Center Staff and Contact Information

Director - Piper Center for Creative Writing; Director of Creative Writing
Peter Turchi

Peter Turchi is the author of Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer; Suburban Journals: The Sketchbooks, Drawings, and Prints of Charles Ritchie, in collaboration with the artist; a novel, The Girls Next Door; a collection of stories, Magician; and The Pirate Prince, co-written with Cape Cod treasure hunter Barry Clifford, about Clifford's discovery of the pirate ship Whydah. He has also co-edited, with Andrea Barrett, The Story Behind the Story: 26 Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work and, with Charles Baxter, Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. His stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Story, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, and The Colorado Review, among other journals. "Night, Truck, Two Lights Burning," was listed as one of 100 Notable Stories of 2002 by the editors of Best American Short Stories and one of 15 Recommended Stories by the jury for the O. Henry Prize Stories and has been translated into Arabic. He has received Washington College's Sophie Kerr Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award, North Carolina's Sir Walter Raleigh Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Born in Baltimore, he earned his BA at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, and his MFA at the University of Arizona. He has taught at Northwestern University and Appalachian State University, has twice been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and in 2006 served as a Visiting Professor in the Department of English at the University of Houston. From 1993 through 2008 he taught fiction in and directed The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He now teaches fiction writing at ASU. For more information visit www.peterturchi.com

Artistic Director for Piper Global Engagement
Jewell Parker Rhodes

Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author of five novels: Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass' Women, Voodoo Season, and Yellow Moon; and a memoir, Porch Stories: A Grandmother's Guide to Happiness.  A sixth novel, Hurricane Levee Blues, and a children’s novel, Ninth Ward, will be published in 2009. She has also authored two writing guides: Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors, and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Non-Fiction. Her play, Voodoo Dreams; was cited as "Most Innovative" Drama in the 2000-2001 Professional Theater Season by the Arizona Republic and she is currently at work on a theatrical version of Douglass' Women. Her work has been published in Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey, and the United Kingdom and reproduced in audio and for NPR's "Selected Shorts." Her literary awards include: Yaddo Creative Writing Fellowship, the American Book Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for Outstanding Writing, two Arizona Book Awards, and a finalist citation for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She has been a featured speaker at the Runnymeade International Literary Festival (University of London-Royal Holloway), Santa Barbara Writers Conference, Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference, and Warwick University, among others. She has been awarded the California State University Distinguished Teaching Award, ASU's Dean's Quality Teaching Award, Outstanding Thesis Director from the Barrett Honors College, and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Extended Education. She is a member of the Arizona/International Women's Forum and a Renaissance Weekend invitee. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Drama Criticism (Honors) a Master of Arts in English, and a Doctor of Arts in English (Creative Writing) from Carnegie-Mellon University. (Photo credit: jbeckett@jbeckettphoto.com)

Assistant Director
Sean Nevin

Sean Nevin was named assistant director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing in July of 2008. He is the author of Oblivio Gate, selected for the Crab Orchard Award Series First Book Prize (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008) and A House That Falls (Slapering Hol Press 2005). He directs OYP’s Young Writers Program and is editor of 22Across: A Review of Young Writers. His honors include a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize for Poetry, the Alsop Review Poetry Prize, the Katherine C. Turner Academy of American Poets University Prize, and two fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals including The Gettysburg Review, North American Review, and JAMA, and anthologies including Family Matters: Poems of Our Families (Bottom Dog Press, 2005), Beyond Forgetting: Prose and Poetry about Alzheimer’s (Kent State University Press 2008) and his work was selected by Mark Doty for inclusion in the forthcoming anthology from the Academy of American Poets, New Voices: University and College Prizes 1998-2008. His poetry and interviews have recently been featured on NPR’s nationally syndicated shows The Story with Dick Gordon and Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett.

Budget & Finance Coordinator
Amanda Monrad

Amanda Monrad hails from Lafayette, Indiana, and moved to Phoenix in 1997, receiving her BA in Theatre with a minor in Business through ASU in 2002. She began working in Information Technology for the University, eventually moving to the Kyrene School District in Tempe. In 2006, she began working with the innovative arts service organization Alliance for Audience as the Member Services Manager. She has become an active member of the arts community through her work as an artist, volunteer and advocate. She serves as an Artistic Associate with Stray Cat Theatre, where she has directed and acted in a number of productions. She is currently pursuing a master's degree in Professional Accountancy.

Communication Coordinator
Tom McDermott

Tom McDermott joined the Piper Center for Creative Writing staff in August of 2007 after spending 17 years as sports information director at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, N.H. While at SNHU he was responsible for promoting the school's 15 intercollegiate athletic teams. While new to the arts community, he brings with him nearly two decades of communication and marketing experience, having also previously worked for Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology and the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League. He is a native of Buffalo, New York and a graduate of SUNY-Brockport.

Managing Editor, Hayden's Ferry Review & Marginalia
Beth Staples

Beth Staples received her MFA in Fiction Writing from ASU in 2007, where she taught composition and creative writing before joining the Piper Center Staff as Managing Editor of Hayden's Ferry Review and Marginalia. Her work is forthcoming in The Portland Review and Phoebe. She likes to bowl, see live music, eat pickled things, play fantasy football and feed her fat cat, Starla.

Program Assistant, Global Engagement
Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan is a third-year MFA student in fiction at ASU, where he works as the Graduate Assistant for Global Engagement at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and is a former prose editor for the Hayden's Ferry Review. He is a novelist and screenwriter, and his short fiction has received several awards, including Colgate University's Lasher Prize, and an honorable mention for ASU's Swarthout Award. In addition and contribution to his writing, he has traveled as a missionary to El Salvador and is a member of two archaeology field projects in Belize.






Office Assistant
Kristina Morgan

Kristina Morgan received a BA in English and Women Studies from Stephens College and earned her MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from ASU.

Fall 2009 Interns
Michael Pitoniak
Torrey Sims
Amanda Ventura
Cortney Yee

Click here for information about becoming a Piper Center intern.