Kathie Collins
Board President, Charlotte Lit Co-Founder & Creative Director
Poet & Mythologist
Kathie Collins, co-founder and creative director of Charlotte Lit and editor-in-chief of Charlotte Lit Press, is a poet, mythologist, and lifelong student of Jungian psychology—which, consciously and unconsciously, makes its way into her work. She earned her graduate degrees in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she also served as adjunct faculty. Kathie is author of Jubilee (Main Street Rag). Her poems have appeared in Flying South, Immanence, Kakalak, Major 7th Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, and Santa Fe Literary Review. She’s a 2023 Pushcart nominee, and her poetry manuscript Grass Widow was named a finalist in both the Iron Horse Lit Review and Palette Poetry 2023 Chapbook competitions. Contact: kathie@charlottelit.org.
Paul Reali
Charlotte Lit Co-Founder & Executive Director
Writer, Editor, Coach, Instructor
Paul Reali is co-founder of Charlotte Lit, a nonprofit literary arts center in Charlotte, NC. He won the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Award and is a past winner of the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story and Ruth Moose Flash Fiction awards. His writing on creativity and business has been widely published, and his recent fiction can be found in the North Carolina Literary Review. He was awarded a Wildacres residency in 2022, and received a Regional Artist Project Grant from Charlotte’s Arts & Science Council in 2018. He has an M.S. in Creativity from Buffalo State University. Contact: paul@charlottelit.org.
Paula Martinac
Community Coordinator
Writer, Editor, Teacher
Paula Martinac is the award-winning author of seven novels and three nonfiction books. Her short stories and essays have been published in Raleigh Review, Main Street Rag, Minerva Rising, Hippocampus, Art & Understanding, and other places. She has received fellowships and grants from the Arts & Science Council, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Modern Language Association, and the Historical Novel Society, and was the recipient of the 2023 William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for an unpublished mystery novel. She teaches fiction writing at UNC Charlotte; is a freelance developmental editor and writing coach; and writes book reviews for Historical Novels Review and Foreword Reviews. Contact: pmartinac@charlottelit.org
Current Charlotte Lit Faculty & Speakers
Nickole Brown received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She worked at Sarabande Books for ten years. She’s the author of Sister, first published in 2007 with a new edition reissued in 2018. Her second book, Fanny Says (BOA Editions), won the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry in 2015. Currently, she teaches at the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program and lives in Asheville, NC, where she volunteers at several different animal sanctuaries. Since 2016, she’s been writing about these animals, resisting the kind of pastorals that made her (and many of the working-class folks from the Kentucky that raised her) feel shut out of nature and the writing about it. To Those Who Were Our First Gods, a chapbook of these first nine poems, won the 2018 Rattle Prize, and her essay-in-poems, The Donkey Elegies, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2020. In 2021, Spruce Books of Penguin Random House published Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire, a book she co-authored with Jessica Jacobs, and she regularly teaches online as part of the SunJune Literary Collaborative.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn’t Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi was the Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute for 2022 – 2023. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice.
Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse Magazine. She teaches flash fiction and speculative fiction, and is the author of a novel, two hybrid collections of poetry and prose, and two short story collections. Her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles, is forthcoming from Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP) in fall 2024. Online: taracampbell.com
Bryn Chancellor is the author of the novel Sycamore, a Southwest Book of the Year and Amazon Editors’ Best Book of 2017, and the story collection When Are You Coming Home?, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, with work published in numerous literary journals. Honors include a 2018 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship and the Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. She is associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Christopher Davis is the author of four collections of poetry: The Tyrant of the Past and the Slave of the Future (winner of the 1988 Associated Writing Programs poetry award); The Patriot (University of Georgia Press, 1998); A History of the Only War (Four Way Books, 2005); and Oath (Main Street Press, 2020). He holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and a BA in English literature from Syracuse University. He was a professor of creative writing at UNC Charlotte from 1989 to 2022 and is now Professor Emeritus. His poems and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Bloom, North Carolina Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, and Best American Poetry.
Julie Funderburk is the author of The Door That Always Opens, a poetry collection from LSU Press, and Thoughts to Fold into Birds, a chapbook from Unicorn Press. She is the recipient of fellowships in poetry from the North Carolina Arts Council and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her recent work appears in The Southern Review, Blackbird, Ecotone, Pleiades, and the anthology In the Tempered Dark: Contemporary Poets Transcending Elegy (Black Lawrence Press). She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte.
Angelo Geter is an award-winning poet, educator, and teaching artist currently serving as the Poet Laureate of Rock Hill, S.C. His work touches on a variety of issues including social justice, grief, character and manhood. Geter is a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, and a National Poetry Slam champion. He is a co-editor for the Kakalak Poetry & Art Anthology, serves on the Watering Hole Board of Directors, and is the founder and director of One Word Poetry Festival. His critically acclaimed debut poetry collection, More God Than Dead, was released in 2022. His work has appeared on All Def Poetry, Button Poetry, the Academy of American Poets “Poem a Day” series, and This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets.
Jaki Shelton Green, ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, and 2003 recipient of the NC Award for Literature. She teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and was appointed the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. She is the author of eight poetry collections, a poetry LP and CDs. She is the poetry editor for WALTER Magazine and serves as the Poet Laureate in Residence at the NC Museum of Art.
AE Hines is the author of Any Dumb Animal, his debut collection which received honorable mention in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s 2022 Brockman-Campbell book contest, and was a da Vinci Eye finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. His poems have won numerous prizes, and are widely published in anthologies and literary journals, including more recently: The Sun, Rattle, The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rhino, Ninth Letter, Poet Lore, I-70 Review and The Greensboro Review. He resides in Charlotte and Medellín, Colombia. Online: aehines.net.
Ashley Harris’s poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in nearly 100 magazines, journals, and websites, including Poets & Writers, Pen Dust Radio, NBC THINK, The Independent, and the North Carolina Literary Review. She serves as a critique editor and judge for the quarterly writing contests held by the award-winning global community, Women On Writing. Online: ashley-harris.com.
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David Hicks is an award-winning professor and Creative Writing Director at the nationally ranked Wilkes University MFA graduate program. He is also the author of two novels: White Plains (Bower House Books) and The Gospel According to Danny (forthcoming, Vine Leaves Press)—and an autobiographical children’s book, The Magic Ticket (Fulcrum Books, 2024), all of which were written based on this workshop lesson. An experienced developmental editor, David has helped more than sixty writers to be published for the first time. Online: david-hicks.com.
Danusha Laméris is a poet and essayist raised in Northern California and born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. She’s also the author of Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), which was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award. A Pushcart Prize recipient, some of her work has been published in The Best American Poetry, The Sun, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, POETRY Magazine, Ploughshares, The American Scholar, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and Orion. Winner of the 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, she is on the faculty of Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA Program. Her third book is Blade by Blade (Copper Canyon Press, 2024).
Caroline Hamilton Langerman holds a BA in English Literature from UNC Chapel Hill and an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from The New School. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, Salon, and Town and Country. Caroline is the winner of Charlotte Lit’s 2024 Lit/South Award for Creative Non-Fiction and a regular contributor to SouthPark Magazine. She lives in Charlotte with her husband and three children.
Jennifer McGaha is the author of Flat Broke with Two Goats, a 2018 OverDrive Big Library Read, and Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out, a Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award finalist. Her next book, The Joy Document, a collection of fifty essays celebrating midlife, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books this fall. An Appalachian native, Jennifer teaches at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, where she also coordinates the Great Smokies Writing Program.
Heather Newton’s novel The Puppeteer’s Daughters (Turner Publishing, 2022) was a finalist for the Forword INDIES Book of the Year Award and has been optioned for television. Her short story collection McMullen Circle (Regal House, 2022), was a finalist for both the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and the W.S. Porter Prize. Her novel Under The Mercy Trees (HarperCollins, 2011) won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, was chosen by the Women’s National Book Association as a Great Group Reads Selection and named an “Okra Pick” by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. She teaches creative writing for UNC-Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and Charlotte Lit, and is co-founder and program manager for the Flatiron Writers Room writers’ center in Asheville. Online: heathernewton.net and flatironwritersroom.com.
Cathy Pickens writes crime fact and crime fiction. Her first novel, Southern Fried, won St. Martin’s Best New Traditional Mystery award (re-released as Blue Ridge Mountain Mysteries by Joffe Books). She also writes regional true crime for History Press and is crime columnist for Mystery Readers Journal. Professor emerita in the McColl School at Queens University, she won numerous teaching awards and provides leadership development for corporate executives and writing and creativity workshops. She served as national president of Sisters in Crime and on boards of Mystery Writers of America and Mecklenburg Forensic Medicine Program (regional evidence collection/preservation training collaborative). Online: cathypickens.com.
Dannye Romine Powell has won fellowships in poetry from the NC Arts Council, the NEA and Yaddo. Her poems have appeared recently in Southern Review, Cave Wall, Baltimore Review, Ploughshares, and forthcoming in the Alaska Quarterly Review. Her sixth collection is In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver (Press 53) won the 2020 Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry. She is also the author of Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers. She is a two-time winner of The Randall Jarrell Prize in Poetry, and has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, and Yaddo.
Megan Rich has written two books, a YA novel and a travel memoir, and is seeking representation for her third, a literary thriller inspired by The Great Gatsby. She took part in the highly selective sub-concentration in creative writing at the University of Michigan, for which she completed a thesis of original poetry. She’s also a graduate of the selective Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project, and she is a 2022 recipient of the Arts & Science Council Charlotte’s Creative Renewal Fellowship. With 14 years’ experience as a creative writing teacher and mentor of students from ages 12 to 85, she is passionate about helping all writers find and refine their voices on the page.
C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and archivist from Mississippi. He’s the author of Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Theodore Roethke Memorial Award. His poems have recently appeared in Poem-A-Day, Poetry Northwest, Pleiades, West Branch, Denver Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.
Katharine Sands is a literary agent with Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. She has worked with a varied list of authors publishing fiction, memoir and non-fiction. Among the books she represents are: The Apothecary’s Curse, nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2017 in the First Novel category by Barbara Barnett, and its sequel, Alchemy of Glass; Girl Walks Out of a Bar, a memoir by Lisa Smith that was featured by People Magazine as Notable Nonfiction; and I’m Speaking: Every Woman’s Guide to Finding Your Voice and Using It Fearlessly, by Jessica Doyle-Mekkes.
Kathryn Schwille is the author of the novel, What Luck, This Life, selected by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of the best southern books of 2018. Her short stories have appeared in New Letters, Memorious, Crazyhorse, Literary Hub and other journals, and have twice been cited for Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize. A recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, she’s led fiction workshops for 20 years and was the 2021 Visiting Writer at Gardner-Webb University.
Dr. Melissa Stein is a certified Level II Reiki Practitioner, with a passion for using energy healing and divinely-aligned practices to support creative expression. Melissa has a doctorate in public health and, in her previous career, 20 years of experience working in community health. But the arts have always been a big part of her life. She plays the piano and ukulele, grows flowers, paints, and writes in her spare time. She lives in Huntersville with her hubby, 4-year old kid, and an elderly, scrappy rescued pup, Greyson. She is looking forward to self-publishing her first children’s book, Chug Chug the Choo Choo Train Goes Too Fast, in 2024.
Kim Wright is the author of five novels—Love in Mid Air, The Unexpected Waltz, The Canterbury Sisters, Last Ride to Graceland, and The Longest Day of the Year. She is also an experienced nonfiction writer who has won awards in the field of food and travel writing. She teaches in Charlotte Lit’s Authors Lab, as well as at other regional programs including the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville. As the Story Doctor she specializes in the developmental editing of novels.
Charlotte Lit Faculty & Guests Through the Years
Poets Laureate
United States: Joy Harjo (4X4CLT), Ada Limón, Tracy K. Smith (4X4CLT)
North Carolina: Joseph Bathanti, Jaki Shelton Green, Shelby Stephenson
Charlotte: Junious “Jay” Ward
Other States & Cities: Laure-Anne Bosselaar (Santa Barbara, CA), Beth Ann Fennelly (Mississippi), Angelo Geter (Rock Hill, SC), Chelsea Rathburn (Georgia)
Anthony S. “Tony” Abbott, John Amen, Catherine Anderson, Umayal Annamalai, Sarah Archer, Tina Barr, Sandra Beasley, Erin Belieu, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Nickole Brown, Shelia A. Bumgarner, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Tara Campbell, Wiley Cash, Bryn Chancellor, Jennifer Chang, Chen Chen, Erin Rose Coffin, Morri Creech, Sarah Creech, Tracy Curtis, Axel Dahlberg, Tyree Daye, Abigail DeWitt, Julie Funderburk, Richard Garcia, Judy Goldman, Patrice Gopo, Ashley Harris, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Maureen Ryan Griffin, Christine Hale, Jennifer Halls, Lola Haskins, Cathy Hasty, Terrance Hayes, Jodi Helmer, Racquel Henry, Dustin M. Hoffman, Irene Blair Honeycutt, George Hovis, Jenny Hubbard, Charles Israel, Jr., Kathy Izard, Jessica Jacobs, A. Van Jordan, Surabhi Kaushik, Tarik Kiley, Karon Luddy, Maurice Manning, Paula Martinac, James May, Rebecca McClanahan, Meghan Modafferi, Zeba Mehdi, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Randon Billings Noble, Matthew Olzmann, Cecily Parks, Linda Pastan, Amy Paturel, Gail Peck, Malin Pereira, Tracey Perez, Jessica Peterson, Cathy Pickens, Diana Pinckney, Jaime Pollard-Smith, David Poston, Rick Pryll, David Radavich, Megan Rich, Emily Sage, C. T. Salazar, Kathryn Schwille, Martin Settle, Sam Shapiro, Kristin Donnalley Sherman, Melinda Sherman, Larry Sorkin, Jyotsna Srikant, Gilda Morina Syverson, Jeffrey Thomson, Paul Tran, Landis Wade, Elizabeth West, Luke Whisnant, Timothy Winkler, Kim Wright
