Hollins MFA
First Year Students
(Class of 2011)

Jennifer Coleman

 

 

 

 
Laura Conrad

 

Jes Gearing

When not reading or writing poetry, Jes Gearing, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, can be found riding around the dirty streets of Roanoke on her purple fixed gear bicycle or out scouting the local and organic food scene in the surrounding counties. She chronicles the latter on her blog, Cupcake Punk, and dreams of one day raising chickens and goats on a homestead in the Blue Ridge Mountains.


 
 

Ashley Good

 

 

 

Joseph Hasinger

Joseph Hasinger was born and raised in North Carolina. He currently lives in Roanoke with his dog and writes fiction.

 
 
          
          Ashley Lyons

 

 

Brianna McPherson

Brianna McPherson spent most of her life wishing she could get out of Ohio. Now that she's in Virginia she spends most of her life wishing she could be in Vienna, Austria. She'll write anything once but if you backed her into a corner she'd probably admit to liking nonfiction the best.

 
 
Dan Nemes

 

Jess Quinlan

 

 
 

Meighan Sharp

 

Lauren Ann Smith

Over in the Ohio Valley in western West Virginia, Lauren was born and raised. She finally left to attend college in Vermont where she studied English and American lit., Religion, and fingerpainting. After graduation, she worked as a coffee barista, hotel nightclerk and AmeriCorps volunteer. Now she lives on a farm in Troutville with her cat, Doobie, and numerous roosters, chickens, and peacocks, and attempts to write poems and short fiction and to paint watercolors and oils. The Grateful Dead, yoga pants, chocolate cake, and California are a few of her favorite things.


 
 

Gretchen VanWormer

Gretchen VanWormer grew up in Vermont, but now lives on the Roanoke frontier. She writes fiction.