The Purchase Writers Center (PWC) is a focus for the college’s many activities involving writers and writing. Each year, the Center hosts a group of fellows, local writers who have offices and access to the resources of the library and the College. This year’s fellows are Rachel Simon, Suzanne Chazin, Clark Cooke, doctoral fellow Masatora Goya, and senior fellow Marilyn Johnson. Fellows conduct workshops at the college and in the community, lead writing groups, and, along with other Purchase writers, give readings. 

Meet the New Fellows:
Rachel M. Simon is the author of the poetry collections Theory of Orange (Pavement Saw Press) and Marginal Road (Hollyridge Press).  She teaches writing, gender studies, and film courses at SUNY Purchase College, Pace University, Poets House, and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Simon is using her fellowship to work on a collection of sports poems.

Suzanne Chazin is working with Westchester Hispanic Coaltion to tell the stories of undocumented Latino immigrants in Westchester and is also writing a novel about the death of an undocumented Latina. She is a widely published journalist and the author of a series of crime novels.

Masatora Goya, a composer and dramatist, is working on his doctoral dissertation, a musical theater piece about Douglas MacArthur’s five-year reign of Japan.

Clark Collier Cooke is currently experimenting with two experimental genre-busting experiments. One: A literary novel about masculinity, perversion, and kidnapping. Two: A science-fiction novella (plagues, police states, polyglots) set in a not-so-fictional town on the brink of an intifada. Both works have been compared (erroneously) to Invisible Man, Native Son, and a bunch of other African-American novels.

Rachel M. Simon will be reading her poetry with Ronnie Scharfman on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 4:00pm in the Neuberger Museum Study. Suzanne Chazin and Clark Collier Cooke will be reading from their work on December 8.

The Purchase Writers Center is supported by an Advisory Board composed of distinguished writers: Kate Buford; Benjamin Cheever ; Laura Shaine Cunningham; Thulani Davis.  Al Filreis; Aminatta Forna; Jeremy Gerard; * Sheila Kohler; Donald Margulies;* Caryl Phillips; Marie Ponsot; Esmeralda Santiago; David Shields.

For information about the Writers Center, contact Louise Yelin, Director; louise.yelin@purchase.edu). And follow us on Facebook and Twitter.