Creative Writing Faculty
Aaron Baker
Aaron Baker has published two collections of poetry. Mission Work (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) won both the Bakeless Prize for Poetry and the Glasgow/Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers. His second book, Posthumous Noon (Gunpowder Press, 2018), won the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize.
Laura Goldstein
Laura Goldstein's first collection of poetry, loaded arc, was released by Trembling Pillow Press in 2013 and her second collection, awesome camera was published by Make Now Press in 2014. She has also published several chapbooks with vibrant small presses across the country, the most recent being safe wars / poet in hell by damask press. She teaches critical thinking and writing, literature and poetry workshops at Loyola University and is the co-curator of the Red Rover Reading Series in Chicago.
Margaret Hawkins
Margaret Hawkins is the author of three novels – A Year of Cats and Dogs, How to Survive a Natural Disaster (Permanent Press 2009, 2010), and Lydia’s Party (Penguin 2015) – and a memoir, How We Got Barb Back: The Story of My Sister’s Reawakening After 30 Years of Schizophrenia (Conari 2011). Her essay, “On Getting Lost,” appears in the award-winning travel anthology, She Can Find Her Way (Upper Hand 2017.) Her work has appeared in the New York Times, ARTnews and many others publications. She writes a column about art for Visual Art Source. http://margarethawkins.com/news.shtml
Caroline Macon Fleischer
Caroline Macon Fleischer is a writer, editor, and theatremaker. Her first novel The Roommate will be published in Summer 2022 via Joffe Books. Her other writing has been published in American Theatre, Make Magazine, PANK Magazine, The Rumpus, and others. As a playwright and dramaturg, she has worked with theatres including Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, Chicago Children’s Theatre, and more. She is the editor and co-founder of the small publisher, Fruit Bat Press. She lives in Irving Park with her husband, son, and Border Collie. www.caromacon.net
Michael Meinhardt
Dr. Michael Meinhardt's attention to narrative craft and theory in the writing of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and essay forms derives from a love of both the sound of language and the manipulation of its meaning. Playful, yet attentive to rhetorical structural detail, he pursues multiple writing approaches and outcomes, but emphasizes the development of the author rather than a strict attention to a particular piece. He is a published and award winning writer and teacher of writing.
Nami Mun
For her creative writing students, Nami Mun's primary teaching goal is to help them locate the story they need to tell. That story—the one that’s burning a duodenal ulcer in their stomach lining, the one that’s hiding behind their temporal parietal lobe, the one that’s going to inspire them to write more stories. With this as the beacon, she creates an open, safe, respectful, fun, and rigorous environment that promotes a meticulous investigation into their reading and writing obsessions.
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Valer Popa
Valer Popa is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Cornell University's MFA program in Fiction. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The New York Times, Chicago Magazine, The Believer, and elsewhere.
James Sitar
James Sitar has taught at Loyola since 2008. He earned a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA and PhD from Boston University. His poems and essays have appeared in number journals, including Harper’s Magazine, Harvard Review, Literary Imagination, and Fulcrum. He is Senior Editor at the Poetry Foundation, where he manages the online archive of poems, poets, and educational content. He also produces the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast and co-runs two teachers institutes each summer.
Philip Sorenson
Philip Sorenson is the author of three collections of poetry: Of Embodies (2012, Rescue Press), Solar Trauma (2018, Rescue Press), and New Recordings (2018, Another New Calligraphy). His poetry and criticism regularly appear in print and online journals, and he co-edits The Journal Petra with poet Olivia Cronk.
Aaron Baker
Aaron Baker has published two collections of poetry. Mission Work (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) won both the Bakeless Prize for Poetry and the Glasgow/Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers. His second book, Posthumous Noon (Gunpowder Press, 2018), won the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize.
Laura Goldstein
Laura Goldstein's first collection of poetry, loaded arc, was released by Trembling Pillow Press in 2013 and her second collection, awesome camera was published by Make Now Press in 2014. She has also published several chapbooks with vibrant small presses across the country, the most recent being safe wars / poet in hell by damask press. She teaches critical thinking and writing, literature and poetry workshops at Loyola University and is the co-curator of the Red Rover Reading Series in Chicago.
Margaret Hawkins
Margaret Hawkins is the author of three novels – A Year of Cats and Dogs, How to Survive a Natural Disaster (Permanent Press 2009, 2010), and Lydia’s Party (Penguin 2015) – and a memoir, How We Got Barb Back: The Story of My Sister’s Reawakening After 30 Years of Schizophrenia (Conari 2011). Her essay, “On Getting Lost,” appears in the award-winning travel anthology, She Can Find Her Way (Upper Hand 2017.) Her work has appeared in the New York Times, ARTnews and many others publications. She writes a column about art for Visual Art Source. http://margarethawkins.com/news.shtml
Caroline Macon Fleischer
Caroline Macon Fleischer is a writer, editor, and theatremaker. Her first novel The Roommate will be published in Summer 2022 via Joffe Books. Her other writing has been published in American Theatre, Make Magazine, PANK Magazine, The Rumpus, and others. As a playwright and dramaturg, she has worked with theatres including Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, Chicago Children’s Theatre, and more. She is the editor and co-founder of the small publisher, Fruit Bat Press. She lives in Irving Park with her husband, son, and Border Collie. www.caromacon.net
Michael Meinhardt
Dr. Michael Meinhardt's attention to narrative craft and theory in the writing of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and essay forms derives from a love of both the sound of language and the manipulation of its meaning. Playful, yet attentive to rhetorical structural detail, he pursues multiple writing approaches and outcomes, but emphasizes the development of the author rather than a strict attention to a particular piece. He is a published and award winning writer and teacher of writing.
Nami Mun
For her creative writing students, Nami Mun's primary teaching goal is to help them locate the story they need to tell. That story—the one that’s burning a duodenal ulcer in their stomach lining, the one that’s hiding behind their temporal parietal lobe, the one that’s going to inspire them to write more stories. With this as the beacon, she creates an open, safe, respectful, fun, and rigorous environment that promotes a meticulous investigation into their reading and writing obsessions.
Valer Popa
Valer Popa is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Cornell University's MFA program in Fiction. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The New York Times, Chicago Magazine, The Believer, and elsewhere.
James Sitar
James Sitar has taught at Loyola since 2008. He earned a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA and PhD from Boston University. His poems and essays have appeared in number journals, including Harper’s Magazine, Harvard Review, Literary Imagination, and Fulcrum. He is Senior Editor at the Poetry Foundation, where he manages the online archive of poems, poets, and educational content. He also produces the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast and co-runs two teachers institutes each summer.
Philip Sorenson
Philip Sorenson is the author of three collections of poetry: Of Embodies (2012, Rescue Press), Solar Trauma (2018, Rescue Press), and New Recordings (2018, Another New Calligraphy). His poetry and criticism regularly appear in print and online journals, and he co-edits The Journal Petra with poet Olivia Cronk.