Solo Writers Fellowship Recipients – 2010
Michael Burgan (West Haven) applied for the Solo Writers Fellowship to support his work as a
playwright, but specializes in educational material for children, with more than 200 titles.
Published works include biographies, books on U.S. and world history, original fiction, and
adaptations of classic novels. Burgan plans on using Fellowship funds to research and write a
historical drama in northern New Mexico, a place known for its rich history, diverse cultural
traditions, and staggering landscape.
Pegi Deitz Shea (Rockville) is an author of more than 350 articles, essays and poems for adults and
children. Her resume reflects a wealth of significant work, and she provided a well-developed plan
for use of Fellowship funds to create a new book based on teen Resistance exploits in World War II.
Based on her relative’s own experiences, she will travel to France and interview her elderly Aunt
and Uncle and conduct primary research.
Mary Donnarumma Sharnick (Beacon Falls) chairs the English Department at the Chase Collegiate
School and is co-editor of The Litchfield Review, a literary journal in its fifth year of publication.
Fellowship awards will support Sharnick’s travel to Venice, Italy to continue research for her
second novel, Thirst, and write in a cloistered convent community and at the Museo Diocesano.
These locations provide the opportunity for Sharnick to “live” the cloistered religious life of two
major characters in Thirst, a historical novel set in 1613 Venice.
Jonathan Gillman (Chester) is the head of the Theater Department at the Greater Hartford
Academy of the Arts, and Director of its program Looking In Theatre. He is an outstanding
community leader with a considerable background in playwriting and fiction writing. The Solo
Writers Fellowship will support a new non-fiction work about Looking In, the teen interactive social
issue theater group he has directed for 24 years. Gillman’s book in-progress follows a dozen of the
teen actors over the course of a year, as their own lives intersect with the issues their characters,
and audience members, encounter.
Susan Kinsolving (Bridgewater) is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning poet, with three books
of published works and fourth currently in manuscript. Her poems have appeared in twenty
anthologies and over fifty journals. Kinsolving is also a teacher, guest lecturer and reader. As a
librettist, she has had a published cantata performed in four cities throughout the world. Inspired
by the naturalist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel’s 1862 monographs of radiolarians, Kinsolving will
research and write poems exploring the life of Haeckel, a subject rich with image, metaphor,
anecdote, science, and history.
Edward Markiewicz (Rocky Hill) is a fiction writer whose work is descriptive, humorous and
realistic. He has had a lifelong interest in painting and writing, and has completed his first novel
Weekends with Willie, currently being submitted to literary agents. A pivotal chapter of his current
novel, After David, takes place in Newport, Rhode Island, along the “Captain’s Walk.” Markiewicz
plans on living in Newport for several weeks to retrace the trail of Meredith Brightman, the main
character, and complete the first draft of After David.
Solo Writers Fellowship Recipients – 2010
Leslie McGrath (Stonington) holds graduate degrees in psychology and poetry & literature. She has
recently combined these disciplines in her poetry, focusing on stigma related to mental health
issues. McGrath’s poetry has been published widely. Her literary interviews regularly appear in The
Writer’s Chronicle and until recently was the Managing Editor of Drunken Boat online journal of
the arts. McGrath plans on exploring psychiatric issues (particularly the etiology of bullying) in
depth through library study at Yale University, as well as some prolonged time for writing and
reflection on Norton Island, a small writers retreat off the coast of Maine.
Maureen O’Brien’s (West Hartford) short stories and poems have appeared in several reviews and
anthologies. She currently teaches at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and is a Teaching
Artist with The Bushnell. Her novel b-mother, published in hardcover in 2007, received a starred
review in Library Journal, and is now included in hundreds of town libraries across the country. She
is currently working on Bridey’s Corset, a historical fiction following a Ladies Maid as her life
interweaves with the Vanderbilts, until her success as a corset designer. O’Brien will travel to
Newport, Rhode Island to conduct research at the Newport Historical Society and complete a
revision of the first draft.
V. Penelope Pelizzon’s (Willimantic) Nostos won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber
First Book Award. She is also co-author of Tabloid, Inc: Crimes, Newspapers, Narratives, a critical
study of film and tabloid media between 1927-1958. Her poems have appeared in journals including
Poetry, the Hudson Review and the Kenyon Review. She is Associate Professor of English and
Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Connecticut. Pelizzon plans on
returning to Damascus, Syria, to complete her second poetry collection, which addresses the
question of how the solitary human self responds to cultural and social prompts
Julia Pistell (Hartford) is an emerging writer who creates personal essays influenced by Joan
Didion, David Foster Wallace, George Orwell, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and Truman Capote. She
actively tries to “live a life worth writing about” and crafts essays to find new perspectives on
ordinary experiences. Pistell plans on developing 4-6 new essays by renting a car to escape her
studio apartment and multiple jobs in downtown Hartford for a peaceful location in short,
staggered increments of time.
Dan Pope (West Hartford) is a fiction writer and Writer-in-Residence in the MFA Creative Writing
Program at Western Connecticut State College. Pope published his first novel, In the Cherry Tree, a
coming of age drama set in the summer of 1975 in the suburbs of Hartford, in 2003. He has
published numerous short stories in literary journals and anthologies. Pope plans on traveling to
San Francisco to research his next project, a literary, historical novel which includes scenes from
the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Solo Writers Fellowship Recipients – 2010
Thomas M. Ratliff (Plainville) teaches Connecticut History at Central Connecticut State University.
Ratliff, a Civil War buff, began writing young adult adventure stories for the Newspapers in
Education program, and has written for Salariya Books of London, the National Geographic Society,
Scholastic Books and Barrons. He plans on using Fellowship funds to create a historical novel based
on the British attack on New London and Groton in September, 1781, through the lens of the
fictional Cutler family and their efforts to survive the British incursion.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron (Milford) describes herself as a bridge-builder, interpreter, and literary
diplomat, acting as an ambassador for Latino culture. Her 2006 novel, The Heiress of Water, won
the International Latino Book Award for ‘Best First Book’, was translated into Spanish and German,
and selected for Borders ‘Original Voices’ selection. She is the recipient a 2007 National Association
of Latino Arts and Culture travel grant, which she used to research her second novel, Stay With Me.
Rodriguez Barron plans on using Fellowship funds to work on the initial stages of her third novel in
Newport, Rhode Island, by writing near the sea, which is her muse.
Dana Rondel (West Hartford) is a writer, speaker, author, choreographer and educator. Her first
fiction novel, A Flower: It Has Its Own Song, was published in 2006, and addressed the beauty and
struggles of the human life and the strength of the human spirit. She is currently working on a
children’s book, her second novel, and an anthology of essays. In addition, she is working with
other artists to translate her first novel into an audio book, screenplay and stage play.
Ravi Shankar (Chester) is a Poet-in-Residence and Associate Professor of English at the Central
Connecticut State University. He is the author of Instrumentality, a published collection of his
poems and a founding editor of internationally acclaimed online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat.
Panelists found his work to be of very high artistic merit, introspective and personal. Shankar will
be using Fellowship funds to create a series of interconnected dramatic monologues that explore
the tension between the wealthy and poor communities in Connecticut.
Edwina Trentham (Moodus) is the author of Stumbling into the Light, her first book of poems, a
Professor of English at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, CT, and the Editor of Freshwater,
a poetry journal. She has recently completed revising her second collection, Water Deeply, Close
to Darkness, currently going the rounds in search of a publisher. Trentham plans on secluding
herself at the Mercy Center in Madison to explore, through poetry, the complexity of finding love,
passion, trust and safety later in life.