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The Faculty

Marist Summer Writing Institute faculty hold terminal degrees in their field and have considerable experience teaching at the university level. Our goal at SWI is to create a writing community where individual participants can work on their own craft with confidence and creativity. Our workshop faculty are dedicated to that goal.

Sarah Harwell (Poetry)

Sarah Harwell is Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University, where she also teaches workshops in poetry and fiction writing. Her collaborative book, Three New Poets, was published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2006, and her poems have appeared widely in national journals such as Poetry and Stone Canoe.

Baker Lawley (Fiction)

Now in his fourth summer with SWI, Baker Lawley teaches writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Previously he taught at the University of Alabama, where he also worked as editor of Alabama Heritage magazine. His most recent story appears in the cutting-edge literary magazine, Oyster Boy.

Anne Geller (NonFiction)

New to SWI last year, Anne Ellen Geller joined the faculty at St. John's University in 2007, having previously taught at Clark University for eight years. As Director of Writing Across the Curriculum in the Institute for Writing Studies, she works with faculty from all disciplines to support the teaching of writing at all levels of instruction in all departments.

Lea Graham (Assistant Director)

New to SWI and to Marist College last year, Lea Graham's work has been published in the Notre Dame Review, the Worcester Review, and Near South. Recently she received the Kinnicutt Award, a travel grant for women artists, with which she traveled in Costa Rica, "all stars and sea turtles." An interview she conducted with the Chicago poet Michael Anania is forthcoming in Paper Streets, and her chapbook CALENDAR GIRLS will be out soon from STANZAS Press. A native of Northwest Arkansas, "home of the Razorbacks or C.D. Wright, depending on your tastes," she previously taught poetry and travel writing at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Tommy Zurhellen (Director )

Tommy Zurhellen heads the Creative Writing program at Marist College. His fiction and essays have appeared in Quarterly West, Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. His story collection, Motel de Love No. 3, was a finalist for the McDonald Prize in 2004.