Creative Writing Faculty
Gerri Brightwell was brought up in South Devon, England. After deciding a degree in zoology was not for her, she took up literature and art history, and lived on a narrow boat in Bristol. Since then she has roamed more widely, working in Spain, Thailand, Canada and the United States. She has worked as a cleaner, ice-cream seller, sandwich-maker, pottery sponger, editor, nanny and, most recently, a teacher of writing and literature.
She has master's degrees in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, plus a doctorate in literature from the University of Minnesota. Her novel, The Dark Lantern, has been published in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Italty, and tells the story of a maid and her mistress in a nineteenth-century household full of secrets. Her first novel, Cold Country, was published by Duckworth in 2003 and is set in Alaska.
Derick Burleson's first book, Ejo: Poems, Rwanda 1991-94 won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review and Poetry, among other journals. He is also a recipient of a 1999 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. His second book, Never Night is a hymn to life, a meditation on day and night, on the seasons, on nature and on love. His third book of poetry, Melt, will be released in October 2011.
David Crouse is an award-winning short story writer and teacher. Author of Copy Cats (winner of the Flanner O'Connor Award in Short Fiction) and The Man Back There, he is also the former Chair of the Writing and Literature Program at Chester College of New England. Professor Crouse became a faculty member in the MFA Program in January 2007.
Professor Crouse's stories have appeared in some of the country's most well regarded journals, including The Greensboro Review, Chelsea, Quarterly West, and The Beloit Fiction Journal. His comic book writing has been anthologized in The Darkhorse Book of the Dead, published by Darkhorse Comics. He is currently working on several projects, including mixed-genre work involving text and image.
He admires the work of many contemporary authors, ranging from the traditional to the expertimental. These include Don DeLillo (The Names, Running Dog, Libra), Toni Morrison, James Salter, Philip K. Dick, Mary Robison, John Cheever, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, and Sherman Alexie. He is also a big fan of fringe art: punk rock, "outsider" music, neo-psychedlia, found art, Italian zombie movies, and other odd cultural artifacts.
Daryl Farmer was born in Colorado Springs, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. He developed a taste for the open road at an early age, and has spent a life roaming the country, photographing and writing about the land and people he loves. He has lived in New Mexico, Oregon, New Hampshire, Mississippi and Texas, among other places. He received a B.A. in physical education from Adams State College(Alamosa, Colorado) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Recent work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Laurel Review, Quarter After Eight and Isotope. His first book Bicycling beyond the Divide: Two Journeys into the West received a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writer’s Award and was a Colorado Book Award finalist. Before moving to Fairbanks, he taught writing at the University of Nebraska, Georgia Tech. and Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Leonard Kamerling is Curator of Film at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and Associate Professor of English at UAF. Over the last 25 years, he has produced numerous critically acclaimed, international award winning documentary films about Alaska Native cultures and Northern issues. He received his training at the London Film School, and earned his MFA in Creative Writing from UAF. He joined the Creative Writing Faculty in 1999 where he specializes in teaching writing for film, theater and television.
His film, "Heart of the Country," was nominated for the American Film Institute's prestigious Par Lorenze Award. Recently his documentary, "The Drums of Winter," was named to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.
Throughout his career, Leonard Kamerling has been concerned with issues of cultural representation in film, cross-cultural communication and the role that film and film writing can play in eliminating stereotypes and in credibly translating one culture to another.
Amber Flora Thomas is the recipient of several major poetry awards, including the Richard Peterson Prize and Ann Stanford Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Calyx, Gulf Coast, Bellingham Review, and Southern Poetry Review, among other publications. She has an MFA in Poetry Writing from Washington University in St. Louis here she won an Academy of American Poets prize and a post-graduate teaching fellowship. Her first collection of poems, Eye of Water, won the 2004 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2005.