Composer Lori Ardovino is Professor of Clarinet and Saxophone, Music History, and Chamber Music at the University of Montevallo (AL). A masterful performer of several woodwind instruments, Ardovino is an active performer in the Birmingham area with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the Joe Giattina Big Band, and the Birmingham Art Music Alliance. Her works have been performed across the United States and Canada, and her most recent solo clarinet piece was premiered at the Echizen International Music Festival in Echizen, Japan.  During the summer, her compositions were premiered at the International Clarinet Festival (Los Angeles, CA) and the International Alliance for Women in Music Congress (Flagstaff, AZ). A tireless clinician and advocate for new music, Ardovino will devote her residency to composing scores for middle school band, an area lacking new and interesting repertoire.  A special concert featuring the composer’s solo and small chamber works will be arranged.

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran’s poetry and non-fiction have appeared worldwide in over one hundred journals, anthologies, and periodicals.  A Comparative Ethnic Studies scholar and Literary Studies teacher at Michigan State University, Bodhran has been nominated four times each for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets. He is author of Antes y despues del Bronx: Lenapehoking, winner of the 2011 New American Press Chapbook Contest, and was editor of an international queer Indigenous issue of Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. While in Seaside, Bodhran will work on his first full-length book, a mixed-genre collection entitled Yerbabuena/Mala yerba, All My Roots Need Rain: mixed-blood poetry & prose.  Bodhran offers a poetic workshop for high school juniors and seniors and will give a lecture and reading in support of area university ethnic studies programs.  He hopes to arrange an indigenous writing workshop for local and diasporic Native peoples.

The “New Realist” portraits and landscapes of Long Island based artist Kerry Brooks are firmly rooted in the western classical ideal of truth and beauty. Brooks’ early passion for representational art led her to study at the Ukrainian Academy of Art (Kiev) and the Repin Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, Russia before rigorous study of anatomy and classical art at the New York Academy of Art. She has shown in prestigious galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago and is represented by Robert Lange Studios, Charleston, SC.  During her residency, Brooks will explore ways to create new work that reveals the influence of western classical figurative art and speaks to contemporary styles of imagery, fashion, and current American society in a series of highly detailed, miniature graphite drawings. The artist will share her ideas and creative process in an exhibition of works that includes artifacts, residency notes, idea boards, photographs, and finished and unfinished drawings.

Composer William Pfaff is Associate Professor of Music at SUNY, Plattsburg (NY) where he developed the core curriculum of music theory and history and is founder and Artistic Director of the SUNY Plattsburg Guitar Festival.  Pfaff bridges classical repertoire to many other musical genres in his compositions for wind and string instruments, chamber and jazz ensembles, choral groups and concert band.  He has also programmed works in electronic sound design, dance choreography, and theatre.  While in Seaside, Pfaff will compose a 15-minute commissioned work for flute, viola, cello, and percussion that is scheduled for premier in the fall of 2012.  Pfaff hopes to engage the 30-A audience in his creative and collaborative processes through a multi-media presentation of “Music, Images, Time:  Place as Inspiration,” a chronicle of his 2009 residency project at the Petrified Forest National Park, and an audio/visual presentation of his E2C project with comment and video performance by supporting musicians.

Robin Romm is the author of two critically praised books.  Her first story collection, The Mother Garden, (Scribner 2007) was named a finalist for both the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Book of the Year Award.  The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks (Scribner 2009) was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, a Top Ten Nonfiction Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year.  She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review and has published essays in O Magazine, The Sun Magazine, and The Atlantic Monthly.  A former MacDowell Fellow, Romm is Assistant Professor, MFA Program in Creative Writing at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. During her E2C residency, she will complete a collection of stories titled The Healing Room. Romm  offers the community a reading from published work and will also conduct a memoir-writing class.