Fall 2025 Alumni News

Sandy Ernest Allen (MFA ’12) published this essay for Cosmo and this one for Eater among others and Boston Globe Op-Ed: "Brown University's 'deal' with Trump administration betrays trans students"

Mary Margaret (Mia) Alvarado (MFA ’96) founded a literary nonprofit, Brave Irene's, and is now teaching in the Department of Corrections as part of that work. She is leading a remote "Intensive" craft class for Image this fall, "Nonfiction & the Infinite Dignity."

Buzz around Barret Baumgart’s (MFA ’14) new book YUCK prompted the city of Las Vegas to invite him to be a guest on their Nature Writing panel during the Las Vegas Book Festival.

Drew Bratcher (MFA ’16), published "Music City, " a consideration of Robert Altman's "Nashville" on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the film, and "Ticks, " an essay about memory and impermanence, in County Highway.

Hannah Bonner (MFA ’24) Ariana Reines's poetry collection The Rose for POETRY and received The Robert B. Heilman Award for my review of Heather Lewis's Notice in the 2024 issue of The Sewanee Review. 

Frances Cannon (MFA ’17) is the new Reviews Editor for Poetry Wales. She continues her work as an editorial reader for The Kenyon Review, and is an affiliated scholar at Kenyon College, where she recently completed the Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellowship. She has a book forthcoming in 2026 with Valiz Press: “Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga.”

Gabriela Tully Claymore (MFA ’22) published a story about a long lost photo of Faulkner at Mardi Gras in Oxford American. 

Carey Dunne’s (MFA ’22) debut novel, Miracle Cures, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2027 which began as her MFA thesis project in the NWP. 

Hope Edelman's (MFA ’92) essay, “A Kosovar Guide to Darts,” was published by The Missouri Review in April 2025. She will be teaching two nonfiction workshops at the San Miguel Writers Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, this coming February.

Tom Montgomery Fate (MFA ’86) published an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune on too many bears and the meaning of National Parks.

Patricia Foster (Professor Emerita) has a new memoir, A Marriage in Startled Air, forthcoming in 2026 from Crux, the nonfiction series of UGA Press. In 2026, she will be awarded the Truman Capote Award for literary nonfiction at the Monroeville Conference in Alabama. She has essays forthcoming in Fourth Genre and Kestrel. 

Jonathan Gleason's (MFA ’22) first book, Field Guide to Falling Ill, comes out January 27, 2026 as the inaugural winner of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize. 

A. Kendra Greene (MFA ’11) is the Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at St. Lawrence University. She has an illustrated essay out in the climate issue of Nautilus.

Doug Hesse (MFA ’80) is the 2025 winner of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Distinguished Service Award, a lifetime achievement award. He also received the Francis A. March Award, for service, from the Modern Language Association and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Writing Program Administrators.

Jeremy B. Jones’ (MFA ’09) most recent book, Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries was published on September 16, 2025. He was promoted to full professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University in July. 

Jessie Kraemer (MFA ’22) has a few pieces of writing in the Brink anthology Malleable and True: A Hybrid Craft Anthology. Kraemer also graduated in 2025 from the University of Iowa Center for the Book with an MFA in Book Arts.

After eight years in journalism, Spenser Mestel (MFA ’16) is taking a break from U.S. media and moving to Barcelona. He may continue writing in Spain and would love any leads NWP alumni may have.

Nicolás Medina Mora’s (MFA ’19) novel América del Norte, which he began at the NWP, was chosen as the adult title that will represent Iowa at this year's National Book Festival, nominated by the Iowa Center for the Book.

Michele Morano (MFA ’01) published two recent essays, “Thievery” in the April 2025 issue of The Sun and “Autobiography of Conviction” in the post-Roe v. Wade anthology The Overturning: Writers Respond (Hypertext Press, August 2025).

Jen Percy’s (MFA ’10) latest book of nonfiction, Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation came out on November 11, 2025, with Doubleday. 

Leslie Carol Roberts (MFA ’02), a professor in the MFA Writing program at California College of the Arts and a lecturer at Cal State - San Jose, was elected President of the Northern California Fulbright Association in 2025, a region that includes Cal and Stanford. A large part of this work at present is advocating for global exchange funding which has been under attack by the Trump administration. 

Dan Roche (MFA ’92) had a book published fall 2025, Eyes by Hand: Prosthetics of Art and Healing from MIT Press. 

Darius Stewart’s (MFA ’20) book Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir was named a Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-fiction Honoree, is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography, and is a semifinalist for the Tennessee Book Award for Nonfiction.

Ryan Van Meter’s (MFA ’09) essay "An essay about coyotes," which was originally published in The Iowa Review, was awarded a 2026 Pushcart Prize.