The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is humbled and pleased to announce the addition of nine new board members to our AWP family. They bring a balance of institutional knowledge, professional literary expertise, and strong past nonprofit/profit board experience.

“The new board members were carefully selected. Each member understands the essential role AWP plays in the literary community, and shares our focus on growth, steadiness, and long-term stability and sustainability,” Bonnie Culver, chair of the board, stated. “We welcome these board members who are eager to roll up their collective sleeves and work with the talented staff to make the organization stronger and effectively serve membership needs.”

In October 2019, the current AWP Board of Directors unanimously voted in the following nine candidates to serve AWP and its members for a four-year term starting November 7, 2019, at their fall board meeting. Please join us in welcoming our distinguished colleagues: Mitzi Angel, Regina Brooks, Kim Chinquee, Mimi Herman, Jeff Kleinman, Becka Oliver, January Gill O'Neil, Stephanie Vanderslice, and Dan Vera to the 2020 AWP Board.

New Member Highlights

Mitzi Angel is the senior vice-president and (first female) publisher at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York City. Previously, she was a publisher at Faber & Faber in London. Some of the writers she has worked with include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alaa Al Aswany, Rachel Cusk, Garth Greenwell, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ben Lerner, Yiyun Li, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Sally Rooney, and Leïla Slimani.
 
Regina Brooks is the founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency LLC, based in Brooklyn, New York. Serendipity is the largest African American-owned agency in the US, and Brooks is the author of Never Finished, Never Done, Writing Great Books for Young Adults (now in its second edition), and You Should Really Write A Book: How to Write, Sell, and Market Your Memoir. Brooks is the agent behind many notable authors and illustrators whose awards include the National Book Award, the Newbery Medal, the Caldecott Award, the Michael Printz Award, and PEN Literary Award honors, as well as winners of the NAACP Image Award, the Edgar Award, and the Kirkus Prize.

Kim Chinquee is the author of the collections Oh Baby, Pretty, Pistol, Wetsuit, and Shot Girls, as well as the associate editor of New World Writing and editor of ELJ (Elm Leaves Journal). Chinquee lives in Buffalo, New York, and teaches at SUNY-Buffalo State. She will serve as the Northeast Regional director on the board.
 
Mimi Herman is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and co-director of Writeaways workshops in Italy, France and New Mexico. Mimi has served as North Carolina Piedmont Laureate, founding North Carolina Poetry Out Loud director, associate editor of Teaching Artist Journal and faculty mentor for Lesley University. Her writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review, The Hollins Critic, and other journals. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson.
 
Jeff Kleinman was an agent at the Graybill & English Literary Agency for seven years before cofounding Folio Literary Management, where he is a partner and agent. A few of the titles he has represented include The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein), The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey), The Widow of the South (Robert Hicks), Mockingbird (Charles Shields), and Maid (Stephanie Land). He also represents the estates of Langston Hughes, Ira Levin, T.H. White, and James Herriot, among others.
 
Becka Oliver joined the Writers' League of Texas in September 2013 as executive director after more than sixteen years of experience working in book publishing, including Macmillan and Hachette Book Group. She has also served as a literary agent, first at Endeavor and then at William Morris Endeavor (WME) after the two powerhouse talent agencies merged in 2009. The Writers’ League of Texas is the largest statewide literary arts organization in Texas.
 
January Gill O'Neil is the author of Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018), Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), winner of a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O'Neil is the John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, where she lives. January previously served as the Northeast Regional Chair on the AWP board.
 
Stephanie Vanderslice is an author, professor, blogger, and Huffington Post guest writer. A professor at the University of Central Arkansas, she will replace Erica Dawson as the Southern Regional Chair. Some of her publications include Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education: Programs and Practices that Work, and, as editor, Can it Really Be Taught: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy and Studying Creative Writing—Successfully.
 
Dan Vera is a poet, presenter, and teacher with extensive board experience on other nonprofit arts/writing organizations, including spending seven years on Split This Rock Poetry Festival’s board, lastly as its chair.  Dan has presented at multiple poetry festivals, and his poetry has been anthologized widely. Some of his most recent awards include a CantoMundo fellowship, Oscar Wilde Poetry Award, Macondo Writers Fellowship, DC Artist Fellowship, and Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize.
 
AWP is grateful not only for the commitment that these individuals have made, but also to the eight continuing board members who have pledged to grow an organization devoted to fostering literary achievement, advancing the art of writing essential to a good education, and serving the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing. For inquires and interest in learning more about the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), please visit awpwriter.org or contact us at press@awpwriter.org.

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