Staff List

About Poets & Writers

Meet the People of Poets & Writers

Administration
Editorial
Advertising
Readings/Workshops (East)
Readings/Workshops (West) and California Office
Information Technology

ADMINISTRATION

Elliot Figman – Executive Director

As an earlier admirer of Poets & Writers, Elliot came to the organization as a volunteer in 1977. Four years later he was appointed the organization’s executive director. Elliot graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors in English from Oberlin College in 1971 and earned an MA in Teaching from the University of Massachusetts in 1972. He has served on the Board of Directors of Oberlin College and The Corlears School. An accomplished poet, his book, Big Spring, was published by Four Way Books in 2003.

Melissa Ford Gradel, CFRE – Managing Director

Melissa joined the Poets & Writers staff in January 2010, bringing 15 years of experience as a development director and consultant to a range of arts and cultural organizations. Early in her career, she assisted P&W in writing the initial grant proposals for pw.org. Melissa holds a BFA from New York University. She is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), and completed a certificate course in Management & Supervision at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management. She is a beekeeper, gardener, sailor, and an avid reader.

William F. Hayes – Director of Finance and Accounting

Bill has been controller of Poets & Writers since 1999. He has been involved in the media industry for the past twenty-five years. Prior to joining Poets & Writers, Bill served as the controller of the Talman Company, a small press publisher and distributor located in New York City. Bill has also held the position of assistant to the treasurer/controller of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), and controller of United Artists Cablesystems, Inc., eastern division. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s CPA emphasis program.

Alexanne Pemberton – Senior Accountant

Alex has worked at Poets & Writers since 2006. She has served as the accounting coordinator for Niche Media and has worked in the finance departments at Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Jason Contreras – Accounting Assistant

Jason is a student at Brooklyn College, where he is pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Public Accounting and in Business, Management, and Finance. His goal is to become a Certified Public Accountant. He joined Poets & Writers in 2011.

D. Sulaitis – Administrative Coordinator

D. has worked at Poets & Writers since 1991. Her short stories have appeared in Inkwell, New York Stories, and Painted Bride Quarterly, and one of her essays was included in My Father Married Your Mother (Norton, 2006). In 2006, D. won the Boston Review’s annual fiction contest, and she has been a finalist in both the New Letters and Zoetrope fiction contests, and for the Flannery O’Connor award for a collection of short stories. She is the recipient of two fiction fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and holds a BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Hartford.

Rachel Schuder – Development & Marketing Manager

Rachel joined Poets & Writers in 2011, bringing several years experience in non-profit administration. Most recently Rachel worked for Urban Green Council, an environmental organization focused on green building. She also has significant experience in the arts sector, having served as a Program Coordinator for the Creative Capital Foundation and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, two prestigious artist service organizations based in New York City. Rachel is a visual artist and holds a BA in Studio Art from Bowdoin College and a Masters in Fine Art from Hunter College. Her work has been shown in museums, galleries, and alternative spaces in New York City, Boston, Seattle, and Mexico City.

Auzelle M. Epeneter – Development & Marketing Associate

Auzelle joined Poets & Writers in 2011 from the communications department at Friends of the High Line. Originally from Southern California, she holds an ABJ in Advertising from The University of Georgia.

EDITORIAL

Mary Gannon – Editorial Director

Mary has worked in the editorial department of Poets & Writers Magazine since 1996; she became editor in 2005 and editorial director in 2009. She is also coeditor of the book, The Practical Writer: From Inspiration to Publication, which was published by Penguin in 2004. She has worked at Hearst Magazines, and has taught writing as a faculty associate at Arizona State University where she received her MFA in poetry and where she was a poetry editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review. Mary has published her poetry in a variety of literary magazines, including the Antioch Review, the Paris Review, SHADE, and Washington Square, among others, and book reviews in Chelsea, the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, and Poetry International.

Kevin Larimer – Editor, Poets & Writers Magazine

Kevin has been with Poets & Writers since 1999; he became editor in 2009. He holds a degree in journalism and received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was the poetry editor of the Iowa Review. He has also been the sports editor of a daily newspaper, an editorial assistant for a science book publisher, and a proofreader for a university press. His poems have appeared in Fence, Pleiades, Verse, and a dozen other literary magazines. He has written book reviews for American Letters & Commentary, American Book Review, Chelsea, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Suzanne Pettypiece – Managing Editor

Prior to joining Poets & Writers in 2002, Suzanne worked as a book editor for Pearson and also served in various positions at several magazines and newspapers. She received her MA in journalism from Ball State University. She is cofounder and editor of the print and online literary journal Ballyhoo Stories.

Jean Hartig – Associate Editor

Jean joined Poets & Writers in 2007 after receiving her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She has worked as an associate regional editor for Lumina , the graduate literary journal of Sarah Lawrence, and as an editorial assistant at A Public Space magazine. Jean’s poetry has appeared in Sink Review, Pax Americana, and Storyscape, and her chapbook, Ave, Materia, selected by Fanny Howe as winner of a New York City Chapbook Fellowship, was published in 2009 by the Poetry Society of America.

Evan Smith Rakoff – Assistant Online Editor

Evan comes to Poets & Writers after sixteen years in publishing, working most recently for the Student Press Initiative at Teachers College. A native of North Carolina, he earned a BA in English from the University of North Carolina (where he was editor of the college's hundred-year-old literary magazine), and an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. His poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Ploughshares, Green Mountains Review, and elsewhere; he has been a fellow at the Millay Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. He lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with his wife and two children.

ADVERTISING

Tim O'Sullivan – Advertising Director

Tim O'Sullivan joined Poets & Writers in 2008. He has worked at Bookforum magazine, has taught undergraduate composition and creative writing, and was a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His fiction has appeared in A Public Space and received special mention in Pushcart Prize 2008.

Sara Femenella – Advertising Coordinator

Sara Femenella's work is published or forthcoming in Pleiades, MiPOesias, Milk Magazine, and Saint Ann's Review . She received her BA from Oberlin College and most recently her MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Prior to working at Poets & Writers, she was the assistant editor at the Saint Ann's Review for several years. She grew up in New York City.

Victoria Matsui – Advertising Associate

Victoria Matsui joined Poets & Writers in 2010, shortly after receiving her BA in Sociology with a minor in Creative Writing from Vassar College. Her work has been published in the online publications plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2010 and Podium. She lives in Brooklyn.

READINGS/WORKSHOPS (EAST)

Bonnie Rose Marcus – Director of Readings/Workshops (East) and the Writers Exchange

Bonnie joined Poets & Writers in July 2000, bringing more than 20 years of experience in the field of arts education. Bonnie has conducted theatre and writing workshops at numerous community-based organizations in New York City and created a model program, Project VIP (Voice, Identity, Power), a theatre writing initiative for adolescent girls, which continues at New Settlement Apartments in the Bronx. A writer and performer, Bonnie has presented her poetry at venues including ABC No Rio, Boricua College, Cornelia Street Café, the New School for Social Research, and Playwrights Horizon. Her theatre credits include a three and a half year run in the Off Broadway show, “Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding.”

Nicole Sealey – Assistant Director, Readings/Workshops (East) and the Writers Exchange

Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Central Florida, Nicole is a Cave Canem graduate fellow, Hedgebrook alumna and the 2011 Agha Shahid Ali Scholar in Poetry at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. A finalist for the 2011 Third Coast Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Harvard Review, Third Coast, and Callaloo, among others.

READINGS/WORKSHOPS (WEST) and CALIFORNIA OFFICE

Cheryl Klein – Director, California Office and Readings/Workshops (West)

Cheryl Klein joined Poets & Writers in 2002. Her first book, The Commuters: A Novel of Intersections (San Diego City Works Press, 2006), won City Works Press’ Ben Reitman Award. Previously, she coedited the online queer fiction magazine Blithe House Quarterly and taught creative writing to homeless youth, high school girls, and teen boys in the criminal justice system. She received a BA in English from UCLA, and an MFA in writing from California Institute of the Arts.

Jamie Asaye FitzGerald – Assistant Director, California Office and Readings/Workshop (West)

Jamie has worked for Poets & Writers since 2005. While an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, she received an Academy of American Poets College Prize and the Edward W. Moses Poetry Prize. She has taught creative writing, composition, and literature at San Diego State University where she received an MFA in poetry. She also has extensive experience as a copywriter. Her poetry has appeared in Ariel, Fulcrum, LORE, Poetic Diversity, Speechless, and Snow Monkey, as well as the King County Poetry on the Buses Project. Jamie is originally from Hawaii.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Jason Chapman – Director, Information Technology

Jason has worked in the IT industry for over twenty years, and joined Poets & Writers in 1997. His diverse experiences include mainframe operations for the Georgia Institute of Technology, application development for a military contractor, and Web development for a variety of businesses. He is also the author of the novel, The Heretic, an early success in the still-developing arena of electronic publishing.

James Frederick – Junior Web Developer

Jim joined the Poets & Writers team in 2011. He holds a BA from SUNY Binghamton, with a concentration in poetry. At Binghamton, he was a volunteer reader for Harpur Palate. After graduating, Jim balanced his technical interests as a database manager and production designer with publishing poetry and fiction in Marco Polo Quarterly.