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Teachers

Meet Our Teachers

Hugo House teachers are at the core of our goal to help writers become better writers. Our teachers are writers; they are selected on the basis of their active engagement in the literary world as well as their love of teaching.

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    Lacey L. Bakker

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    Jamaica Baldwin

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    Anna Bálint

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    Timea Balogh

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    Leah Baltus

  • Headshot of Taneum Bambrick

    Taneum Bambrick

  • Headshot of Taneum Bambrick

    Taneum Bambrick

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    Russell Banks

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    Ivanna Baranova

  • Headshot of Zaira Bardos

    Zaira Bardos

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    Melinda Bargreen

  • Headshot of Elan Barnehama

    Elan Barnehama

  • Headshot of Christy Lee Barnes

    Christy Lee Barnes

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    Catherine Barnett

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    Rick Barot

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    Colleen Barry

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    Ebo Barton

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    James Barton

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    Neal Bascomb

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    Ariel Basom

  • Headshot of Ellen Bass

    Ellen Bass

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    Rick Bass

  • Headshot of Kaveh Bassiri

    Kaveh Bassiri

  • Headshot of Natalie Baszile

    Natalie Baszile

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Lacey L. Bakker

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Jamaica Baldwin

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Anna Bálint

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Timea Balogh

Pronouns: she/her
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Leah Baltus

Headshot of Taneum Bambrick

Taneum Bambrick

Pronouns: she/they

Taneum Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received (Copper Canyon Press, Sept 27th 2022) and Vantage, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Award (American Poetry Review 2019). She received support from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Vermont Studio Center. A 2020 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is currently a Dornsife Fellow in the PhD program at the University of Southern California. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Nation, Academy of American Poets, PEN, and elsewhere. 

Describe your teaching style.

I veer on the side of giving students more to say and do rather than trying to create limits. My hope is that students leave my classes feeling inspired to work on book-length projects, knowing our relationship is not limited to the classroom and that we can meet again later if they need to run ideas by someone.

Headshot of Taneum Bambrick

Taneum Bambrick

Pronouns: she/they

Taneum Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received (Copper Canyon Press, Sept 27th 2022) and Vantage, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Award (American Poetry Review 2019). She received support from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Vermont Studio Center. A 2020 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is currently a Dornsife Fellow in the PhD program at the University of Southern California. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Nation, Academy of American Poets, PEN, and elsewhere. 

Describe your teaching style.

I veer on the side of giving students more to say and do rather than trying to create limits. My hope is that students leave my classes feeling inspired to work on book-length projects, knowing our relationship is not limited to the classroom and that we can meet again later if they need to run ideas by someone.

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Russell Banks

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Ivanna Baranova

Pronouns: she/they
Headshot of Zaira Bardos

Zaira Bardos

ZAIRA BARDOS is a Twenty-year-old Filipino American writer & filmmaker currently attending the University of Washington in Seattle majoring in English with a focus in Creative Writing. She enjoys writing coming of age stories and essays. Zaira has written and directed 3 films titled, "I Remember Everything", "All the Things We Can't Say", and "Calum". Currently she is working on a magical realist novel that explores the growing pains of being a young adult as a Filipina American. 

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Melinda Bargreen

Headshot of Elan Barnehama

Elan Barnehama

Elan Barnehama is the author of the novels Escape Route and Finding Bluefield. His writing has appeared widely in print and online journals. Elan was the flash editor for ForthMagazineLA. He teaches literature and writing. More @ https://elanbarnehama.com

Headshot of Christy Lee Barnes

Christy Lee Barnes

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Catherine Barnett

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Rick Barot

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Colleen Barry

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Ebo Barton

Pronouns: they/he
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James Barton

Pronouns: He Him
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Neal Bascomb

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Ariel Basom

Pronouns: (he/him)
Headshot of Ellen Bass

Ellen Bass

Pronouns: she/her

Poet and educator Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book of poetry, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Previous books include Like a Beggar, a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award, and the Northern California Book Award; The Human Line; and Mules of Love, which won The Lambda Literary Award. Bass has also written works of nonfiction, including, with Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into twelve languages. The New Yorker has published ten of Bass’s poems throughout the years, and two have been chosen for The New Yorker podcast. In 2021, Bass was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University and lives in Santa Cruz, California.

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Rick Bass

Headshot of Kaveh Bassiri

Kaveh Bassiri

Pronouns: he/his

Kaveh Bassiri is a writer and translator. He is the author of 99 Names of Exile, winner of the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and Elementary English, winner of the Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize. His poems have been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2020, Best New Poets 2020, The Heart of a Stranger, and Somewhere We Are Human. Bassiri is the recipient of the 2022 & 2023 Tulsa Artist Fellowship and a 2019 translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Arkansas and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. He teaches creative writing at the University of Tulsa.

Website: kavehbassiri.com

Headshot of Natalie Baszile

Natalie Baszile

Natalie Baszile's debut novel Queen Sugar has been adapted into a TV series by the same name, which was recently renewed for its sixth season on Oprah Winfrey's OWN cable network. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of 2014, was long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Natalie has a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. Her nonfiction work has appeared in The Rumpus.net, Mission at Tenth, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 9, and O: The Oprah Magazine. Her second book, a work of nonfiction titled We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy was released just last month by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins.