2024-2025 Writer in Residence: Kate Sjostrom
Dr. Sjostrom is a writer and teacher educator based in Oak Park, IL. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in RHINO, Southern Poetry Review, English Journal, and elsewhere, and she regularly publishes and presents on writing education. Her co-edited collection, Unsettling Education, won a 2021 Outstanding Book Award from the Society of Professors of Education. Kate holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as an MEd and PhD in English Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she now teaches writing and writing pedagogy. She is currently at work on her first novel which she will continue within the WIR writing space.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is pleased to announce that Kate Sjostrom will serve as the Foundation’s newest Writer-in-Residence (WIR). During her 2024-2025 term, Kate will assist in advancing the foundations mission supporting the development of our educational programming, and mentorship of our student scholarship recipients. She will also enjoy the opportunity to continue her work in the dedicated writing space of the Hemingway Birthplace Museum.
Dr. Sjostrom is a writer and teacher educator based in Oak Park, IL. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in RHINO, Southern Poetry Review, English Journal, and elsewhere, and she regularly publishes and presents on writing education. Her co-edited collection, Unsettling Education, won a 2021 Outstanding Book Award from the Society of Professors of Education.
2023-2024 Writer in Residence: Scott Nations
Scott Nations is the President of Nations Indexes, Inc., and a best-selling author. Scott has also spent more than a decade as a contributor to CNBC and regularly appears on-air to discuss markets, current economic events, and the outlook for a variety of financial vehicles. In the fiction space, Scott is the author of The Imperative, a novel due to be published in early 2024. During his time as WIR, he will be working on his next nonfiction project which is a history of the American stock market.
Scott is a graduate of the University of Kansas. He and his wife Wendi have lived in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago for twenty-nine years.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is pleased to announce that Scott Nations will serve as the Foundation’s newest Writer-in-Residence (WIR). During his 2023-2024 term, Scott will assist in advancing the foundations mission through both traditional media and social platforms, support the development of our educational programming, and mentorship of our student scholarship recipients. He will also enjoy the opportunity to continue his work in the dedicated writing space of the Hemingway Birthplace Museum.
Scott Nations is the President of Nations Indexes, Inc., and a best-selling author. Scott has also spent more than a decade as a contributor to CNBC and regularly appears on-air to discuss markets, current economic events, and the outlook for a variety of financial vehicles. In the fiction space, Scott is the author of The Imperative, a novel due to be published in early 2024. During his time as WIR, he will be working on his next nonfiction project which is a history of the American stock market. His previous works include:
The Anxious Investor – Mastering the Mental Game of Investing (HarperCollins/April 2022).
A History of the United States in Five Crashes, a general interest history of the five modern stock market crashes (HarperCollins/June 2017).
The Complete Book of Option Spreads and Combinations (Wiley & Sons/October 2014).
Options Math for Traders (Wiley & Sons/2012).
Scott is a graduate of the University of Kansas. He and his wife Wendi have lived in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago for twenty-nine years.
2021-2022 Writer In Residence: Rebecca Morgan Frank
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2021-2022 Writer in Residence, Rebecca Morgan Frank.
Ms. Frank is the author of four poetry collections: Oh You Robot Saints!, Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country; and The Spokes of Venus, all from Carnegie Mellon University Press, and Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry), finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She holds a BA from Vassar College, an MFA from Emerson College, and a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. She is a native of Charlottesville, Virginia and lives in Chicago, where she teaches in the MFA Program in Prose & Poetry at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2021-2022 Writer in Residence, Rebecca Morgan Frank.
Ms. Frank is the author of four poetry collections: Oh You Robot Saints!, Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country; and The Spokes of Venus, all from Carnegie Mellon University Press, and Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry), finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems, essays, and stories have appeared such places as The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, The Southern Review, Poetry Ireland, Crazyhorse, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Slowdown podcast, and elsewhere. Her collaborations with composers have been performed and exhibited across the country. She is the recipient of Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award for her next manuscript in-progress and fellowships from such places as the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Writers’ Room of Boston.
She holds a BA from Vassar College, an MFA from Emerson College, and a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. Co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Memorious, her recent teaching positions include Jacob Ziskind Poet in Residence at Brandeis University; Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University; and Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. She is a native of Charlottesville, Virginia and lives in Chicago, where she teaches in the MFA Program in Prose & Poetry at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies.
2019-2021 Writer In Residence: Laura Young
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2019-2021 Writer in Residence, Laura Young.
Ms. Young, an English teacher since 2006 at Oak Park-River Forest High School, is a writer of both fiction (including novel-length and flash) and memoir. In addition to her teaching duties, Laura runs a week-long college essay writing intensive each summer at the Oak Park Public Library. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Iowa and a Masters of Arts in Education from California State University.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2019-2021 Writer in Residence, Laura Young.
Ms. Young, an English teacher since 2006 at Oak Park-River Forest High School, is a writer of both fiction (including novel-length and flash) and memoir. In addition to her teaching duties, Laura runs a week-long college essay writing intensive each summer at the Oak Park Public Library. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Iowa and a Masters of Arts in Education from California State University.
A past recipient of the New York Mills and S.A.F.T.A. writing residencies, Laura has had short stories and essays published in Shoreline of Infinity, Lunch Ticket, Cold Creek Review, The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, Ordinary Madness, Parent.co, and Lagom.
2017-2019 Writer In Residence: Cameron Gearen
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2017-2019 Writer in Residence, Cameron Gearen.
Cameron publishes poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her essays have recently appeared in The Washington Post, Full Grown People, Hippocampus and elsewhere. Shearsman Press released her book of poems, SOME PERFECT YEAR, in 2016. Currently, Cameron is working on a memoir.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2017-2019 Writer in Residence, Cameron Gearen.
Cameron publishes poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her essays have recently appeared in The Washington Post, Full Grown People, Hippocampus and elsewhere. Her poetry chapbook, NIGHT, RELATIVE TO DAY, was selected for publication by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Shearsman Press released her book of poems, SOME PERFECT YEAR, in 2016. Currently, Cameron is working on a memoir.
As a former classroom teacher, Cameron continues to work with families on tutoring, writing help, and college essay coaching. Find her business on Facebook: Savvy College Consulting. She also works (nearly) full-time in marketing.
Cameron grew up in Oak Park and attended Oak Park River Forest High School, where her teachers encouraged her writing. She studied writing and English literature at Wesleyan University (Connecticut) and went on to earn an MFA in creative writing at Indiana University. Cameron has lived for long stints in Thailand, mainland China and France. She is devoted to her two daughters and her two dogs.
2015-2017 Writer In Residence: David W. Berner
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2015-2017 Writer in Residence, David W. Berner.
David is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2015-2017 Writer in Residence, David W. Berner.
David is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.
His first book, Accidental Lessons (Strategic Publishing) was awarded the 2011 Royal Dragonfly Grand Prize for Literature. His memoir, October Song, won the Royal Dragonfly Award in 2017. His second memoir, Any Road Will Take You There (Dream of Things Publishing) won the 2013 Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Writer's Association for nontraditional nonfiction and was short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Award. The Chicago Book Review named his collection of essays, There’s a Hamster in the Dashboard, a “book of the year” in 2015.
In 2011, David was named the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project. He lived and worked in Kerouac's historic home in Orlando for a period of three months.
You also may have heard his voice regularly on the radio. He's a reporter and news anchor for Chicago’s WBBM, and is a regular contributor to the CBS Radio Network. David’s audio documentaries have been heard on public radios across America. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
2014-2015 Writer In Residence: Annette Gendler
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2014-2015 Writer in Residence, Annette Gendler.
Annette is the author of Jumping Over Shadows, the true story of a German-Jewish love that overcame the burden of the Holocaust, published in 2017 by She Writes Press. The memoir was a finalist for the Chicago Writers Association’s 2017 Book of the Year Award.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2014-2015 Writer in Residence, Annette Gendler.
Annette is the author of Jumping Over Shadows, the true story of a German-Jewish love that overcame the burden of the Holocaust, published in 2017 by She Writes Press. The memoir was a finalist for the Chicago Writers Association’s 2017 Book of the Year Award. One essay excerpted from the book, “‘Thrown Out’ of the Family Home,” was published in the Wall Street Journal; two others, “Giving Up Christmas” and “Becoming a Proper Jew in the Kitchen,” were published in Tablet Magazine.
Her essays have appeared in many literary journals, and she regularly writes for the Washington Independent Review of Books and the Jewish Book Council. Her photography has been featured in Bella Grace Magazine and Artful Blogging.
Annette grew up in Germany but has been a long-time resident of Hyde Park, Chicago. She holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. After 15 years of working in consulting, Annette left the corporate world in 2008; she now teaches memoir writing at StoryStudio Chicago and writing workshops around the country and aboard, and does communications work for her children’s former school.
2013-2014 Writer In Residence: Susan Hahn
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2013-2014 Writer in Residence, Susan Hahn.
An award-winning poet, playwright and novelist, Hahn has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, and is a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize.
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is proud to announce its 2013-2014 Writer in Residence, Susan Hahn.
An award-winning poet, playwright and novelist, Hahn has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, and is a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize. She has published a number of poetry collections and was awarded Poetry's George Kent Prize. Her plays have been read at Victory Gardens and Writers' Theater, and her first novel was published in 2012.
Susan Hahn has published numerous poetry collections, including Harriet Rubin’s Mother’s Wooden Hand (1991); Incontinence (1993), winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award; Holiday (2001) and Mother In Summer (2002), both included in Chicago Tribune's Best Books of 2002; and The Scarlet Ibis (2007). The Scarlet Ibis was also performed as a verse play in 2007 and reprised in 2008. Her first play, Golf, premiered in Chicago in 2005. Her first novel, “The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter,” was published in 2012.
Susan has also earned several Illinois Arts Council awards and fellowships; the George Kent Prize from Poetry magazine, Pushcart Prizes and a Guggenheim fellowship.
1998-2008 Writer In Residence: William Hazelgrove
Prior to the reintroduction of our official Writer in Residence program, William Hazelgrove used the unfinished attic space as his writing space from 1998 to 2008.
William Hazelgrove is the National Bestselling author of ten novels and six nonfiction titles.
Prior to the reintroduction of our official Writer in Residence program, William Hazelgrove used the unfinished attic space as his writing space from 1998 to 2008.
William Hazelgrove is the National Bestselling author of ten novels and six nonfiction titles. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly Kirkus,Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards Junior Library Guild Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today, The Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications and has been featured on NPR All Things Considered. The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today have all covered his books with features. He runs a cultural blog, The View From Hemingway’s Attic. Shots Fired in Terminal 2 A Witness Reflects on Americas Mass Shooting Epidemic will be out August 2018 and Wright Brothers Wrong Story will be out Dec 2018. He lives in the Chicagoland area.