The Low Residency MFA
in Creative Writing Alumni Page
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The Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Alumni Page |
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Meet Our Low-Residency MFA Students Are you a student who's not featured on this page? Please contact Jennifer Stewart!
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More Students (in alphabetical order by last name)
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Jen Cullerton Johnson’s new non-fiction children’s book, Seeds of Change: The Wangari Maathai Story (Lee & Low) demonstrates the connection between people and nature. For each book bought Jen gives a percentage to help the environment. For each school visit, or workshop, participants plant one tree in solidarity of saving the earth. Jen is also a contributor to Kiss me Goodnight (Syren 2005) and has published essays in numerous journals. She has won several awards for her creative non-fiction, including an Illinois Arts Fellowship Award and merit scholarships to The Frost Place and Indiana University Writer Workshops. She holds a MEd in Curriculum and Development and is completing her MFA at the University of New Orleans in Creative Non-Fiction. Through her involvement in bringing writing into the schools, Jen helped create Muse Write, a community-based organization helping others collect, recollect, and connect with their stories. Jen teaches at an inner-city school in Chicago. For more information, check out Jen’s website at 
Lisa Beth Allen is a member of the Dramatist Guild, Actor’s Equity Association, and the Screen Actor’s Guild. She has worked as an actor at regional theatres throughout the country. Lisa has served as Conservatory Director for the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California as well as Special Project Director and Director of Educational Programming for the Sundance Institute. Lisa’s plays have been produced at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, The Organic Theatre in Chicago, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA and at the Sundance Resort King Stage. Her two-act drama Solomon’s Blade, was a 2004 Ashland New Plays Festival selection, Ashland Oregon, included in the Famous Door Theatre’s Women at the Door 2005 new Plays Festival in Chicago, and was winner of the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Prize in the 2007 Cleveland Play House FusionFest, celebrating new works of art. She lives with her husband and several four-legged creatures in Taos, New Mexico.
Merridith Allen lives in New York City where she writes, and 
Otherwise known as Jackson Beals, is an actor and photographer living in New Orleans. His feature film credits include: Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, National Lampoon’s Robodoc,The Pardon, American Violet, and Midnight Man. Jackson received his B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Florida State University. In the Low-Res program at UNO he is simultaneously working in the genres of Creative Nonfiction and Screenwriting. One day in the near future he plans to publish his now half-finished memoir, My First 50 Auditions. 
Bryan Camp is a student of fiction in UNO’s Low-Residency MFA Program. He is also husband to Elizabeth, surrogate father to Harold, and provider of laps to felines Chloe and Kal-el. He has, in no particular order, climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, car-tripped from Vegas to New Orleans and New Orleans to Chicago, written a novel and then decided to start over from the beginning, received the D.Vickers Award for Creative Writing, and marveled at the public transit of San Francisco. Like many writers seduced by the possibilities of the fantastic, he pretends he is no longer afraid of the dark.
After a couple of years living in L.A. as a struggling actor, I returned home to Baton Rouge and completed a B.A. degree in English Literature with a theater minor at L.S.U. I worked for a year on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and then moved to New Orleans and took low-pay acting jobs in theater and did freelance writing assignments for LOUISIANA SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE. Later I moved back to Baton Rouge to co-produce and act in an independent film. After the film I wrote my first screenplay and upon finishing it promptly moved back to L.A. to shop it to producers. Getting nowhere with the script and running out of money, I entered the business world and moved to Houston, where I met a professional screenwriter who has helped improve my writing tremendously. Since then I have written 2 more scripts as a low-residency MFA student at UNO. Occasionally, I still do acting jobs and contribute articles to LOUISIANA SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE. 
Rohan Dhurandhar completed his degree in Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University. He combined his academic interest and experience in film into co-founding a documentary film production company, through which he is involved in several projects designed to make science engaging and lucid for the general public. He is working towards his MFA in Screenwriting to explore and understand the story aspect of film production.
Summer Dorr 's an incurably slow reader, who scrutinizes diction and stylistic choices (of many). That is what she does for fun. Recently, she heard it said, behind her back (and of this she smirks, and doesn't name names), that "she's a poet, trying to be a screenwriter."
An Irish-French-German Kansan native (who's heard all the Wizard of Oz references), Cara Elizabeth Duryea is what happened when a conservative math major from a family of engineers and farmers married a liberal mental health nurse from a family of jewelers and merchants. (Cara still thinks there was a switch at birth, or possibly time travel involved.) She keeps busy with a day job at a law firm to cover her double-life as a mercenary. Cara currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri and on occasion can be caught engaging in such malarkey as throwing coins at wishing wells, running in the rain, and writing poetry (a.k.a. "therapy") scribbles on paper napkins, and random thoughts on yellow legal pads that will someday become a scene in one of her fiction books. She's not yet joined the witness protection program but sees that in her future.
Nathan Feuerberg lives in Pau, France where he is working on an MFA through the University of New Orleans. When he isn’t mixing cocktails he’s writing fiction. Currently he has not been published by the New Yorker or any other literary magazine. But keep your eyes open; this might be the year.
Kelly Frankenberg is a freelance illustrator with a BFA in Illustration from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. She has illustrated over twelve published books and her illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers, windows, mailboxes, CD covers, the web, TV, and film. She’s also written lyrics for recorded songs and been a courtroom sketch artist. Kelly tutors math, Spanish, piano, guitar, and art. She plans to finish her memoir and write her own children’s books. Her art can be seen at 
Valerie Harbolovic lives in Austin, Texas and has two sons Joe and Robbie. Val was born in England and her early life was spent in England, Angola, and Iran. As a young adult she took herself to Queensland, Australia where she met her future husband Rick. They moved to the US in 1982. She is completing her MFA in fiction through the University of New Orleans. Val speaks several languages, and one of her greatest joys in middle age has been to discover that she can write poetry in Spanish. ¡Olé!
Amber Jensen is an Adjunct English Instructor at South Dakota State University, where she earned her M.A. in Language and Rhetoric in 2008. At SDSU, Amber receieved the Maud Adams Outstanding Graduate Student Award and served as creative nonfiction editor for the university's annual publication, Oakwood. She has presented her creative and academic work at conferences in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, and her first creative nonfiction piece is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly.
Jessica Kastner is torn between country and city life. After earning her BA in Com. Arts./Journalism from the University of West Florida in 1999, she moved to Seattle to see what life was like on the other side of the coutry. She returned to her roots in the Deep South and lives in a country farmhouse built by her ancestors over 160 years ago. The family home is situated on a 136 acre "compound" with four other homes inhabited by her relatives. Though her friends are convinced the house is haunted, Jessica swears there is a logical explaination for the flickering lights, opening doors, and moaning noises. However, these strange happenings, as well as her amusing experences as a teacher, keep creeping in and embellishing themselves in a novel she is currently writing. Jessica received her Master's of Art in Teaching in 2007 from Southeastern Louisiana University and has been teaching high school English in Ponchatoula, Louisiana for the past two years. She also sponsors the yearbook and co-sponsors the creative writing club. After publishing her first story in Louisiana in Words, she decided to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a writer by applying to the low-residency program. Jessica greatly enjoys escaping from the humdrum of her small-town, teacher life by spending her breaks in big cities.
Virginia-native Eva lives in an attic apartment in New Orleans, and she is hoping that her job as a middle school math teacher will help her as she attempts to write a young adult fiction novel. Her short stories have been published in online journals Moondance and Blood Lotus, but she's hoping for something in print soon! Occasionally she gets suckered into acting in plays at the Actor's Theater of New Orleans, and in addition to writing, she enjoys playing volleyball, riding her bike, and dancing in the street. 
Stephen Leonard is studying toward an MFA in fiction. Originally from Washington, DC, he has lived a vagabond life and currently calls Paris home. His fiction and non-fiction have been published in several periodicals. His short story “Into the Crater” was published in descant, winning the journal’s 2008 Frank O’Connor Award for best short story. He works as a technical writer and translator.
Todd Joseph Lundbohm aka T-O-DOUBLE unwillingly resides in Boise, Idaho. After the fall of the economy and the subsequent repossession of his airplane, he was unable to leave the potato state. If he’s not hanging out in his empty hanger trying to write an Oscar worthy movie, he is at The Office drinking Victor Tangos, collecting massive amounts of parking tickets, tanning, training jujitz, or building stairs. And even though he found out this year that publications do little for screenwriters, he remains optimistic. His mother taught him to never forget his many blessings. He has excellent health for his old age, a super-model girlfriend, a dog that hates him, and many extravagant plans... the future is so bright he's gotta wear shades.
Dawn Manning is a writer, photographer, and anthropologist living in Philadelphia. She won the Edith Garlow Poetry Prize in 2003, but took another five years to realize she might just be a poet. She received the 2009 Outstanding Student award at West Chester University, as well as the awards for Outstanding Student in Anthropology and Outstanding Student in Ethnic Studies. She is currently working on her MFA in poetry through the University of New Orleans. Dawn has traveled through seventeen countries on five continents and hopes to wander through Botswana before the year is out. In the mean time, she is perfecting the art of insomnia. 
Mary Marwitz (2004-2009, Creative Nonfiction) teaches composition and creative writing at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. She is currently completing her thesis, a memoir about teaching and being a student.
Tammi McCune is a writer and traveler currently living near Washington, D.C. with her diplomat husband and two daughters. Tammi has lived in Venezuela, India and Kyrgyzstan and is eagerly awaiting news of her family’s next overseas post. She has degrees in journalism and in English and is working on an MFA through UNO’s low-residency program. Although she’s been focusing on poetry, Tammi has found that she enjoys writing creative nonfiction, as well.
Heather McGrail has moved around and cannot claim to be from anywhere. She begins the MFA program at the University of New Orleans in January 2009 after earning a BA and an MA in English at Winona State University in Minnesota and teaching at a private school in Busan, South Korea for a year. Currently, she lives outside Indianapolis and teaches at Martin University as an adjunct professor in English.
Natalie Parker-Lawrence’s new full-length play is a collection of non-fiction monologues about insomnia, Cover Me at Dawn. She gave a reading of this play at the UNO summer program in 2008, in Montpellier, France. The Women’s Playwright’s Initiative staged a regional reading in Orlando, Florida of Upright Position in October 2008. Adelphi University produced Earlybirds in 2009. Her essays have been published in The Commercial Appeal, World History Bulletin, and The Pinch. 
Brenda Nettles Riojas, a mother, writer, and creative spirit, grew up on the border of South Texas and Mexico. She is currently working on an MFA through the University of New Orleans. Her most recent collection of poetry is titled La Primera Voz Que Oí. Her poetry has been published in di-verse-city (Austin International Poetry Anthology), Ribbons (Quarterly Journal Published by the Tanka Society of America), 2008 Texas Poetry Calendar, Interstice and Ezra -- An Online Journal of Translation. She is a member of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Writer’s Forum and a founder of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival. Brenda works for the Diocese of Brownsville as Diocesan Relations Director and is the editor of The Valley Catholic and hosts a weekly program – Diocese Insight.
Michelle has been enraptured with the unique intersection of Spanish, Latin, Italian, and American literature since studying abroad at the Madrid Summer Seminars. She returned in 2007 to continue research and writing for her screenplay-novel: Llave in Lisboa, Oporto, and throughout Northern Spain. You can glimpse her work in Constance, ArtVoices, and throughout the New Orleans off-site art-world including the Greater New Orleans Arts Mansion: GNOAM : 
I am a poet; however, I enjoy writing fiction. My favorite poets are Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsburg, A.E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, and Rick Bursky. I like antiques and fine arts. And, I love to travel especially on Celebrity’s Galaxy or Cunard’s QM2. I love to go horseback riding, and to sleep outdoors when there are a lot of stars in the sky. And, I love Mexico with its freedom, history, and people. 
John Warner Smith started the MFA Low-Residency Program at UNO in January 2009. His area of concentration is poetry. He has published poems in Callaloo and contributed to the first Katrina special issue of Callaloo in his former role as Louisiana Secretary of Labor. He left state government in October 2007 to lead the development of a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to public education reform. John has undergraduate degrees in psychology and accounting and a MBA.
Friends and faculty had hoped that after a few years in the MFA program, Tawni might figure out what her last name is. She still hasn't. She is also unclear on other basic aspects of day to day life, such as where she lives and what she wants to be when she grows up. (She ain't no lover, but she ain't no dancer.) She thinks she will be a writer someday, though she likes the idea of being an actor too. In April, she got to come to San Miguel to perform the role of Kitty in Camino Real Production's "Kitty and Lena." She has published in Bridal Guide Magazine, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque Arts Magazine, Albion Review, and Conceptions Southwest. Out of all the magnificence this world has to offer, she is still most astounded by the beauty of her children, who are both taller than her and have mostly forgiven her for condemning them to eighteen years of off-key show tunes and abysmal cooking.
Jonathan is new to the lowres program and is a playwriting emphasis. He lives with his wife and 2 year old son in Baton Rouge Louisiana where he teaches 7th and 8th grade Creative Writing and Drama, and High School Bible. His wife is expecting thier second child in June, so he ought to have his hands very full in the future, but is really excited to continue his education at UNO.
Robert Zajkowski-Fontella grew up in Detroit and after extensive travels and military service settled in Chicago. His first work at fiction was writing speeches for a candidate for Detroit City Council named Ziggy. The work earned Robert a motorcycle, that while still only twelve years old he was unable to appreciate, or fix, after the prospective council member blasted the Yamaha with buckshot after losing the election. Robert then took up writing love poems. Later, Robert worked for the National Security Agency as an intelligence analyst, writer, and translator. He has collaborated on a book of poems (Lines Through, Seetalk 2008) with Joel Mitchell, where they explore the form of the ghazal and braided poetry as inspired by Jim Harrison. Robert also looks forward to the impending completion of a collection of short stories.
