“The Business of Writing Toolbox” Online Class Package

Instructors

M. M. (Maude) Adjarian has published her essays, short fiction and poetry in such journals as the Baltimore Review, Grub Street, Verdad, South 85, The Serving House Journal, Pif, Gravel, Glint and Crack the Spine, among others. A senior non-fiction book reviewer at Kirkus, her articles have also appeared in Arts+Culture Texas, Bitch Magazine, Tribeza-Austin and the Dallas Voice. Currently, she is at work on a family memoir provisionally titled This Life That Binds.

Diane Zinna is originally from Long Island, New York. She received her MFA from the University of Florida and has taught creative writing for more than ten years. She was formerly the executive co-director at AWP, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, which hosts the largest literary conference in North America each year. In 2014, Diane created the Writer to Writer Mentorship Program, helping to match more than six hundred writers over twelve seasons. Her debut novel, The All-Night Sun, was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Diane lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with her husband and daughter.

Faylita Hicks (she/her/they) is a poet, essayist, and interdisciplinary artist. The former Editor-in-Chief of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and a 2020-2022 Texas Touring Artist, they are the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, the 2019 Balcones Poetry Prize, and the 2019 Julie Suk Award. Hicks is the 2009 Grand Slam Champion of the Austin Poetry Slam and a member of the 2007 and 2008 Neo Soul Poetry Slam team. Since 2013, she has been an artist on the roster for hip-hop collective Grid Squid Entertainment, releasing her first Hip Hop EP, Collision City in 2015, and her third spoken word album ONYX in June 2019. She has toured nationally and internationally as a solo act since 2007, performing in venues such as Chicago's The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Busboys and Poets, and the Nuyorican Poets Café, across 30+ states, as well as in Jamaica and Canada. The founder and creative director of event production company Arrondi Creative Productions, Hicks was awarded the San Marcos Arts Commission Grant for her monthly showcase and pop-up art event series, SMTX Ripple Market, in 2017 and 2019. Hicks's photography and short-films have been exhibited in Texas State University's Common Experience Gallery, Houston's Insomnia Gallery, the San Marcos 72-Hour Film Festival, and the 2018 BLERD Festival in New Orleans, LA. They have been awarded fellowships and residencies from Tin House, Lambda Literary, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Right of Return USA, the first fellowship designed exclusively for previously incarcerated artists. Their poetry, essays, interviews, performances, and photography have been featured in or are forthcoming in Adroit, American Poetry Review, Brave New Films, the Cincinnati Review, The Cut, Electric Lit, F(r)iction, Frontier Poetry, HuffPost, Kenyon Review, Lonestar Lit, Longreads, Palette Poetry, PBS Independent Lens, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, Poets and Writers, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Slate, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Vice, VIDA Review, and others. Hicks received an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University and is currently working on a multi-media project about pretrial criminal policy reform in the Southwest. www.FaylitaHicks.com

Becka Oliver joined the WLT in 2013 as Executive Director after more than sixteen years of experience working in book publishing both inside major publishing houses and as a literary agent.