MEGAN STIELSTRA

Fellowship coach

MEGAN STIELSTRA is the author of three essay collections, most recently The Wrong Way to Save Your Life from Harper Perennial, winner of the 2017 Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Buzzfeed, Poets & Writers, the Believer, Longreads, Tin House, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, Radio National Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Goodman Theatres, and regularly with The Paper Machete live news magazine at The Green Mill. She is a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award Finalist for her work with 2nd Story, supporting writers across class, age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and the multiple intersections therein in developing their own stories, and served for a decade as the Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching Excellence at Columbia College Chicago. She teaches memoir writing at Catapult and is currently faculty in the MFA Program in Prose & Poetry at Northwestern University, as well as a popular presenter on writing, storytelling, and education at conferences and festivals nationwide.