John Felstiner
Alum 2003John Felstiner was an American literary critic, translator, poet, and Professor Emeritus of English at Stanford University. He wrote books on the poetry of Paul Celan, Pablo Neruda, and was the co-editor of the anthology Jewish American Literature. His interests included poetry in various languages, environmental and ecologic poems, literary translation, Vietnam era poetry and Holocaust studies.
Evan Eisenberg
Alum 2003Evan Eisenberg is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, who authored the acclaimed works The Ecology of Eden and The Recording Angel. Eisenberg's writing on nature, culture, and technology has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, the New York Times, Natural History, Discover, and other periodicals. He has been a music columnist for The Nation, a synagogue cantor, and a gardener for the New York City parks department.
Ed Ayres
Alum 2003Ed Ayres is a writer, editor, and environmentalist. He is the founding editor and publisher of Running Times magazine, and he served as editorial director of the Worldwatch Institute and editor of Worldwatch, a bimonthly global-trends magazine. He is the author of God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future, in which he addresses global warming, mass extinctions, overconsumption, and overpopulation.
Zeus Yiamouyiannis
Alum 2003Zeus Yiamouyiannis is founder and chief operator of CitizenZeus.com and the creator of AskDrZeus.com. He has a PhD in philosophy of education, is a featured author in Educating Tomorrow’s Valuable Citizen, and has written extensively on interpersonal conceptions of self worth modeled upon nature and its relations.
Greg Tuke
Alum 2003Greg Tuke teaches Social Media and Social Change courses at Seattle University and the University of Washington-Bothell, with a specialty focus in using video and live video conferencing across borders to enhance cross-cultural communication skills. He has written several articles on education change strategies, and is the author of Creating Powerful Schools: Lessons Learned in Working to Improve Public Schools.
Jeremy Smith
Alum 2003Jeremy Smith is the editor of Greater Good magazine, which is published by the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. Jeremy’s coverage of racial and economic segregation in San Francisco schools has won numerous honors. He is also a three-time winner of the John Swett Award from the California Teachers Association. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, Utne Reader, The Nation, Mindful, Wired, and many other periodicals, websites, and books.
Sarah Silbert
Alum 2003Sarah Silbert leads creative writing workshops around the country to people of all ages in a wide variety of settings, including private and public schools, colleges and pre-schools, homeless shelters and hospitals, libraries and prisons, GED programs and more. She has taught creative writing at Vermont Technical College for fifteen years, founded the college’s Anthology of Creative Writing and directs a community literacy program, which connects college students with elementary schools.
Richard Shelton
Alum 2003Richard Shelton is a writer, poet, and emeritus Regents Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. He has published 11 books of poetry and is former director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center. In 1974, he established a writers workshop in the Arizona State Prison at Florence, which has expanded into many prison workshops and has had many published authors come through the program. Richard has also been nominated for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
Aaron Sachs
Alum 2003Aaron Sachs is associate professor of history and American studies at Cornell University. His areas of research include changes in the concept of nature throughout history, cultural and experiential aspects of modernity, regional planning, and environmental justice. Aaron is also faculty fellow at Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, and a faculty fellow at Flora Rose House.
Mike Matz
Alum 2003Mike Matz is the director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness at The Pew Charitable Trusts. As the director, Mike works to protect the nation’s remaining wild lands to ensure an enduring legacy of wilderness for future generations. He spent six years with the Sierra Club, four of those as a director of its public lands program in Washington, D.C.
Natalie Smith Parra
Alum 2003Natalie Smith Parra is a writer, teacher, and social justice activist. In addition to her residency at the Mesa, she has been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. She is also a recipient of a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant and a Puffin Artist's Grant. She now works for Nevada CURE, a prisoner civil rights organization.
Linda Breen Pierce
Alum 2003Linda Breen Pierce is a writer, keynote speaker and workshop leader in the areas of voluntary simplicity and work/life balance. She is the author of Choosing Simplicity, which recounts her three-year evaluation of more than 200 people who have experimented with simplifying their lives. In addition to her speeches and workshops, she has written or been featured in more than two dozen magazine and newspaper articles, and she has been a guest on a similar number of radio and television programs.