YOUNG AMERICAN WRITERS PROJECT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director, MFA in Television Writing
Alan Kingsberg received his MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where his film Minors won an Academy Award as the top student film in the US. His television work includes writing the ACE Award-winning documentary Buy Me That for HBO, and writing and producing the BAFTA-nominated animated series Cubix for FOX. Kingsberg has also written for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and kids' classics like Are You Afraid of the Dark? , S hining Time Station and Doug. He was a showrunner on five animated series for Fox, The CW and Cartoon Network, including the hits Cubix, Pokemon Chronicles and Winx Club. He has written or produced over 250 half-hours of television for major broadcast and cable networks and has written feature films for Disney and Universal Pictures. He is currently writing on a new Netflix Original animated series.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Southampton Screenwriting Conference
ANNETTE HANDLEY CHANDLER (screenwriting) is the Director of the Southampton Screenwriting Conference and teaches Screenwriting through the MFA Writing & Literature program. She has produced films for Paramount Pictures, Disney, PBS, ABC and CBS. Among them, the 2001 Emmy Award winning Ansel Adams: A Documentary directed by Ric Burns. A former literary agent and ABC programming executive in Los Angeles, Handley Chandler taught screenwriting at UCLA and Pepperdine University. Locally, she has written, directed and produced Plum TV's documentary on vintner/sculptor Walter Channing. She writes fiction and has been published in numerous publications including the East Hampton Star, The Southampton Press and HamptonStyle Magazine.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of Southampton Graduate Arts
- Executive Director, Southampton Graduate Arts Campus
Carla Caglioti is the Executive Director of Southampton Graduate Arts and founding Associate Director of the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Writing and Literature. She is also an Assistant Dean at Stony Brook Southampton. Caglioti has a Bachelor's in English Literature and Writing, a Master's in English Education, and a doctorate in English Literature. Her dissertation focused on the rise of the field of creative writing in higher education. Her work has appeared in The Scrub Oak Review, Proteus, Letters from Ninevah and The Southampton Review.
Job Titles:
- Director of Summer and Special Programs
Christian McLean is the Director of Summer and Special Programs and the founding Director of the MFA's International Writing Workshops in Italy and Kenya. His fiction has been published in Scores Anthology, Our Story and The Southampton Review. His poetry has been featured in a collaborative work at the Dundee Contemporary Arts Museum (Dundee, Scotland). He is the author of Duckhampton and is the recipient of the New York Press Association's award for Best Sports Feature of 2016.
Job Titles:
- Producer, Co - Founder, Killer Films
Christine Vachon has produced over seventy films in less than twenty years, including Far from Heaven (four Academy Award nominations), Boys Don't Cry (Academy Award Winner), and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Sundance Film Festival). Killer Films executive produced the Todd Haynes miniseries, Mildred Pierce (featuring Kate Winslet), for HBO. In 2011 Killer Films partnered with Moxie Pictures to create the talent management firm KillerMoxie Management. The company has offices in Los Angeles, New York and London. Christine has been a Jury Member of the New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF), the Sundance Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Sarajevo Film Festival. She has been awarded an Emmy, the National Board of Review Producers Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the Provincetown International Film Festival Filmmaker on the Edge Award.
Job Titles:
- Parking Operations Manager
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Health Science Department
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Director, Children 's Lit Fellows
- Executive Director, Young American Writers Project ( YAWP )
EMMA WALTON HAMILTON (Executive Director, Playwriting) is a best-selling children's author, editor, arts educator and arts and literacy advocate. She has co-authored over thirty children's books with her mother, Julie Andrews, seven of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list, including the #1 bestselling series The Very Fairy Princess. Emma's own book for parents and caregivers, Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment, premiered as a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com in the literacy category and won a Parent's Choice Gold Medal, silver medals from the Living Now and IPPY Book Awards, and Honorable Mention from ForeWord Magazine's Best Book of the Year. Emma is a faculty member and directs both the Southampton Children's Literature Fellows program and YAWP (the Young Artists and Writers Project) . She is married to actor/producer/director Stephen Hamilton, with whom she co-founded the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY in 1991. For more information, visit http://www.emmawaltonhamilton.com
Emma Walton Hamilton is a theater professional and arts educator, as well as a best-selling author and editor. Currently, Walton Hamilton is the YAWP Executive Director and a Director/Creator of Stony Brook Southampton's Summer Playwriting Conference. As a co-founder of Bay Street, she served as the Theatre's Co-Artistic Director for thirteen years. Until 2008 she was Director of Education and Programming for Young Audiences, and spearheaded the Young Playwrights Program in area schools, as well as Kidstreet, the Theatre's performance series for young audiences. Walton Hamilton has written 16 children's books in partnership with her mother, actress Julie Andrews, and serves as Editorial Director for The Julie Andrews Collection publishing program. Her latest book, a solo venture, is entitled Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment.
For a full list of YAWP faculty, click here.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LEADERSHIP TEAM
- Director of Parking
Ephrem has over 21 years of experience in the parking industry, starting as a parking attendant in Minneapolis. Most recently, Ephrem served as an Associate Director for Parking Services at the University of Cincinnati where his experience included field operations, special events, facility maintenance and customer service.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LEADERSHIP TEAM
- Director of Transportation
Having previously served as Transit Manager for the past 12 years, George was appointed to Director of Transportation in February of this year. He will continue to lead SBU Transit, as well as our Automotive Repair team.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LEADERSHIP TEAM
- Executive Director of Parking & Transportation
Kendra joined Stony Brook University in October of 2021 from the University of Cincinnati (UC). During her tenure at UC, Kendra initially worked in Campus Recreation before moving over to the Parking Services Department where she led a team, over the course of seven years, towards developing innovative techniques that met the changing needs of UC's parking landscape by integrating new technologies, creating customer engagement initiatives and building a strategic plan to meet anticipated parking needs for enrollment growth.
Director Lou Ann Walker's book, A Loss for Words , a memoir, won a Christopher Award. Her other books include Hand, Heart & Mind . Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Life, Allure, Parade, The Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times Book Review, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Writer , and The Hopewell Review . Formerly an editor at Esquire and New York Magazine , Walker has lectured on writing at Smith College and Yale University, and taught at Marymount Manhattan College, Southampton College, and Columbia University. The author of several screenplays, she is a member of the Writers Guild of America.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Producer
- Associate Director, Graduate Program in Digital Filmmaking
- Executive Director, Film and Television Writing
Magdalene Brandeis is a Producer, Novelist, and the Director of the MFA Program in Film. Getting her start in development at Hollywood Pictures and Caravan Pictures, she went on to translate and adapt French films, and produce television series and pilots for ABC, AMC, Bravo, and MTV. She also served as the Executive Director of The Bridge Program, a non-profit, and as a juror for The March on Washington Film Festival. She holds a BA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and an MFA in Writing and Literature from Stony Brook Southampton.
Magdalene Brandeis is a producer, novelist, director of Manhattan Programming, and visiting assistant professor in Stony Brook Southampton's MFA Program. Currently, she is the Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Filmmaking. She teaches writing and filmmaking, curates the Manhattan Writers Speak series with editor Daniel Menaker, and she created "Bob's Writing Shack," the program's YouTube Channel. Formerly a development assistant at various studios, she has translated and adapted French films and produced television series for ABC, AMC, Bravo, and MTV. Her novel, Stone Fruit, has been excerpted in The East Hampton Star and TSR: The Southampton Review. Her memoir, A Reader of Signs, has been excerpted in TSR: The Southampton Review. She holds a BA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and an MFA in Writing and Literature from Stony Brook Southampton .
Peggy Grigonis obtained her undergraduate degree in Education/English from SUNY Plattsburgh, and her MA/LS from SUNY Stony Brook. Though not published, she dabbles in memoirs and poetry. A former farmer and preschool administrator, she lives out on the beautiful North Fork, enjoying the amenities and rich culture of her community: farm stands, aquaculture, wineries, jazz festivals, and beach combing.
Job Titles:
- Southampton Operations Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Associate Provost, Southampton Graduate Arts Campus
As Associate Provost of Southampton Graduate Arts Campus, Robert Reeves leads the development and expansion of graduate education in Creative Writing, Theatre, Film, and Visual Arts at Stony Brook Southampton.
After joining the English Department Faculty in 2006, Reeves founded the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Creative Writing and Literature and presided over the program's dramatic growth. He recruited the nation's premier creative writing faculty, expanded the prestigious Summer Writers Conference across a range of creative disciplines, and established the award-winning national literary and arts journal, TSR: The Southampton Review. He has also extended the program's reach to a flourishing graduate presence at Stony Brook Manhattan, to international locations, including Florence and Stony Brook's Turkana Basin Institute, Kenya, and to arts educations programs important to the community, such as the Young American Writers Project (YAWP). In 2012, the Southampton campus will launch an honors program for undergraduates in creative arts, Semesters by the Sea.
Reeves is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, as well as screenplays, short fiction, essays, and literary criticism. He had taught at Harvard and Princeton, and holds a B.A. and M.A. from Harvard University. He is married to Beth Reeves and has a college-age son, Evan.
Job Titles:
- Student Financial Services
Job Titles:
- Is Director of the Southampton Writers Conference
- Program Director of BookEnds
Susan Scarf Merrell is program director of BookEnds, director of the Southampton Writers Conference and a professor in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at Stony Brook Southampton. She is the author, most recently, of SHIRLEY: A Novel, which was selected as one of the top fifty novels of the year by The Washington Post .
WILL CHANDLER (Program Director, Playwriting/Screenwriting) , an American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Nicholl Fellowship screenwriter, is the YAWP Program Director and a teaching artist. He was formerly the Education Director for Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor where he taught, administered and expanded the theatre's education programs. He has sold scripts and worked on assignment for a number of studios and independent producers, including Sony Pictures and actor Russell Crowe. He has also been a story analyst/script doctor for CBS, Viacom, Harpo Productions, New World Pictures and private clients. As Director of Development for Green-Epstein Productions, Chandler worked on dozens of projects for ABC, CBS, NBC and HBO.