Christine Kitano

Headshot of Christine Kitano. Christine is wearing a black turtleneck sweater. Christine is posed in front of trees in winter.

Christine was a writing scholar for the 2014-2015 academic year. She holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University and serves on the advisory board for the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies and is an active member of the U.S.-Japan Council.

She is also the author of two collections of poetry, Sky Country (BOA Editions, 2017), and Birds of Paradise (Lynx House Press, 2011). Sky Country won the Central New York Book Award and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. She co-edited the oral history collection Who You? Hawai'i Issei (University of Hawai'i / Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i Press, 2017) and They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women's Poetry (Blue Oak Press, 2022). She is currently an associate professor at Stony Brook University where she teaches in the MFA and BFA programs in Creative Writing and Literature. She has served on the faculty for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College since 2018.

Tyrell Stewart-Harris

Headshot of Tyrell Stewart-Harris. Tyrell is wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt and red tie.

Tyrell was also a 2014-2015 writing scholar. Tyrell was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College before taking his current position at Cornell University as a Lecturer in Management Communication and the Writing Program Coordinator at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. He teaches AEM 2700: Management Communication and a writing-intensive course for the Grand Challenges Program. Stewart-Harris earned a PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include writing pedagogy, housing policy, and marketing.

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Headshot of Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. Lillian-Yvonne is posed in front of patterned background. Is wearing a black sweater with white/grey cardigan.

Lillian-Yvonne was the third 2014-2015 writing scholar and has numerous publications including the forthcoming poetry collection Negative Money (Soft Skull, 2023), and the poetry collection Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019), winner of the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series. Travesty Generator received the 2020 Poetry Society of America Anna Rabinowitz Prize for interdisciplinary and venturesome work, and Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2017), to name a few. They are now an Associate Professor of English, Africana Studies, and Art & Design at Northeastern University. Previously they directed the MFA in Creative Writing at UMASS Boston. They have previously taught at St. Lawrence University, Ithaca College, and Williams College. They also direct the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival.

Bertram holds a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, among degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.