Current MFA Students

Mario Cesar Galvan is a fiction writer interested in the quiet absurdities of working life, where strange things bloom in the mundane. A graduate of Boise State’s B.A. in Creative Writing, Mario writes stories rooted in the working class, exploring the hidden depths of everyday people, the routines that both comfort and confine us, and chasing the surreal that lingers beneath the surface of reality. In addition to writing, he enjoys shooting film photography, watching baseball, and finds inspiration in the stillness of life, believing that the sparks of creativity sometimes come from doing nothing.

Bethan is a writer from the Midwest who is drawn to speculative fiction, particularly where it intersects with horror. She likes writing about uncomfortable situations and haunted houses, although she does her best to avoid both in real life.

Brody writes novelettes about sad Michiganders making bad decisions.  His distractions from writing include an angel of a Bernese Mountain Dog, a demon of a tabby cat, the Detroit Red Wings, and poorly playing acoustic guitar.  He is fond of smelling brewed coffee, hearing clothes tumble in a dryer, feeling lost in focus, and the look of a fresh paragraph in an exciting new Word document.

Joshua Lenz is a first-year MFA fiction student who dropped a decent job in Texas to pursue writing in a place he’d never even seen before, and he hopes he made the right move. He grew up as one of nine missionary kids in Peru and, naturally, enjoys writing about cultural intersections, especially U.S.-Latin American. He enjoys camping, songwriting, Jiu Jitsu, interpreting for medical missions, and writing about himself in third person.

Shannon Castor is a poet and painter. She is interested in the periphery of memory and how the perception of these stored images are interpreted in a growing and aging self. What stories sit at the edge of fading? How does the present color the past? How does the dull and sharp push-pull of remembering inform writing? Shannon has an MFA in Art and Ecology from the Burren College of Art, National University of Galway, Ireland and has completed art residencies with Takt Leipzig and GlogauAir.

Lewis Millholland is a D.C. native whose writing explores the tension between transience and permanence. Professionally he’s covered small-town news, worked a stint on Bloomberg’s news automation team and coded video games. Recently he inherited his great-aunt’s 100-year-old typewriter but promises he’s not that kind of hipster.

Michelle is a fiction writer who can’t sit still. She grew up wandering and writing in the Great Smoky Mountains and is drawn to gothic, lyrical prose with a strong sense of place. Her work has appeared in Fiction International, Nowhere Magazine, and The New York Times. When she’s not at her desk you can find her enjoying and advocating for public lands.

Megan Slusarewicz is a poet and pigeon enthusiast from Lexington, Kentucky. She received BAs in literary arts and cognitive neuroscience from Brown University. Her interests include writing (duh), the science of addiction, photography and thinking about learning classical guitar. Recently, she’s been undertaking the perilous journey of leash training her cats. Megan has a fondness for verbs, but she also finds that nouns and adjectives are essential for writing sentences. Her work can best be described as eclectic and reflective.