Writing Seminar for Veterans and Military Families
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM | NEW YORK CITY
April 2017
Our writing seminars are where the best writers of today pay it forward to the most promising writers of tomorrow. The stories of veterans and military families have largely remained untold. In partnership with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma we welcomed 15 War Horse Fellows to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism for our weeklong seminar. Thank you to all of our generous donors and supporters, The D.J. Edelman Foundation and Starbucks Foundation who donated to support our inaugural event.
Meet the Fellows
Tenley Lozano
Tenley Lozano graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 2008 and spent five years as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard where she worked in the engineering department on a ship that patrolled the Pacific Ocean from Vancouver to the equator chasing drug runners. She then worked as a Coast Guard Diver.
Tenley’s writing has appeared in The War Horse, Permission to Speak Freely, O-Dark Thirty, and in the anthology Incoming: Veteran Writers on Returning Home, with work forthcoming on the NPR series Incoming Radio. She has won the Crab Orchard Review’s John Guyon Literary Nonfiction prize for her essay about finding healing through backpacking with her dog. Her nonfiction chapbook Ascent/Descent is forthcoming in summer of 2017 from Broken Leg Books. Tenley graduated from Sierra Nevada College in 2016 with an MFA in Creative Writing.
Tina M. Beller
Tina M. Beller is a full time college student at SUNY Empire State College pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies with a concentration in Creative Writing. She served the Army in both her soldier and civilian capacities for 18 years before her retirement in January 2017.
Beller studied English at Pennsylvania State University and journalism at the Defense Information School, Fort George G. Meade, Md., in 1998. She graduated from the Public Affairs Officer Qualification Course in 2006. Beller has been published in many military and civilian circles, including the New Yorker Magazineand the national best seller, Operation Homecoming.
Pamela Campos-Palma
Pamela Campos-Palma is an U.S. Air Force veteran where she served as an operations intelligence analyst specializing in geopolitical analysis and counter-violent extremism, with duty in Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She has served as a gubernatorial appointee in the state of Oregon, and works on issues of global peace and security, equity, empowerment, and civic participation.
She graduated from NYU with a Masters of Public Administration focused in International Policy and Management, and was named a “Top 40 Under 40 Latinos in Foreign Policy” by Huffington Post. Pam is also a member of Beyond The Choir, the Executive Director of Common Defense, the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council, and an alumna of Veterans in Global Leadership.
Joy Craig
Joy Craig is an emerging writer and activist focused on veterans and women’s issues. She’s retired from the Marine Corps after 23 years of service as an Aviation Ordnance Officer and Drill Instructor. During her service she was awarded the Navy Commendation and Meritorious Service Medals.
After years of technical writing, Joy rediscovered her love of creative writing upon retirement. She’s spent the past two years penning the forthcoming memoir Men Behaving Badly focusing on her experiences in the Marine Corps. Joy is a native Californian residing in the South Carolina Lowcountry with her two daughters. She donates her time coaching Dragonboat Beaufort and is a member of the Leadership Beaufort program.
Teresa Fazio
Teresa Fazio is a former Marine Corps communications officer. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Task and Purpose, Vassar Quarterly, Consequence Magazine, and Penthouse, and the anthologies Retire the Colors and The Road Ahead. Her awards include the Consequence Magazine Fiction Prize, Words After War Submission Contest, and a fellowship at Yaddo. Her unpublished memoir Unbecoming was a finalist for the 2015 Autumn House Nonfiction Contest.
Teresa holds a PhD in materials science from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in physics from MIT, and is an MFA candidate at the Bennington Writing Seminars. She lives in New York City.
Annie Erling Gofus
Annie Erling Gofus is a writer living in Washington, D.C. with her husband and dog. Annie earned a bachelor’s in history from North Dakota State University and spent the first two and a half years of her career working with oral histories and archives at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
After a year of freelance writing—covering topics such as ice hockey, education, and weddings—Annie was awarded a Fulbright Grant in the Slovak Republic. She taught American Studies to Slovak teenagers, studied Communism’s effects on spirituality, and traveled extensively throughout Eastern and Central Europe. Annie is passionate about travel, experimenting in the kitchen, and training her extremely stubborn rescue mutt to be a therapeutic visitation dog. Annie is proud to be the wife of a U.S. Army Captain.
Rob Henderson
Rob Henderson graduated high school in Red Bluff, Calif. He is an Eli Whitney scholar at Yale University, where he studies psychology. He served in the U.S. Air Force as an electronic warfare technician for eight years. Most of his service was spent in Europe and the Middle East.
Rob is a research assistant at the Yale Mind and Development lab, where he explores the nature of language, thought, and moral reasoning. He will also perform research this summer at the Social Learning Lab at Stanford University. He is an undergraduate ambassador for Service to School, an organization designed to help veterans earn admission into college.
Liesel Kershul
Liesel Kershul is a lifelong student of philosophy, politics, and human behavior. A self-identified techno-libertarian, human rights and environmental activist, and corporate dissident, she is also the proud wife of an active duty Marine. She holds a bachelor’s in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine, and a masters in applied psychology from Sacred Heart University. Liesel has a more than a decade of experience in nonprofit program development and volunteer management. She is passionate about using her skills to promote social justice. In her spare time, she loves to read, backpack, cook, travel, volunteer in her community, and rescue Golden Retrievers.
Derek McElroy
Derek McElroy is a former Cavalry Scout in the U.S. Army. He was deployed in support of Iraqi Freedom from 2003 to 2004. During his deployment, he developed a love for writing from the exchanges he had with his father back home. Roger McElroy wrote his son everyday he was deployed, sometimes twice a day. Through these exchanges, Derek found the ability to organize and express his thoughts and emotions. A decorated and respected veteran he holds a bachelor’s of Business Administration from East Central University in Ada, O.K. He currently owns and operates CrossFit HomeBase Central in Oklahoma City, O.K.
Brendan O’Byrne
Brendan O’Byrne served six years in the U.S. Army, spending the last three years with the 173rd Airborne Brigade as an infantry sergeant. From May 2007 to August 2008, he was stationed in the remote Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan. Brendan is one of the central characters in Sebastian Junger’s book, War, and documentary films Restrepo, Korengal, The Last Patrol, and Which Way is the Frontline from Here.
Since leaving the military, Brendan has given speeches to universities around the country using lessons he has learned from his combat and homecoming experiences in hopes to create honest discussion on war’s impact on the veterans who fight them and the society they come home to. Brendan enjoys sailing and plans on spending this summer on his 35’ sailboat, Morning Star, in Cape Cod bay.
Jenny Pacanowski
Jenny Pacanowski is a poet, public speaker, and an Army veteran of Iraq. In Germany, she was part of a medical evacuation company and worked alongside elements of each branch of the military. Currently, she collaborates with theater groups, colleges, and universities, and multiple nonprofit groups that focus on mental health, resilience, non-pharmaceutical interventions, and much more. Jenny has performed at the Lincoln Center Atrium, The New York Cultural and Ethical Society, Poetic License, and LaGuardia Community College Veteran Week. Jenny’s passion is assisting veterans and civilians by healing the wounds of war and military culture through the arts—creating smoother reintegration programs.
Joe Quinn
Joe Quinn is the Director of Leadership Development for Team Red, White & Blue, a Veteran Service Organization that enriches the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity. Joe worked in Afghanistan as a Counterinsurgency Advisor for General David Petraeus and has been an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point since his graduation in 2002. He spent six years in the U.S. Army, where he served two deployments to Iraq. Joe received a masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. He currently lives in Manhattan with his wife Melanie and their daughter.
Nina Semczuk
Semczuk is a writer born in upstate New York. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in TV/Film as a ROTC scholarship recipient, Nina earned her commission as an intelligence officer in the Army. She served as a tactical intelligence officer for an infantry company, an executive officer for a counterintelligence unit, and as a platoon leader for an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platoon in various locations, including Kansas, Texas, and Djibouti.
After exiting the military, she embarked on a path back to the creative arts, returning once again to her first love, writing. Nina is an editorial intern at The Muse and a volunteer teaching associate for the Voices From War Writing Workshop. She resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. with her husband, who also served in the Army.
Supriya Venkatesan
Supriya Venkatesan served six years activate duty in the U.S. Army with deployments to Iraq, Kuwait, and S. Korea. She is a freelance writer with bylines in Forbes, Playboy, TIME, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, and elsewhere. She is also currently working on her first book, a pop-science examination of moral injury in the lives of veterans and civilian culture. She holds a M.S. in Strategic Communications from Columbia University and a B.A. in Media & Communications from Maharishi University. She is active in her community and teaches at the local college and gives writing workshops at Trenton Soup Kitchen. Supriya is a mother with a passion for cooking, meditation, and yoga.
Jeremy Warneke
Jeremy Warneke is a public servant in the Bronx, N.Y., where he lives with his family. He enlisted in the Army National Guard prior to 9/11 and served in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.
In 2016, with the support of the Bronx Council on the Arts, the New York Public Library, and Voices From War, Jeremy created his own writing workshop, “The Craft of War Writing,” which provides free, high-level reading and writing instruction based upon the themes of conflict and war. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fiction Southeast, 0-Dark-Thirty, Intersections International, Daily Kos and elsewhere.
Guest Speakers
Thank you to each of the generous guest speakers who volunteer their time to inspire and mentor our War Horse Fellows.
Helen Benedict—Award-winning author and Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism
Steve Coll—Two-time Pulitzer Prize Winning author and dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism
Kevin Cullen—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and NYT Bestselling author
Jim Dao—New York Times OP/ED editor
David Dunlap—New York Times reporter since 1981 where he serves as the “keeper of Times history”
Matt Gallagher—Army veteran, author of Youngblood and Kaboom
Phil Klay—Marine veteran author award-winning author of Redeployment
Stuart Krichevsky—Literary agent at SK Agency
David Rohde—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and news director at The New Yorker
Bruce Shapiro—Executive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
Paula Span—New York Times journalist and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Karen Stabiner—Author and professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism
Wendy Wolf—Vice President and Associate Publisher of Viking
Lee Woodruff—New York Times Bestselling author of In An Instant
This seminar let me discuss my experiences of war in a open environment where others understood and also wanted to move on from. It truly did distance myself from the war and gave me hope to turn traumatic experiences into effective leadership and development traits.
—Brendan O’Byrne
Mary Doyle
Mary Doyle currently serves as the chief of media relations for Fort George G. Meade and is the author of multiple books—both fiction and nonfiction. She served as a broadcaster in the Army Reserve and acted as the non-commissioned officer in charge of her Mobile Public Affairs Detachment during their deployment to the Bosnia peacekeeping mission in 1997. After returning to the states, Mary began work as an Army civilian broadcaster producing TV, radio, and documentary for American Forces Network.
Mary is a member of the editorial board for the online magazine The Wrath-Bearing Tree and serves on the advisory council for the MilSpeak Foundation, a nonprofit that empowers military service members, veterans, families, and caregivers through the arts.
Mary Doyle
Mary Doyle currently serves as the chief of media relations for Fort George G. Meade and is the author of multiple books—both fiction and nonfiction. She served as a broadcaster in the Army Reserve and acted as the non-commissioned officer in charge of her Mobile Public Affairs Detachment during their deployment to the Bosnia peacekeeping mission in 1997. After returning to the states, Mary began work as an Army civilian broadcaster producing TV, radio, and documentary for American Forces Network.
Mary is a member of the editorial board for the online magazine The Wrath-Bearing Tree and serves on the advisory council for the MilSpeak Foundation, a nonprofit that empowers military service members, veterans, families, and caregivers through the arts.
Teresa Fazio
Teresa was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2002-2006. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and Rolling Stone, among other outlets. She is a contributor to the fiction anthology The Road Ahead, as well as the nonfiction anthologies Retire the Colors and It’s My Country, Too.
Teresa holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Columbia University. She works in technology commercialization and lives in New York City.
Nicole Green
Nicole is a former U.S. Air Force officer who served in Iraq in 2003. She has earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Political Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a Master’s of Art in Diplomacy from Norwich University. She is also a member of the Truman National Security Project and the Junior League of Dallas and lives in Texas.
Nicole is currently the Vice President of Regional Operations for Team Rubicon, a nonprofit that unites the skills and experiences of military veterans and first responders to rapidly field emergency response teams worldwide.
Kate Hoit
Kate is the Military Marketing Manager for National University. Before that, she served as the Director of Content and Communications for Got Your 6 and digital engagement at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and in communications for the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs.
Kate has been published by the New York Times, The Daily Beast, TIME, The Huffington Post, and many others. She is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve, holds a Bachelor’s in journalism as well as a Master’s of Art in nonfiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. Kate is a Pat Tillman Military Scholar and a Defense Council member of the Truman National Security Project.
Sarah Holzhalb
Sarah currently works as the Relationships Manager for Team Red, White & Blue. Prior to joining the organization, Sarah spent nine years working as Director of Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs Manager within the domestic energy industry. Sarah was an active duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for five years.
Sarah earned a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Virginia Commonwealth University, a Master’s of Science in International Relations from Troy University, and a Master’s of Professional Studies in Political Management from The George Washington University.
Kristen Kavanaugh
Kristen graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps in May of 2002. Following her five-year career, Kristen earned her Master’s of Social Work at the University of Southern California.
In 2012, Kristen was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for her work during the military’s repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Kristen is currently the Global Leadership Development Manager for Production at Tesla, Inc. and is a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.
Becca Keaty
Becca is a 20-year retired veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard with extensive experience in corporate and nonprofit strategic partnerships and development. Prior to joining Bunker Labs, she worked with the Tribune Media Group and co-founded the literacy social enterprise, Open Books.
Becca holds a Bachelor’s of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She enjoys reading, fitness adventures, travel, and donuts.
Elizabeth O’Herrin
Elizabeth oversees programs and scholarships for the Pat Tillman Foundation. She is a veteran of the Wisconsin Air National Guard and co-founded the Student Veterans of America and fought with a dedicated team of veteran advocates to successfully pass the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008.
Elizabeth received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Master’s from Johns Hopkins University, where her research focused on the federal government and veteran reintegration. Elizabeth is a 2010 Tillman Scholar and is passionate about urban gardening, writing, her faith, and coffee.
Danielle Phillips
Danielle is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. She graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Political Science. Danielle then commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps as a Public Affairs Officer.
Danielle, now a Captain, has since graduated from Liberty University with a Master’s of Art in Public Policy. She is currently stationed at the Pentagon.
Yvette M. Pino
Yvette is a U.S. Army veteran and works at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum as the Traveling Art Exhibit Coordinator. Yvette deployed to Iraq from 2003-2004 and founded the Veteran Print Project after earning her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Yvette exhibits her work nationally.
Kayla Williams
Kayla is a former sergeant and Arabic linguist in a Military Intelligence company of the 101st Airborne Division. Kayla is the author of Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, a memoir about her deployment to Iraq, and Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War, about her family’s journey from war trauma to healing.
Kayla earned her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Bowling Green State University and a Master’s in International Affairs from American University. She is a 2013 White House Woman Veteran Champion of Change, and a 2015 Lincoln Award recipient. Kayla is now the Director of the Center for Women Veterans at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
