Welcome to the First Class
of the Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing Program

FOLLOWING ARE THE BIOS OF THE NUMINOUS NINE!

CLICK HERE FOR 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 AND 2006 BIOS

CHRIS ABANI www.chrisabani.com (GRADUATED 2005)

Chris Abani's novels are GraceLand (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004) and Masters of the Board (Delta, 1985). His poetry collections include Dog Woman (Red Hen, 2004), Daphne's Lot (Red Hen, 2003), and Kalakuta Republic (Saqi, 2001). He teaches in the MFA Program at Antioch University, Los Angeles and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside. A Middleton Fellow at the University of Southern California, he is the recipient of the 2001 PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the 2001 Prince Claus Award and a 2003 Lannan Literary Fellowship.

JEFF CHISUM (GRADUATED 2007)

"I was born and raised in the high deserts of northwestern Nevada--a locale which has ended up being the wellspring for nearly all my fictional writings. I graduated magna cum laude from our very own university of Southern California this past May." Jeff lists a powerful new interest in jazz music as a burgeoning aesthetic influence. Jeff received an Honorable Mention in the 2002 USC Edward W. Moses Graduate Creative Writing competition and he tied for first place in the 2004 competition. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his first collection of short stories. His work recently appeared in the LA Weekly.

JENNIFER KWON DOBBS (GRADUATED 2008)

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs was born in Won Ju, South Korea. Her poetry has appeared in 5AM, Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, Cream City Review, Poetry NZ, Tulane Review, and Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings (Temple UP 2003) and has been featured on Prosody WYEP 91.3 Pittsburgh. Her poetry symphonic collaboration, Among Joshua Trees, was selected as part of the New York Youth Symphony's New Music Series. Her awards include the Edward G. Moses Prize in Poetry, finalist for Emerging Writers from Rivendell Magazine, and semi-finalist for the Crab Orchard First Book Award. She is a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Program at the University of Southern California, where she teaches honors writing and literature courses.

BRIDGET HOIDA (GRADUATED 2007)

Bridget, who waggles her left foot when she writes, is working on her second novel, SO LA. She holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley and an M.A. in Fiction from San Francisco State. Her first novel, ONE MISSISSIPPI, was a finalist in the Joseph Henry Jackson Intersection for the Arts Novel award and the William Faulkner first novel contest. Her short stories have appeared in several magazines including Berkeley Fiction Review, Sonoma Mandala, fiction9.com and will be forthcoming in ZaBamba! In a past life she was a librarian, a teacher of high school journalism and a ghost writer. Glimmertrain selected Bridget Hoida's story "So La" as one of the top 25 winners of the Fall 2001 Short Story Award for New Writers! In October 2002, a short story of Bridget's appeared in the Fall issue of the lit journal RAINBOW CURVE. Recently, Bridget won first place in the 2002 Edward W. Moses Graduate Creative Writing competition at USC. A genre jumper, she also received second place in the San Joaquin Center for the Arts Poetry Contest and an Honorable Mention in the 2002 Academy of America Poets Prize. She has work forthcoming in CHASE PARK and in the 20 MULE PRESS anthology. Her first novel, ONE MISSISSIPPI, is represented by James Levine Communications. In April '03, Bridget traveled to Nottingham, England, to participate in the 2003 New York, Chicago, Los Angeles Cultures and Representations II International Conference. Bridget's three member panel examined contemporary LA expressions via literature and performance art. Bridget's presentation examined anti-urban sentiments while challenging the Hollywood mythology of starlets and Edenic archetypes, ultimately suggesting the depth of the L.A. woman far surpasses her stereotypically augmented breast size. Her fiction is forthcoming in the Spring 2005 issue of MARY.

The Center for Excellence in Teaching nominated Bridget as one of the outstanding Assistant Lecturers in the USC Writing Program for the 2002-2003 academic year.

Click here to listen to Bridget's prize winning story

 

SIEL JU (GRADUATED 2008)

Siel calls herself an "agnostic poet with solipsistic leanings". Siel won the 2002 Academy of American Poets prize for her poem "Bloodesire". She recently traveled to Dijon, France. Siel's series of poems, "Conjucations" were published in MARY. MARY also awarded Siel their best poem prize. She has work forthcoming in RANGE.

RICHARD MOORE

Winner of a Diversity Fellowship and master skateboarder, Richard Moore says he is known simply as "Dick" in "many circles". He received his B.A. in Creative Writing here at "sweet innocent ol' USC" in May, 2001. He says he didn't want to work, so he discovered grad school. Happy with the way his latest story has turned out, Dick continues to work on his fiction and on his Spanish. His skateboard is in good working condition.

RICHARD REID (GRADUATED 2007)

r. r. initials as a visual artist and now spends most of his time Ògluing things written and unwritten and their photographs together.Ó he received his B.A. in English: Creative Writing from USC, his M.A. in English: Creative Writing and his M.F.A. in Poetry from San Francisco State. his pieces have appeared in such journals as Fourteen Hills, LIT and Barrow Street as well as a number of vacant walls and anonymous public sites. some recent pieces include OF POSSIBLE DISGUISES FOR THE VARYING OF WEATHER CONDITIONS, a pataphysical Ôphotographic apertureÕ questionably reproduced from the collection of Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, a language trajectory entitled HUNG FROM THE CEILING BY STRINGS OF VARYING LENGTH and the tentative ZUR, a collection of specifically timed photos, movement and documentation. forthcoming is THEORY OF HEAT, a facsimile manipulation and scientific chorus with Clerk Maxwell's original 19th century text as well as ANTIBIOTIC, a genetic excavation and ethic al violation of Shakesperean sonnetry. currently he is working on a textual investigation into the relations of exuberance, excess, erotism, plasticity and poetics.

PAMELA SCHAFF, M.D.

Dr. Schaff graduated from Pomona College with a B.A. in English Literature in 1976 and received her M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1980. She has been in pediatric practice since 1983 and has taught in the Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM) program at USC (Keck School of Medicine) since 1986. Dr. Schaff was awarded the 1998 Excellence in Teaching Award for her work in the ICM program. She is currently an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Family Medicine at Keck. She is married to a general internist, despite having sworn she'd never marry a doctor, and they have three children. Her kids think she's nuts for going back to school when they can't wait to get out. Pam Schaff has a review on John Eakin's book "How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves" published in the December 2001 issue of "Literature And Medicine". In Fall, 2002, Pam was selected as one of the faculty mentors for Year 1 medical students in the inaugural year of new curriculum at Keck School of Medicine. She implemented the Literature and Medicine Seminar in Year III Family Medicine Clerkship (reading and writing around issues raised in "The Girl With The Pimply Face" by William Carlos Williams).

AMY SCHROEDER

Amy Schroeder's poems have appeared in Field, LIT, Lyric, Pleiades, Seneca Review, Slope and in American Poetry Review. A founding editor of POOL, a Los Angeles poetry magazine, she regularly reviews poetry for Publisher's Weekly. She holds a Middleton Fellowship at USC; she took her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Amy grew up in Los Angeles.

CLICK HERE FOR 2002, 2003, 2004 AND 2005 BIOS