Adjunct Faculty, Poetry, Whitworth MFA in Creative Writing Program
Whitworth University
Research areas: Poetry, Nonfiction, Spiritual Theology

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the poetry chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and the nonfiction spiritual theology title I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock, 2017), which won four first-place Catholic Press Association awards. She is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books, 2019) and serves on the executive board of Red Hen Press and the poetry advisory board of Wildhouse Press. She is the first-year poetry mentor in the Whitworth University MFA in Creative Writing Program. She will serve as the senior scholar/mentor in the Generations in Dialogue Program at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California for the 2026-2028 cohort. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, America Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Smartish Pace, Sojourners, First Things, U.S. Catholic, Sugar House Review, Scientific American, RHINO, Connecticut River Review, Verse Daily and elsewhere.

Anna Bruno is the author of the novels Fine Young People and Ordinary Hazards. Her essays have been featured in NPR, WBUR, Electric Lit, LitHub, Dappled Things, Necessary Fiction, and The Des Moines Register. Through Generations in Dialogue, Anna will interrogate the speculative and the real in literature: dreams, memories, the untapped potential of the human mind, and the divine.

Katy Carl serves as editor of Word on Fire Luminor, a literary imprint from within the Catholic tradition for serious readers of any faith or none. She is author of As Earth Without Water (Wiseblood, 2021) and Fragile Objects (Wiseblood, 2023) and serves as writer in residence at the University of St. Thomas—Houston. Her work has appeared in America, Church Life Journal, Ekstasis, Evangelization & Culture, Fare Forward, Front Porch Republic, Genealogies of Modernity, Mere Orthodoxy, National Review, National Catholic Register, Notre Dame magazine, Public Discourse, Solum Journal, Windhover, World Literature Today, and others.

Zach Czaia is a poet, high school English teacher, and independent publisher. His publishing house, One Subject Press, begun in 2025, actively seeks authors looking to create work in conversation with the “Catholic Imagination,” understanding that phrase as broadly and inclusively as possible. He writes regularly at his Substack, “Teacher/Poet.”

Jenna K Funkhouser is a nonprofit storyteller and Pacific Northwest-based author and poet. Her second book of poetry, Bright, Inhabited Lives, was published by Kelsay Books in 2024, with a third collection releasing in early 2027. Learn more about her recent work at jennakfunkhouser.com.

Elizabeth Hamilton is a writer from Texas whose work has appeared in the Dallas Museum of Art, The Hudson Review and Texas Monthly, among other publications. She is at work on a memoir about chronic illness, which was a finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest, and she hosts the monthly substack This Book Could Save Your Life about books, illness and the contemplative life. You can find more of her work at elizabethannehamilton.com.

Katie Hartsock is the author of the poetry collections Wolf Trees (Able Muse, 2023), winner of the Philip H. McMath Poetry Prize, and Bed of Impatiens (finalist for the Able Muse Book Award), which includes a sequence of poems after Augustine’s Confessions. A limited-edition letterpress chapbook, Love-Gifts To Be Delivered Via Subterranean Rivers, was published by Aureole Press in 2026. She is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Oakland University (MI), and a faculty affiliate of the Kateri Institute for Catholic Studies at the University of Michigan.

Santiago Ramos is an associate editor at Plough quarterly, a contributing writer at Commonweal , and his work has also appeared in The New Statesman, Wisdom of Crowds, America, and The Lamp. Santiago’s recent work combines philosophy (he obtained a PhD from Boston College) with narrative and criticism, and tries to discern a future for culture in the age of AI.

Nick Ripatrazone is an author, editor, and teacher, whose work considers how people can best maintain dignity in the age of AI.

He holds graduate degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing from Rutgers University. He has taught public high school English for over two decades.

The Culture Editor for Image Journal, he writes regularly on AI for Slate, and has written about culture for Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, GQ, Commonweal, America, Esquire, and The Paris Review. He is the author of the book Catholic Wisdom in the Age of AI: 5 Principles for Embracing Our Magnificent Humanity in a Virtual World (Ave Maria Press, 2026), as well as The Habit of Poetry (Fortress Press, 2023), and Digital Communion (Fortress 2022), the first book-length spiritual biography of the Catholic media theorist Marshall McLuhan. He is the co-host of the Jesuit Media Lab Book Club.

Through Generations in Dialogue, he hopes to contribute to a community of writers, artists, and scholars who can bear witness to human creativity and wisdom in the digital age.

Stephanie Saldañais an essayist and nonfiction writer who explores the roles of faith, memory, cultural heritage, and creative resilience, especially in regions of conflict. She is the author of three books, including her most recent: What We Remember Will Be Saved: A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry. She lives in the Holy Land with her family.

https://jcscharl.com/

Ellen Wayland-Smith is a Professor (Teaching) in the Writing Program and the English Department at USC. She is the author of Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table (Picador 2016) and, most recently, The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self (Milkweed Editions 2024). A Contributing Writer at Commonweal, she is currently working on an essay collection that explores Christian mysticism and the ethical importance of thinking about love at non-human, or beyond-human, scales.