Faculty Bios

Kelly Caldwell is the dean of faculty at Gotham Writers Workshop. Her nonfiction has appeared in Vox, House Beautiful, SugarSugarSalt, Mizzou magazine, New York Newsday, Time Out New York, The Writer, and Essay Daily, and been named Notable by the editors of the Best American Essays series. She's also been anthologized in If These Walls Could Talk: Thoughts of Home (Hearst) and Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction (Hippocampus Books).  She holds a BJ from the University of Missouri and an MS from Columbia University.

Kuros Charney has had plays produced at numerous theaters, including Shame and Desire (Stella Adler Theatre), The Man from Brazoria County (ALAP New Works Lab), The Moving Forward of Souls (Coronet Theater), Anger (Elephant Theatre), and The Humanist (Dayton Playhouse). He wrote the feature film Another City, which premiered at the Manhattan Film Festival, and the feature screenplays Used Books, which was developed with actor/producer LeVar Burton (Eagle Nation Films), and The Sea Between, commissioned by producer Elizabeth Kahn (Forever After Project, Inc.). His work has appeared in New York magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, and FOLIO. He holds a BA from UC-San Diego and an MFA in Film from USC.

Olivia Cheng has published short fiction, essays, and interviews in Guernica, the Threepenny Review, the Georgia Review, the Boston Review, EPOCH, the Rumpus, and Ploughshares, among others. She has taught for the University of Michigan. She holds a BA from Swarthmore College, and an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan.

Miriam Datskovsky was a writer for the series Speechless (ABC Television) and a writers' assistant for The Carrie Diaries (The CW). She developed the original pilot Hacked for Bluegrass FanFare at ABC Studios, and worked as a development associate for Silver and Gold Productions. Her pilot Missed Connections made Amazon's Consider List, and other original pilots have been finalists for the Creative World Awards and the Screencraft Pilot Launch awards. Her journalism and essays have appeared in Los Angeles magazine, New York magazine, Condé Nast Portfolio, Brides, and Ravishly. She has taught at the Posse Foundation and volunteered with WriteGirl. She holds a BA from Columbia University. 

Mary Donnelly has managed, produced and/or edited video, print, and digital projects for such companies and organizations as Arts & Entertainment, Ovation, iNEXT TV, and The Rockefeller University Press, as well as various non-profit clients through Generation Branding and Communication. Her poetry has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, The Literary Review and The Yale Review, and she published the chapbook Mad World Colored Oil (Dancing Girl Press). She is an editor for DMQ Review. She is a visiting faculty member for Sierra Nevada College’s low-residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts. She holds a BA in English literature from Columbia University and an MFA in Poetry from Bennington College.

K Hank Jost is the editor of A Common Well Journal. He is also the author of the novel MadStone and the novel-in-stories Deselections (both Whiskey Tit Books). His short stories and poems have appeared in Hobart, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Burning Palace, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, and BULL, among others, and he is a regular contributor to the New Haven Independent. He has taught for the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research.

Mo Krochmal is the executive editor and founder of Social Media News NY. He was a founding producer for the New York Times website, senior editor of GenomeWeb, executive producer of Nassau News Live, and New York editor for TechWeb. He has written for United Press International, the New York Times, the Danbury News-Times, the Wilson Daily Times, and the Washington Daily News. He is the vice president of the New York City chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He has facilitated professional communication training at the Courts of the United States, the US Patent and Technology Office, and Health Security Partners in Washington, DC. He has taught at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hofstra University, Quinnipiac University, and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He holds a BA from North Carolina State University and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Priya Ele Rinkus has published short fiction and poetry in SmokeLong Quarterly, Waxwing, Passages North, the Blood Pudding, Pidgeonholes, and Hobart After Dark, among others. Her play Red Handed was performed off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse, and her play Rose of the World was read at the Elif Collective. She is a past reader and editor at West 10th and X-RAY literary magazines. She holds a BA from New York University.

Divya Sood is the author of the novels Find Someone to Love and Nights Like This (both Riverdale Avenue Books). Her short stories have won the New Jersey Arts and Letters First Prize for Short Fiction and appeared in The Masters Review. She has taught at Rutgers University and Southern New Hampshire University. She holds a BA from Rutgers University, an MA in English, and an MFA in Fiction, both from New York University. 

Nelsie Spencer is the author of the novel The Playgroup, (St. Martin’s Press). She wrote the feature screenplay A Girl's Best Friend and co-wrote the feature film Valley Inn, which debuted at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. She wrote, produced, and co-hosted the radio show The Radio Ritas, (Greenstone Media) and hosted the podcast Losing It. She co-wrote and starred in the play My Heart Belongs To Daddy, produced at the Pittsburgh Public Theater and Duke University’s Pre-Broadway series. She performed her one-woman show Day of the Dead Daddy at the Chain Theatre in New York City, at the Denver Fringe Festival, and it won an honorable mention in Solo Fest at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco. She studied dance and theater at Orange Coast College, and fiction at The New School.