VERONICA FITZPATRICK
Michigan State University, B.A., English, Women’s Studies; University of Notre Dame, M.F.A., Creative Writing; University of Pittsburgh, Ph.D., English and Film Studies (candidate)

During her undergraduate studies Veronica was a University Distinguished Scholar and recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. Veronica then received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame, where she taught in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre. Veronica’s current research at the University of Pittsburgh focuses on cinematic horror and film aesthetics. Veronica has taught with the Young Writers Workshop, a residential arts immersion program for gifted high school students, and for a nonprofit community arts organization in Pittsburgh. She has studied contemporary Irish literature and film in Dublin and Galway, Ireland, presented research in Denmark, and spent time in the rural Philippines, where her maternal family resides. She is proficient in Tagalog and French. This will be Veronica’s second year leading Writing in Ireland.

PATRICK GAUGHAN
Hofstra University, B.A., Mass Media Studies; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, M.F.A., Poetry (candidate)

Patrick has taught writing as an Adjunct Lecturer at Brooklyn College and has extensive experience teaching writing workshops to high school and college-age students through such venues as One Story, Sackett St. Writers and The Poetry Project. His poetry and writing has appeared in Diagram, Coldfront, PEN America, and other literary journals. He interviews artists and writers for BOMB and The Conversant. He is the recipient of scholarships from the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, where he taught multidisciplinary classes on writing and performance, and Fabrica, an art and communications research center in Treviso, Italy. He currently teaches essay writing and classes about text and performance to undergraduate students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Patrick is an ensemble player, tech coordinator, and director with the Connecticut River Valley Poets’ Theatre and is writing a book about the intersection of memory and art, of poetry and popular culture. He has led a National Geographic Student Expeditions program in Ireland.