Teachers & Staff

Marc Acito’s comic debut novel, How I Paid for College, won the Oregon Book Awards’ Ken Kesey Award. It was also selected as an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times, has been optioned for film by Columbia Pictures and is translated into five languages the author cannot read. Its much-anticipated sequel, Attack of the Theater People, is now available. A regular contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Acito has also co-written Holidazed, a twisted Christmas play which will receive its world premiere at Artists Repertory Theatre in November.

Bill Donahue has written for The Atlantic Monthly, DoubleTake, Mother Jones, National Geographic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, & elsewhere. He has work in Best American Sports Writing 2003 and in Best American Travel Writing 2004. He is a contributing editor for Outside magazine.

Merridawn Duckler has published in Carolina Quarterly, Georgia State Review, & Main Street Rag among others with current work in Isotope, Green Mountains Review, Narrative & Night Train. A former Attic student, she is a two-time winner of Society of Professional Journalists Award & was nominated for Best Creative Non-Fiction Anthology 2009 and a Pushcart Prize. Reviews of her work have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Her original scripts have been preformed at the NOW Festival at Red Cat at Disney Hall and other venues in Los Angeles, Stanford, & New York in conjunction with the performance troupe Collage Dance Theatre of Los Angeles. She has been in residency at Centrum, Caldera, and Yaddo, among others. She was a non-fiction runner-up at Writers@Work in Salt Lake City & has won fiction fellowships to the Squaw Valley Writers Community, Wesleyan Writers conference, & Summer Literary Seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia. She teaches at the Attic for nearly ten years & is an Associate Editor at Narrative magazine.

Shanna Germain’s poems, short stories & essays have been widely published in places like Absinthe Literary Review, McSweeney's, Salon, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Imbibe, The American Journal of Nursing, Triangulations & more. Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Nervy Girl, she is currently the editor of Roast magazine. A former Attic student, she’s ghost-written numerous books & has received awards such as the C. Hamilton Bailey Fellowship from Literary Arts & a Soapstone residency.

Martha Gies has published short stories and literary essays in many literary magazines and in several anthologies, including A Celestial Omnibus: Short Fiction on Faith and The World Begins Here: An Anthology of Oregon Short Fiction,and is the author of Up All Night (Oregon State University Press, 2004), a portrait of the city told through the stories of 23 people who work graveyard shift. She has received support for her work from Oregon Literary Arts and the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

Ariel Gore is the founding editor of the zine Hip Mama, author of Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness, Whatever, Mom, Atlas of the Human Heart, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights, The Hip Mama Survival Guide, The Mother Trip, & editor of the anthologies Breeder, Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, & The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting. A former Attic student, she's a contributor to Ms. & Utne.

Associate, Editorial Services

Heather Guidero is an Associate at the Attic. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science from Oregon State University and a Master of Science in Professional Writing from Portland State University. She has been an editor for Ooligan Press and served as Copy Editor for Poetry Northwest magazine for five years. In addition to taking on editing projects through the Attic's editing services, Heather is a freelance editor.

Barry Hunt has a nearly twenty year history teaching screen writing, film making, & acting. He has been an actor and director for thirty years with credits on stage, film, and television. He is the Artistic Director of Sowelu Theater. He has worked as director and dramaturge on 9 award recognized original scripts. Recent screenplays he has mentored are Quiet City, currently nominated for Best Film by the Independent Film Awards and Dance Party USA. Each film made top ten lists in both 2006 and 2007. The New York Times praised the original writing style. Hunt is the 2005 recipient of the Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship through the Portland Civic Theater Guild.

Dave Jarecki is the grandson of northeastern Pennsylvanian coalminers, and feels their work in his blood sometimes. He’s been writing professionally since 1998, including articles, profiles, non-profit grants and marketing communications.

In 2004 he founded Breakerboy Communications, a strategic writing and messaging service that focuses on the communications needs of small businesses and non-profit organizations. Jarecki also facilitates youth and adult creative writing workshops and independent studies throughout the Greater Portland area. His creative work has appeared in Voices of Central Pennsylvania, IN/UR Magazine, BaseballSavvy.com, Poet’s Hood online and 4&20 Poetry.

In July of 2008 he launched DaveJarecki.com as a way to help foster conversation and community around writing and the word. Through the Guest Writer feature and Interview series, Jarecki wishes to showcase the writing, thoughts and insights of new and established voices alike.

Dave's Attic Academy workshops are a partnership between The Attic Writers' Workshop and Breakerboy Communications.

Karen Karbo is the author of three novels and a memoir, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books. Her memoir The Stuff of Life, won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and was a People Magazine Critics’ Choice. Her latest book is The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman forthcoming in September.

John Morrison's book, Heaven of the Moment, won the Rhea & Seymour Gorsline Poetry Competition & was a finalist for the 2008 Oregon Book Award in poetry. He received his MFA from the University of Alabama. His poetry has appeared in numerous national journals including the Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, Poetry East, & the Southern Poetry Review. A former Attic student, he has taught poetry for the University of Alabama, Washington State University, & in the Literary Arts Writers in the Schools program where he served as director from 2006-2009.

Paulann Petersen’s books of poetry are The Wild Awake, Blood-Silk, A Bride of Narrow Escape, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, & most recently Kindle. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and the recipient of the 2006 Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts, she serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford, organizing the annual January Stafford Birthday Events. She’s been on the faculty for Summer Fishtrap, and has given workshops for Oregon Writers Workshop, Oregon State Poetry Association, Mountain Writers Series, OCTE and NCTE Conferences, and the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College.

Liz Prato has published work in Zyzzyva, Iron Horse Literary Review, Subtropics, Massage, & Bodywork Magazine, as well as in Who’s Your Mama: An Anthology on Motherhood. A former Attic student, she’s a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a prize winner in the Berkeley Fiction Review's 2005 Sudden Fiction Contest, and the 2007 Juked Fiction Prize. She's working on a novel about grief, art, sexual identity, & the cosmos.

Associate, Life Sketches

Judith Pulman has published two poetry chapbooks, written a bilingual play about Anton Chekhov’s romances, and studied acting intensively at the Moscow Art Theater in Russia. Her poems have appeared in small press magazines across Oregon. She has taught classes in English language and composition internationally as well as in Virginia. She is currently working towards her MFA in writing at Pacific Lutheran University.

G. Xavier Robillard's first novel, Captain Freedom, A Superhero's Quest for Truth, Justice and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves (Harper Collins) was published in 2009. In addition to writing fiction he produces humiliating videos, writes music and has performed comic monologues for local shows True Stories and LiveWire Radio. A former Attic student, his work has appeared on National Public Radio, in McSweeney's, Cracked Magazine and Comedy Central.com.

Elizabeth Rusch’s first children’ book, Generation Fix, was a Smithsonian magazine Notable Children’s Book and a finalist for the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award and the Oregon Book Award. Will It Blow? was a Natural History magazine Best Book for Young Readers and a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. The Planet Hunter was also an Oregon Book Award finalist, while A Day with No Crayons won the OBA’s Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature and is a finalist for the Illinois Children’s Choice award. As an award-winning freelance writer and former managing editor of Teacher magazine and contributing editor to Child, Rusch has published more than 100 articles in national magazines for children and adults. Her publishing credits includeMuse, Read, American Girl, Harper’s, Mother Jones, Parenting, Smithsonian, & Backpacker, among many others. Rusch has received the Kay Snow Literary Award, a Maggie Award, & an Oregon Literary Fellowship, among other honors.

Rusch has led workshops & given lectures & presentations for children & adults at schools such as Childpeace Montessori, Winterhaven, Maimonides in Portland, Oregon; colleges such as Portland State University, Duke University, & the University of California at Berkeley; & conferences such as the Willamette Writers Conference, South Coast Writers Conference, Chalk It Up for Literacy, & the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in Portland & Denver.

Watch a video of Elizabeth Rusch on Jody Seay’s show The Back Page: http://oregonstate.edu/media/cdrbcn

Read an interview with Elizabeth Rusch at: "http://www.embracingthechild.org/arusch.html" http://www.embracingthechild.org/arusch.html

Learn more at www.elizabethrusch.com

Kevin Sampsell is the author of A Common Pornography, as well as several small books, including Etiquette for Evil, Haiku You, Invisible Radios: Re-mixes, Statistics, Jokes, etc., and How to Lose Your Mind with Lights On. His writing has appeared in The Stranger, Web Del Sol, 3rd Bed, Bridge Magazine, Rain Taxi, 2 Girls Review, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Future Tense Press.

Communications Director

Todd is a poet & former editor with HarperCollins publishers, as well as a freelance journalist, proofreader, & ghostwriter. You can read and listen to his work via his blog.
Todd is also the cofounder of Gemkitty Jewelry, where you can design your own gemstone necklace.