Ellie Wymard, Ph.D.

Ellie Wymard, Ph.D., the director of the Master of Fine Arts program, is a professor of English at Carlow University and the author of Talking Steel Towns: The Women and Men of America's Steel Valley, soon available from Carnegie Mellon University Press; Conversations With Uncommon Women: Insights from women who've risen above life's challenges to achieve extraordinary success (AMACOM, 1999); Men On Divorce (Hay House, 1994); and Divorced Women, New Lives (Ballantine, 1990). Conversations was also translated and published in South Korea.

Her critical essays on Kate Chopin, Barbara Pym, J.F. Powers, Annie Dillard, John Irving, John Fowles and Mary Gordon are published in academic journals, such as Modern Fiction Studies, Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, Studies in Short Fiction, Cross Currents, Commonweal and The Month (London, England). A recent example is "The Quest for Ritual and Celebration in the Comedic World of Barbara Pym," in "All This Reading: The Literary World of Barbara Pym" (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and London: Associated University Presses, 2004).

As an author, she has appeared on radio and television shows throughout the United States and spoken before professional and general-interest groups on topics related to her books. For The Critic she wrote a series of essays based on interviews with Anna Quindlen, Alice McDermott, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lee Smith, Mary Higgins Clark and Jane Coleman, among others. Before an audience of 1,200, she interviewed Amy Tan for the Drue Heinz Lecture Series in Pittsburgh.

Ellie Wymard has an earned doctorate in American literature from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been a Distinguished Speaker for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council Commonwealth Speakers Program.

Writers

Nationally recognized writers who have been associated with Carlow's MFA program include:

• David Baker is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Changeable Thunder, well as two critical books. His poems and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, DoubleTake, The Georgia Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry.

• Jan Beatty's second collection of poems, Boneshaker, was published in 2002 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her first book, Mad River, won the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

• Philip Beard is the author of the highly acclaimed first novel, Dear Zoe, which was both a Book Sense and Borders “Original Voices” pick. He is a 1985 graduate Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colgate University, where he studied writing with Frederick Busch. While attending law school at the University of Pittsburgh, he continued taking writing workshops with Lewis Nordan. His second novel is scheduled for release by Viking in late 2006.

• Jane Candia Coleman is the only woman to receive three Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame for her first two collections of poetry. She has published 21 books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Five of her books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

• Janice Eidus is a novelist, short story writer, and editor. Her books include Urban Bliss, The Celibacy Club, Vito Loves Geraldine and Faithful Rebecca. She is co-editor of an anthology, It’s Only Rock and Roll. She has published numerous short stories and essays in a wide variety of periodicals and anthologies.

• Robert Gibb won a National Poetry Series Award in 1997 for his book The Origins of Evening. He has published five other books of poems including The River at Night. Approximately 500 of his poems have appeared in magazines and journals, he has numerous appearances in anthologies, and he has published several chapbooks of poems.

• Dinty Moore’s creative nonfiction books include two published by Algonquin Press. The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment and Sitting Still and The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes: The Naked Truth About Internet Culture. His third book Dad, Interrupted was published in 2004.

• Ann Townsend is the author of two collections of poetry, The Coronary Garden and Dime Store Erotica. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Nation, Witness, and The Georgia Review.

• Marion Winik has published four books of creative nonfiction, including memoir, personal essays, and advice for young people. The Lunch-Box Chronicles won Child Magazine’s Best Parenting Book of 1998. She broadcasts short personal essays on All Things Considered (National Public Radio).