Visual Arts Fellows:

Deborah Davidovits (Beacon, NY) has a BFA in Sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art ('90), an MFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University ('95). Since receiving an MA in Deaf Education from Columbia University ('99) she has been teaching the deaf and hard-of-hearing in NYC public schools. Her drawings and videos have been shown in the U.S. and abroad, most recently in Boston, Berlin and Bulgaria.

Matt Harle (Beacon, NY) was a 1992-93 Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center. His sculpture has been exhibited extensively in Boston, New York, Worcester and Philadelphia. Awards include residencies at The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He has a BFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art ('89) and an MFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University.

Josh Jordan (Brooklyn, NY) is a New York-based artist working from his studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since moving there in 1997, he has exhibited regularly in spaces ranging from the Bellwether Gallery to d.u.m.b.o. Art Center. A native of Zanesville, OH, he received a BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design ('95) and an MFA from Yale University. He has taught at Yale and Montclair State University (NJ).

Rajkamal Kahlon lives in Brooklyn, New York. She received her B.A. in Studio Art from the University of California, Davis in 1996, and an M.F.A. in Painting from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1999. She received a Summer Fellowship from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1998), was a Fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program , Whitney Museum of American Art (2001).

Carrie Scanga (Cottekill, NY) grew up in rural, suburban and urban locations in Pennsylvania; her work has long been concerned with the spatial and architectural aspects of these environments. She received an MFA from the University of Washington ('01), has been a resident at The MacDowell Colony and received a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2004. Her work was recently exhibited at the International Print Center, NY, and the Islip Art Museum on Long Island.

Kristin Schiele (Brooklyn, NY) received a BFA from Indiana University ('93) and an MA in Painting from American University ('95). Since then, she has lived in several U.S. and foreign cities, painting and absorbing the qualities of their architecture and people. For two years she worked and exhibited in Berlin in affiliation with the Art Academy, under George Baselitz, and the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Artist Residency. She moved to NY in 2001 and works in Brooklyn.

Alyssa Schmidt (Medina, OH) majored in painting, minored in drawing and printmaking at the Cleveland Institute of Art ('03). Her work has been exhibited throughout her native Ohio and was included in the "Student Summer Show" of The Yale/Norton Summer Program. Honors include the Liza Noble Scholarship for Excellence in Painting and the Paul Travis Memorial Award in Painting.

Grace Sullivan (Oakland, CA) was a 2002-2003 Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center. An installation artist, her work has been influenced by the 29 places in which she lived over the course of her life and the many jobs she had: including house cleaner, factory worker, file clerk, editor and graphic designer. She earned a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison ('90) and an MFA in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art ('02).

Chuck Webster (Binghamton, NY) is a painter who has been drawing since childhood. He earned a BA from Oberlin College ('92) and an MFA in Painting from American University ('96). His honors, awards and exhibitions include a solo show at ZieherSmith Gallery, NY, residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Millay and Vermont Studio Center. He has been part of The Barnstormers, an artist collective, and recently returned to his hometown, Binghamton, to teach art.

Lila Byock (Iowa City, IA) received her BA from the University of Montana ('00) and MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop ('04). She is writing a novel about the members of a family who own an estate where a mass cult suicide has recently taken place.

Tyehimba Jess (Brooklyn, NY) is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared extensively in journals and anthologies; he has a BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago ('91) and MFA in Creative Writing from NYU ('04). His work-in-progress, Leadbelly, follows the 20th- Century troubadour's travails from prison to popularity.

Viet Thanh Nguyen (San Jose, CA), an associate professor in the Department of English and the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at USC, has a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley ('97). His published work includes a book of literary criticism; he is working on a collection of short stories, Guerilla Love.

Emily Rapp (Cheyenne, WY) has a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard University ('00) and an MFA From the University of Texas at Austin ('04); her awards include a Fulbright Scholarship and James A. Michener Fellowship. She is completing a novel, The Second City; set in Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present, it is told by four distinct narrative voices.

Tim Ross (Newark, OH), second-year Fellow in poetry, has an MFA from the University of Alabama ('03) where he taught and worked as assistant poetry editor of The Black Warrior Review. His work, which has appeared in Gulf Coast, The North American Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sonora Review and others, has earned prizes from the Academy of American Poets.

David Semanki (Brooklyn, NY) has worked in book publishing since receiving an MFA from Columbia University ('98); he has a BFA in cinema studies from NYU ('93). His poetry has been published in Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Gulf Coast, Agni and he was featured as "Debut Poet" in The New Yorker.

Abraham E. Smith (Tuscaloosa, AL) has a BA in Archeology from the University of Wisconsin ('96) and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama ('04). He has performed his poems at the National Poetry Slam, Taos Poetry Circus and the South-By-Southwest Music Festival and his poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Borderlands and Fence among others.

Shimon Tanaka (Haworth, NJ), second-year Fellow in fiction, was born in Japan and raised in the US. He has an MA from SUNY-Buffalo ('98) and an MFA from the University of Oregon ('00) and was the recipient of a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. His fiction has appeared in the anthology Best New American Voices, Agni, The Gettysburg Review and others.

Andrew Tomlinson (Crickhowell, Powys, UK) has been living, working and writing fiction in Lodz, Poland, since 2001. He has a BA in Humanities ('93) and PhD in Film Studies ('98) from the University of Ulster.

Jillian Weise (Greensboro, NC) received her BA from Florida State University ('02) and MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro ('04). Her work has appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, Mississippi Review, The Review of Disability Studies, The New Orleans Review and The Spoon River Poetry Review.