Mentoring Program Coordinator. Jake served in the Army from early 1990 to late 1994, doing his best to avoid being forward deployed with the 21st Theater Army Area Command in Germany and the 101st Airborne Division in the States. Despite his best efforts, as a photojournalist he was afforded brief but terrifying stays in Sarajevo and Somalia during his enlistment. Currently he enjoys REMF status as a professor of composition and literature at Central Oregon Community College, where he teaches writing, fiction, film, and digital games culture.

Instructor/Managing editor. Jerri Bell retired from the Navy in 2008; her assignments included antisubmarine warfare in the Azores Islands, sea duty on USS Mount Whitney and HMS Sheffield, and attaché duty at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia. Her fiction has been published in a variety of journals and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize; her nonfiction has been published in journals and newspapers, and on blogs. She and former Marine Tracy Crow are the co-authors of It’s My Country Too: Women’s Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan, published by University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books in 2017.

Founder/director/curriculum developer. Ron served 25 years in the Army and Army Reserve and is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. His book, Writing War: A Guide to Telling Your Own Story, serves as the curriculum for VWP creative writing seminars and workshops. His memoir, Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years, was a finalist for a Books for a Better Life Award. Three of Ron’s essays have been listed as notable in Best American Essays and one received special recognition in the XXXIX Pushcart Prizes. His plays have had readings and been produced in community and regional theaters, at colleges, and at U.S. and international festivals. In 2017, Ron received the Johns Hopkins University’s Anne Smedinghoff Award for “a life dedicated to service, social justice, and a commitment to others.” Learn more at his website: SeriouslyNotAllRight.com..

Instructor/editor. Dario DiBattista served in the Marines and is a veteran of the war in Iraq. He is the editor of the anthology Retire the Colors: Veterans & Civilians on Iraq & Afghanistan. His writing has appeared in Washingtonian Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Connecticut Review, [Pank], Mic.com, and many other publications. Additionally, he’s been profiled in the New York Times and has been a commentator on NPR, SiriusXM, and for the BBC.

Instructor. Colin D. Halloran is a combat veteran who served with the US Army in Afghanistan in 2006. He is author of the poetry collections Shortly Thereafter, which documents his experiences in Afghanistan, American Etiquette, and Icarian Flux. His essays have appeared in such places as Retire the Colors: Veterans and Civilians on Iraq and Afghanistan, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, and most recently Incoming: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen. His fiction was featured in the anthology The Road Ahead: Fiction from the Forever War. His words have appeared online and in print in Europe, North America, and Asia, but he can always be found at his website www.colindhalloran.com.

Instructor. James Mathews is a retired Air Force and DC Air National Guard Chief Master Sergeant. He holds a Master of Arts in Writing from the Johns Hopkins University and teaches fiction at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland as well as the Veterans Writing Project (VWP). His award-winning short fiction has appeared in over three dozen national and regional literary journals. His work has also been included in Best American Mystery Stories. In 2008, his short story collection, Last Known Position, was published by the University of North Texas Press and was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Short Fiction. His website is www.jamesmathewsonline.com

Editor. Valerie Martinez Peralta is a longtime copy editor and an ardent believer that poetry saves lives. She earned a B.A. in linguistics from Indiana University and an MFA in poetry from Fairfield University, where she was an H.W. Wilson fellow and served as a fiction reader, poetry editor, and co-editor-in-chief of the student-run CausewayLit.

She has a trifecta of experience in the military community: veteran, retired Army spouse, and Army mom.

Her writing can be found at Blended Future Project, Reckon Review and Heart Balm.

Editor/Weblord. Stuart Phillips has a B.A. from Ole Miss, a J.D. cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, where he held the H. W. Wilson Fellowship and served as co-Editor-in-Chief of Causeway Lit, the MFA program's online literary journal.

He served in the Army as both enlisted (MI) and as an officer (JA) with time in the Mississippi Guard, the Army Reserve, and on active duty.

He has published in O-Dark-Thirty, Reckon Review, Emerge Literary Journal, and elsewhere.

Instructor/Editor. Bryon Reiger is a veteran of the U.S. Army. He got his start in playwriting at a VWP workshop and went on to earn an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans. Bryon's work has appeared in New Orleans, around Louisiana, and even in Philadelphia. He lives in New Orleans with his wife and four children.

Instructor. Jeff Stewart is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and holds a graduate degree in Creative Writing from East Carolina University. While in the graduate writing program at ECU, he taught college writing courses and edited Tar River Poetry, a national award winning poetry journal. After graduation, Stewart joined the Navy College Program for Afloat College Education (NCPACE) program where he taught college writing and literature classes to our sailors and marines aboard deployed war ships.

Though he studied, wrote, and published poetry and nonfiction writing, Stewart has recently found a love for playwriting, through which he finds much satisfaction. Seeing his words and ideas being played out on stage for the first time was all it took for him dedicate most of his writing time to the genre.

Stewart lives on an island in the Midcoast of Maine with his wife and two meandering cats.

Ms. Florman has held policy, communications, advocacy, and management roles at CancerCare, the Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the League of Conservation Voters. She served in the administrations of presidents Obama and Clinton. Ms. Florman received a master’s in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School, and a bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from Stony Brook University.

Dr. Koshes served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and is the former president of the Society of American Military Psychiatrists. Ron is the author of eight books including Kent-Jolie: A Green Fairy Tale and How We Think: Understanding the Stories We Tell Each Other.

Mr. Stein spent decades as a journalist including long stays with Congressional Quarterly and the Washington Post. He served as an intelligence case officer in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and is the author of the acclaimed Vietnam War exposé A Murder in Wartime. Jeff is now the force behind the Spytalk Podcast. Learn more at https://www.spytalk.co