Session I Faculty

Jotham Burrello is the director of the Yale Writers’ Workshop. His novel, Spindle City, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway award, and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. His writing has appeared in literary journals, and he’s a proud winner of The New Yorker caption contest. He’s currently completing a new novel. He teaches writing at Central Connecticut State University, founded the CT Lit Fest, and is the former publisher of the award-winning Elephant Rock Books.

Trey Ellis is an American Book Award Winning novelist, two-time Emmy and Peabody winning filmmaker, NAACP Image award winning playwright, essayist and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He is the author of Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood. His acclaimed first novel, Platitudes, was reissued by Northeastern University Press along with his influential essay, The New Black Aesthetic. He is also the author of Home Repairs and Right Here, Right Now.

Molly Gaudry is the founder of Lit Pub and the author of the verse novels Desire: A Haunting and We Take Me Apart, which was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award and shortlisted for the PEN/Osterweil. Her third book, Fit into Me: A Novel: A Memoir is forthcoming in fall 2025. She teaches nonfiction and poetry at Stony Brook University and fiction at the Yale Writers' Workshop.

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is the author of Scar On/Scar Off, When Trying to Return Home and Kinds of Grace. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio and CantoMundo and her work has been a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Best Fiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and a Must-Read by Elle. She is fiction editor at Pleiades and an assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Lisa Page is co-editor of We Wear The Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Crisis, LitHub, The Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Playboy and other publications. She is assistant professor of English and directs the Creative Writing Program at George Washington University. She previously served as Interim Director of Africana Studies. She is the former President of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She lives outside Washington, DC.

Kirsten Bakis is author, most recently, of King Nyx, which Esquire magazine named one of the Best Horror Books of 2024 and Victor LaValle called "a novel of delicious disquiet." In a profile in the Washington Post, Jacob Brogan called Bakis "a major talent, a writer of prodigious commitment, capability and imagination." She is the recipient of multiple awards and has been teaching at the Yale Writers’ Workshop since 2012.

Sergio Troncoso is most recently the author of Nobody’s Pilgrims. He also wrote A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, which Luis Alberto Urrea called "a world-class collection" and Junot Díaz hailed as “a masterwork.” Troncoso edited Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, Troncoso was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He has taught at the Yale Writers' Workshop since 2013.

Mary Collins is in her seventh year at Yale. A true roamer, Mary has written books on sedentary culture, changing expectations for girls, a history of NPR, and a co-authored a project with her son Donald, At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces (Beacon), which won several national awards. She’s currently completing a book with one of America’s most significant landscape painters, Sharon Yates of Maine, which is under contract with Globe Pequot books.

Mishka Shubaly is an author, songwriter, and storyteller. He has shared the stage with everyone from Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Richard Price. His books include Cold Turkey: How to Quit Drinking By Not Drinking, a New York Times bestseller, and the memoir I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You. His seven nonfiction Kindle Singles have all been bestsellers. His collection of his Kindle Singles The Long Run and Other True Stories with praise from Leslie Jamison, among others.