Listen in on The Writers Studio Craft Class featuring student Cécile Barlier discussing the writing of her award-winning collection of stories A Gypsy’s Book of Revelation.
Though a newcomer to the genre, Bay Area author Cécile Barlier shows a mastery of the form with this visceral and eclectic debut. In stories that span from the harrowing and macabre to the outlandish and amusing, she turns everyday situations into playgrounds for literary experimentation,” says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Inspired by Cécile’s story? Register for a class.
New and Noteworthy Publications and Awards by Our Students
Lisa Badner’s debut poetry collection Fruit Cake was recently published by Unsolicited Press. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, New Ohio Review, PANK,TriQuarterly, and other journals. Lisa is a student in the NYC Master Class and the Tutorials Director for the Writers Studio.
Nancy Connor’s poem “For Cigarettes” won a 2023 Pushcart Prize. Nancy is a Master Class student as well as workshop and tutorial teacher.
Pamela Lindsey Dreizen, under the pen name J.J. Roth, published the story “All of the Cuddles with None of the Pain” in PodCastle: The Fantasy Fiction Podcast. Her story “A More Forgiving Light” appeared in New Plains Review and was a finalist for The Southwest Review’s David Nathan Meyerson Prize for Fiction, a semifinalist for Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and received Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers competition. Pamela is a Master Class student.
Pamela Erens, a former student in the Master Class, published Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life, a volume on Middlemarch and works that have shaped her writing and life; Matasha, a novel for readers age 10 to 14; Eleven Hours, which was reviewed in The New York Times and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and The Brian Lehrer Show; and The Virgins, which was named an Editor’s Choice selection by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Library Journal. Her novel The Understory was published by Ironweed Press and won the Ironweed Press Fiction Competition, and was named an LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction finalist. It was also a finalist for the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
Gail Ford has two pieces in the (M)othering anthology. Her essay “Gravity and the Theory of Everything” was one of six winners of the University of California Berkeley’s 2013 Lili Fabilli and Eric Hoffer Essay Prize. She won third place for poetry in the 2019 Mendocino County Writers Conference Contest, with an enthusiastic response from judge Victoria Chang. Gail is the Writers Studio San Francisco Director and a teacher.
Kimberly Malinowski’s poetry collection Home was published by Kelsay Books. Her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. Kimberly’s work has been published widely in journals including Calliope; The Phoenix Soul and Wildflower Muse. Kim is an Advanced Poetry student.
Alex Poppe is the author of four works of fiction: Duende by Regal House Publishing, Jinwar and Other Stories by Cune Press, Moxie by Tortoise Books, and Girl, World by Laughing Fire Press. Girl, World was named a 35 Over 35 Debut Book Award winner, First Horizon Award finalist, Montaigne Medal finalist, short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, and was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction from the Eric Hoffer Awards. Her short fiction has also been published widely. Alex is a former online student.
Christopher X. Shade’s novel The Good Mother of Marseille and his poetry collection Shield the Joyous were published by Paloma Press. His fiction and poetry appear regularly in journals; most recently in The Literary Review; The American Journal of Poetry; and Chaleur Magazine. Christopher was a student in the Master Class.
Laura Tucker’s middle-grade novel, All the Greys on Greene Street, was published by Viking after a bidding war with six publishing houses, and was named one of “The New York Times Best Children’s Books of 2019.” Laura is a long-time student.
Lisa Bellamy is the author of The Northway, a full-length collection of poetry and prose poems, published by Terrapin Books. Her chapbook Nectar won The Aurorean’s chapbook contest. Her poems and short prose have appeared in TriQuarterly, The Sun, Massachusetts Review, New Ohio Review, The Southern Review, Tiferet, and PANK, among many other publications. She has received a Pushcart Prize, a Fugue Poetry Prize, honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and has been featured in several podcasts, including The Writer’s Almanac. Lisa is a student in the NYC Master Class and teaches NYC Advanced Poetry, Writing Short, and other classes.
Lesley Dormen is the author of The Best Place to Be, a book of linked stories published by Simon & Schuster. She started as a student in Level 1 and wrote every story in the collection in Writers Studio workshops. Lesley’s essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in Elle, O The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Glimmer Train, Open City, Atlantic Monthly and Five Points. She is a recipient of a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and is a Yaddo and a MacDowell Fellow. She is a teacher and former student in the NYC Master Class.
Austin Duffy’s first two novels, This Living and Immortal Thing and Ten Days, were published by Granta Books. His story “Orca” was awarded first prize in the Irish National Public Radio’s National Short Story Competition. Austin is a former Level 3 student.
Kathleen Flynn’s debut novel, The Jane Austen Project, was published by Harper Perennial. Kathleen is a former Online Level 1 student.
Alice Hatcher’s debut novel, The Wonder That Was Ours, was published by Dzanc Books and longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Alice credits her classes in Tucson with helping her find her unusual narrator, a collective of cockroaches. Her story “Compound Fractures” was published in The Masters Review (2020).
Sarah (Sally) McElwain’s books To the Happy Couple, Creating a Great Wedding Toast with Style and Saying Grace: Blessings for the Family Table were published by Chronicle Books. Sally was a student in the Master Class and currently teaches tutorials.
Rosalia Scalia’s story collection Stumbling Toward Grace was published by Unsolicited Press. Her work has also appeared in a variety of publications including Sweet Tea Review, and The Notre Dame Review. Rosalia is an Online Master Class student.
Sean Sutherland’s poems have appeared in The Florida Review, The Sky Island Journal, Hypertext, Sleet Magazine’s 10th anniversary edition, The Meadow, The Maine Review, and several other journals, as well as The Writers Studio at 30 anthology. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Sleet in 2019. Two of his poems are in the anthology, Poetry for The Actor: A Guide to Deeper Truth. A MacDowell Colony Fellow, Sean’s plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, and Maine. Sean teaches Online Level 1, and is a longtime student in the NYC Master Class.
Deepa Varadarajan, who took her first writing class with the Writer Studio, is publishing her debut novel Late Bloomers with Random House, featuring characters she developed in her Writers Studio Level 1 class.
Cynthia Weiner, assistant director of The Writers Studio, won a Pushcart Prize for her story “Boyfriends,” which was published in Ploughshares. Her story “Aftertaste” appeared in The Sun and was awarded Special Mention in the Pushcart anthology. Her stories have also appeared in The Sonora Review, Open City, and other journals.
To enjoy a constant stream of publications by our students, complete with links to published works, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.