2007 Winter Wheat Featured Readers

Cris Mazza

Cris Mazza is the author of thirteen books of fiction. Her newest is the forthcoming Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press, 2007). Some of her other notable titles include Is It Sexual Harrassment Yet?, How to Leave a Country, and Your Name Here: ____. Mazza is director of the UIC Graduate Program for Writers, where she teaches fiction writing.

Charles Yu

Charles Yu graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia Law School. His work has been published in the Harvard Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of MAR's 2004 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. His first collection of stories, Third Class Superhero, appeared in 2006 from Harcourt and he was recently recognized by the National Book Foundation as one of the "5 under 35," which honors rising stars under 35.

Wendell Mayo

Wendell Mayo is Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Bowling Green State University. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Fulbright to Lithuania. He is the author of three books of fiction: a short story collection, Centaur of the North (Arte Publico Press), winner of the Aztlan Prize; B. Horror and Other Stories (Livingston Press); and a novel-in-stories, In Lithuanian Wood (White Pine Press). Love Sick is currently being being made into a Lifetime movie.

Sue William Silverman

Sue William Silverman won the Mid-American Review 2005 Creative Nonfiction Award with her essay, "That Summer of War and Apricots" (MAR 26.2). She is the author of two memoirs, Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction and Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, winner of the 1996 Associated Writing Program Award Series in Creative Nonfiction; and a collection of poetry, Hieroglyphics in Neon. She is a professional speaker on the issues of child abuse, family dynamics, and addictions for which she has been interviewed on such television shows as CNN-Headline News and Anderson Cooper 360. She also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Vermont College.

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty is the author of nine books, including the forthcoming Broken Hallelujahs (BOA Editions, 2007). His other books include Nightshift, Belonging to Lorca, and the book of experimental prose The Biography of Broken Things. His awards include a 2004 Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and a 2003 Penn State Junior Faculty Research Award for Nonfiction. He teaches all three genres in the BFA program for Creative Writing at Penn State Erie.

Michael Steinberg

Michael Steinberg founded, in 1998, the literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. His recent books include the memoir Still Pitching, which was the 2003 Small/Independent Press memoir of the year, and the anthology Peninsula: Essays and Memoirs from Michigan. Currently, he is a writer-in-residence and a member of the founding faculty at the Solstice/Pine Manor College Low Residency MFA program in Boston, MA.

Mary Quade

Mary Quade is the author of Guide to Native Beasts, which one the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Competition. Her work has appeared in Field, Iowa Review, Colorado Review, Massachusetts Review, Agni, and Chicago Review.

David Shumate

David Shumate's book of prose, High Water Mark (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), was awarded the 2003 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for first books and received first place in the poetry category of the Best Books of Indiana competition of 2005.

F. Daniel Rzicznek

F. Daniel Rzicznek'snewest work is the poetry collection Neck of the World, which won the 2006 Swenson Poetry Award. His chapbook of prose poems, Cloud Tablets, part of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series, appeared from Kent State University Press in 2006. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, AGNI, The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, and numerous other literary journals. Currently, he teaches English composition at Bowling Green State University.