VCCA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director of Artists' Services
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- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
- Member of the VCCA Board of Directors
- Treasurer - Richmond, Virginia
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- Author
- Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University
Joanne Diaz is the author of two poetry collections, The Lessons (winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award in 2011) and My Favorite Tyrants (winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 2014).
In residence at Mt. San Angelo, Diaz intends to focus on revising poems for a third book project, Septimania. "In this manuscript, I grapple with how a poem can point beyond itself and engage with multiple voices, ideas, histories, and landscapes," says Diaz. "I cannot overstate how grateful I am to have this time at VCCA. During my stay, I will have the opportunity to experiment with a poetry project that will require my full attention. I look forward to seeing what surprises this work will yield."
Diaz's poetry connects popular culture with political concerns, crosses many geographies and time periods, and employs a variety of rhetorical strategies to explore charged emotional material. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, New England Review, Poetry, River Styx, and Waxwing.
Diaz is a professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University who received her PhD in English Literature from Northwestern University and her MFA from New York University, where she was a New York Times Foundation fellow. With Abram Van Engen, she is the co-host of the Poetry for All podcast. With Ian Morris, she is the co-editor of The Little Magazine in Contemporary America (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and Sustainable Arts Foundation. She has received fellowships for her time at Ragdale and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. This will be her first residency with VCCA.
Job Titles:
- Director of Dining Services
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- Executive Director
- Executive Director - Charlottesville, Virginia
Kevin O'Halloran became Executive Director of VCCA in February 2020, after being appointed as Interim Executive Director in August 2019 and Board Treasurer in November 2018. He brings more than 30 years of nonprofit management and fundraising experience to the role. He holds an A.B from Harvard and an M.A. from the University of Virginia.
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
- Member of the VCCA Board of Directors
- Secretary - Richmond, Virginia
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- Grants & Outreach Manager
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- Deputy Director / Director of Artists' Services
Sheila Gulley Pleasants has served VCCA since 1989 when she moved from New York City to Mt. San Angelo to become residential staff with her husband Craig. She holds an M.A. in French from New York University, an M.Ed. in English from Converse College, and a B.A. in French from Wake Forest University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors
- Member of the VCCA Board of Directors
- President - Richmond, Virginia
Job Titles:
- Member of the VCCA Abroad Board of Directors