NYU > CWP > 2008 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards Reading

2008 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Awards Reading

Winners: Jennifer Culkin, Joanne Dwyer, Amy Leach, Jolie Lewis, Hasanthika Sirisena, and Therese Stanton

The Rona Jaffe Foundation provides support to women writers in the early stages of their writing careers.

Date: ,

Location: Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

Jennifer Culkin is a critical-care RN who lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Her first book, forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2009, is a collection of essays that centers on her nearly 30 years of medical experience, including time as an emergency helicopter and flight nurse.

Joanne Dominique Dwyer, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is working on her first collection of poems. She has a B.A. from the College of Santa Fe and will receive her M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College in 2009.

Leach.Smal.jpg Amy Leach, of Evanston, Illinois, is working on her first book, a collection of essays that explores such diverse subjects as Eta Carinae (a star), peas, warblers, jellyfish, goats, and lizards. She addresses the spiritual and the everyday with a comic’s sense of timing to create something entirely original that falls on the boundary between prose and poetry.

Jolie Lewis, of Richwood, West Virginia, is finishing her first novel, Farewell Avenue, which takes place in Alaska and involves the murder of a cab driver by a man in his thirties and two teenage boys. Ms. Lewis has a B.S. from Case Western Reserve University and an M.F.A. from The Ohio State University.

Hasanthika Sirisena, a Sri Lankan-American, is working on a coming-of-age novel, Edenboro, in which the protagonist, 15-year-old Jini de Foneska, and her family, newly arrived from Sri Lanka, try to make their way in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in the South. Ms. Sirisena is also working on a collection of short stories.

Therese Stanton received her B.A. from Smith College and an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan, where she received the Hopwood Award. She is completing her first book, Reading and Writing in America, a novella and stories that address the issues of literacy and speech in America in a historical and cultural context.

	Jennifer Culkin is a critical-care RN who lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Her first book, forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2009, is a collection of essays that centers on her nearly 30 years of medical experience, including time as an emergency helicopter and flight nurse.
	Joanne Dominique Dwyer, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is working on her first collection of poems. She has a B.A. from the College of Santa Fe and will receive her M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College in 2009.
	Amy Leach, of Evanston, Illinois, is working on her first book, a collection of essays that explores such diverse subjects as Eta Carinae (a star), peas, warblers, jellyfish, goats, and lizards. She addresses the spiritual and the everyday with a comic’s sense of timing to create something entirely original that falls on the boundary between prose and poetry.
	Jolie Lewis, of Richwood, West Virginia, is finishing her first novel, Farewell Avenue, which takes place in Alaska and involves the murder of a cab driver by a man in his thirties and two teenage boys. Ms. Lewis has a B.S. from Case Western Reserve University and an M.F.A. from The Ohio State University.
	Hasanthika Sirisena, a Sri Lankan-American, is working on a coming-of-age novel, Edenboro, in which the protagonist, 15-year-old Jini de Foneska, and her family, newly arrived from Sri Lanka, try to make their way in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in the South. Ms. Sirisena is also working on a collection of short stories.
	Therese Stanton received her B.A. from Smith College and an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan, where she received the Hopwood Award. She is completing her first book, Reading and Writing in America, a novella and stories that address the issues of literacy and speech in America in a historical and cultural context.