Gillian earned her MAW from Manhattanville College in 1999. Since then she has employed the skills she gained from the Creative Writing Program in her work as a poet, writer and writing teacher. More information about her work can be found at http://gillianlynnkatz.net.
Since graduation, how have you been involved with Manhattanville or its writing community?
I have taken many courses offered to alumni, including several Writers Weeks. I have attended author readings and given an author reading of my own work.
What have you been doing professionally and creatively since you left Mville?
I self-published my thesis, a collection of short stories, essays and poems on growing up in apartheid South Africa, Witness to the Birth and Death of my Country.
Finishing Line Press published my chapbook Kaleidoscope in 2012. In January 2020, Kelsay Books published my full-length poetry collection, Portrait.
I have also published many poems and some short stories and articles in journals and newspapers, including Inkwell, The Westchester Review, Italics Mine, Epiphany and Westchester Gannett Newspapers.
I taught creative writing and poetry at the JCC in Scarsdale to teenagers for 13 years in their Summer Arts Program. I also taught part time at the Beth El Hebrew High School and Temple Israel in New Rochelle for four years. I have done a lot of public speaking and reading of my work locally in Westchester.
In what ways did your time at Mville prepare you for these endeavors?
I found that taking my master's at Manhattanville prepared me for all my creative endeavors that followed.
