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Let us introduce you to StoryStudio Chicago's talented, creative, and encouraging faculty of writers. Our instructors are experts in their fields, published writers, and active players in Chicago's literary scene. We also host visiting writers for single-session classes and retreats.
Scroll through instructor bios for our Creative Writing Classes, or see the Words for Work business storytelling and writing team.
Abby Geni
is the author of The Lightkeepers, winner of the 2016 Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Chicago Review of Books Awards, and The Last Animal read more...
is the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review of Books, a digital media publication devoted to literature and culture. He writes about place, books, and read more...
Aleksandar Hemon
is the author of The Book of My Lives, The Making of Zombie Wars, and The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and read more...
Alexander Chee
is the author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, forthcoming from Houghton read more...
Alison Murphy
is a writer and military brat whose work can be found in Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, and Provincetown Arts. Her novel, Balagan, read more...
Amanda Goldblatt
is a writer, teacher, and editor, whose stories and essays can be found, or are forthcoming, at The Southern Review, the Fanzine, Hobart, American Short Fiction, FENCE, read more...
Amin Ahmad
was raised in India and educated at Vassar College and M.I.T. His essays and stories have been published in literary magazines and listed in read more...
Amy Bernhard
holds an MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program. Her essays appear in VICE, Catapult, The Rumpus, Hazlitt, Ninth Letter, read more...
Anca Szilágyi
Anca L. Szilágyi's debut novel is Daughters of the Air. Her work appears or is forthcoming from Los Angeles Review of Books, Fairy Tale Review, and Lilith read more...
Andrew Pederson
Andy Pederson is a playwright and professor. His plays have been produced in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis, Indianapolis, and several other places. He read more...
Anna Scott
holds a degree in literary journalism from Boston University and a master's in humanities and creative writing from the University of Chicago. She spent eight read more...
Annette Gendler
is the author of Jumping Over Shadows, the true story of a German-Jewish love that overcame the burdens of the past. Her writing and photography have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Tablet Magazine, Kveller, Bella Grace and read more...
Audie Shushan
is a writer, teacher, and bookseller. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from the University of Washington, where she won the 2014 Eugene Van Buren Prize read more...
Audrey Petty
has taught creative writing at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Knox College, Northwestern University and Portland State University. Her poems have read more...
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Call Me Zebra (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction and long-listed for read more...
Baird Harper
's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Mid-American Review, CutBank, Best New American Voices 2009 and 2010, and The Chicago read more...
B.A. Shapiro
is The New York Times bestselling author of The Muralist, The Art Forger, The Safe Room, Blind Spot, See No Evil, Blameless, and read more...
Ben Hoffman
's fiction has won the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award, been published by American Short Fiction, Granta, and Zoetrope, and been named among the read more...
Benjamin Dreyer
, author of the New York Times bestseller Dreyer's English, is vice president, executive managing editor and copy chief, of Random House. He began his read more...
Bess Winter
's work appears in American Short Fiction, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ecotone, W.W. Norton's Flash Fiction International, and elsewhere, and has been read more...
Beth Nyland
is a communications consultant and founder of Spencer Grace LLC. Her employer/client list includes Accenture, Lands' read more...
Billy Lombardo
has been teaching high school since 1984. He has coached tennis and baseball on and off through those years, and has raised two boys into good men. billy is the read more...
Blair Hurley
is the author of THE DEVOTED, published by W.W. Norton, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her work is published or forthcoming read more...
Boris Fishman
is the author of A Replacement Life and Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo (HarperCollins), both New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He has won the Sophie Brody read more...
Britteney Black Rose Kapri
is a poet, teaching artist, petty enthusiast and Slytherin from Chicago. Currently she is an alumna turned Teaching Artist Fellow at Young Chicago Authors. She read more...
Bruce Owens Grimm
's essays have appeared in The Rumpus, The Kenyon Review online, Ninth Letter, The Poetry Foundation's Harriet Blog, Older Queer Voices, and read more...
C. Russell Price
is an Appalachian genderqueer punk poet originally from Virginia. Their chapbook "Tonight, We Fuck The Trailer Park Out Of Each Other" was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in read more...
Caitlin Horrocks
is author of the novel The Vexations, coming out July 30, 2019 from Little, Brown. Her story collection This Is Not Your City was a New York read more...
Charles Finch
is the author of the bestselling Charles Lenox mysteries, including most recently The Inheritance. His first contemporary novel, The Last Enchantments, is also read more...
Christine Sneed
is the author of the novels Paris, He Said and Little Known Facts, as well as the story collections Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry and read more...
Chris Castellani
Christopher Castellani's fourth novel, Leading Men, is forthcoming from Viking in February 2019. He is also the author of The Art of Perspective, a read more...
Claire Zulkey
For ten years, maintained a freelance side hustle while working a day job completely unrelated to writing. She continued this side hustle while working as a writer at the read more...
Claire Dederer
is the author of two critically acclaimed memoirs: Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning and Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, which was a New York Times read more...
Cyn Vargas
' short story collection, On The Way, received positive reviews from Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Heavy Feather Review, Necessary Fiction, among read more...
Dan Sheehan
is an Irish fiction writer, journalist, and editor. His writing has appeared in The Irish Times, GQ, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, TriQuarterly, read more...
Dana Kaye
received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. After college, she worked as a freelance writer and book critic. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, read more...
Dana Norris
is the founder and host of Story Club, a monthly Live Lit show for stories. She performs around Chicago with Mortified, The Paper Machete, The Kates, Essay read more...
, PhD, is the author of WHITE PLAINS, a novel-in-stories published by Conundrum Press that Ron Carlson has called "a glowing set of stories, like late night messages sent from a read more...
David Stuart MacLean
is a PEN/American award-winning essayist. His essays and stories have been featured in The New York Times, the Guardian UK, Newsweek, Ploughshares, and on read more...
is the author of Everyone Who Is Dead (Spork Press, forthcoming) and a chapbook, It Is Such a Good Thing to Be In Love with You (The Laurel read more...
Deborah Siegel
Denise Santomauro
is a writer, performer, editor, and teaching artist. She has contributed content to several blogs, been published in the Dear Sister anthology, developed read more...
Dionna Griffin-Irons
is Director of Diversity and Inclusion for The Second City U.S. and Canada. A Second City Detroit alumnus with 18+ years experience as performer, producer and facilitator, read more...
Dipika Mukherjee
is an internationally touring writer and sociolinguist. Her work has appeared in journals in the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and India and she is the read more...
Ellen Blum Barish
is author of the essay collection, Views from the Home Office Window, and just completed a memoir now being represented by an agent. She is the editor of read more...
Emanuelle Burton
holds a PhD in Religion and Literature from the University of Chicago. She teaches ethics for the computer science department at UIC, and is coauthor of the read more...
Emily Robbins
holds a BA from Swarthmore College, and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where she taught creative writing. Her first novel, A Word for Love, is forthcoming from read more...
Emily Tedrowe
Emily Gray Tedrowe is a Chicago-based writer whose second novel, Blue Stars, is available from St. Martin's Press. Her first novel Commuters was read more...
Eric Charles May
is the author of the novel Bedrock Faith, which was named a Notable African-American Title by Publisher's Weekly, and a Top Ten Debut Novel for 2014 by read more...
Eric Rampson
is a Chicago-based writer who spent almost 20 years studying, performing, and teaching improv comedy before getting his MFA in Fiction from The MFA Program for read more...
Erin Diehl
Empirical evidence has shown that improvisational training can improve an employee's trust, teamwork, communication, presentation skills, creative problem solving, and can read more...
Frances Peebles
Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novel, The Seamstress (HarperCollins), translated into nine languages and winner of the Elle Grand Prix for Fiction, the read more...
Fraser Coffeen
is an English teacher and Administrator at Roycemore School in Evanston. A graduate of Northwestern University and National Louis University, Fraser has taught classes and read more...
Freda Love Smith
is a food writer, rock drummer, and Northwestern University lecturer. She has written about food and music for Paste Magazine and The Talkhouse, and her food read more...
is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a read more...
Gerald Brennan
graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and later earned a Master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He's the founder read more...
Gina Frangello
is the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men, now under development for Netflix starring Kristen Stewart, and Every Kind of read more...
Hannah Gamble
is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator. Her first book, Your Invitation to a Modest Breakfast, won the National Poetry Series in 2011. In 2014 she received a Ruth read more...
Heather Cramond
H. V. CRAMOND is an RYT200 Hatha Yoga Instructor, Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art, and a read more...
Ian Belknap
is a Chicago writer/performer and founder/curator/host of WRITE CLUB, the world's greatest competitive reading series. WRITE CLUB has monthly shows in Chicago, Atlanta, and San read more...
Ines Bellina
is a writer, storyteller, and glutton extraordinaire. She has performed all over town in shows like You're Being Ridiculous, The Skewer, Miss Spoken, Story Club, read more...
J. Ryan Stradal
is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest, which was translated into twelve languages and won numerous awards, read more...
Jac Jemc
's story collection False Bingo will be released in fall 2019 and her novel Total Work of Art will be published in 2021, both from FSG. She is also read more...
Jack Helbig
is a theater critic, arts writer, and essayist for various publications. He regularly writes for the Chicago Reader and the Daily Herald. He is read more...
Jacqueline Loewe
Jackie Loewe (business development and relationship building) is the founding partner of Sheridan Park Consulting, which provides relationship building training and read more...
James Klise
is the author of two award-winning novels for teens. His most recent book, The Art of Secrets, won the 2015 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. It was also an read more...
Jamie Freveletti
is an award winning and internationally bestselling author of seven novels, four short stories and is published in four languages. Her Emma Caldridge series read more...
Janet Ecklebarger
earned her Master's degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992. She has been working as a tax associate since 2005, and specializes in deductions for artists, musicians, and read more...
Jen Finstrom
Jennifer Finstrom is an instructor in the First-Year Writing Program and the Honors Program at DePaul University, as well as the Outreach Coordinator for read more...
Jennifer Ann Coffeen
writes historical romance and mystery with The Wild Rose Press and Musa Publishing (Priceless Deception, A Deal with Lord Devlin). She is a founding read more...
Jennifer Haigh
's novel HEAT AND LIGHT was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Slate. Her read more...
Jeremy Owens
is the creator, producer and host of You're Being Ridiculous, a long running live-lit show most recently featured at Steppenwolf Theatre as part of their LookOut Series. Jeremy read more...
Jessica Anne
is the author of A Manual for Nothing (Noemi Press). She's the Nonfiction editor of MAKE Literary Magazine, and an alumna of The Neo-Futurist ensemble. read more...
Jessica Handler
is the author of Invisible Sisters: A Memoir (The University of Georgia Press, 2015, Public Affairs Books, 2009) named by the Georgia Center for the Book one of the "Twenty read more...
Jill Erin
Erin's company, improve it!, conducts workshops across the country leveraging improvisational techniques to improve employees' soft skills in corporate settings. Her work with read more...
Jill Pollack - Jennifer Ann Coffeen
**** As Chief Story Wrangler, Jill Pollack spends her time chasing down the best stories…and making them better. But telling a great story isn't enough for read more...
Jill Pollack
​is founder and director of StoryStudio Chicago, overseeing writing training for more than 1,200 students each year. She is a presenter on the power of stories read more...
John Biggers
is a screenwriter and dog enthusiast from Chicago. After teaching screenwriting at Northwestern University, where he also earned his MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage, John read more...
Joseph Scapellato
is the author of the novel The Made-Up Man (2019) and the story collection Big Lonesome (2017). He was born in the read more...
Julia Fine
earned her MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and has taught writing at Columbia College, DePaul University, and online with Catapult. She is the recipient of a read more...
Julianne Hill
tells true stories. Her award-winning work as a reporter, producer, and essayist in audio, video, and print has run on public radio, at film festivals, and in literary magazines read more...
Juliet Bond
Juliet C. Bond is a children's book writer and playwright who works at Piven Theatre Workshop. Her first picture book, Sam's Sister, was published in 2005 and has sold read more...
is co-editor with Samhita Mukhopadhyay of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America, and the author of Asking For It: The read more...
Kathryn Kruse
's work, among other places, is forthcoming from or has appeared in the pages of Indiana Review, The Manchester Review, Interim, and The Adirondack Review, on the read more...
(keidrachaney.com) is a freelance writer and editor that focuses on pop culture, music, and technology. She's been read more...
Kelsie Huff
is the producer and host of the kates, has created three one woman shows and continues to tell stories and perform stand-up across the nation. Huff is a read more...
Kenyatta Rogers
is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been awarded multiple scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He has also been nominated multiple times for both read more...
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is the author of Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, an NPR best book of the year, and The read more...
is the author of two collections of stories, The Isle of Youth and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, and the novels Find Me and read more...
Lori Rader-Day
, author of The Black Hour and Little Pretty Things, is a two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee and the recipient of the 2015 Anthony Award for Best First Novel. Lori's read more...
Lorraine Boissoneault
is a journalist and fiction writer. She's written about everything from bee thieves in California to unrecognized nations like Somaliland. Previously the assistant travel editor read more...
Margaret McMullan
has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Evansville in Indiana, the University of Pécs in Hungary, and at Stony Brook's Southampton read more...
Margot Livesey
grew up in a boys' private school in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught, and her mother, Eva, was the school nurse. After taking a B.A. in English and philosophy at read more...
Maria Villarreal
has been writing stories and poems all her life. She is currently the Director of Programs at 826CHI, an arts education non-profit that works with 6-18 year-olds read more...
Mary Anne Mohanraj
is author of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins), the Lambda-award-finalist SF novella, The Stars Change (Circlet Press) and thirteen other titles. read more...
Mary Ruth Clarke
co-wrote and starred in the original Meet the Parents and co-adapted it into the blockbuster version, starring Robert De Niro. Her play Bonhoeffer's read more...
Megan Stielstra
is the author of three collections, most recently The Wrong Way To Save Your Life. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, Poets read more...
Michael Moreci
is a novelist and comic book author. His debut novel, Black Star Renegades--a space adventure in the spirit of Star Wars—was released earlier this year, read more...
Michael Zapata
is an educator, a founding editor of MAKE: A Literary Magazine, and the author of the forthcoming novel A Model Earth (Hanover Square read more...
Michelle Falkoff
is the author of Playlist for the Dead, Pushing Perfect, and Questions I Want to Ask You. Her fiction and reviews have been published in ZYZZYVA, read more...
Nadine Johnstone
Nadine Kenney Johnstone is the author of the memoir, Of This Much I'm Sure, which was named Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association. Her read more...
Nafissa Thompson-Spires
earned a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work has appeared or is read more...
Nami Mun
grew up in Seoul, South Korea and Bronx, New York. For her first book, Miles from Nowhere, she received a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Chicago Public read more...
Natalie Y. Moore
is the South Side bureau reporter for WBEZ, the NPR-member station in Chicago, where she's known as the South Side Lois Lane. Before joining WBEZ, she covered read more...
Nate Marshall
is from the South Side of Chicago. His first book, Wild Hundreds, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's award for read more...
was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. He is the read more...
is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, read more...
Patricia Ann McNair
has lived 98 percent of her life in the Midwest. She's managed a gas station, sold pots and pans door to door, tended bar and breaded mushrooms, worked on the read more...
Paulette Livers
is the author of the novel Cementville (Counterpoint Press, 2014), winner of the Elle magazine Lettres Prize, finalist for the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel read more...
Porochista Khakpour
is the author of the memoir Sick (forthcoming June 2018). Her debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects was a New York Times Editor's Choice, one of the read more...
R.O. Kwon
R. O. Kwon's first novel, The Incendiaries, is forthcoming from Riverhead in July of 2018. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. Her writing has read more...
Rachel Swearingen
's stories have appeared in VICE, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. Her work has garnered read more...
Rebecca Makkai
is the Chicago-based author of the novel The Great Believers, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, one of the New York read more...
holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and an MSJ from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her fiction, essays, and journalism have appeared or are read more...
Regin Igloria
is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago. His drawings, artists' books, sculptures, and performances portray the human condition as it read more...
Rene has written for publications including The New York Times Modern Love section, and is the author of three nonfiction books in addition to her fiction. Her read more...
is the award-winning author of seven books—Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), Transubstantiate, Staring into the Abyss, Herniated Roots, read more...
Rob Roberge
LIAR is 's fifth book. Previous books include THE COST OF LIVING (Other Voices, 2013), WORKING BACKWARDS FROM THE WORST MOMENT OF MY LIFE (Red Hen, 2010), MORE read more...
Rob Spillman
is editor and co-founder of Tin House, and currently serves as the Chair of the 2017 PEN World Voices Curatorial Committee. He is the 2015 recipient of the PEN/Nora Magid read more...
​'s story collection, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, was a finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and named a Best Book of read more...
Robin Black / Rebecca Makkai
••••ROBIN BLACK's story collection, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, was a finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and read more...
Rowland Saifi
is the cousin of an Arkansas state champion duck caller. Not knowing how to call ducks himself, he has settled for writing. He is the author of Lit Windows (Spuyten Duyvil 2016), read more...
Ruben Quesada
is a contributing editor at Chicago Review of Books. He is a former editor at The Rumpus, and Iron Horse Literary Review. Quesada serves as faculty at read more...
Sahar Mustafah
is the author of Code of the West, an award-winning short story collection published in August 2017 by Willow Books. Her stories have earned a read more...
Sara Cutaia
is a born and raised Texan who currently lives and works in Chicago. She earned her MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago where she also taught read more...
and her acclaimed PI, V.I. Warshawski, helped transform the role of women in contemporary crime fiction, beginning with the publication of her first novel, read more...
Sarah Gailey
Hugo award winner is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfiction. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and the Boston Globe, and read more...
Sarah Kokernot
's fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Crazyhorse, Front Porch, West Branch and other journals. Sarah has worked as an educator read more...
Sarah Manguso
is the author of seven books including 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay. Her work has been supported by a read more...
Sarah Terez Rosenblum
's debut novel, Herself When She's Missing, was called "poetic and heartrending" by Booklist. She writes for publications and sites including read more...
Sarah Weinman
is the author of The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World, which was named a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, read more...
Scott Onak
's stories have been published in Ninth Letter, Mid-American Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Willow Springs, and his book reviews appear on read more...
Spencer Wise
is the author of the novel The Emperor of Shoes (HarperCollins, 2018). His work has appeared in journals such as Narrative Magazine, Cincinnati Review, read more...
Steve Trumpeter
's short fiction has appeared in Sycamore Review, Salamander, American Fiction, Hobart, Chicago Quarterly Review and others. He was the co-host of read more...
StoryStudio instructors teach with generosity, grace, enthusiasm, and great skill. Our faculty are graduates of acclaimed MFA programs, successful authors, and always working read more...
Stuart Dybek
is the author of I Sailed With Magellan, The Coast of Chicago, and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods. Both I Sailed With Magellan and The Coast of read more...
Susanna Calkins
writes the Lucy Campion historical mysteries set in 17th century London and the Speakeasy Murders set in 1920s Chicago (Minotaur/St. Martin's). Her fiction has read more...
Suzanne Scanlon
is the author of Promising Young Women (Dorothy, 2012) and Her 37th Year, An Index (Noemi, 2015). Her fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, DIAGRAM, Electric Literature, MAKE, read more...
Tadd Adcox
is the author of a flash fiction collection, The Map of the System of Human Knowledge (Tiny Hardcore Press, 2012), and a novel, Does Not Love read more...
Tea Obreht
Téa Obreht was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. Her debut novel, The Tiger's read more...
Vince Francone
Vincent Francone is a writer from Chicago whose memoir Like a Dog was published in the fall of 2015. His poetry won first place in the 2009 Illinois Emerging Writers read more...
Vu Tran
's first novel, Dragonfish, was a NY Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year. His short fiction has appeared in the O. Henry Prize read more...
Zachary Ginsburg
is a fiction writer in the Creative Writing MFA program at The New School. He is a former student at StoryStudio and has read in the Student & Instructor read more...
Zoe Zolbrod
is the author of the memoir The Telling (Curbside Splendor, 2016), which won a silver IPPY Award and was a Chicago Review of Books award finalist, and the novel read more...
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