An introduction

2012 Creative Workforce Fellows: Dance, Literature, Music and Theatre

The 2012 Creative Workforce Fellows

Mackenzie Clevenger - Dance Mackenzie Clevenger graduated

with a B.A. in Performing Arts from Lees-McRae College in NC. In 2007, she moved to Cleveland to train with Inlet Dance Theatre and in 2010 became a company member.

Mackenzie’s collaboration with co-choreographer Mikaela Clark has taken them from creating and performing locally to internationally, including performances in Cambodia and Thailand.

Their hope, to give voice to sex-trade victims through dance, resulted in an evening length work, “Without Words: moving against the sex trade.”

Talise Campbell - Dance

Talise Campbell is a choreographer and performer of West African Dance and Drum. She is a graduate of the Cleveland School of the Arts with a double major in dance and drama.

Talise obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cleveland State University. She has taught West African dance at Kent State University and Cleveland State University.

Talise has travelled to Africa bringing back the rich cultural heritage of Africa and the African Diaspora to communities here.

Joanna Connors - Literature

Joanna Connors is a reporter at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and has worked for 25 years as a copy editor, arts and entertainment editor, theater critic, film critic, columnist and reporter.

She has also written for the Chicago Tribune and magazines including Seventeen, Glamour, Redbook and React.

Her 2008 narrative, “Beyond Rape: A Survivor’s Journey,” attracted national attention and won multiple awards, including the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism from Northwestern University, and the Dart Award for Coverage of Trauma from Columbia University.

Scott MacGregor – Literature

Scott MacGregor was born and raised in Lakewood, Ohio. A published photographer, Scott also creates graphic stories, and has written short stories and magazine articles for over 30 years.

Since early childhood, Scott has been a storyteller, which has been a tradition in his Irish family heritage. His stories are known for quirky and outspoken observances of familiar subject matter and are typically set in Greater Cleveland.

In 2010, Scott decided to return to writing graphic stories. “A Simple Ordinary Man,” his first graphic novel, is the sentinel project to emerge.

Christine Borne – Literature

Christine Borne is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Cleveland Review: A Journal of Rust Belt Literature and Culture. She earned a B.A. in English from Cleveland State University in 2000 and a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from Kent State University in 2002. She currently works at Loganberry Books, where she coordinates the annual Local Author Book Fair and runs a book club based on the classics you somehow forgot to read in high school. In July 2011 Christine attended the Tin House Summer Writers' Conference where she workshopped her novel “Coming Home to Die: How Robbie Brennan Gave Up His Dreams and Slunk Back to the Rust Belt.” Photograph courtesy of Beth Pikowski

Huda Al-Marashi - Literature

Huda Al-Marashi is an Iraqi-American at work on a memoir that examines her dual-identity in the context of her marriage.

Excerpts from this memoir are forthcoming in the anthologies “Becoming,” “In Her Place,” and “Love, Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women.”

Her poem, “TV Terror” is a part of a touring exhibit commemorating the Mutanabbi Street Bombing in Baghdad. She holds a B.A. from Santa Clara University and a M.Ed. from Framingham State College.

Anne Trubek – Literature

Anne Trubek is the author of “A Skeptic’s Guide to Writers’ Houses,” which has been hailed as “a remarkable book: part travelogue, part rant, part memoir, part literary analysis and urban history.”

She has written for the New York Times, Wired, The Believer and many other publications.

She is writing on a book on handwriting, and her essay, "Handwriting Is History," was anthologized in Best Technology Writing 2010. She is an associate professor at Oberlin College.

Raymond McNiece - Literature Raymond McNiece is a poet and educator living in Cleveland. He is the author of seven poetry books including: “Dis,” “The Bone-Orchard Conga” and “The Road that Carried Me Here.”

Called “ a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie, ” he has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.”

In a review of his theatre work, “Us? Talking Across America,” the Star-Phoenix said, “His thoughtful writing combines with perfectly timed delivery to create a powerful wordscape that owes as much to jazz as drama.”

He has received numerous awards including the Hart Crane Award from Kent State University and the Arkansas Grand Slam, a performance poetry prize.

Matt Marshall – Literature

Matt Marshall is a writer and editor. His fiction has appeared in various print and online publications, including Muse, La Petite Zine and Futures Mysterious.

He is a member of the Jazz Journalists Association and is a regular contributor to AllAboutJazz.com.

His music criticism has also appeared in Cleveland Scene, Jazz Inside Magazine and on his blog, C Mixolydian.

Matt attended the University of Dayton where he received a degree in English.

Eric Schmiedl – Literature Eric Schmiedl is a native of Cleveland,

Ohio, and a graduate of Kent State University and the University of Hawai’i. His plays for children and adult audiences have been produced by theatres including The Cleveland Play House, the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and Cleveland Public Theatre.

His rock-inspired adaptation of “Treasure Island” created with artists Captain Bogg and Salty (“Jake and the Never Land Pirates,” Disney Junior) received acclaimed productions in Portland (Oregon Children’s Theatre) and Chicago (Adventure Stage Chicago).

Eric is the recipient of an Aurand Harris Fellowship from The Children’s Theatre Foundation of America and has been awarded an Edgerton Award, and a Sloan Foundation commission.

Michael Oatman - Literature

Michael Oatman is a Cleveland-born playwright with a style that has been described as a hybrid mixture of Langston Hughes and David Mamet.

Michael’s briskly paced narrative is peppered with imaginative language that has become his hallmark. He earned an English degree from Cleveland State University in 2004 and completed his MFA in theater, from the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine arts Consortium in 2008.

Michael's playwriting credits include “The War Against Tupac Shakur,” “The Rainy Season,” “Not a Uterus In Sight” and “The Chittlin’ Thief.”

Michael Dumanis – Literature

Michael Dumanis is an associate professor of English at Cleveland State University, where he also serves as director of the CSU Poetry Center.

He is the author of the poetry collection “My Soviet Union” and coeditor of the anthology “Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.”

His work has been recognized with residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, the Civitella Ranieri Center, and Yaddo. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the James Michener Foundation, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Wesleyan Writers' Conference; and an Individual Artist Fellowship grant from the Ohio Arts Council.

Justin Glanville – Literature

Justin Glanville is currently working on a novel and several short stories.

He worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in New York City from 2000 to 2005, and more recently as an urban planner for ParkWorks and Cleveland Public Art.

With illustrator Julia Kuo, he is self-publishing a book about living in Cleveland.

He studied Classics at Grinnell College in Iowa and has a master’s in Urban Planning and Design from Cleveland State University.

He grew up in the Cleveland suburbs and currently lives on the city’s near West side.

Emily Blanchard – Literature

Emily Blanchard is a native Clevelander and attended Shaker Heights schools. She graduated in May 2010 from Barnard College, with a B.A. in Environmental Policy.

Emily has worked as researcher & policy analyst at Environmental Health Watch since September 2010.

Her interests include writing, photography, drawing, environmentalism, and traveling. Emily looks forward to joining her two loves, art and the environment, to find creative solutions to some of our most pressing ecological and societal problems. She believes in the power of art to inspire and transform the world and hopes to be a force of positive change.

Greg D’Alessio – Music

Greg D’Alessio is an associate professor of composition at Cleveland State University, where he is also coordinator of the electronic and computer music studios, and director of the experimental music ensemble.

In addition, he is leader and guitarist of “The Why Collective,” a Cleveland-based improvisational and mixed media performance group.

He has received numerous honors and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a commission from the Koussevitsky Foundation in the Library of Congress, The Aaron Copland Prize in Composition, and the Otto Ettinger Fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Festival.

Howie Smith - Music Howie Smith is a saxophonist and

composer. He has worked with many diverse musicians, organizations and composers such as John Cage, The Cleveland Orchestra, Mark Dresser, “Iron Toys,” Mike Nock, Elvis Presley, Clark Terry, and the “Tone Road Ramblers.”

He has also presented numerous concerts and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia.

He has received two Fulbright grants, a Cleveland Arts Prize for Music in 1985, and has been the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council on seven different occasions.

Photograph © Amy Arbus courtesy the George Gund Foundation

John Kuegeler – Music

John Kuegeler is a diverse musical artist. A capable instrumentalist, composer, and educator, John has enjoyed an intriguing artistic career. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Kent State University with a focus in trumpet performance.

New and experimental work is where John is most happy. In addition to his writing and performing, he has shown a commitment to music education through his work as a teaching artist. John has worked for Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio and Roots of American Music.

Andre Cato– Music

Andre Cato is a Cleveland-based actor, musician and producer. In addition to being a solo artist he is a member of the hip hop groups “The Aristocrats” and “3 Alarm Blaze.”

He is currently touring in support of his latest collaboration with dubstep phenom Manik Spinz. Their electronica and hip hop mash up is called “Manik Spinz Vs. Andre Cato: The Greatest Rumble in the Jungle.”

Andre believes in using art to convey encouraging and uplifting messages. He views music as a way to build the community and make a difference. It is his goal to impact the world through art and service.

Jeremy Paul – Theatre

Jeremy Paul is founder and artistic director of “Theater Ninjas” which specializes in new and original work as well as classical reinventions.

He is co-creator of the original works “Absent,” “Peep Show,” “The Beetlebug” and “The Bad Worm and Peripheral Visions.”

Beginning in 2012, he will begin working on a new original theatrical experience, “Marble Cities,” which looks at the role of imagination in state and personal power.

His training includes the Pig Iron Theatre Company, and New World Performance Lab. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.

Jimmie Woody – Theatre

Jimmie Woody has appeared in numerous productions in Cleveland and New York.

Some of his most recent Cleveland credits include: William in “Lobby Hero,” Booth in “Top Dog/Underdog” at The Beck Center for the Arts, Hamlet in “Hamlet” at Cuyahoga Community College, Tigre in “Dream On Monkey Mountain,” and multiple characters in “The Colored Museum” at Karamu House directed by Terrence Spivey and Caroline Jackson-Smith.

He currently teaches acting classes at Cuyahoga Community College Metropolitan Campus, and works with students through Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio and Progressive Arts Alliance.

Seth Rosenberg Prize Recipient Terry Dubow – Literature

Terry Dubow is a writer, a teacher and administrator at Hathaway Brown School.

His short stories have appeared in such journals as Story Quarterly, Ascent, Natural Bridge and The MacGuffin. He has had four Pushcart Prize nominations in total and one Special Mention.

Terry’s story collection has been

a finalist for the Autumn House

Fiction Prize 2011), The Spokane

Prize (2007, 2010, 2011) and the

Tartt First Fiction Contest (2005

and 2008). He has also received an

Individual Artist Fellowship Grant

from the Ohio Arts Council.

Seth Rosenberg Prize Recipient Mark Olitsky – Music

Mark Olitsky received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and worked at Studio Foundry, a lost wax casting facility located in Cleveland dedicated to the casting of sculpture in bronze.

While in his final year of art school he began playing Southern old-time music on the banjo ultimately focusing on a style of playing called clawhammer banjo which has roots going back to the 17th century.

Since then, Mark has travelled South as often as possible to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina in order to learn about this style of music, to observe the current playing of old-time music within its geographical context and to collect the repertoire that he plays today.

He has played and recorded with various stringbands, including “Jimmyjohnnyjoe,”and ”Bad Dog and Killer Grits,” in the south, northeast Ohio and Western PA.

Thank you!

The Creative Workforce Fellowship is a program of

Made possible by the generous support of

Cuyahoga County citizens through