CHRISTOPHER CATANESE
Duke University, M.A., English Literature
Davidson College, B.A., English Literature

While a student at Davidson College, Christopher immersed himself in literature seminars and creative writing workshops and served as senior editor for two of Davidson’s literary publications. After working short stints at several literary magazines, including Tin House in Portland and The Paris Review in New York, he enrolled in a graduate program at Duke University. At Duke, Christopher taught creative writing to undergraduate students and published work on 18th- and 19th-century poetry; and enjoyed research fellowships in Germany, Vienna, and the U.K., where he traveled through England, Ireland, and Wales researching landscape painting and descriptive poetry. He has published writing, interviews, book reviews, and scholarly articles, and is cofounder of the poetry press Golias Books. Christopher is currently an editor for the Duke University Press. He has led Putney’s Creative Writing in Ireland trip and taught the creative writing seminar at Putney’s Pre-College at Amherst College program.

MAGGIE PAHOS
Chatham University, M.F.A., Creative Writing (Nonfiction)
Elon University, B.A., English (Creative Writing), Art History (African/African-American Studies)

As a student at Elon, Maggie studied abroad at the University of Ghana and received the Lumen Prize, a $15,000 prize that supported her College Fellows project. Inspired by her time in Ghana, the project focused on the complexities in cross-cultural perception and the ways that visual art can address them. At Chatham University, Maggie earned concentrations in the pedagogy of creative writing and travel writing, participating in field seminars in Belize and Guatemala. She has taught creative writing in alternative spaces such as cancer support centers, jails, and prison work release programs. She has also worked with high school students in Washington, D.C., to support them in writing children’s books, their college application essays, and scholarship essays. Maggie currently works for an educational technology company whose mission is to improve schools’ climate and culture initiatives. She is completing a book about her post-college travels through Ghana, South Africa, and Europe, and her experience of living with and working for local farmers. She is also completing a short story collection. Maggie has led high school travel programs to Fiji, Ireland, and Bhutan.

BAN HEO
University of Colorado at Boulder, M.A., English Literature (candidate)
University of Colorado at Boulder, B.A., Creative Writing

While at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ban earned his creative writing degree alongside an initial teacher’s license for secondary English education. During this time, he also boxed competitively and won the Colorado Golden Gloves State Tournament in the 152-pound division. After graduation, he taught 9th and 11th grade English language arts and creative writing at Adams City High School for three years before leaving to pursue a career in academia. He is currently a master’s candidate, in the process of writing a thesis that constructs the boxing ring as a performative, improvisational site of spectacle that dramatically complicated racial narratives in the U.S. from 1890-1980. His primary academic fields of interest are colonial theory, post-colonial theory, contemporary American literature, and notions of performativity within social and cultural spaces. Ban is fluent in Korean.