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Reading and Discussion Scholar Bios |
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“Sharing Our Past — Shaping Our Future” Since 1974 |
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Elayne Clift, a writer living in Saxtons River, holds adjunct faculty positions at several New England colleges and universities where she teaches women’s studies and health communication. Her latest books are Sanity For All in the 21st Century: Reflections of A Fin de Siecle Feminist (Xlibris, 2002) and The Limits of Love (Xlibris, 2003), a collection of short fiction. A frequent workshop leader, she is currently editing a book about women, philanthropy, and social change.
Dan Cohen is like Chaucer’s Clerk—“Gladly would he learn and gladly teach.” Formerly the Greensboro Town librarian, Cohen is currently an elementary school librarian, a high school English and Spanish teacher, and a college instructor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Columbia University and a master’s degree in literature from the University of Rochester. His Ph.D. thesis, on Thoreau’s Walden, is near completion. His greatest virtue is a good sense of humor.
Rachael Cohen is a freelance editor specializing in environmental and regional studies. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Environmental Education from the Audubon Expedition Institute/Lesley College. She teaches literature and creative writing for the University of Michigan’s New England Literature Program, held each spring at a camp in Maine, as well as offering Elderhostel classes in regional literature and nature writing.
Kathleen Osgood Dana, a scholar of literary ecology, has been presenting reading discussions for the Council since 1989. Dana holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Oulu, Finland, with her dissertation in Sámi literature. Her special interests are in northern and native literature. Kati lives in Northfield on the hill where she grew up, and delights in traveling about the state.
Erik E. Esckilsen is a writer, teacher, and native Vermonter based in Burlington. His first novel for young adult readers, The Last Mall Rat, was published by Houghton Mifflin in April 2003, and a second novel will be published in 2004. In addition to teaching writing and literature courses at Champlain College, CCV, and Burlington College, he has written and edited articles for such publications as the Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, and Seven Days.
Nat Frothingham is publisher of The Montpelier Bridge, a community newspaper in Montpelier. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a master’s degree in Education, both from Harvard. His focus areas include the plays of Shakespeare, American Literature, the American Civil War, and issues of free speech and American democracy. He has worked as a teacher in East Africa, at Randolph Union High School, and for the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Jody Gladding is a poet and translator. She is the author of Stone Crop. She teaches in the Vermont College M.F.A. in Writing Program and translates French for several publishing houses, most recently Columbia University Press. She has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award. She lives in East Calais, Vermont.
Sonja Hakala’s writing has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Old Farmer’s Almanac and Vermont Magazine, among others. She has experience in book publishing including as the marketing manager of The Countryman Press in Woodstock, Vermont, and as editor and project manager for several publishers. She was the first executive director of the Vermont Book Professionals association and was instrumental in establishing its Book of the Year Award. Recently, she signed a contract with an agent for her first book.
Cheryl Heneveld has a degree in Literature and Philosophy with a Master of Liberal Arts from St. Johns College, a discussion based program. Having lived in Kenya, Switzerland, Indonesia and India, her interests include multi-cultural literature as well as women writers, especially Virginia Woolf. She has co-taught Peace and War at Johnson State College. A “bookworm” since childhood, she believes reading and discussion are the best ways to continue life long learning.
Ward Heneveld has advised on education in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Romania, and throughout Africa where he first taught. He has also worked in Vermont as a professor of education, as Executive Director of a community action agency, and as head of the School for International Training. He currently consults abroad and volunteers as a library trustee in Enosburg and on education in Franklin County. Ward believes that the literature of diverse cultures, including Vermont’s, helps us appreciate each other.
Geof Hewitt writes and publishes nonfiction and poetry. He has been a Vermont Humanities Council speaker and discussion leader since the 1980s. An active participant in poetry slams, he is writing a teacher’s guide to bring slam to |
