Creative Writing

Ishmael Reed

Poet, Novelist, Essayist, Songwriter, Composer, Playwright, Editor, and Publisher

One of America’s most significant literary figures, Ishmael Reed has published over 30 books of poetry, prose, essays, and plays, as well as penned hundreds of lyrics for musicians ranging from Taj Mahal to Macy Gray. His work is known for its satirical, ironic take on race and literary tradition, as well as its innovative, post-modern technique. Critic Robert Elliot Fox described Reed’s work: “In his writing, Reed is a great improviser, a master of collage with an amazing ability to syncretize seemingly disparate and divergent materials into coherent ‘edutainments’—forms...

Ted Purves

Artist, Writer, and Founder of the Social Practice Program at CCA

Ted Purves was an independent artist, editor, and curator. His work has been exhibited and published in many venues and journals throughout California, as well as in New York, Boston, Albany and several cities in Germany. Purves has won funding from the Creative Work Fund in San Francisco and the Headlands Center for the Arts and been an artist-in-residence at The Djerassi Colony and the Drawing Residency Program. He taught at the California College of The Arts in Oakland and Master of Arts and Consciousness Program in Berkeley. He received his MFA in Photography...

D.A. Powell

Poet and Professor at the University of San Francisco

Born in Albany, Georgia, D. A. Powell earned an MA at Sonoma State University and an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first three collections of poetry, Tea, (1998), Lunch (2000), and Cocktails (2004), are considered by some to be a trilogy on the AIDS epidemic. Lunch was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Cocktails was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His next two books were Chronic (...

Michael Pollan

Journalist and Professor of Non-Fiction at Harvard University

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers; three of them (including his latest, How to Change Your Mind) were immediate #1 New York Times bestsellers. Previous books include Cooked (2013), Food Rules (2009), In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), which was...

Katie Peterson

Poet and Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program at UC Davis

Katie Peterson is the author of Fog and Smoke, published by FSG in early 2024. Poems from the collection have appeared in the Atlantic, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the Yale Review, among other publications. Her previous book, Life in a Field (2021) is a collaboration with the photographer Young Suh. She is the author of other books of poetry: This One Tree (New Issues, 2006), Permission (New Issues, 2013), The Accounts (University of Chicago, 2013), and A Piece of...

Brittany Perham

Author and Professor of Creative Writing at Stanford University

Brittany Perham's most recent book, Double Portrait (W.W. Norton, 2017), was selected by Claudia Rankine for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She is also the author of The Curiosities (Free Verse Editions, 2012); and, with Kim Addonizio, the collaborative word/art project The Night Could Go in Either Direction (SHP, 2016). Her work has received support from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, the James Merrill House...

Lucie Pereira

Writer and Educator

Lucie Pereira is a multiracial writer and educator. She is a programs coordinator at the nonprofit 826 Valencia and was a 2020 Interdisciplinary Writers’ Lab fellow with Kearny Street Workshop. Her work can be found in sPARKLE + bLINK and Sidereal Magazine. She lives in San Francisco with her partner and their animal, Kristofferson the cat.

Dave Pell

Writer and Managing Editor of NextDraft

Dave Pell has been writing online for almost as long as the internet has existed. His popular newsletter NextDraft has over 140,000 subscribers. NextDraft covers the day’s ten most fascinating news stories, delivered with a fast and pithy wit.

Dave has been a syndicated writer on NPR, Gizmodo, Forbes, and Huffington Post. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from U.C. Berkeley, and his master’s in education from Harvard.

Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is also the Managing Partner at Arba, LLC. For more than a decade Arba has been...

Morgan Parker

ARC Fellow, Poet, Essayist, and Novelist

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night...

Cecilia Palmeiro

Writer, Activist, and Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Latin American Studies and Gender Theory at NYU in Buenos Aires

Cecilia Palmeiro is one of the founders of the transformative Latin American feminist movement Ni Una Menos, or “Not One Woman Less,” which organizes to end femicide and gender-based violence. The Ni Una Menos collective has been supported by Global Fund for Women since 2017. She is also a writer, literary critic, performer, feminist activist, and queer feminist theorist.

Palmeiro received her MA and PhD from Princeton University -Department of Spanish and Portuguese (2009) and a repatriation postdoctoral degree from CONICET- University of Buenos Aires (2012...