Faculty

Emily Eddy is a film, video, and digital media artist, curator, writer, and educator based in Chicago. She directs the Nightingale Cinema where she has curated film, video, and media works since 2013. Along with teaching at ChiArts, Emily also teaches at SAIC. Emily was the programmer of the Onion City Experimental Film + Video Festival, a project of Chicago Filmmakers, from 2018-2020. Emily has also programmed short films at the Chicago International Film Festival and Maryland Film Festival. Emily has curated screenings and exhibited work at many venues in Chicago as well as in Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Baltimore, MD; Reykjavík, Iceland; and her hometown, Portland, OR.

Bessana Kendig graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in creative writing. Bessana is currently working on her young adult fantasy novel that incorporates mayan mythology. She grew up in Denver, Colorado but was originally adopted from Guatemala. Bessana spends her free time frequenting local bookstores and coffee shops, reading tarot cards, and drinking chai tea.

Sophie Goalson (a.k.a. Sophie Lucido Johnson) is a writer and illustrator whose work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Bon Appetit, Jezebel, Guernica, The Believer, and many other places. Her first book, “Many Love,” came out with Simon & Schuster in 2018; it won two Bisexual Book Awards, and was nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award. She then published “Love Without Sex: Stories On The Spectrum of Modern Relationships” (2019) with Audible, and “Dear Sophie, Love Sophie: A Graphic Memoir in Diary Entries, Letters, and Lists” (2022) with Harper Collins. She is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a regular cartoonist for The New Yorker Magazine, and writes the Substack newsletter “You Are Doing A Good Enough Job.” See more of her work and a full CV at sophielucidojohnson.com

David Mathews earned his MA in Writing & Publishing at DePaul University. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart, and he was a finalist in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards. His recent publications include Midwestern Gothic, Eclectica Magazine, Belt Magazine’s Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology, and Open Heart Chicago: An Anthology of Chicago Writing.

Cecilia Pinto has been a teaching artist in the City of Chicago for over twenty years and has worked in a variety of settings and with all age groups. Her novella, Imagine the Dog, winner of the Clay Reynolds Prize, was published in 2021. Her writing has appeared in publications including Esquire, Fence, Diagram, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. In addition to her creative writing classes at ChiArts it has been her pleasure to serve as coach for the competitive spoken word team and dramaturg for two school plays. She received her undergraduate degree from Knox College and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute.

Kenyatta Rogers is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been awarded scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference. His work has been previously published in Poetry Magazine, Jubilat, Vinyl, Bat City Review, The Volta, PANK, MAKE Magazine among others. Kenyatta is a Lead Teacher for the Poetry Foundations Teacher Institute and Chautauqua Institution’s Young Writer Institute. He is as a co-host of the Sunday Reading Series with Simone Muench and is the Creative Writing Department Head at The Chicago High School for the Arts.

Jeremy T. Wilson is the author of the short story collection Adult Teeth. He is a former winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and was recently named one of “30 Writers to Watch” by Chicago’s Guild Literary Complex. His stories have appeared in literary magazines such as The Carolina Quarterly, The Florida Review, Hobart, The Masters Review, Sonora Review, Third Coast and other publications. He holds an MFA from Northwestern University.

Nick Yokanovich is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where he received degrees in English Education and Creative Writing. Nick is currently working on a serialized magazine exploring humor, surrealism, absurdity, and their interconnected roles in contemporary authenticity. His previous work has been featured in Steam Ticket: Third Coast Review. Outside of writing, Nick enjoys drawing, playing catch, and riding his bike.