About Our Program

In Akhmatova’s time, poetry has existed largely outside of the academic environment.

For this reason, Anna Akhmatova Foundation has established an online program where the students can directly communicate with their mentors about what matters most -- their love for literature. We hope to create a space outside of the university where literary relationships can flourish.

About Our Mentors

Our mentors are practicing writers of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, translation and memoir. The aim of this program is to provide you with a mentor who is an authority in her or his respective field. You will correspond with your mentor through mail, e-mail, or telephone, sending submissions over the agreed upon period of time. The mentors will provide critical feedback and constructive, detailed responses to your submissions. Each mentor will establish an individual fee and submission schedule.

CURRENT MENTORS

Ellen Bass
Dan Beachy-Quick
Oni Buchanan
Patricia Chao
Patricia Fargnoli
Lola Haskins
Ilya Kaminsky
Molly Peacock
Peter Streckfus
Robert Sward
Katherine Towler
Liz Waldner
G.C. Waldrep
Cecilia Woloch

For information about each mentor's fee and availability, please e-mail Ms. Ilana Gorodinskaya at: admin@annaakhmatovafoundation.org

ABOUT OUR MENTORS

ELLEN BASS

Ellen Bass' most recent book, Mules of Love, was published by BOA Editions in 2002 and won the Lambda Literary Award for poetry. Among her other awards for poetry are inclusion in The Pushcart Prize XXVIII, the Elliston Book Award from the University of Cincinnati, The Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, the New Letters Prize, the Greensboro Award, the Chautaqua Poetry Prize, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council. She coedited, with Florence Howe, the groundbreaking anthology, No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973) and her nonfiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth—And Their Allies (HarperCollins, 1996), and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1988) which has been translated into twelve languages. Her newest volume of poetry, The Human Line, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. The work has been published in many journals and magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Ploughshares, Field, and The Kenyon Review.

DAN BEACHY-QUICK

Dan Beachy-Quick is author of North True South Bright (Alice James Press), Spell (Ahsahta Press), and the forthcoming Mulberry (Tupelo Press). His reviews and criticism have appeared in The Boston Review, The Southern Review, The Denver Quarterly and elsewhere. He received a Lannan Foundation Residency in 2005, and currently serves as Associate Chair in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ONI BUCHANAN

Oni Buchanan is the author of What Animal, the winner of the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition. Her poems have appeared in Conduit, Columbia Poetry Review, American Letters & Commentary, Fence, the Colorado Review, and elsewhere, including the anthologies The Best American Poetry 2004 and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. She holds a B.A. in English and music from the University of Virginia, an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Masters in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. As a concert pianist, she has released two solo piano CDs and actively performs across the U.S. She is on the piano faculty at the New School of Music in Cambridge, in addition to maintaining a private teaching studio.

PATRICIA CHAO

Patricia Chao is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and music reviewer. Her novel Monkey King (HarperCollins 1997) was named a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” Finalist. Her second novel, Mambo Peligroso (HarperCollins 2005) was based on her decade-long career as a Latin dancer in New York City. Her poetry collection Breaking on Two received the New Voice Award for Poetry. Other awards include a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in fiction and numerous artists’ residencies including the MacDowell Colony, Writers of the Americas (Cuba), Sacatar Foundation (Brazil), and Ucross. Patricia has taught creative writing at New York University, and Sarah Lawrence College.

PATRICIA FARGNOLI

Patricia Fargnoli, the New Hampshire Poet Laureate, is the author of 3 books and 2 chapbooks of poetry. Her latest book, Duties of the Spirit (Tupelo Press 2005) is the winner of the prestigious 2005 Jane Kenyon Poetry Book Award for Outstanding Poetry published by a New Hampshire author in the preceding two years, and her first book, Necessary Light (Utah State University Press), won the 1999 May Swenson Book Award. Her other awards include Robert Frost Literary Award from The Robert Frost Foundation in Lawrence, MA. A Fellow at the Macdowell Colony, and a frequent resident at The Dorset Colony in Dorset, Vermont, she was on the faculty of The Frost Place Poetry Festival, and has taught at The Keene Institute of Music and Related Arts, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art where she was awarded an honorary B.F.A. For more than 12 years she’s taught privately, and, for the last 5, in the Lifelong Learning Program of Keene State College.

LOLA HASKINS

Lola Haskins' poetry collections include Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions, 2004), Extranjera (Story Line, 1998), The Rim Benders (Anhinga, 2001), Hunger (University of Iowa Press, 1993-- winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize), Forty-Four Ambitions for the Piano (University Press of Florida, 1990/ second edition Betony Press, 1992), Castings (Countryman Press, 1984/second edition Betony Press, 1992), Across Her Broad Lap Something Wonderful (State Street Press, 1990), and Planting the Children, (University Press of Florida, 1983). In addition, her poems have been broadcast on NPR and on BBC radio in England. Besides poetry, Ms. Haskins has published environmental writing, including an introduction to a book of photographs called Visions of Florida and an essay about the Florida environment in Wild Heart of Florida. In this vein, she is currently working on a prose book of personal essays, beginning in Florida's state parks. She has also recently finished a book of advice for people interested in poetry-- Not Feathers Yet: A Beginner's Guide to the Poetic Life.

ILYA KAMINSKY

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine. Dancing In Odessa was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. In addition, Ilya writes poetry in Russian. His work in that language was chosen for "Bunker Poetico" at Venice Bienial Festival in Italy. Ilya has worked as a Law Clerk at the National Immigration Law Center, and also at Bay Area Legal Aid. He has also served as a Writer In Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy; in the fall 2006 he will begin teaching at San Diego State University.

MOLLY PEACOCK

Molly Peacock is the author of five books of poetry, including Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems (W.W. Norton and Company in the US and UK and Penguin Canada). Among her other works are How To Read A Poem and Start A Poetry Circle and a memoir, Paradise, Piece By Piece (both published by Riverhead Penguin/McClelland & Stewart). She is the editor of a collection of creative non-fiction, The Private I: Privacy in a Public World (Graywolf) and the co-editor of Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses (W.W. Norton). She conducts quarterly poetry circles on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Here On Earth with Jean Feraca. Among her awards are Danforth Foundation, Ingram Merrill Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts Fellowships. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, as well as The Best of the Best American Poetry. Former Poet-in-Residence at the American Poets’ Corner (Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City) and former President of the Poetry Society of America, she is on the faculty of the Spalding University low residency Master of Fine Arts Program.

F.D. REEVE

F.D. Reeve is a professor of Russian in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University. He has published two dozen books for which he has won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Golden Rose of the New England Poetry Society and a Doctor of Letters from New England College. Reeve is the founding editor of Poetry Review. In addition to his poetry and translations, he has published fiction and the fascinating memoir Robert Frost in Russia.

PETER STRECKFUS

Peter Streckfus’ first collection of poems, The Cuckoo, was selected in 2003 by Louise Gluck for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, his work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Slope, Pleiades, PRACTICE, and other publications. He is poetry faculty in the Low-Residency MFA in Professional Writing program at Western Connecticut State University.

ROBERT SWARD

Robert Sward has taught at Cornell University, the University of Iowa Writers' Poetry Workshop, UC Santa Cruz and University of Victoria (Canada) as Poet in Residence. Former Fulbright scholar at the University of Bristol and Guggenheim Fellow for Poetry, he was chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award. Author of numerous books of poetry and two novels he has published in traditional literary magazines (The New Yorker, Poetry Chicago, The Hudson Review) and anthologies (The Bedford Introduction to Literature), and also serves also as contributing editor to online publications such as Alsop Review and Blue Moon Review. His Collected Poems, 1957-2004, appeared in 2004 and his new book, God is in the Cracks, A Narrative for Voices, will be published Fall 2006.

KATHERINE TOWLER

Katherine Towler is author of the novels SNOW ISLAND and EVENING FERRY (MacAdam/Cage). She teaches in the low residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University and has received fellowships from the NH State Council on the Arts and Phillips Exeter Academy, where she served as writer-in-residence. She completed an MA in writing at Johns Hopkins and an MA in English literature at Middlebury College. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

LIZ WALDNER

Liz Waldner’s first book, Homing Devices, appeared in 1998. The books that followed are A Point Is That Which Has No Part, Iowa Poetry Prize and Academy of American Poets Prize for a second book; Self and Simulacra, Alice James Books’ Beatrice Hawley Prize; Etym(bi)ology; Dark Would (the missing person), University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Prize; Saving the Appearances. There are seven chapbooks, as well. She’s mentored writers for 17, years privately as well as in community and academic settings, including workshops at Hugo House in Seattle, Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking, the Writers Workshop, and the School for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

G.C. WALDREP

G.C. Waldrep’s book of poems, Goldbeater's Skin, won the 2003 Colorado Prize for Poetry, as well as a Greenwall award from the Academy of American Poets. His second full-length collection, Disclamor, will be published by BOA Editions in 2007. His poetry appears in Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Gettysburg Review, Boston Review, New England Review, Georgia Review, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, Tin House, New American Writing, and other journals. His work has received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Campbell Corner Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He has been selected for residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and elsewhere. Waldrep holds degrees in American history from both Harvard and Duke and an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He is also the author of a nonfiction book, Southern Workers and the Search for Community, which won the 2001 Illinois Prize for history. In 2005-06 he is serving as a visiting professor of history and poetry at Deep Springs College in California.

CECILIA WOLOCH

Cecilia Woloch, who was appointed the State of Georgia Author of the Year in 2004, is the author of three collections of poetry, Sacrifice (1997), Tsigan (2002), and most recently Late (Boa Editions, 2003). Her work has been awarded fellowships from the California Arts Council and the Kentucky Arts Council, and was the Book Sense 76 sellection; and she was also the recipient of several prizes, including awards for poetry from Kalliope, and Literal Latte. She is the founding director of Summer Poetry in Idyllwild.

CONTACT US

For information about each individual mentor's fee and availability, please e-mail Ms. Ilana Gorodinskaya at: admin@annaakhmatovafoundation.org