Manor Mill Writers Guild - Meet our Featured Authors

KATIE KITAMURA

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel is Intimacies. One of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021, it was longlisted for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2021. In France, it won the Prix Litteraire Lucien Barriere, was a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Heroine, and was nominated for the Prix Fragonard. Her previous novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. Her work has been translated into over 20 languages and is being adapted for film and television. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Jan Michalski and Santa Maddalena Foundations. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University. Her new novel, Audition, will be published by Riverhead Books in 2025.

She will be reading from her book, Audition:
One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is an award-winning writer whose work encompasses cultural criticism, narrative nonfiction, investigative journalism, short fiction, and memoir. Known for astute research coupled with incisive, literary prose, Elizabeth’s work has been widely published in places like The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Washington Post Magazine, The Southern Review, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Her nonfiction has been optioned for film and television, and has earned recognition in The Best American Essays anthology, among many accolades. Her fiction won the Independent Artist Award from The Maryland State Arts Council twice. She was a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and in 2023, Elizabeth became the first writer to win the prestigious Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize from the Baker Artist Awards. This prize is awarded to those who exemplify mastery of craft, depth of artistic exploration, and a unique vision.

She will read from her forthcoming book, Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free:
The hidden history of trailblazing fashion designer Clair McCardell, whose revolutionary midcentury designs helped women live independent lives and whose own life, tragically cut short, embodied guts, perseverance, and complex feminine ambition. 

Matthew Norman

Matthew Norman lives in Baltimore with his wife and two children and holds an MFA from George Mason University. His five novels include All Together Now, Last Couple Standing, We’re All Damaged, Domestic Violets, and, most recently, Charm City Rocks, which People Magazine called "a joy to read.”

He will read from his latest novel, Charm City Rocks:
When a single dad meets the former rock-star crush of his youth, everything they thought they knew about happiness and love is thrown into chaos in this hopeful, heartwarming romantic comedy.

Florence Martin

Dean John Blackford Van Meter Professor of French Transnational Studies at Goucher College.

She will read from her latest book, Farida Benlyazid and Moroccan Cinema:
This analysis of the work of Moroccan director, producer, and scriptwriter Farida Benlyazid, whose career extends from the beginning of cinema in independent Morocco to the present, provides a unique perspective on an under-represented cinema, the gender politics of cinema in Morocco, and the contribution of Arab women directors to global cinema and to a gendered understanding of Muslim ethics and aesthetics in film.

Biography forthcoming.

Christine Merriman

Christine Davis Merriman is a Maryland-based author, a ripening Baby Boomer whose auto-fiction recounts and re-examines what it has been like, from the inside-out, growing up and living through the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. As a counterpoint to reports and commentary from news media and historians, she captures one woman’s unique perspective of an era that carries great impact even as it draws to a close. 

As former program coordinator/writer for a Johns Hopkins maternal and child health affiliate, Christine traveled extensively in the developing world. She lives with her husband, Jack, in a 1930 farmhouse.

She will read from her novel, At the Far End of Nowhere and Traveling a Slant Rhyme: 1973-1974:
The first novel is set in Baltimore and northern Baltimore County and Lissa tells her own story of growing up in a rapidly changing, post-World War II America. It takes Lissa from age four through twenty-two and portrays the unique bond between young Lissa and her elderly and eccentric father. In the second novel,  Lissa awakens from her sheltered American childhood as she spends her junior year abroad in France (1973-74) and travels around Europe.

Antje Rauwerda

Antje M. Rauwerda is a professor of British and Postcolonial Literature at Goucher College. Raised in Canada, Singapore, the UK and Ghana, she now lives in Baltimore City with her teenagers and dogs. She is the author of: The Writer and the Overseas Childhood: The Third Culture Literature of Kingsolver, McEwan and Others plus other academic articles in the fields of third culture and postcolonial literature. Slow Time is her first novel.

She will read from her novel, Slow Time:
Antje Rauwerda has created a Baltimore neighborhood inhabited by an unlikely network of relations so far reaching in time and place that, by the end, readers, too, will come to regard themselves as kin. How could we not, when the land is speaking tenderly and urgently about how we all might extend our consciousness? A technically form-shattering work.

Biography forthcoming.

Kathleen Fine

Kathleen Fine received her Master’s in Reading Education from Towson University and Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of the Maryland Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, and Author’s Guild. When she’s not writing and selling real estate, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling to the Outer Banks, and of course, reading anything she can get her hands on. She lives in Sparks, Maryland with her husband, three children, and Sussex Spaniel. Her short stories have been published in Litro Magazine, Pen in Hand, The Maryland Writer’s Association Anthology, and The Indignor Playhouse Anthology. Her Debut novel, Girl on Trial, was published in October 2023, with Camcat Books.

Eric D. Goodman

Eric D. Goodman is author of seven books, including Faraway Tables (Yorkshire Publishing, 2024), Wrecks and Ruins (Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press, 2022), The Color of Jadeite (Apprentice House, 2020), Setting the Family Free (Apprentice House, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017), Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus Books, 2011), and Flightless Goose, (Writers Lair Books, 2008). More than a hundred of his short stories and travel stories have been published in literary journals, magazines, and periodicals. Learn more about Eric and his writing at www.EricDGoodman.com.

Michelle Brafman

Michelle Brafman is author of the novel Washing the Dead and Bertrand Court: Stories. Her writing has appeared in The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Daily, Slate, LitHub, The Forward, and elsewhere. She teaches fiction at the Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing Program and founded the Glen Echo Workshops. A former swim mom and NCAA All-American freestyler, Brafman has never lived more than a mile away from a pool, lake, ocean, or river.

Danielle Ariano

Danielle Ariano was born and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, but became a Baltimorean when she moved to the city for college. She was indeed charmed by Baltimore’s quirky, artsy vibe.

Ariano’s memoir, A Requirement of Grief, is a meditation on the complexities of the sister bond and the grief that comes when that bond is broken by a sibling’s suicide.  

Ariano received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Baltimore. As part of her thesis, she wrote, designed and published her first book, Getting Over the Rainbow, a memoir recounting her humorous and sometimes painful experiences coming out as a lesbian.

Ariano’s work has been published in Salon, Huff Post, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore Fishbowl, North Dakota Quarterly, Cobalt Review, and Welter. She is a former columnist for Baltimore Gay Life, and she has been featured on WYPR’s radio show, The Signal.

When she is not writing, Ariano works as a cabinetmaker. She has great reverence for the hallowed, dusty smell of a woodshop. She finds it thrilling to see a thing take shape from scratch. She loves trees and all the beautiful patterns that can result in woodgrain from stress, insect damage, or even the loss of a limb. She believes that people are very similar to trees in this respect. She lives in Lutherville, Maryland with her wife, son, and dog. To find out more visit her website www.danielleariano.com

Hyeseung Song

Hyeseung Song is a first-generation Korean American painter and the author of Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl (Simon & Schuster, 7/16/24). Her large-scale figurative works explore creativity and the life of the artist.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Song grew up in Texas and was educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities. She did her training at the Water Street Atelier, now the Grand Central Atelier, in New York City.

A devoted teacher and mentor, Song has instructed at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the Queens Council on the Arts’ High School 2 Art School Program as well as the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, during which time she was named among Baltimore Magazine’s “40 Under 40” for her work creating synergies between the science and art communities in that city. She often addresses high school and college audiences, and was a featured speaker at Princeton University at its TedX Conference in 2016 as well as at the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton’s Leadership Conference in 2021.

She has received residencies at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program for Artists in Brittany, France, Penland School of Arts and Craft, the Vermont Studio Center as well as others, and her work resides in private collections internationally.

Song lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York. You can learn more about her at www.hyeseungsong.com or on Instagram @hyeseungs.

Turney McKnight

Turney McKnight is a retired attorney and active beef cattle farmer living a few miles north of Madonna, Maryland (Actual post office address is White Hall). His three children and four grandchildren live on adjacent farms.

He grew up in Great Falls, Virginia in a time when that area was still rural. He received a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Upon graduation from law school he took a job with a Baltimore law firm and lived near Pimlico, where he exercised racehorses before going to work in the morning., A few years after that, he moved out to the farm country of first Baltimore and then Harford County.

In addition to practicing law, Turney competed for many years as an amateur steeplechase jockey (he took a “gap year” between college and law school to ride races steeplechase races full time in Ireland and England). He owned, trained and rode steeplechasers steadily until retiring from racing in the mid 80's.

Like many lawyers, Turney eventually found a creative writing outlet – in his case a series of pieces published in the now defunct North County News. These led to longer works, some published in regional magazines.

Many of both are included in Tracks in the Sand, a broadly autographical work, at least in the sense that Turney conceived it with the idea of memorializing for his children a slice of time which they would have been too young to remember.

Richard Chizmar

Richard is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author.

He is the co-author (with Stephen King) of the bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box and the founder/publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than 35 anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including multiple editions of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award.

Chizmar (in collaboration with Johnathon Schaech) has also written screenplays and teleplays for United Artists, Sony Screen Gems, Lions Gate, Showtime, NBC, and many other companies. He has adapted the works of many bestselling authors including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Bentley Little.

Chizmar is also the creator/writer of the online website, Stephen King Revisited. His fourth short story collection, The Long Way Home, was published in 2019. With Brian Freeman, Chizmar is co-editor of the acclaimed Dark Screams horror anthology series published by Random House imprint, Hydra.

His latest book, The Girl on the Porch, was released in hardcover by Subterranean Press, and Widow’s Point, a chilling novella about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, W.H. Chizmar, was recently adapted into a feature film.

Jane Delury

Jane Delury is the author of the newly-released Hedge and The Balcony (Little, Brown) which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short stories have appeared in Granta, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and other publications. Her awards include a PEN/O. Henry Prize, a Pushcart Special Mention, and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and directs the BA in English.

Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of twelve novels, including The Washington Square Ensemble (1983), Waiting for the End of the World (1985), Straight Cut (1986), The Year of Silence (1987), Doctor Sleep (1991), Save Me, Joe Louis (1993), Ten Indians (1997) and Soldier's Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award in 1989. Bell has also published two collections of short stories: Zero db (1987) and Barking Man (1990). In 2002, the novel Doctor Sleep was adapted as a film, Close Your Eyes, starring Goran Visnjic, Paddy Considine, and Shirley Henderson. Forty Words For Fear, an album of songs co-written by Bell and Wyn Cooper and inspired by the novel Anything Goes,was released by Gaff Music in 2003; other performers include Don Dixon, Jim Brock, Mitch Easter and Chris Frank.

Bell's eighth novel, All Soul's Rising, was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race. All Souls Rising, along with the second and third novels of his Haitian Revolutionary trilogy, Master of the Crossroads and The Stone That The Builder Refused, is available in a uniform edition from Vintage Contemporaries. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, appeared in 2007. Devil's Dream, a novel based on the career of Nathan Bedford Forrest, was published by Pantheon in 2009. In 2020 he published Child of Light: A Biography of Robert Stone, and edited The Eye You See With: Selected Non Fiction of Robert Stone. His last novel is The Witch of Matongé, published by Concord Free Press in 2022.

Born and raised in Tennessee, he has lived in New York, Haiti, Paris and London and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. A graduate of Princeton University (A.B 1979) and Hollins College (M.A. 1981), he has taught in various creative writing programs, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. Since 1984 he has taught at Goucher College, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires.

Marian K. Riedy

Marian K. Riedy was born in rural Kansas. She attended local public schools, then matriculated at the University of Kansas (B.A. summa cum laude). She went on to receive her J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.B.A. from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of business.

Marian practiced law, primarily as a civil litigator, in Washington, D.C., for many years. She left the full-time practice of law for a tenured appointment teaching business law at Emporia State University and is now professor emeritus.

She is enjoying her current “occupation” writing fiction, but reserves plenty of time for travel, golf, tennis, and hanging out by any available pool or beach with a book in hand.

Marian is the author of the legal thrillers Fatal Accusation (Black Rose Writing, 2020) and Surprise Witness (Black Rose Writing, 2022), and is working on her third.

BeTSy Boyd

Betsy Boyd directs the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts MFA program at the University of Baltimore and is the recipient of Maryland State Arts Council awards, an Elliot Coleman Writing Fellowship, a James A. Michener Fellowship and residencies through Fundación Valparaíso, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program for Artists and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Betsy’s fiction has been published in Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, Shenandoah, at American Short Fiction, Eclectica, and elsewhere. Her short story “Scarecrow” received a Pushcart Prize.

Charles W. Mitchell

Charles W. Mitchell is the award-winning author or editor of three books: The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered, coedited with Jean H. Baker; Maryland Voices of the Civil War (winner of the Founders Award from the American Civil War Museum); and Travels Through American History in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide for All Ages, winner of a Lowell Thomas Gold Award from the Society of American Travel Writers. He was selected as a Baltimore Historian-Scholar in 2018 for his contributions to the history of Baltimore and Maryland.

Mitchell has published widely on Civil War-era politics and slavery in Maryland; much of his research has centered on the impact of the Civil War on civilians. He has discussed his work on Maryland Public Television, C-SPAN’s American History TV, and local NPR radio programs. He has appeared at the Annapolis Book Festival and the Baltimore Book Festival. From 1995-2001, as a travel writer for The Baltimore Sun, Mitchell wrote stories about historical sites in the Mid-Atlantic region that blended history and travel.

Katie Aiken Ritter

Katie Aiken Ritter is a graduate of Swarthmore College. Following a long career in IT, she experienced a remarkable epiphany that demanded she write about Vikings. Katie’s Norse Adventure Series includes four deeply researched novels set in Iceland during the Viking era. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Eastern Shore Writers Association, and she leads writing workshops. 

Fun fact: Katie served a brief sailing stint as a crew member on the Viking longship Draken Harald Harfagre.

Jane Delury

Jane Delury is the author of the newly-released Hedge and The Balcony (Little, Brown) which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short stories have appeared in Granta, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and other publications. Her awards include a PEN/O. Henry Prize, a Pushcart Special Mention, and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and directs the BA in English.

Past Readings

SEPTEMBER 2024

Kathleen Fine reading from her debut novel, Girl on Trial, published in October 2023, with Camcat Books.

AUGUST 2024

Eric D. Goodman reading from his recent works.

July 2024

Michelle Brafman reading from her novel, Swimming with Ghosts.

June 2024

Danielle Ariano reading from her memoir, A Requirement of Grief.

May, 2024

Turney McKnight reading from Tracks in the Sand.

April, 2024

Erin McGill reading from one of her children’s books.

March, 2024

Susan Muaddj Darraj reading from Farah Rocks.

February, 2024

Kini Collins reading from The Singing Bowl.

January, 2024

Charles McCormack reading from Healing of a Psychotherapist: A Journey of Rebellion, Reflection, and Redemption

December, 2023

Suzanne Supplee reading from her new novel, Sweetness All Around.

November, 2023

Charley Mitchell reading from Travels Through American History in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide for All Ages

October, 2023

Jane Delury
Reading from newly-released Hedge.

SeptEMBER, 2023

Katie Ritter
Reading from her Viking trilogy.

August, 2023

Marian K. Riedy
Reading from her novel, Surprise Witness

July, 2023

Betsy Boyd
Reading from her short story, “Adult Swim”

June, 2023

Madison Smartt Bell
Reading from his novel, The Witch of Matongé

Book Launches

October 6, 2024

Bob Bowie, Jr., lawyer turned poet and author, reads from his new book “The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be”.