Thomas Warren Burke
Thomas Warren Burke is a fiction writer from Baltimore, Maryland. He received a B.A. in English from Harvard in 2020 before delving into the pandemic, during which he worked remotely for two years as a tutor before attending the Programs in Writing at U.C. Irvine. He is currently at work on a novel.
Emma Cairns Watson
Emma Cairns Watson grew up in Los Angeles and studied English and neuroscience at Smith College. Since moving back to California, she’s taught creative writing workshops for kids, stocked shelves at the Container Store, and coordinated conferences on Judaism and Egyptology at UCLA. She likes noodles, folk ballads, baking, queer lit, and neat bugs.
Kathryn Campo Bowen
Kathryn Campo Bowen is a Salvadoran American writer from Miami, Florida. She is at work on a novel.
Jake Comer
Jake Comer is from Baltimore, Maryland, and has spent much of the last several years researching and developing management plans for World Heritage Sites in Africa, Oceania, and South America. He comes to UC Irvine with degrees from Brown University and the University of Cambridge, untold frequent flyer miles, and an affinity for black espresso that could be diagnosable. He likes archaeology, remote sensing, Billie Holiday, and intense humidity.
Christie Craig
Christie Craig is a queer French-American writer. She grew up in Connecticut and has spent all of her adult life (until now) in Paris, studying literature at the Sorbonne and teaching ESL. She's come to Irvine to work on a mystery novel/novel of consciousness set in and around a big box store. Some of her other interests include great apes, installation art, the Middle Ages, early Cher and DIY dentistry. She makes a mean gin cocktail.
William Eng
A racially ambiguous queer writer who loves to cook.
A people person who also likes to curl up with a violent video game.
Both a Björk and Beyoncé fan but also a Sylvia Plath apologist.
A friend of a friend, someone you should really talk to,
On his way to buffet line for another 'Tiramisu thingy.'
Gabriel Garofano
Gabriel Garofano was born and raised in Los Angeles, but he sincerely hopes you will not hold that against him. Apart from full-body wincing while writing about himself in third person, he is looking to create work that gets at what it is to be alive, even if it kills him.
Hallie Gayle
Hallie grew up in North Texas. She has since lived in South Africa, Vietnam and California. She is currently in her third year, working on a collection of stories.
Lily Grimes
Lily grew up in Southern California. She is writing two short novels and a short story collection about her five and a half years in Seoul. Her work centers the experience of the body and its consciousness, and explores their intersections with magic, pain, and joy. When she is not knocking out first drafts at two or three A.M., she is usually remembering the time she accidentally read a tree’s mind, crocheting vegetable-shaped hats for everyone’s pets, or figuring out the most smartly-nonsensical thing possible to say to her friends in any and every context.
Jacob Hyatt
Jacob grew up in Maine, which is about as beautiful and bizarre a place as Stephen King says it is. Since very little ever happens there, he quickly turned to reading and writing as a form of adventuring. He graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he was Head Tutor of General Operations for the Colby College Farnham Writers' Center. He has been an emergency department registrar and an intern for Writing Workshops in Greece.
Dan Mazzacane
Born and raised in Riverside, CA, Dan writes toward his roots: the intersections of poverty and queer identity. When he’s not working on literary aspirations, he’s running an unhinged game of D&D, which is very close to the same thing
Flynn Mixdorf
Flynn Mixdorf is an Indianapolis-born writer who salutes the big mural of Kurt Vonnegut every time he goes into town. Flynn graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019 with a degree in creative writing. After school, he unashamedly moved back in with his parents, where he spent time painting, writing, and gaming until the world began to look like it wasn't really going to end. Flynn then took a bartending gig, where he learned the value of selling people government-approved controlled substances. He also made some of the best friends of his life there.
Ivy Olesen
Sehrish Ranjha
Sehrish Ranjha is a Pakistani American writer. She has a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. Her short stories have appeared in West Branch, Juked, The Malahat Review, and the anthology New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims.
Tonya Shenandoah (K^nikanlahtá:sa’)
Tonya is a member of the Oneida Indian Nation from Upstate New York, married to an artist/Onondaga Nation leader and the mother of four. She’s received degrees in education and American Indian Studies. She spends her leisure time gardening, hiking, rescuing animals and at opportune times, feeding crows. She’s working on a story collection and a novel.
Charlie Sorrenson
Charlie Sorrenson is a queer trans writer who grew up in Indiana and New Zealand. He is working on a story collection and a novel.
James Yamada
James holds degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Physics and doesn't really know how he ended up here. He enjoys junk food and spends his leisure time screaming at humanities majors about the impending heat death of the universe.
