Academics

Presenter Biographies

Born in France in 1928, Raymond Federman emigrated to the US in 1947, following the deaths of his mother, father, and two sisters at Auschwitz. His early experiences in the US included time as an American paratrooper in Korea, a saxophone player in Detroit, a dishwasher, and student. Federman taught literature, creative writing, and French at SUNY at Buffalo from 1964-1998, before retiring as the Melodia E. Jones Chair of French. He is the author of over twenty books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, translated into German, Italian, French, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Rumanian, Hebrew, Dutch, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese. Federman is also the recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Foundation for the Arts fellowships, as well as numerous foreign awards.

Stacey Levine is a Seattle-based author whose books include My Horse and Other Stories and Dra--, a novel, both published by Sun & Moon Press in the 1990s. Her second novel, Frances Johnson, was published in 2005 by Clear Cut Press of Portland, Oregon, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her first collection received a PEN/West Fiction Award. She received a 2005 fellowship from Washington's Artist Trust Foundation. Her work has appeared in the American Book Review, Fence, Tin House, Fodor's travel guides, The Fairy Tale Review, the Seattle Times, The Stranger, and weirder venues. Formerly a creative writing and English instructor, she is now working on a novel.

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of three books of experimental short fictions:  Her Other Mouths, Liberty's Excess, and Real to Reel, as well as one book of criticism, Allegories of Violence.  Her short fictions and critifictions have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, The Iowa Review, Critical Matrix, Postmodern Culture, Ms., Tank, Another Chicago Magazine, Other Voices, Fiction International, and elsewhere.  She currently teaches writing, literature, film and women's studies in Oregon. She is the founding editor of Chiasmus press, along with her husband the filmmaker Andy Mingo.  The winner of various prizes and what-nots, including twice a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, she is currently finishing her first multimedia novel.