Randolph M.F.A. welcomes more acclaimed writers to guest faculty

Randolph’s Master of Fine Arts in creative writing program has added three more esteemed authors to its already stellar guest faculty for the spring 2020 semester.

The three new additions are:

Eloisa Amezcua (poetry)

Eloisa Amezcua (photo by Chris Cheney)

Amezcua’s debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, was selected by Ada Limón as the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize (Shelterbelt Press, 2018). Eloisa is the author of three chapbooks: On Not Screaming (Horse Less Press, 2016), Symptoms of Teething, winner of the 2016 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2017), & Mexicamericana (Porkbelly Press, 2017). Her second collection of poems, Fighting Is Like a Wife, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press.

Amezcua is from Arizona and earned a B.A. in English from the University of San Diego, where she was the recipient of the Lindsey J. Cropper Award for Creative Writing in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky. She holds an M.F.A. from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.

She has received fellowships and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference. She is the founder of Costura Creative, a Latinx owned and operated talent agency representing contemporary poets and writers.

Find out more about Amezcua at www.eloisaamezcua.com.

Kao Kalia Yang (fiction/nonfiction)

Kao Kalia Yang (photo by Shee Yang)

Yang is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (Coffee House Press, 2008), winner of a 2009 Minnesota Book Award and a finalist for the PEN USA Award and the Asian Literary Award.

Her second book, The Song Poet (Metropolitan Books, 2016), also won a Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, a PEN USA Award in Nonfiction and the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize.

In the fall of 2019, Yang debuted her first children’s book, A Map Into the World (Carolrhoda Books) and a ground-breaking collection titled What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color (University of Minnesota Press).

Yang was born in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in 1980. She and her family came to Minnesota as refugees in the summer of 1987. Yang received her M.F.A. from Columbia University. She has taught at Columbia University and Carleton College, among other places.

Find out more about Yang at www.kaokaliayang.com/.

Julia Phillips (fiction/nonfiction)

Julia Phillips (Photo by Nina Subin)

A finalist for the 2020 National Book Award, Phillips is the debut author of the bestselling novel Disappearing Earth, which is being published in 15 countries and is also a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Phillips studied at Barnard College and Columbia University. A Fulbright Fellow, Julia has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Find out more about Phillips at www.juliaphillipswrites.com/.