Alumnae/i Profiles
Meet Jesse J. Holland
M.F.A. in Nonfiction '12
Jesse J. Holland, M.F.A. in Nonfiction '12
Read Jesse's Interview“"I always tell anyone who asks that the best way to get to where you want to be is to surround yourself with people going in the same direction. That’s Goucher in a nutshell: authors all striving to perfect the craft of creative nonfiction and helping each other along the way."”
Meet Susette BrooksM.F.A. ’19
Susette Brooks, M.F.A. ’19
Read Susette's Interview“Susette Brooks, M.F.A. ’19, is a multimedia communications strategist. She credits the Goucher M.F.A program’s director, with creating a nurturing environment that supports students on their unique paths.”
Meet Neda Toloui-SemnaniM.F.A ’15
Neda Toloui-Semnani, M.F.A ’15
Read Neda's Interview“With seven Emmys under her belt for her work with VICE News and VICE News Tonight, Neda Toloui-Semnani, M.F.A ’15, is no stranger to keeping an audience’s attention, the perfect skill for her role as assistant teaching professor of journalism for the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University.”
Meet Melani MartinezM.F.A. ’05
Melani Martinez, M.F.A. ’05
Read Melani's Interview“Melani Martinez, M.F.A. ’05, published a hybrid memoir in September 2024 called The Molino, about the tortilla factory her family operated in Tucson for nearly 70 years. The book began as her M.F.A. manuscript at Goucher.”
Other Remarkable Graduates
Laura Tillman, M.F.A. '13
"The mentoring at Goucher went far beyond my expectations, approaching each student and project as unique, with its own set of creative, ethical and technical challenges. Goucher takes the time to educate its students on the practical side of the publishing business, bringing in speakers who talk candidly about pitching top magazines and radio programs, and traveling to New York to meet with the agents and publishing houses that can provide the most current information on how to navigate a process that might otherwise be mysterious."
Laura Tillman is an award-winning freelance journalist and writer interested in the way culture intersects with topics like immigration, business, education, health and crime. She started her career as a staff reporter at The Brownsville Herald, on the Texas-Mexico border. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Pacific Standard, and The Wall Street Journal.
Nancy Sharp, M.F.A. '12
"I knew the path I wanted to chart at the onset of the program, and each of my four mentors pushed me toward my goal of finishing the book within the two years. Their literary insights were detailed and keen. Because mine is a book of such an intimate nature, it was also enormously helpful to be guided by the experiences of the faculty. I feel so fortunate to have been part of Goucher's talented community of teachers and writers."
Nancy Sharp is the author of the memoir Both Sides Now: A True Story of Love, Loss and Bold Living. Nancy's work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Dr. Oz The Good Life, Woman's Day, MORE, Marie Claire, SELF, and National Geographic Traveler. Nancy authors two blogs: Vivid Living: Life in Full Bloom...Thorns and All, and Tasting Life with Nancy Sharp.
Brian Mockenhaupt, M.F.A. '11
"At Goucher I found just what I had been looking for: fellow writers who were just as interested as me in geeking out on conversations about writing, and mentors who devoted themselves to helping me improve my craft. Now, each year in late July, I find myself wishing I was headed east for two weeks of residency."
Brian Mockenhaupt writes mostly about the outdoors and the military. He is a contributing editor at Outside, Reader's Digest and Esquire magazines; the nonfiction editor at the Journal of Military Experience; and a regular contributor for The Atlantic. He served two tours in Iraq as an infantryman with the Army's 10th Mountain Division. He was the recipient of a 2009 Alicia Patterson Fellowship for a series called The Physical and Psychological Effects of War on the Brain and the 2013 winner of the Michael Kelly Award for his story The Living and the Dead: War, Friendship, and the Battles that Never End , in addition to writing Three Days in Gettysburg: An Intimate Tale of Lost Love and Divided Hearts at the Battle that Defined America.
Earl Swift, M.F.A. '11
"I found the teachers I sought at Goucher - a faculty at once generous, demanding, honest and disciplined, all of them great writers themselves and devoted to sharing what they'd learned about the craft. What I didn't expect was the way that faculty, combined with a few dozen hungry, talented students, forms an amazing community"
Earl Swift wrote for newspapers in Saint Louis, Anchorage, and Norfolk, Virginia. He is the author of five books of narrative nonfiction, including Auto Biography: A Classic Car, An Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream (itBooks 2014), an outgrowth of his Goucher thesis, and The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways. He has been a Fulbright fellow to New Zealand, and is now a residential fellow of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia.
Kelsey Osgood, M.F.A. '10
"The mentorship was paramount. As a young writer, I had no idea of my skill level or my taste or what it took, logistically, to get things polished and out into the world. All of my mentors offered sage, personal advice and no-holds-barred critique throughout the years; even now, if I need any of them, they're available to calm nerves or excite them as needed."
Kelsey Osgood's first book, How to Disappear Completely, was awarded a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers award. She has contributed pieces to New York, The New Yorker's Culture Desk blog, Time, The Huffington Post and Salon and is a staff writer at The American Reader. Kelsey Osgood is currently working on a number of essays for a second book.
Carrie Hagen, M.F.A. '09
"The faculty to student ratio allowed my mentors to thoroughly respond to and inform my writing, and these working relationships fostered wonderful writing workshop groups that challenged me as a reader as much as a writer. Goucher's network and reputation facilitated my initial entry into the world of agents, editors, and the professional support I would need once I received a diploma.”
Carrie Hagen is the author of we is got him, the narrative of America's first recorded ransom kidnapping (The Overlook Press, 2011). She contributes to Smithsonian.com and other publications. Hagen researches and writes in Philadelphia.
Jill Quinn, M.F.A. '08
"It wasn't until I began the program at Goucher that I came to know exactly what was meant by ‘the writing life.’ Goucher gave me the support I needed to commit to regular writing-a commitment that has lasted beyond graduation. What's more, Goucher provided me with a network of writing friends that spans generations, geographies, and genres.”
Jill Sisson Quinn's essays have appeared in Ecotone, Orion, OnEarth, Best American Science and Nature Writing and Wisconsin Public Radio's Wisconsin Life. She has won the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, The John Burroughs Award for Best Published Nature Essay, and a Rona Jaffe Award for emerging women writers. Her first book, Deranged: Finding a Sense of Place in the Landscape and in the Lifespan (Apprentice House 2010). She is working on a second book about spiritual experiences in nature and the balance between science and religion.
Pamela Haag, M.F.A. '08
"Goucher introduced a new writing repertoire and perspective that complemented the skills I already had. And the Goucher community is such an amiable, friendly, and low-key place to learn. The M.F.A. program prodded my writing projects forward when they might otherwise have languished."
Pamela Haag is the author of Marriage Confidential (HarperCollins, 2011) and Consent: Sexual Rights and the Transformation of America (Cornell University Press, 1999). Her essays and commentary have appeared on National Public Radio and in The American Scholar, Ms., The Washington Post, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Her next book will be The Gunning of America: A Story of Ambition, Capitalism, and the Ghost of Conscience, to be published by Basic Books.
Sheri Booker, M.F.A. '07
"After Aunt Mary died, the ground beneath me shifted. I expected the world to pause for my grief-and it didn't, not even for a moment of silence," writes Sheri Booker in her memoir, Nine Years Under (Gotham Books, 2013). "Living in the house where Aunt Mary had died made me feel like a killer. I wanted to pour bleach on everything or set Aunt Mary's belongings on fire. ... I didn't want to erase her memory; I just wanted to rid myself of every single reminder of that moment."
With these words, Sheri Booker describes how she felt as a 15-year-old girl when a beloved aunt died. Much as she wanted to escape from death, Booker made an unusual decision that transformed her life: She applied for and accepted a job at the Albert P. Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. Years later, in darkly humorous anecdotes, Booker tells all, from being hired to answer phones to picking up bodies of the deceased from homes and morgues.
Susan Kushner Resnick, M.F.A. '00
"The program gave me the kick I needed to write a book, which gave me permission to call myself an author and the confidence to write two more books."
Susan Kushner Resnick is the author of You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me about Living, Dying, Loving, Fighting, and Swearing in Yiddish (Globe Pequot 2012). She also wrote the first American memoir of postpartum depression, Sleepless Days and the nonfiction narrative Goodbye Wifes and Daughters, winner of a Montana Book Award, High Plains Literary Award and a gold medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. She teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University and lives in Massachusetts.