Art & Art History
Department

Artists-in-Residence 2008-2009 (Writers)

E. J. Levy / Ana Maria Spagna / Ann Buechner

E. J. Levy
September 2 - 30, 2008

"I write both fiction and creative nonfiction, and my current project is "A Place at the Table: A Memoir in Meals," which traverses personal and cultural terrain as it ponders one woman's life through the lens of food. This book considers such topics as the erotics of the artichoke, the meanings of relish, and the aesthetic pleasures of the recipe, the book interweaves the culinary, literary, and historical to tell both an intimate story and an American one." - E.J. Levy

E. J. Levy's essays and short stories have been published in venues such as The Missouri Review, Salmagundi, Fourth Genre, Orion, The Gettysburg Review and Best American Essays 2005. She earned an MFA from Ohio State University in 2002 and holds a BA in History from Yale. An Assistant Professor in the creative writing program at the University of Missouri, she is completing an ecological memoir set in the Brazilian Rainforest as well as a novel.

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Ana Maria Spagna, essayist and fiction writer
November 8 - 26, 2008

"My stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Orion, Utne, Mountain Gazette, Pilgrimage, and Open Spaces, and in anthologies such as Best Essays NW. My first book, Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, was named a Best Book of 2004 by The Seattle Times. During My residence at the Artist's House, I plan to work on my current book project, which combines elements of memoir, biography, and history to tell the story of my father's involvement in the Tallahassee Bus Boycott, an early and lesser-known struggle in the Civil Rights movement." - Ana Maria Spagna

Ana Maria Spagna lives and writes in Stehekin, Washington, a remote community in the North Cascade mountains accessible only by boat or float plane. Ana Maria's stories and essays have appeared in dozens of journals including Orion, Utne, Oregon Quarterly, Pilgrimage, and Open Spaces, and in anthologies such as A Mile in Her Boots and Best Essays NW. Her first book, Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, was named a Best Books of 2004 by The Seattle Times, and she was recently named recipient of a grant from Washington State Artists Trust for completion of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus, a book that explores her father's role in the early Civil Rights Movement. Ana Maria is a graduate of the University of Oregon and of the M.A. program in fiction writing at Northern Arizona University. She has taught writing at Northern Arizona University, American Intercontinental University, Gotham Writers Workshop, North Cascades Institute, and at various conferences and symposiums.

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Ann Buechner, poet
January 18 - 31, 2009

"My poetry is mainly concerned with collisions and elisions. I am fascinated with the way we pull meaning out of (or push meaning onto) stories, so content-wise, I work a lot with fractured narrative, in which the relationship between existing stories (whether they be pulled from folklore or religion or popular culture) and "real" stories is blurred, forced together, and pulled apart." - Ann Buechner

Ann Buechner was born in South Korea and grew up in Madison, WI. She has taught at Cornell University-where she also received her MFA in 2005-and at Seoul Language Institute in Busan, South Korea. Her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, Equilibrium, and Barrelhouse. Poems are also forthcoming in Patrick Somerville's novel The Cradle, which will be published in March '09. Her work is mainly concerned with collisions and elisions; she is fascinated with the way we pull meaning out of (or push meaning onto) stories, so content-wise, she works a lot with fractured narrative, in which the relationship between existing stories (whether they be pulled from folklore or religion or popular culture) and "real" stories is blurred, forced together, and pulled apart. Because of this fascination with such "mythologies," she is also obsessed with the manipulation of the image and the icon-nothing is particularly sacred for sacred's sake. Ann aims for synesthesia in her poems. She hopes that they feel like a group of strange people in a waiting room: layered and varied in story and stance, tone and voice.

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