Creative Writing

Deena Chalabi

Writer, Curator, and Strategist
Deena Chalabi was a Moderator at the Syria’s Fraught Balance Conference at the Arts Research Center on February 19, 2020.

Deena Chalabi is a strategist, curator and writer whose work explores how individual expression and critical thought can impact and expand public imagination. She was most recently Senior Director of Growth and Partnerships at The OpEd Project, a global thought leadership initiative for elevating underrepresented voices working towards a more intelligent and inclusive world.

Deena is also Brand Advisor at Armory Square Ventures and teaches global...

Phillip Cash Cash

ARC Fellow, Scholar, Artist, Writer, and Traditional Healer
Phillip Cash Cash was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2023 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative, in collaboration with luk’upsíimey – he was chosen in the Community Fellow category.

Phillip Cash Cash is a niimíipuu (Nez Perce)/weyíiletpuu (Cayuse) human, an award winning Indigenous scholar, artist, writer, and traditional healer. He is a younger speaker of nimiipuutímt, the Nez Perce language, a severely endangered language. Cash Cash holds doctoral degrees in linguistics and anthropology. His creativity and inquiry are life-centered endeavors...

Kim Addonizio

Writer, Music-Maker, and Maquisard
Kim Addonizio gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2021, part of the Spring 2021 Flash Reading Series.

Kim Addonizio is the author of eight poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry: The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. Her poetry collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She also has two word/...

Chris Carlsson

Writer, San Francisco Historian, Photographer, Book & Magazine Designer
Chris Carlsson gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on July 17, 2015.

Chris Carlsson, is a writer, San Francisco historian, “professor,” bicyclist, tour guide, blogger, photographer, book and magazine designer. He’s lived in San Francisco since 1978 and has been self-employed in various capacities since the early 1980s. He has written four books (When Shells Crumble, Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes, and Radical Histories; After the Deluge; Nowtopia...

Carol Ann Carl

2023 ARC Fellow - Poetry & the Senses
Carol Ann was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2023 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative, in collaboration with University of Hawaiʻi – she was chosen in the Community Fellow category.

Carol Ann Carl is a daughter of the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. In 2020, she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa. Storytelling and writing are personal forms of pedagogical healing. Professionally and creatively, Carol Ann leans into the intersectionality of her identity – indigeneity, science, health,...

Zoya Brumberg-Kraus

Scholar, Editor
Dr. Zoya Brumberg-Kraus was a Visiting Scholar Panel Participant at the Berkeley/Stanford Symposium at the Arts Research Center on April 7, 2018.

Dr. Zoya Brumberg-Kraus is a scholar-writer and editor located in the Detroit Metro Area. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Art Studio from Mount Holyoke College. In 2023-24, Brumberg-Kraus was a Research Fellow at the Frankel Center for Advanced Judaic Studies for the theme year Jewish...

William Brewer

Novelist, Professor, Former Stegner Fellow
William Brewer gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2021, part of the Spring 2021 Flash Reading Series.

William Brewer’s debut novel, The Red Arrow, is out from Knopf. It received the Silver Medal for First Fiction from the California Book Awards. His first book, I Know Your Kind, was a winner of the National Poetry Series. His work has appeared in A Public Space, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Sewanee Review, and other journals. Formerly a Stegner Fellow, he’s currently a Jones Lecturer...

Naomi Bragin

Dancer, Artist, Writer, Scholar
Naomi Bragin was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2015 – she was chosen in the Graduate Fellow category.

Naomi Bragin is a dancer, writer, wanderer, wonderer—collaborating with other artists to heal and recreate worlds.

Black Power of Hip Hop Dance: On Kinethic Politics, her current writing project, tells stories of streetdances created by youth living in California during the 1970s Funk & Disco eras, whose everyday artistry helped set foundations for global contemporary...

reelaviolette botts-ward

Poetry and the Senses Fellow and Postdoctoral Scholar in American Studies at UC Davis
reelaviolette was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2021 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – she was chosen in the Graduate Fellow category.

reelaviolette botts-ward is a homegirl, an educator, and a nontraditional multimedia artist from Philadelphia, PA. She is currently a doctoral candidate in African Diaspora Studies researching Black women’s healing spaces in Oakland. ree centers “everyday round the way Blackgirl methodology” to theorize creative innovation in the wake of displacement. Founder of blackwomxnhealing, ree curates healing circles and exhibitions for and by...

Natasha Boas

Contemporary Art Curator, Writer, Critic
Natasha Boas was a Visiting Lecturer who lectured at the Thinking Through the Arts and Design at Berkeley Spring 2017 Lecture Series and Art of Cultural Criticism Fall 2016 Lecture Series.

Natasha Boas is a French-American contemporary art curator, writer, and critic. She has taught art history and curatorial studies at Yale, Stanford, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Her exhibition on the Modernist Algerian artist, Baya MahieddineBaya: Woman of Algiers in 2018 at the...