The Yale Young Writers Workshop faculty consists of experienced and accomplished writers who are dedicated to mentoring young, emerging voices. The faculty members bring diverse backgrounds and expertise in various genres, providing a dynamic learning environment. Through personalized feedback and guidance, they help students refine their writing skills and explore their creative potential. Each faculty member is committed to fostering a supportive atmosphere for young writers to grow and develop their craft.
Jacqueline Feldman is the author of the nonfiction book Precarious Lease: The Paris Document (Fitzcarraldo, 2025) and On Your Feet: A Novel in Translations, an experiment in bilingual composition. She is currently at work on a novel. A graduate of Yale and Paris's Ecole des Hautes Etudes, where she studied literature, she earned her MFA at UMass Amherst, where she teaches as a lecturer in the Writing Program.
Kristin Bair’s latest novel, Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything, has made lots of readers laugh out loud—and sob hysterically. Kristin is also the author of the novels The Art of Floating and Thirsty, and her essays have appeared in numerous publications. She is an associate fiction editor at Pangyrus, and her next novel, Clementine Crane Prefers Not To, will be out in 2025. She has taught in classrooms around the globe, from Chicago to Boston to Shanghai.
Jotham Burrello is the director of the Yale Writers’ Workshop. His novel, Spindle City, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway award, and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. His writing has appeared in literary journals, and he’s a proud winner of The New Yorker caption contest. He’s currently completing a new novel. He teaches writing at Central Connecticut State University, founded the CT Lit Fest, and is the former publisher of the award-winning Elephant Rock Books.
Lara Ehrlich is the author of the novel Bind Me Tighter Still (Red Hen Press, 2025), and Animal Wife, which won Red Hen Press’s Fiction Award and was published by the press in 2020. Lara is the host of Writer Mother Monster, a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of “having it all," and she is the founder and director of Thought Fox Writers Den, a creative writing center in Stonington, CT.
Summer Tate is a poet and educator who teaches in Hartford, Connecticut. She has published in various literary journals and is an adjunct professor at CT State Community Colleges. Summer holds a BA from Bay Path University, a Master's in English Education from UConn, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. She is currently an English PhD candidate at Howard University.
Sarah Darer Littman is the award-winning author of 20 middle grade and young adult novels. INFLUENCED, her first ever co-written novel, comes out from Scholastic Press in August 2025. As well as writing novels, Sarah teaches in the MFA program at Western CT State University, and at the Yale Writers’ Workshop. She is also an award-winning opinion columnist.
Anne Thalheimer is an artist and educator whose work in visual culture, autobio comix, and independent publishing spans three decades. Her work (both academic and graphic) has appeared in numerous collections, including the MLA’s Teaching The Graphic Novel; she is a long-term reviewer for Xerography Debt and a former contributor to both Fleen and PopMatters. Mostly she likes drawing monsters, cats, and cute food. Anne holds a PhD in English from the University of Delaware.
Emily Skillings is the author of the poetry collection Fort Not which Publishers Weekly called a “fabulously eccentric, hypnotic, and hypervigilant debut.” Her second book, Tantrums in Air, is due in 2025. Skillings’ recent poems can be found in Poetry, Harper’s, and the New York Review of Books. She has received residencies and fellowships from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Skillings currently teaches creative writing at Yale, NYU, and Columbia.
Nick Chhoeun is a poet and educator with an MFA from American University. His poems have appeared in Shenandoah, The Windward Review, Free State Review, and other publications. His recent chapbook “Learning How to Talk”, published by above/ground press, explores language through varying cultures and identities. Nick’s teaching focuses on belonging and fostering experimental approaches to craft. He is currently working on a poetry collection that blends forms in music and painting with poetry.
Lecture Date: Thursday, June 26, 2025 @ 11:15 am
Hi! My name’s Taylor Onyinanya and I'm a 2023 Yale Young Writers’ Workshop Alum! I love creative writing, particularly fiction/flash fiction, and I'm so grateful to be a co-founder of The Literary Palette, a literary magazine started by my fellow YYWW alumni. I'm also passionate about raising awareness for adolescents’ mental health and hope through my stories and blog posts I can spread creativity and positive messages to my readers and fellow writers.
Lecture Date: Friday, June 6, 2025 @ 2:00 pm
A native Parisian, she got her start in NYC publishing by joining The Joy Harris Literary Agency in 1999. She is primarily interested in character-driven fiction, memoirs, and YA. Authors with whom she has worked include New York Times bestsellers, as well as winners of the Lambda Literary Award, the Ribalow Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Awards among others.
Lecture Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2025 @ 2:00 pm
Antoinette Brim-Bell (Antoinette Brim), Connecticut’s 8th State Poet Laureate, is the author of three poetry collections: These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love, and Psalm of the Sunflower. A sought-after speaker, editor, educator, and consultant, Brim-Bell is a Professor of English at CT State Community College, Capital.
Lecture Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2025 @ 2:00 pm
Jake Halpern is a journalist, bestselling author, and the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. His nonfiction book on debt collectors, Bad Paper, was excerpted for the Times Magazine. His acclaimed book on refugees, Welcome to the New World, expanded his Pulitzer-winning series in the Times; was a New York Times best book of the year. Jake’s debut work of fiction, Dormia, has been hailed by the American Library Association's Booklist as a worthy heir to the Harry Potter series.