Young Writers Program Staff

Sean Nevin | Vickie Baldwin | Renee Simms | Salima Keegan

Sean Nevin, Director

Sean Nevin teaches creative writing at Arizona State University where he is director of the Young Writer’s Program. He has been teaching in the schools and the community for over fifteen years. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as both a creative writing fellowship and an Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His work has received many honors including the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize, the Alsop Review Poetry Prize, the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Prize and a Pushcart Prize nomination. His poems have been published in numerous journals including: The Gettysburg Review, North American Review, 42 Opus, JAMA, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. He is the author of A House that Falls (Slapering Hol Press 2005) and Oblivio Gate, which won the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry First Book Prize (Southern Illinois University Press 2008).

Vickie Baldwin, Program Coordinator

Vickie Baldwin obtained her B.S. degree in Family Resources & Human Development from ASU in 2000. New to the Young Writers Program team, as a Program Coordinator, Vickie brings with her twenty years of academic and university experience, having previously worked in ASU’s Office of the Registrar’s Graduation Section and the W. P. Carey School of Business Ph.D. program consecutively. Vickie’s primary interests include, but are not limited to, youth program development and initiatives and organizing events; other interests include volunteer and community service, as well as reading and writing.  

Renee Simms, Instructional Specialist

Renee Simms has taught creative writing in underserved communities for nearly a decade. She’s been a teaching artist in Los Angeles public schools through PEN Center West and in Phoenix public schools through ASU’s Young Writer’s Program. She was the creative writing instructor at a performing and visual arts high school in Phoenix from 2003-2006. She is currently an Instructional Specialist with the Young Writer’s Program.

Salima Keegan, Managing Editor

Salima Keegan has enjoyed working with students in the ASU Master of Creative Writing Program for over thirty years. She was managing editor of Hayden's Ferry Review, ASU's award-winning international literary and art magazine, from 1986-2007.