Education Committee & Teacher Bios
Amanda Cook lives in Gloucester with her husband, James, and children Abigail and Samuel. She sees writing as an integral part of life. She knits, spins yarn, plays fiddle, feeds people and dances when she pleases. It is in this spirit of living fully that she approaches teaching and writing. Her book Ironstone Whirlygig is forthcoming from Pressed Wafer.
James Cook is a teacher at Gloucester High School. He is a poet and editor of Polis, a literary journal based out of Gloucester, MA and San Francisco, CA that focuses on the engagement and revitalization of place through art. His work has appeared in Process, Eoagh, the Sunday Morning Anthology, and elsewhere. In 2006 Somerville’s Openmouth Press published a chapbook of his poems called Some Arguments, and Boston’s Pressed Wafer Press published a fold out called from Arguments and Letters. He has a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College and an MA in Teaching English from Tufts University. James lives in Gloucester with his wife, Amanda, and two Children, Samuel and Abigail.
Susan Erony, a Gloucester-based artist, lecturer, and sometime curator , attended Rhode Island School of Design, Massachusetts College of Art, Lesley University and the University for Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, Holland. Her artwork has focused primarily on history and the human condition and her lectures on the intersection of art and society. Erony has consulted to organizations on the issues of art and society, taught and lectured on both art history and art practice, and organized exhibitions on subjects ranging from the use of artistic devices in creating prejudice to those showcasing the work of one artist. Erony has exhibited extensively and has work in private and public collections in North America, Europe and the Middle East.
Ann McArdle earned her MFA in fiction at the Pine Manor Solstice program. She has developed curriculum and taught creative writing as well as expository writing at various levels from teen to adult over the past fifteen years. She has published nine nonfiction books. Her short short story “Tomorrow,” appeared in the premiere issue of the journal Pear Noir! And aired on <http://www.wordstogopodcast.com>.
She is currently working on a collection of 10-minute plays as well as a memoir of her years in Uruguay in the early 70s.
Martha Morgan fell in love with the Haibun form during her unrealized MFA studies at Goddard College and has had several haibun published in Contemporary Haibun Online. She tries to write whatever and whenever she can and one summer had the great privilege of attending the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. A professional librarian, she has worked at local schools and public libraries as well as Toad Hall Bookstore in Rockport. If you have any questions about the workshop, please feel free to contact her at: morganottenheimer@comcast.net.
Dorothy Shubow Nelson’s book of poems, The Dream of the Sea, was published in 2008. Formerly a Senior Lecturer in English at UMass Boston, she taught writing and literature for 25 years. She has an M.A. in English with a concentration in Composition Studies and has presented numerous papers on the teaching of writing at educational conferences. Recent writings include her review of Bruce Weigl’s new book of poems, The Abundance of Nothing, published in Consequence Magazine, Vol. 5, Spring 2013 and Collages: New Work by Joy Dai Buell published on-line in North Shore Art Throb. She is a member of the Board and the Education Committee of the Gloucester Writers Center. She served as a founding editor of Union News (UMass Boston), and The East Boston Community News and Editor of Survival Kit, an Occupational Health and Safety Newsletter . She has been a denizen of the North Shore and Gloucester for many years.
M. Lynda Robinson has been working in theatre, film & TV for the past 35 years as an actor, director, producer, teacher, coach, and playwright. She attended the Masters Program in Playwriting at B.U. and is a published playwright. As an actor she has performed in many theaters in Boston including the Publick, Nora, Lyric, Wilbur, W.H.A.T., Huntington, Provincetown Rep, Merrimack, Gloucester Stage, Stoneham, Shear Madness, New Rep, Wheelock, among others. Lynda has performed in hundreds of commercials, corporate videos, live trade-shows, and voice-overs as well as performing principal roles in film and TV. In 1993 she was honored with the Norton Award for Outstanding Boston Actress, one of the first local actors to win this award. Lynda teaches at Boston Casting, Wheelock College Family Theatre, and the Gloucester Writers Center, among others, and was awarded the Distinguished Arts Educator Award in Theatre, by Arts/Learning at a ceremony at the State House in 2010.