Reading & Writing Fiction in a Time of Crisis

Cleyvis Naterawas born in the Dominican Republic in 1977. She immigrated to the US with her mother and siblings when she was ten years old. She grew up in Harlem and holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Skidmore College and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Fiction from New York University. Cleyvis is the Co-Founder ofLove As A Kind of Cure, the November 2020 virtual Arts Festival honoring Native Americans. Cleyvis has been chosen for several awards and fellowships including PEN America’s Writing for Justice Fellowship, The Bread Loaf Carol Houck Smith Returning Contributor Award in Fiction, Kenyon Review’s Peter Taylor Fellowship in Fiction and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship in Fiction both in Virginia and France. She was a finalist for a Fulbright Creative Writing Award to the Dominican Republic. Cleyvis is a proud alum of The Disquiet International Literary Program, Juniper Institute and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation. Her writing has appeared inThe Washington Post, The Kenyon Review,AsterixandKweli Journal, among other publications, and she has been featured in Doré, Refinery29 andThe New York Timesfor her social justice work as Co-Founder of Love As A Kind of Cure. She’s represented by PJ Mark, a Partner at Janklow & Nesbit. Her debut novel “Neruda on the Park” is forthcoming Spring 2022 from Penguin Random House. She lives in Montclair, NJ with her husband and two young children. ​//cleyvisnatera.com/

Debra Magpie Earlingis Professor of English at the University of Montana, Missoula, where she teaches Fiction and Native American Studies full time. Of the Bitterroot Salish (tribe), she is a graduate of the University of Washington, and holds both an MA in English and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Cornell University. Her novel Perma Red (Putnam, 2002) won the Western Writers Association Spur Award, WWA’s Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for Best First Novel, a WILLA Literary Award and the American Book Award.The Lost Journals of Sacajewea(Koch editions, 2010), a collaboration with photographer Peter Rutledge Koch, re-invents the life of Sacajewea. Earling’s publications also include stories inThe Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology,Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories, Circle of Women: Anthology of Western Women WritersandWild Women: Anthology of Women Writers. She is the recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Sally Wofford-Girandof Union Literary has worked with such luminaries as Salman Rushdie, Grace Paley, Kim Edwards, and Alice Hoffman as the foreign rights director at a boutique literary agency. Her particular areas of interest are: history, memoir, women’s issues, cultural studies, and, most of all, fiction that is both literary and gripping. Favorite authors include Cormac McCarthy, Kate Atkinson, Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, Anne Patchett, John Green, Jose Saramago, and Wallace Stegner. She is a hands-on agent with a passion for great storytelling. She loves the thrill of discovery in working with debut novelists. Sally is on the board of AAR and a board member of Writers Omi, an international writers colony in New York State.

Eric Simonoff is a literary agent at WME in New York. His clients include Jhumpa Lahiri, Edward P. Jones, Daniel Alarcon, Yaa Gyasi, Megha Majumdar, Chris Adrian, Name Le, Phil Klay, ZZ Packer, Jean Kyoung Frazier, Karen Thompson Walker, Ethan Hawke, Ariel Levy, Sam Lipsyte, Jonathan Lethem, Philipp Meyer, Ilana Masad, Stacy Schiff, and The New Yorker Magazine, among others. He is the recipient of The Center for Fiction Medal for Editorial Excellence and serves on the Board of Trustees of Poets & Writers Organization and the New York Public Library’s Publishing Advisory Committee.

Harriet L. Shenkmanwas born in Brooklyn and is a first-generation college graduate. She earned a Ph.D. from Fordham University and a M.Ed. from Duke University. She is a Professor Emerita at City University of New York and serves on the Advisory Board of the Women’s National Book Association, NYC. Her poetry awards include the Women’s National Book Association 2013 Annual Writing Contest in Poetry, The Women Who Write 2013 International Poetry and Short Prose Contest and The Raynes Poetry Competition, 2014 finalist. Her poetry appeared in Union, Evening Street Review, Third Wednesday, Jewish Currents, Jewish Magazine, Jewish Quarterly, VerseWrights.com, When Women Awaken, The Westchester Review. Oyez Review, The Pink Panther Magazine, The Calliope Anthology, The Alexandria Quarterly, The Comstock Review, Indolent Press, Gyroscope Review, The Berru Poetry Series, The Last Leaves Literary Magazine, Train River Press Anthology and Global Poemic. A Poet-in-Residence at The Transition Network, she studied with Jennifer Franklin, Ellen Bass and Laura Kasischke. Her chapbooksTeeteringandThe Present Abandonedwere published by Finishing Line Press. She has completed a novel,The Camel Tamer, and hopes to find a publisher. Her novel finds an innocent American teenager and a young Ukrainian sex worker caught in the crosshairs the Middle East conflict.//shenkman.wixsite.com/harriet