas capas de la pasión femenina, o en los recuerdos de una casa de acogida para mujeres colocadas en situaciones límite, las protagonistas indiscutibles de estas páginas son siempre grandes mujeres que no se definen desde lo competitive sino desde lo aventurero; “mujerongas”, que son no sólo las corpulentas, sino las desgarradas y las atrevidas. Escribe Aqui Festival 2016

DAVID SCOTT KASTAN
David Scott Kastan is a leader in the field of Renaissance literature and, particularly, a Shakespearean scholar. Kastan teaches at Yale University, and has written or edited numerous texts on Renaissance literature and the works of Shakespeare. Kastan is in Miami as part of the exhibition tour of First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on view at Florida International University Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum in February 2016. Presented in partnership with Shakespeare First Folio at FIU.

AMIR KATZ
Born in Israel in 1973, Amir Katz first began his piano studies with Hanna Shalgi at age eleven. At the age of fifteen, he was already playing with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. After winning several national competitions and receiving a scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Clairmont Award, Katz moved to Europe, supported by other fellowships, including a DAAD grant, to continue his studies. He performs in the most distinguished halls in Europe, Asia and North America, such as the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Rudolfinum in Prague, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Lincoln Center New York. Additionally, he has given concerts at international music festivals, such as the Savannah Music Festival, the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, as well as the Oleg Kagan Musikfest Kreuth. Presented in partnership with Miami Int'l Piano Festival.

KATHLEEN KELLY
Kathleen is the University of Michigan’s first Coach/Conductor of Opera at the School of Music, Theater, and Dance. As a pianist, Kelly has appeared nationally and internationally as a recital accompanist. She is a Master Teacher for the University of Michigan’s first Coach/Conductor of Opera at the School of Music, Theater, and Dance. Kelly is also the Conductor of the Alexandria Symphony 2016-17 Season. Presented in partnership with Miami Music Festival 2016.

AFFINITY KONAR
Affinity Konar was raised in California. While writing MISCHLING, she worked as a tutor, proofreader, technical writer, and editor of children's educational workbooks. She studied fiction at SFSU and Columbia. She is of Polish-Jewish descent, and currently lives in Los Angeles. Reading at The Betsy, 11/15/16

STEPHAN KOPLOWITZ
Stephan Koplowitz is an award winning director / choreographer / media artist. He is the recipient of a 2004 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (Dance), a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography in addition to a 2000 New York Dance and Performance Award, “Bessie” for “Sustained Achievement” in Choreography. Koplowitz is also the recipient of six National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships from (1988-97). After living in New York City for 23 years, Koplowitz, in 2006, was appointed dean of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts, Los Angeles) where he currently resides. In addition to his role as dean, Koplowitz is on faculty and teaches advanced choreography and MFA seminar classes. He is a contributor to the first book on site-specific choreography, Site Dance, published by Florida University Press.

LAURA KRAMER
Laura Kronheim Kramer is a recently retired speech pathologist from the Prince William County School District in northern Virginia. After four and a half years at PWCS, thirteen years at the Shaker Heights City Schools (Ohio), and ten years at various pediatric settings, she decided to retire from writing formal reports and Individualized Education Plans and, instead, focus on her passion - writing fictional stories for both adults and children. She has completed Books 1 and 2 of a three-part sci-fi trilogy for adults and is currently working on Book 3. In between her trilogy, she works on her children’s literature. Laura received degrees in Speech-Language Pathology and Education at the University of Michigan and Audiology at Cleveland State University. When not connected to her computer, you’ll find her exploring the world with her husband, children, and grandchildren. She is very excited about her connection with The Writer’s Room.

GESA MACKENTHUN
Gesa Mackenthun is Professor of American Studies at Rostock University, Germany. Her publications include Fictions of the Black Atlantic in American Foundational Literature (2004), Metaphors of Dispossession. American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire, 1492-1637 (1997), and Sea Changes. Historicizing the Ocean (co-edited with Bernhard Klein, 2004). In 2006, she founded the graduate school “Cultural Encounters and the Discourses of Scholarship” at Rostock University (German Research Foundation) and has co-edited seven research volumes on various aspects of this problematic (including Entangled Knowledge. Scientific Discourses and Cultural Difference, 2012, and Fugitive Knowledge, 2015). Her current research deals with nineteenth-century travel and archaeology and the scientific construction of American antiquity. Presented in partnership with Bavarian American Literature Conference.

SEBASTIÁN MARINÉ
Sebastián Mariné was born in Granada in 1957. He studied Piano with Rafael Solis, Composition with Roman Alís and Anton Garcia Abril, and Conducting with Isidoro García and Enrique García Asensio Polo in the Madrid Royal Conservatory. At the same time, he graduated in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid. As a concert pianist, Mariné has given recitals throughout Spain, plus France, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Germany, etc., both as a duo piano solo instrumental and vocal performers. Since 1979, he is professor at the Madrid Royal Conservatory and the School of Music "Reina Sofía" since its founding in 1991. He has taught courses analysis for music teachers at the University of Alcalá de Henares and various Spanish and American conservatories. Presented in partnership with FIU MBUS New Music Festival.

SAMPSON McCORMICK
Sampson McCormick is a nationally touring, award winning, stand up comedian, writer and activist who can make audiences double over in laughter whether he's joking about his whacky and beloved, Aunt Jackie, his twink neighbor or addressing homophobia, poverty, and religion. For over a decade, he has been a favorite at LGBT pride festivals and mainstream venues alike. His screen appearances include BET, MTV's "Real World", and the Oprah Winfrey Network. He is also the author of two books "Ebonic Faggotry", and "Taboo Village: A Perspective on Being Gay In Black America" and is at work on his third. He's also released three live stand up comedy albums, including his latest "That Bitch Better Be Funny: Live at the Howard Theater", where he made history, becoming the first openly gay comedian to headline the famous venue. Other prestigious venues that he has headlined include The White House, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The World Famous Comedy Store in Hollywood, CA and Harvard University. Presented in partnership with Arts at St. John's.

ANA MENÉNDEZ
Ana Menéndez is the author of four books of fiction: Adios, Happy Homeland!, The Last War, Loving Che and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, whose title story won a Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan and India, where she was based for three years. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times and Tin House and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from New York University. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she now lives in Surfside, Florida. Escribe Aquí Festival 2016

CHRIS MILLIS
Chris Millis is a prize-winning novelist, screenwriter, producer, cartoonist, and best-selling celebrity collaborator. His first novel, Small Apartments (Anvil Press, 2001), won the 23rd Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, which Playboy Magazine called "a coffee-fueled, plot-weaving, literary juggernaut." Canada's prestigious Globe and Mailsaid of Small Apartments: "brisk and compact ... surprisingly expansive thematic breadth, a thoughtful, silly yet serious study in goofy pathos. Millis holds a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College, Vermont and a B.A. in Studio Art from S.U.N.Y Buffalo State College. Along the way, Millis has worked as an art director, daily editorial cartoonist, editor, sportswriter, and hot dog vendor on the hardscrabble streets of Buffalo, NY. Presented with The Betsy Screenwriters' Workshop.

DAVID MILLS
David Mills is a writer and actor who has worked professionally in the dramatic and literary communities for more than a decade. For three years, he lived in Langston Hughes’ landmark home where he was inspired to create a one-person dramatic rendition of Hughes’ poems and short stories. He has two collections of poetry: The Dream Detective, a small-press bestseller, and The Sudden Country, a finalist for the Main Street Rag Prize. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Fence, Jubilat, Callaloo, and elsewhere. Mills was commissioned to write a play for Julliard, the narration for Deborah Willis’ exhibition, “Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers” and for I Giullari Di Piazza’s folkdance piece, “Tarantella. Presented in partnership with Arts at St. John’s.

VIKTORIA MODESTA
Viktoria Modesta is a bionic artist, multimedia performance artist, creative director, DJ, and a supporter of future innovations. Her work explores modern identity through performance, fashion, avant-garde visuals, technology, and science. Her mission remains to explore the future depths of human experience. Presented in partnership with FIU CARTA/MBUS

DAVID MURA
David Mura is a writer, memoirist, poet and performance artist who brings a unique perspective to our multi-racial and multi-cultural society. A third-generation Japanese-American, he has written intimately about his life as a man of color and the connections between race, sexuality and history. In public appearances interweaving poetry, performance and personal testament, he provides powerful insights into the racial issues facing America today. Mura's memoirs, poems essays, plays and performances have won wide critical praise and numerous awards. Their topics range from contemporary Japan to the legacy of the internment camps and the history of Japanese Americans to critical explorations of an increasingly diverse America. He gives presentations at educational institutions, businesses and other organizations throughout the country. Presented in partnership with VONA Voices.

MICHAEL NORSWORTHY
Michael Norsworthy has given over 150 world premieres with leading contemporary music groups. Currently, Norsworthy is Professor of Clarinet & Bass Clarinet, Woodwind Department Chair and Director of Contemporary Music Performance at the Boston Conservatory and has presented masterclasses at various universities. He has served as artist in residence at Harvard University with the Harvard Group for New Music and was on the artist faculty at Columbia University. He is also the Massachusetts State Chairman for the International Clarinet Association. Mr. Norsworthy holds advanced degrees from New England Conservatory and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and has attended Michigan State University. His teachers include Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, Eric Mandat, Kalmen Opperman and Richard Stoltzman. He is the recipient of many awards and distinctions, among them: The John Cage Award, Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award and Southern Illinois University’s Chancellor’s Research and Creativity Award, grants from the Yvar Mikahashoff Trust for New Music, St. Louis Artist Presentation Society and St. Botolph Club Foundation and a fellowship from the Aspen Music Festival. Presented in partnership with FIU NODUS New Music Festival.

TIM O'BRIEN
Tim O'Brien is from small town Minnesota. Graduation in 1968 from Macalester College found him with a BA in Political Science and a draft notice. O'Brien was against the war, but reported for service and was sent to Vietnam. After Vietnam, he became a graduate student at Harvard. Having the opportunity to do an internship at the Washington Post, he eventually left Harvard to become a newspaper reporter. Tim O'Brien is now a visiting professor and endowed chair at Southwest Texas State University where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program. He is on the advisory board for The Ridenhour Prizes. 2016 FIU Writers on the Bay Award Recipient.

DAVID ORR
David Orr writes the column “On Poetry” for the New York Times Book Review. He is the author of Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry (HarperCollins, 2011). And Justice For All

ROBERT PINSKY
Robert Pinsky was born and raised in Long Branch, New Jersey. He graduated from Long Branch High School, as had his parents, and went on to college at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and then to graduate work at Stanford, where he held a Stegner Fellowship. His Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux) was published in 2011. His previous books of poetry include Gulf Music (2008),Jersey Rain (2000), The Want Bone (1990) and The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996. His best-selling translationThe Inferno of Dante (1994) was a Book-of-the-Month-Club Editor's Choice, and received both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. His prose books include The Life of David (2005), The Situation of Poetry (1976) and The Sounds of Poetry (1998). Among his awards and honors are the William Carlos Williams Prize, the Harold Washington Award from the City of Chicago, the Italian Premio Capri, the PEN-Volcker Award and the Korean Manhae Prize. He recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the PEN American Center. Robert Pinsky founded The Favorite Poem Project, including the videos that can be seen atwww.favoritepoem.org, while serving an unprecedented three terms as United States Poet Laureate. Presented as part of National Poetry Month 2016.

CRISTIAN PROA
Cristian Proa was born in Mexico City. He is a Film director and writer who has participated in various seminars and has worked alongside teachers like Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Meirelles, Mary Sweeny, Rafael Perrin, German Robles, Josefo Rodriguez and sculptor Javier Marin. Proa is the Founder and Director of "MUESTRA DE CINE 1910,” which is credited with more than 70 directors from around the world projecting in countries like USA, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Mexico and Germany. Proa’s films have been shown around the world and have been selected for various international festivals. Cristian Proa is preparing for his second feature "BLIND,” which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey. In addition, he is creating "REFLECTIONS,” a cinematic movement with 6 directors, with a focus on impacting the independent film industry in Miami. The Betsy's Escribe Aquí Festival, 2016

NADAV REMEZ
Hailing from the outskirts of Tel Aviv, guitarist Nadav Remez is one of today’s emerging voices on the New York Jazz scene. Described as “an unassuming artist with a penchant for indie rock... forging a style built on understatement, logic and clarity,” Remez has established himself as a standout among a new crop of Israelis making waves in the jazz world, through his haunting guitar melodies and compositions that offer an intriguing combination of modern jazz, Jewish folk, and alternative rock. (mostly jazz) at The Betsy, 11/10/16

JUDITH RITTER
Judith Ritter is an award-winning independent radio and print journalist whose reports from Canada, China, India, Europe, the Caribbean and the U.S. cover travel, science and technology, business, entertainment and international development. Her stories have aired on National Public Radio, Public Radio International, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Canada International and World Vision Report. Her print stories have appeared in places such as The Globe and Mail, The National Post and The Boston Globe.

MICHAEL ROSSI
Michael Rossi is a rising star in the next generation of conductors. He recently made debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa as well as the First Annual PepsiCo National Young Artist Competition with the Charleston Symphony. Last season, he was reengaged by the Philadelphia Orchestra to conduct a performance of Handel's Messiah and will return to the Charleston Symphony this season for performances of Handel's Messiah and 2nd PepsiCo Competition. As an opera conductor he made his international debut conducting Plácido Domingo and the Chinese National Opera Orchestra in Beijing in a live television broadcast and his Washington National Opera Main Stage Debut conducting Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. He also led the WNO Orchestra for a production of Hansel & Gretel, the first National Endowment of the Arts Opera Honors, and the orchestra’s Strathmore Hall Debut concert. In 2011, he made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the premiere of Marcos Galvany’s opera Oh My Son and has recently recorded the album that will be released in late 2014. He returns to WNO this fall to conduct a performance of Puccini's La Boheme. Presented in partnership with Miami Summer Music Festival.

VINCENT SCATLIFFE
Vincent Scatliffe possesses over 10yrs of design, leadership development, and brand management experience in multinational, civil society, life coaching and educational sectors. He is a highly creative, collaborative, and intuitive leader with a proven background in designing, developing and leading large scale brand strategies that refocuses and uplifts the people, culture, policies, and systems of an organization. Vincent is a disruptive visionary who is effective in global and multicultural settings. He has worked with entrepreneurs, educators, community and business leaders, and grassroots advocates to develop effective communications for their brand in the USA, Caribbean and Europe. He has proven strengths in design development, project management, and social impact. Vincent studied Industrial Design at Rhode Island School of Design, Product/Global/Luxury/Graphic Design at Strate College Designers in France, Product Development at MIT in Massachusetts and Product Management at General Assembly in California. Born into a Caribbean family from Tortola, British Virgin Islands, Vincent currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He is an inspirational leader championing community progress through creativity, innovation and design. Presented in partnership with Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator.

STEVEN SNYDER
Born in 1949 in the small prairie town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, to depression-era parents, Steven Snyder formed two habits: accumulating items of value—tools, wood, wire, money—and learning useful skills through observation and trial and error. His compulsory “collecting” began as an attempt to reduce waste and plays a major role in my current art making practice. After a career in real estate and 20 years of renovation projects could no longer fulfill creative impulses, Snyder delved back into a fine arts practice. He began painting, woodworking and making photographs, eventually adding a studio to his home. Today, Snyder lives and works in Santa Fe, NM. Presented in partnership with TransArt 2016.

LOLITA STEWART-WHITE
Lolita Stewart-White is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Pushcart nominee. She was a semi-finalist for the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize and the Rattle Poetry Contest. Lolita was also a Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Fellow and the winner of ‘Pitch Miami’ sponsored by the Women’s International Film Festival for her screenplay ‘All-American.’ Her writing has appeared in theIowa Review, Callaloo, Brilliant Corners, Kweli and many others. She lives in Miami with her husband and seven-year-old daughter, Lola.

KATHLEEN SUPOVÉ
In May 2012, Supové received the John Cage Award from ASCAP for “the artistry and passion with which she performs, commissions, records, and champions the music of our time.” Kathleen Supové is one of America's most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, known for continually redefining what a pianist/keyboardist/performance artist is, in today's world. Ms. Supové presents solo concerts under the title of THE EXPLODING PIANO. Recent and upcoming projects include recording the complete PIANO MINIATURES by Mohammed Fairouz; a performance at Southbank Centre, in London, of URBAN BIRDS by Arlene Sierra for the UK's New Music Biennial; a multi- composer commissioning project entitled DIGITAL DEBUSSY to be recorded for the Innova label in 2015; and a CD on the Starkland label.

ELIZABETH SCANLON
Elizabeth Scanlon is an editor of The American Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Boston Review, Colorado Review, andPloughshares, and in the anthologies Starting Today: Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days and Poets Against the War. Presented in partnership with National Poetry Month and O, Miami Poetry Festival.

DAVID HENRY STERRY
David Henry Sterry is the author of 16 books, a performer, muckraker, educator, activist, and book doctor. His first was a memoir called Chicken, about when he was 17, and being taught existentialism by bunch of nuns at Immaculate Heart College, while being sucked into the illegal underground sex business in Hollywood.  His second memoir was called Master of Ceremonies, about when he was the master ceremonies at a nightclub called Chippendale’s in the mid-80s, when it was the hottest show in the world.  It’s about being the ugliest man at the center of a world filled with the most beautiful men in the world.  While falling madly in love with the woman he married,  he also wrote several novels, books of nonfiction and poetry.  He in fact started as a poet, and poetry has always been in his blood. “(Poetry) absolutely informs all of my writing,” says David. As a poet he has been published everywhere from Santa Monica Review to Madison Review to Coe Review.  David is also an activist, who writes regularly for the Huffington Post.  

JAMES SUTTON
Dr. James Sutton holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies from Yale University. As a professor at Florida International University, Dr. Sutton teaches Renaissance English literature – Shakespeare and his contemporaries, focusing on the intersection of literature, architecture and design, and political life.

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS
An award-winning composer, Augusta Read Thomas’s impressive body of works embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry. The New Yorker Magazine called her "a true virtuoso composer." Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. An influential teacher at Eastman, Northwestern, Tanglewood, and Aspen Music Festival, she is only the16th person to be designated University Professor at The University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence for Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez with the Chicago Symphony from 1997 through 2006, a residency that culminated in the premiere of Astral Canticle – one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. During her residency, Thomas not only premiered nine commissioned works, but was central toward establishing the thriving MusicNOW series. Presented in partnership with FIU MBUS New Music Festival.

AYANNA THOMPSON
Ayanna Thompson is Professor of English at George Washington University, and she specializes in Renaissance drama and issues of race in/as performance. She is currently working on a book about Peter Sellars’s approach to directing Shakespeare, and a book on Shakespeare and revenge. Professor Thompson has served as a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America and as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars. ESCRIBE AQUÍ FESTIVAL 2016

JENNIFER THORNDIKE
Jennifer was born in Lima, Peru. She is an scholar and writer. Currently she is a PhD candidate in Hispanic Studies at University of Pennsylvania. Her main interests are biopolitics, bio-economy and bio-value as theoretical frame; and body, sickness and madness in Contemporary Latin American Literature and Cinema; everyday political activism and power relationships among vulnerable subjects. She has published two fictional books and has been part of several Peruvian and Latin American short story collections. In addition, she has been invited to important book fairs such as FIL Guadalajara, FILBO, FIL Lima, among others. She presented papers in NeMLA, LASA and Universidad Federico Villareal. She has also written articles about literature and media in several journals. In 2016 she will publish her second novel by Penguin Random House. Presented in partnership with Escribe Aquí Festival 2016.

BRIAN TURNER
Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before serving for seven years in the U.S. Army. He was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Then in November 2003 he was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. His first book, Here, Bullet, chronicles his time in Iraq. Turner has been featured on National Public Radio, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and the BBC. He has received a NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship and a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. Turner has taught English at Fresno City College and currently directs the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.

THRITY UMRIGAR
Thrity Umrigar is the best-selling author of the novels Bombay Time, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, The Weight of Heaven, The World We Found and The Story Hour. She is also the author of the memoir, First Darling of the Morning. Her books have been translated into several languages and published in over fifteen countries. She is the Armington Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

CRISTINA VALDES
Committed to both contemporary and standard repertoire, Cristina Valdés is known for presenting innovative concerts with repertoire ranging from Bach to Xenakis. She has performed across four continents and in multiple venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Jordan Hall and the Kennedy Center. An avid chamber musician, Cristina has toured extensively with the Bang On a Can “All Stars” and has performed with the Seattle Chamber Players, the Mabou Mines Theater Company, the Parsons Dance Company, Trio V and the award-winning chamber music group, Antares. She has also performed as concerto soloist with the Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, the Binghamton Philharmonic, the Eastman BroadBand and the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. Cristina can be heard on the Newport Classics, Albany and Innova labels. Currently, Cristina resides in Seattle where she is the founder and director of the SLAM Festival, and serves as an Artist in Residence on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Music. Presented in partnership with FIU MBUS New Music Festival.

SANTIAGO VAQUERA-VÀSQUEZ
Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez is an unrepentant border crosser, ex-dj, writer, painter, and academic. An Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Hispanic Southwest Literatures and Cultures in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico, he has also taught and lectured at universities across the United States and in Spain. Author of four collections of short stories, Algún día te cuento las cosas que he visto (2012), Luego el silencio (2014), One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen(2015), and En el Lost y Found (2016). His literary work has been published in anthologies in Spain, Italy, Latin America and the United States, including Malos elementos. Relatos sobre la corrupción social(2012); En la frontera: i migliori raconti della letteratura chicana (2008); Pequeñas resistencias 4 (2005);Se habla español (2000); and Líneas aéreas (1998). His stories have also appeared in literary journals including Make Literary Magazine, Etiqueta Negra, Los noveles, Paralelo Sur, Revista 0, Camino Real, and Ventana abierta. The Betsy Escribe Aquí Iberoamerican Festival

DAN WAKEFIELD
Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist and screenwriter whose best-selling novels "Going All The Way" and "Starting Over" were produced as feature films, and he created the NBC prime time TV series "James at 15." A documentary film has been produced of his memoir "New York in the Fifties. His non-fiction books on spirituality include "Returning: A Spiritual Journey;" "Creating from The Spirit;" "The Story of Your Life: Writing a Spiritual Autobiography," "Expect a Miracle," and "How Do We Know When It's God ?: A Spiritual Memoir."

BARRETT WATTEN
Barrett Watten is Professor of English at Wayne State University and cofounder of the Bavarian-American Academy graduate exchange program. He is the author of The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics (winner of the 2004 René Wellek Prize, ACLA) and Questions of Poetics: Language Writing and Consequences (University of Iowa Press, 2016), as well as numerous volumes of poetry, including Frame (1971-1990), Bad History, and Progress/Under Erasure. With Carrie Noland, he co-edited Diasporic Avant-Gardes (Palgrave, 2008); and with Lyn Hejinian, he is co-editor of A Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field, 1982-98 and Poetics Journal Digital Archive (Wesleyan University Press, 2013/15). Presented in partnership with Bavarian American Literature Conference.

DEBORAH WILLIS
Deborah Willis, Ph.D., is chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Professor Willis and has an affiliated appointment as University Professor with the College of Arts and Sciences, Africana Studies also at NYU. Professor Willis has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Fletcher, and MacArthur fellowships, the Infinity Award in Writing from the International Center for Photography, and recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award. Named one of the "100 Most Important People in Photography" by American Photography magazine she is one of the nation's leading historians of African American photography and curators of African American culture. Willis's books include Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, with Barbara Krauthamer, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, and many others.

SARIT YISHAI-LEVI
Sarit Yishai-Levi, a journalist and author, was born in Jerusalem in 1947 to a Sephardic family that has lived in the city for seven generations. She studied at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio and later at Tel Aviv University. Before turning to journalism, Yishai-Levi acted in theater and film for several years. Later, she was a correspondent for various Israeli newspapers and magazines, including At, Monitin, HaOlam HaZeh and Hadashot​; she also hosted Hebrew TV and radio programs in Los Angeles. At present, she is a senior correspondent for Olam Ha’Isha magazine and hosts TV shows on tourism and lifestyle. Yishai-Levi has published four non-fiction books. Her first novel, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, a bestseller in Israel, received the Publishers Association's Gold and Platinum Prizes (2014) and the Steimatzky Prize for best-selling book of the year (2014). It is now being made into a feature film.

ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA
Alejandro Zambra was born in Santiago de Chile in 1975. He is the author of two books of poems (Useless Bay, 1998, Moving, 2003), The Collection of Essays Not Read (2010), the storybook My Documents (2013) the "workbook" Facsimile (2014), and three novels, published by Editorial Anagrama simultaneously in Spain and Latin America and translated into more than ten languages: Bonsai (2006), The Private Life of Trees (2007), and Ways to return home (2011). Some of his short stories and articles have appeared in magazines such as Letras Libres, Chimera, Babelia, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, McSweeney's, Tin House, Vice, The Virginia Quarterly Review and Rattapallax (United States). His work also appears in several anthologies published in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Germany and the United States. Presented as part of Escribe Aquí / Write Here.

EUGENIA ZUKERMAN
Hailed by the press as “one of the finest flutists of our time,” Eugenia Zukerman is an internationally renowned recitalist and soloist, who also continues with a dramatic schedule as a writer, artistic director, television journalist, educator and internet entrepreneur. She studied English at Barnard College and received a B.M. from The Juilliard School where she studied with the renowned flutist Julius Baker. An Emmy nominated arts correspondent for more than 350 profiles of artists, musicians, theatre and dance on CBS TV NEWS' SUNDAY MORNING, Ms. Zukerman has appeared on a variety of other television programs, including PBS's Charlie Rose Show, CBS Morning Show, and NBC’s Today Show. Ms. Zukerman’s list of writing credits includes two novels, two non-fiction books, screenplays, and articles and book reviews in such prominent periodicals as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire and Vogue.