Strong black metal fence along a groomed pathway, with a park in the background.

The Best We Can for Today

John Dunham When I sit down to write lately, hemmed in by COVID and various levels of quarantine, I don’t feel focused or productive. How do I write when everything…

Sarah Haas ‘20

Sarah Haas ‘20 (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) review, “Justice by Seeing: Of Color by Jaswinder Bolina,” appeared in The Rumpus. Haas’s piece, “A Toy, a Tool, a Piece…

Kate Maruyama ’09

Kate Maruyama’s (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) story, “Footprint,” was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Maruyama’s piece, “Writing Hope in Times of Trouble,” appeared in Asimov‘s blog From Earth to the Stars. Maruyama’s piece,…

Erica Charis-Molling ‘19

Erica Charis-Molling’s ‘19 (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) chapbook, “How We Burn,” was a finalist for the 2020 Orison Chapbook Prize.

Melissa Greenwood ‘16

Melissa Greenwood’s ‘16 (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) essay, “The Stain,” was nominated for Best Small Fiction by Meow Meow Pow Pow.

Alex Simand ‘16

Alex Simand’s ‘16 (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) piece, “How to Write Through a Pandemic,” was nominated for Best Small Fiction by Meow Meow Pow Pow.  

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang, Chair of AULA’s MFA in Creative Writing, has had her fifth book of poems, Obit,  selected by Time magazine as one of 100 “Must-Read” books of 2020. The…

Gabriella Souza Emmett ‘19

Gabriella Souza Emmett ‘19 (Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing) received the Carlisle Family Scholarship to attend the Community of Writers Fiction Workshop in the summer of 2021.

Erica Charis Molling ’19

Erica Charis Molling ’19 (Los Angeles, MFA) produced and launched “In This Place (An American Lyric),” a video featuring recitations of National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman and 16 other…

Cristina Medina ’19

Cristina Medina ’19 (Los Angeles, MFA) was selected as a finalist for North America Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize by Guest Judge Ilya Kaminsky for her poem “Etymology of a…

Julia Caroline Knowlton ’19

Julia Caroline Knowlton ’19 (Los Angeles, MFA) depicts survival from illness and sexual violence, and also paints a portrait of the artist striving to find living, literary mothers and sisters…