What is the N4
Artists Network?

T. R. Johnson is a Professor of English and Weiss Presidential Fellow. He has taught at the University of New Orleans, Boston University, and the University of Louisville, and has been teaching at Tulane since 2004. He is the author of The Other Side of Pedagogy: Lacan’s Four Discourses and the Development of the Student Writer (2014),  and A Rhetoric of Pleasure: Prose Style and Today’s Composition Classroom (2003); he is the editor of New Orleans: A Literary History (2019). His current work-in-progress, a book called New Orleans: A Writer’s City, will be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2023. Since 2001, he has hosted a contemporary jazz radio program in New Orleans at WWOZ 90.7 FM.

Edyson Julio is a native of the South Bronx, and a recent graduate of Harvard’s School of Education, where he was awarded an Urban Scholars’ Fellowship. At Harvard, Edyson worked on a social theory that examines the relationship between Street culture and civic duty. Since its founding, his Performing-to-Survive theory has been cited by academics at universities across the country, and used widely in classrooms to improve the teaching and learning process. Before making the move to Cambridge for graduate school, Edyson was a Creative Writing instructor on Rikers Island, and a Workshop Facilitator at Horizon Juvenile Detention. He was awarded the Paul Afolabi Award for Commitment to Educational Justice at Harvard University, and was the commencement speaker for the 2018 graduating class.  Edyson also holds a Master of Fine Art in Fiction from Hunter College, and is a Board Member for the Kalief Browder foundation. His work has been profiled by the Bronx Documentary Center, Channel 12 News, and the New York Times.

Phil Klay is an author and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. His first book, Redeployment, received the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction. His novel Missionaries was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s ten best books of 2020, and one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year. He has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and other places. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University.

Peter Kuper’s illustrations and comics have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Charlie Hebdo and MAD magazine where he has written and illustrated SPY vs. SPY since 1997. He is the co-founder and editor of World War 3 Illustrated, a political graphics magazine that has given a forum to political artists for over four decades. He has produced over two dozen books including  The System, Diario de Oaxaca, Ruins and adaptations of many of Franz Kafka’s works into comics including The Metamorphosis and Kafkaesque. He has lectured around the world and is a visiting professor at Harvard University. He was the recipient of the 2020-21 Cullman Fellowship at The New York Public Library and a 2022 Yaddo writer’s residency. https://www.peterkuper.com/

Shaun Leonardo’s performance practice, anchored by his work in Assembly—a diversion program for court-involved youth at the Brooklyn-based, arts nonprofit Recess—is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment.

Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, and recently profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His solo exhibition, The Breath of Empty Space, was recently presented at MICA, MASS MoCA and The Bronx Museum. And his first major public art commission, Between Four Freedoms, recently premiered at Four Freedoms Park Conservancy.

Leonardo recently joined Recess as Co-Director, helping guide the organization’s continuous evolution as an engine of social change. elcleonardo.com

Vanessa Manko is the author of The Invention of Exile, which was a finalist for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and a Kirkus Reviews’ best book of 2014. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Dance Magazine. Formerly the Dance Editor of The Brooklyn Rail, Vanessa trained in ballet at the North Carolina School of the Arts and danced with the Charleston Ballet Theatre. She has taught writing at Wesleyan University, Goucher College, and SUNY Purchase. She currently teaches creative writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and is an Executive Assistant at Narrative 4.

Colum McCann is President and Co-Founder of Narrative 4, which he began to help shape in 2004. He is the author of six novels and three collections of stories. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, has been the recipient of many international honours, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Impac Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts. His work has been published in over 40 languages. His most recent novel, Apeirogon was a New York Times bestseller, and winner of several international prizes.

John McManus is the author of the short story collections Fox Tooth Heart, Born on a Train, and Stop Breakin Down and the novel Bitter Milk.His fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, The Oxford American, and many other journals. He is the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Fellowship of Southern Writers’ New Writing Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Literature Award, and a Creative Capital Literature grant. https://www.johnmcmanus.net/

Faisal Mohyuddin is the author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children, which was selected as a 2018 Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society and named a “highly commended” collection of the year by the Forward Arts Foundation; it went on to receive an Honorable Mention in the Association of Asian American Studies 2020 Book Award for Poetry. Also the author of the chapbook The Riddle of Longing, he is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program, and he teaches English at Highland Park High School in Illinois and creative writing at the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University. He serves as a Master Practitioner with Narrative 4. www.faisalmohyuddin.com

Andres “Jay” Molina grew up in the Dominican Republic where he played minor league ball. In his late teens he left the D.R. for New York’s Lower East Side with dreams of going to college. After serving time in prison, Jay’s plans for a new life were thwarted by a rare lung condition that attacked his vital organs. In 2014 the condition took his ability to walk. Today, Jay is nourishing a passion for filmmaking and animation, and advocating for people with disabilities. His writing has been published in NYU’s Literacy Review and Wheeling & Healing. He’s a recipient of the 2020 NYC Mayor’s Office Safe In The City Grant. An OPEN DOORS Reality Poet, Jay is co-directing the feature-length documentary film Fire Through Dry Grass.

Jennifer Murphy’s memoir, First Responder, follows her journey to becoming an EMT and working during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Mississippi Review, Joyful Noise, Words in Your Face, Uncommon Bonds, and Tell Me Who You Are. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes and Institutional Investor, among other media outlets. As a performer, Jennifer has featured at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater and TED. She maintains a parallel career as a crisis manager and investigator. Jennifer graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and an M.F.A. from New York University. She is an EMT in Brooklyn.

Shoshana Perry is a documentary producer and director. Her film, “Down To Earth” won Best Documentary at the EcoCinema International Film Festival. Shoshana attended Columbia University’s MFA Program and was the fiction editor of the Columbia Journal. Shoshana’s short fiction, creative non-fiction, and profiles were published in Spin Magazine, The Village Voice, and literary journals including Open City, and Grand Street. A Lead Trainer, Advisor, and Master Practitioner at Narrative 4, Shoshana is also a certified mindfulness educator trained through various institutes including Goggle’s Search Inside Yourself Leadership Training, and the awareness and compassion based training through the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) and The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley. Shoshana currently teaches mindfulness and movement to patients and staff at Bellevue Hospital.

Lee Relvas lives in New York. A recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program residency, she has had solo shows at Callicoon Fine Arts and Canada Gallery in New York City and Artist Curated Projects in Los Angeles.

She has also exhibited and performed at The Whitney Museum, MoMA, The Hammer Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, Art in General, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, among others. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, The New Yorker, ArtForum,Art in America, The Comics Journal, and The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest.

Her fiction has been published in BOMB Magazine and Joyland Magazine, and she has contributed to ArtForum and Cultured Magazine. https://bodyisafolder.com

Lance Richardson an Australian writer living in Providence, Rhode Island. His first book, HOUSE OF NUTTER: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and spotlighted on ‘The New Yorker Recommends’. It was also named one of the notable books of 2018 by The Sunday Times, The Mail on Sunday, Esquire, and the American Library Association. It is currently being adapted for television by a major studio. Lance is now working on a biography, TRUE NATURE: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, for Pantheon (US) and Chatto & Windus (UK). He holds a masters degree in longform journalism from the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, NYU.  www.lancenrichardson.com

Amanda Cantrell Roche is a multi-media Teaching Artist, choreographer, and writer who is as enthused in guiding participants through the creative process as she is being a maker of art. She thrives in working simultaneously in multiple fields; as an arts integration teaching artist in schools and community groups, in restorative arts settings with court-involved youth, as an intuitive movement, writing, and visual art facilitator, and in a therapeutic setting as a somatic practitioner and Adjunct Faculty at Onsite Workshops. She is a narrative artist, former journalist and editor, and life-long choreographer and writer who is recently expanding into creating short films. Amanda is the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellowship for Arts Education, and her social justice choreography, “Yearning to Breathe Free”, has been presented at the Americans for the Arts national convention. amandacroche.com

Lauren Russell is a poet and writer in hybrid forms. She is the author of Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020), winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2021 Anna Rabinowitz Award, and What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta Press, 2017). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Cave Canem, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and residencies from the Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross, and Yaddo, among others. Her work has appeared The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. She is as an assistant professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University and is director of the RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU. https://laurenrussellpoet.com/

Octavia Sexton grew up in the Appalachian tradition of storytelling. With English, Irish and Cherokee ancestors, her stories reflect the melding of these culturally different oral traditions. A talented writer, she has published several short stories and a book of Jack Tales. Along with a degree in history education and years of teaching and performing experience, Octavia presents a variety of educational programs.

Rob Spillman is an editor at Broadcast from Pioneer Works. He co-founded and edited the seminal literary magazine Tin House, which published from 1999-2019. Tin House was the recipient of the inaugural CLMP Firecracker Award for Magazine of the Year in 2015. He is also the editor of Gods and Soldiers: the Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing, which was published in 2009. He has guest taught at writing workshops and universities around the world and is currently a lecturer at Columbia University. His memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties, was published by Grove Press in 2016.

Composer, singer-songwriter, actor, author, and activist Sting was born in Newcastle, England before moving to London in 1977 to form The Police with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. The band released five studio albums, earned six GRAMMY Awards® and two Brits, and was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. As one of the world’s most distinctive solo artists, Sting has received an additional 11 GRAMMY Awards®, two Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, four Oscar nominations, a TONY nomination, Billboard Magazine’s Century Award, and MusiCares 2004 Person of the Year. Throughout his illustrious career, Sting has sold 100 million albums from his combined work with The Police and as a solo artist.

Valerie Striar’s interdisciplinary choreographic works have been presented in New York and abroad. Her film, The Bird Queen, was shown as part of the Dance on Camera Festival. Cosimo, inspired by Italo Calvino’s work, was first produced by La Mama, E.T.C. Valerie performed in Walking Iris, created by Patti Bradshaw/ Christopher Williams in the 2023 Puppetopia Festival. Valerie is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. She teaches classes in movement improvisation and Action Theater and is a certified mindfulness educator.Valerie is a Master Practitioner, Trainer and Advisor with Narrative 4. She is humbled to hold space for young people and witness their process of becoming self aware, authentic sharers of their own life stories.

Adrienne Su is the author of five books of poems, most recently Peach State (Pitt, 2021), which centers Asian American Atlanta and was named a 2022 Book All Georgians Should Read. Her poems have been reprinted in many anthologies, including five volumes of The Best American Poetry; recent essays appear in New Ohio Review, The Hopkins Review, and the forthcoming book Ethical Eating: Conflicts, Conversations, Commitments (NYU Press). She has received fellowships from the Barbara Deming Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Su lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she is professor of creative writing and poet-in-residence at Dickinson College. https://adriennesu.ink/

Siamak Vossoughi is an Iranian-American writer living in Seattle. He has had stories published in Kenyon Review, Missouri Review, Idaho Review, Gulf Coast, West Branch, and Copper Nickel. His first short story collection, Better Than War, received a 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and his second collection, A Sense of the Whole, received the 2019 Orison Fiction Prize, as well as Honorable Mention for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech. She has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. Known for her impassioned and lyrical prose, Terry Tempest Williams is the author of the environmental literature classic, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction and is the Provostial Scholar at Dartmouth College.

David Wroblewski is the author of the internationally  bestselling  novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a 2008 Oprah Book Club pick, a Barnes and Nobles Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the 2008 Colorado Book Award, Indie Choice Best Author Discovery award, and the Midwest Bookseller Association’s Choice award. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was selected as one of the best books of 2008 by numerous magazines and newspapers around the country and has been translated into over 25 languages. David holds a degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Warren Wilson M.F.A Program for Writers.  https://www.davidwroblewski.com/

Lila Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. After studying literature and philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she moved to the United States to teach literature and cinema at Harvard University. Lila has contributed criticism, interviews, and essays to a host of publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Le Monde, La Repubblica, and The Paris Review. Lila’s first book, The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness, was the recipient of the 2011 Roger Shattuck Prize, delivered by the Center for Fiction, and was published worldwide in thirteen languages. Her forthcoming novel, Of Lovers and Other Madmen, will be published in 2021.