The Schwerner Writer’s Series presents James Hoch, Deborah Landau, and Robin Beth Schaer on Thursday, Mar. 17 in the Library Archives (Building 1L, Room 216) from 2:30pm to 4:00pm.
James Hoch studied Philosophy at Millersville University and graduated from University of Maryland, with an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry. The son of a teacher-coach and cosmetics saleswoman, Hoch grew up in Collingswood, NJ with three older siblings. He has lived in Lancaster, PA, Takoma Park, MD, Charlottesville, VA, Pittsburgh, PA, Albuquerque, NM, and Nyack, NY. He now resides in Garrison, NY with his wife and sons. Prior to teaching, Hoch worked as a dishwasher, dockworker, cook, social worker, and shepherd. He has taught at Franklin and Marshall College and Lynchburg College, and he now teaches at Ramapo College in NJ.
Deborah Landau is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently The Uses of the Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2015) and The Last Usable Hour, a Lannan Literary Selection published by Copper Canyon in 2011. Her first book, Orchidelirium, was selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Robert Dana Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her work has been published in The Paris Review, Tin House, Poetry, The New Yorker, Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. She teaches in and directs the Creative Writing Program at New York University, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, sons, and daughter.
Robin Beth Schaer was born and raised in New York. She received a BA in Religion from Colgate University and an MFA in Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her first book of poetry, Shipbreaking, received the Robert Dana-Anhinga Poetry Prize and was published in August 2015 by Anhinga Press. She has taught writing at Columbia University and Marymount Manhattan College, and currently teaches at Cooper Union and The New School in New York City. During the summers of 2009 and 2010, she worked as a deckhand aboard the Tall Ship Bounty, a 180-foot full-rigged ship lost in Hurricane Sandy in 2012. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Anthony Tognazzini, and their son, Faro.
