Meet Our Staff & Instructors

Courtney Gillette is a writer and teacher whose essays and book reviews have appeared in BuzzFeed, Tin House, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Lambda Literary and Medium, among others. Before joining the Writing Institute, she worked behind the scenes at the NYU Summer Publishing Institute at the NYU SPS Center for Publishing and the National Book Foundation. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an MS in Education from Mercy College. Courtney was named an Emerging Writer Fellow at Aspen Words Summer Words in 2017 and serves on the Aspen Words Creative Council.  An adjunct professor of creative writing at Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program, she lives in the Hudson Valley with one librarian and three cats.

Katie Machen is a writer, editor, educator, and former cheesemonger. In her previous lives, she has sold cheese to her neighbors in Queens and taught food education courses for kids, taught English at Queens College and in France, wrangled children in New Zealand, and held a role in college communications. She is the co-editor of the chapbook anthology Eating Alone: Essays & Reflections, and her work has appeared in River Teeth, Off Assignment, and Culture Magazine, among others. A Baltimore native, Katie holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Queens College, CUNY. She lives in Queens with her husband and dog.

Ava Robinson is a writer, educator and podcast producer. She is the Assistant Director of Marketing for Lifelong Learning at Sarah Lawrence College and a graduate of The New School’s MFA program. She is represented by Jamie Carr of The Book Group. Her debut novel, Definitely Better Now, was published by Mira Books in 2024.

MaKenzie Jean Copp teaches College Writing at Purchase College. She is originally from Maine, where she received a dual BA in English and Writing/Publishing from Saint Joseph’s College of Maine. She received her MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she concentrated in poetry. She was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021. Her work can be found in Pigeon Pages and Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts and Letters.

Marcia Bradley, MFA, Sarah Lawrence College, writes fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Her novel, The Home for Wayward Girls, will debut from HarperCollins Publishers in April 2023. Marcia won a Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award for fiction and has been published numerous literary journals including Drunk Monkeys, Electica, The Writing Disorder, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Hippocampus Magazine. She received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and her memoir essay about her brother was published in The Capital Gazette. Marcia has received scholarships to Community of Writers in the High Sierra, Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College, and Ragdale outside of Chicago. Marcia also teaches creative writing for New York area high school students in programs sponsored by Sarah Lawrence College, the Yonkers School District, and the Greater New York Chapter of the Fulbright Association. Marcia’s roots are in Chicago; she lived in Los Angeles before her move to New York where she resides in the Bronx. See more at marciabradley.com

People Magazine and USA Today and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Her short fiction appeared in the anthology, Bronx Noir, which won the 2008 Book of the Year Award for special fiction from the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. Her tenth novel, a young adult thriller, is currently out on submission. She is also working on a book about motherhood.

Jimin Han is the author of The Apology, a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick; named a best audiobook of the year by Booklist, a best book of the summer by the LA Times, Vanity Fair, Shondaland, Apple Books and more.  She is also the author of A Small Revolution. Additional writing of hers can be found at American Public Media's Weekend America, Poets & Writers, and other media outlets. She teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Pace University, and community writing centers. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she grew up in Providence, Rhode Island; Dayton, Ohio; and Jamestown, New York. Her work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts. 

The Men Can’t Be Saved, was named one of Vanity Fair’s Top 20 Books of 2023. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, Poetry, Kenyon Review, and he has been featured by NPR, Esquire, and The Boston Globe. He is also the author of the poetry collection, For the Love of Endings. He holds degrees from Harvard and NYU, where he was a New York Times Fellow. He teaches in the Sarah Lawrence College MFA program.

Ines Rodrigues is a journalist and fiction writer, currently doing her MFA in creative writing at Columbia University, in New York. She published her first novel, "Days of Bossa Nova" in 2017 and she's now writing her second work of fiction. Ines has been an instructor at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College since 2016. She is the former editor of Scarsdale Living Magazine and also teaches at Bronxville Adult School. She is the curator of "The Scarsdale Salon" (Scarsdale, NY), a quarterly literary event in partnership with the Salon de Belleville (Paris, France).  Read more about Ines Rodrigues and enjoy her blog at https://www.inesrodriguesauthor.com/.

Barbara Solomon Josselsohn is a best-selling author of five novels: THE CRANBERRY INN, THE LILY GARDEN, THE BLUEBELL GIRLS, THE LILAC HOUSE and THE LAST DREAMER. Her articles and essays appear in a range of publications including New York Magazine, Parents Magazine, Consumers Digest, The New York Times, and Writer’s Digest. She currently teaches novel writing at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and is also a private book coach. In addition, she founded and serves as coordinator and instructor with the Scarsdale Library Writers Center. She is a member of Novelists Inc. and the Women's Fiction Writers Association, where she has held leadership positions. Barbara has a B.A. in English from Binghamton University, and an M.A. In English from the University of Connecticut, and studied novel writing at The Writing Institute and Manhattanville College. Visit her online at www.BarbaraJosselsohn.com, @Barbara_Josselsohn_Author (Instagram), @BarbaraJoss (Twitter) or Facebook.com/BarbaraSolomonJosselsohnAuthor.    

I Am “Why Do I Need Venmo?” Years Old: Adventures in Aging. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New York Times, Real Simple, The Rumpus, The Wall Street Journal, and in the forthcoming anthology Embrace the Merciless Joy: The McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Guide to Rearing Small, Medium, and Large Children. She lives in the lower Hudson Valley with her husband, son, and dog.

Kathy Curto teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and Montclair State University as well as several nonprofit organizations and writing centers in the metropolitan area. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood (Bordighera Press, 2018.) Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR, and in the anthologies And There Were Red Geraniums Everywhere (released in both Italian and English) and Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now. She has also published widely in a variety of literary journals and magazines.  Kathy’s piece, “Still Cooking Side by Side” considered a “Modern Love in miniature” by The New York Times, was included in The Best of Tiny Love Stories in August 2021. She is co-founder of Key to the Castle Workshopand serves on the board of the Italian American Writers Association. Kathy lives with her family in the Hudson Valley. Please visit her site: www.kathycurto.com.

Amelia has more than a decade of experience as a book publicist, including posts at Little, Brown and Company, Touchstone Books, and, most recently, Flatiron Books, where she was the Associate Director of Publicity.

She teaches creative writing through Lambda Literary’s Writers in School program, coaches swimming with Team New York Aquatics, and occasionally volunteers aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

She currently lives in Flatbush with her cat.

Best American Essays and has appeared in The Sun, Brevity, Off Assignment, The New York Times (Modern Love), the anthology Letter to a Stranger, and elsewhere. She is the author of the memoir-in-essays Brutalities, published in October 2023 by W.W. Norton. Margo is a creative coach and facilitator, and is faculty at the University of Arizona Writing Program. Read more about her practices at margosteines.com.

www.tylermills.com

chrissteib.com. 

Elaine Sexton's fourth collection of poetry is Drive (Grid Books, 2022). A long-time member of the faculty at the Writing Institute, she frequently teaches workshops & seminars in poetry, the chapbook, bookmaking, and text & image at various writing and art programs in the U.S. and abroad, including New York University, City College, Poets House, and Arts Workshop International. An editor and micro-publisher, she is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle. elainesexton.org​