Mfa Programs

With Anthony de Sa, Francisco Cota Fagundes, Frank X. Gaspar and Katherine Vaz.
Session chaired by: Onesimus T. Almeida Anthony De Sa grew up in Toronto's Portuguese community. His short fiction has been published in several North American literary magazines. Anthony's first book, Barnacle Love, was critically acclaimed and Became a finalist for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2009 Toronto Book Award. His new novel, Kicking the Sky , is Set in 1977, the year the twelve year old shoeshine boy named Emanuel Jaques was brutally raped and murdered in Toronto. Anthony De Sa graduated from University of Toronto and did his post-graduate at Queen's University. He attended The Humber School for Writers and Ryerson University. Currently he is a teacher-librarian at Michael Power / St. Joseph High School. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three boys.

Francisco Cota Fagundes was born in the Azores, Portugal, having emigrated to the U.S. in 1963. He lived in California for 14 years and has resided in Amherst, MA is 30. He has taught a variety of Spanish and English language and literature, as well as Brazilian and Lusophone African literature Both courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Francisco Cota Fagundes is a literary critic, autobiographer, short story writer, and translator.

Frank Gaspar was born and raised in Provincetown, Massachusetts, of Azorean descent (from Pico, São Miguel). His ancestors were traditionally whalers and Grand Banks fisherman, sailing out of the Islands and then Provincetown. He holds an MFA from the Graduate Writing Program at UC Irvine and is the author of five collections of poetry and two novels. Among his many awards are multiple inclusions in Best American Poetry, four Pushcart Prizes, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, and the California Arts Council Fellowship in poetry. His debut novel, Leaving Pico, was a Barnes and Noble Discovery Prize winner, the recipient of the California Book Award for First Fiction and the New York Times Notable Book (paperback edition). His second novel Stealing Fatima was a MassBook of the Year in Fiction (Massachusetts Foundation for the Book). He most recently held the Helio and Amelia Pedroso / Luso-American Foundation Endowed Chair in Portuguese Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. His new collection of poems, Late Rapturous, was published by Autumn House in July, 2012. Currently he is at work on a new novel.