Author and Academic Lisa Locascio has joined the MFA in Creative Writing program as a Core Faculty in Fiction. Locascio comes to Antioch with a decade of teaching experience at various institutions including Wesleyan University, UCLA, USC, Colorado College, and New York University. Locascio also serves as the Executive Director of the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference.
“I’m so excited to work with Lisa. Her literary accomplishments, work experience, work ethic, leadership skills, and mission-consistent philosophy and pedagogy make her a great fit for our team,” said Victoria Chang, Chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program. “I look forward to her contributions to our program and the university at large.”
Locascio’s debut novel, Open Me, was published by Grove Atlantic in 2018. A New York Times Editor’s Choice, Open Me was a semifinalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and was reviewed in The New York Times Review of Books, The New Yorker, and on NPR. She has also published numerous chapbooks and is the editor of an anthology, Golden State 2017: Best New Writing from California, published by Outpost19 Books. She has also published numerous creative writing pieces in literary journals such as Lit Hub, The Southhampton Review, The Believer, and n+1, amongst many others.
“I am delighted to join the powerful team at Antioch University Los Angeles,” Locascio says. “Working at an institution that shares my commitment to social justice and equitable education—in my favorite city, no less!—is a dream come true. I look forward to learning from my colleagues and helping continue to make Antioch among the most rigorous, innovative, diverse, and surprising graduate creative writing programs in the United States.”
Locascio holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California, an MA in English Literature from the University of Southern California, and an MFA in Creative Writing, and a BA in Individualized Study from New York University.
