Elena Passarello is the winner of the 2015 Whiting Award for nonfiction and the author of Animals Strike Curious Poses, for which she was called by the New York Times Book Review "a master of the essay form." Elena's first book, Let Me Clear My Throat, won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards. Described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a dinner party at which David Sedaris, Mary Roach, and Marlon Brando are trying to out-monologue one another,” it’s received critical acclaim from nearly every major magazine in America.  She now teaches creative writing at Oregon State University.

“The three years I spent at the Nonfiction Writing Program were beyond crucial to my development as a writer, thinker, and teacher. I think what the program does best is introduce student writers to a breadth of prose. In my time at Iowa, I took courses in Montaigne, radio essays, and nonfiction narrative theory. I worked closely with six generous faculty and visiting instructors, each with his or her own aesthetic, reading list, and workshop philosophy. My fellow MFA students brought varied nonfiction projects-- literary journalism, graphic essay, memoir, experimental work-- to our workshop tables. This broad treatment of essaying and scholarship helped me develop a blended toolbox that I've used in every writing project since.

Thanks to the Nonfiction Writing Program, I see the contemporary nonfiction world not as list discrete factions, but as border-less, millennium-old map of opportunities for inspiration, collaboration, and global thought.”