Sophfronia Scott - Director

Sophfronia Scott began her writing career as a journalist for Time and People magazines. When her first novel, All I Need to Get By, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2004 she was nominated for best new author at the African American Literary Awards and hailed by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as “potentially one of the best writers of her generation.” Her essays, short stories and articles have appeared in North American Review, Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Saranac Review, Numéro Cinq, Ruminate, The Timberline Review, Barnstorm Literary Journal, Sleet Magazine, NewYorkTimes.com, More and O, The Oprah Magazine. Her essay “Why I Didn’t Go to the Firehouse” is listed among the Notables in Best American Essays 2017.

Sophfronia previously taught at M.F.A. programs at Regis University and Bay Path University. She’s also delivered craft talks and held workshops at the Yale Writers’ Workshop, the Madeleine L’Engle Conference, Antioch Writers’ Workshop, Meacham Writers’ Workshop, and the Hobart Festival of Women Writers in addition to her own writers’ retreat, The Write of Your Life, which takes place in Veneto, Italy each September. She lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut where she is working on her next novel and recently completed a nonfiction book about her virtual mentorship with the monk Thomas Merton. This also means she is fighting a losing battle against the weeds in her flower beds. Her website is www.Sophfronia.com.