Art & Art History
Department

Artists-in-Residence 2005-2006 (Writers)

Laura-Gray Street / Maureen Stanton / David Bengtson

Laura-Gray Street, poet
July 26 - August 6, 2004

Laura-Gray Street's poems have appeared in journals such as Meridian, Shenandoah, and The Yalobusha Review, The Notre Dame Review, New Virginia Review, The Greensboro Review, and The Louisville Review. The recipient of a 2002-2003 Individual Artist's Fellowship in Poetry from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Street has been awarded The Greensboro Review's Literary Award in Poetry, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and featured on Poetry Daily, and she has held both fiction and poetry fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). In 1999 she was commissioned by the New York Festival of Song to write the libretto for a song cycle in celebration of the Millennium. Street holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, an MA in English from the University of Virginia, and a BA in English from Hollins University. She is currently an assistant professor of English at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

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Maureen Stanton, essayist
September 7 -30, 2004

Maureen Stanton received her M.F.A. in creative nonfiction from Ohio State University in 2000. She has published essays in journals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, American Literary Review, and The Sun. Her essays have received the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, the Penelope Niven Award from Salem College Center for Women Writers, and the 2004 Iowa Review award. She has received grants from the Maine Arts Commission, the Vogelstein Fund, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony, and was selected as the 2004 Goldfarb Family Fellow for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her memoir, What Love Is, and her essay collection, Common Hours, are under consideration with publishers. During her residency at the Artist House shewill be working on the first draft of her third nonfiction book.

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David Bengtson, poet
October 5-24, 2004

David Bengtson grew up in Cranston, RI, received a B.A. in English from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and an MA in English with an emphasis in writing/poetry, from the University of Minnesota. From 1968-2002 he taught English at the high school in Long Prairie, Minnesota and developed a reputation as an excellent poet and teacher. Bengtson has published three chapbooks of poetry and in November 2003, his most recent collection, Broken Lines, was published by Juniper Press. He has received a number of grants and prizes for his poetry and has developed a reputation as one of the countries most successful creators of collaborative video and cinepoems in the country. From 1999-2003 he served on the National Council of Teachers of English Commission on Media. Currently he serves on the Guthrie Theater Education Advisory Panel, the COMPAS Board of directors, the COMPAS Writers and Artists in the Schools Advisory Panel and the Center for International Education Board of Directors. He will be working on his next book of poems as well as some video poem projects.

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Sima Rabinowitz, poet and writer
January 30 - February 28, 2004

Sima Rabinowitz is the author of The Jewish Fake Book (Elixir Press, 2004), winner of the 4th Annual Elixir Press Poetry Awards. Her poems and creative prose have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Witness, Flyway, Briarcliff Review, The Muse Strikes Back from Story Line Press, The Cancer Poetry Project from Fairview Press, and How to Write, a textbook from Houghton Mifflin. Her writing for the stage has been produced at theaters in Minnesota, Michigan, and South Carolina, and her children's opera, Adventure at Chichén Itzá, was performed at a performing arts school in suburban Minneapolis. She is a regular reviewer for NewPages (www.newpages.com). Rabinowitz has received two fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, one in poetry and one in prose (1996, 2003) a Loft Creative Nonfiction Award (1996), a fellowship from S.A.S.E.: The Write Place and The Jerome Foundation (2001), and a grant from the Howard B. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment (2004). She was a finalist for the 2003 Dana Awards. Rabinowitz earns her living as a freelance communications professional and writing instructor. She has published a science text for young readers (Let's Investigate. Parrots. Creative Publications, 2001) and she is the editor of a quarterly magazine for the banking industry. At the Artist's House, Rabinowitz will work on new poems for a manuscript in progress.

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