Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi was born in Tehran, Iran and currently works in the Washington, D.C. area. Ilchi received an M.F.A. in studio art from American University and a B.F.A. from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. She has received many awards, including the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellowship, Zeta Orionis Painting Fellowship, Bethesda Painting Award, Carol Bird Ravenal Travel Award, and the Robyn Rafferty Mathias Research Grant from American University. Ilchi has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally.
16Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County https://www.creativemoco.comSuzan.Jenkins@creativemoco.com(301) 565-3805
801 Ellsworth Dr
Silver Spring, MD 20910
United States
Arianna Ross creates entertaining, educational programs that weave the power of storytelling, dance, theatre, creative writing, visual art and music together. A master educator and performer who offers a wide variety of arts integration residencies, performances and professional development workshops, Ross uses the tools of her art forms to help students foster a deeper connection to the subjects they’re learning, be it language arts, math, science, geography, or social studies, and guide the teachers to incorporate the arts into their lesson plans.
Deborah Tomlin is a painter who relishes the feel of brushstrokes and vibrant color in her paintings. Tomlin grew up in Maryland. In 2008 she returned to her childhood home where she currently lives with her husband, two school-age children, and her aging parents. Raising children and caring for elderly parents informs her work with common themes to our human experience such as aging, loss, gender, identity, independence/dependence. Repetition and closely cropped compositions help convey this emotional content in her paintings.
Brian Michael Dunn (b.1982) creates paintings and sculptures that mine the visual language of mass reproduction. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Dunn received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting from Boston University and a Master of Fine Art from Cornell University. Dunn is an alumnus of the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship and was awarded a DC art Bank Grant in 2020 and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in 2019. Dunn has attended the Millay Residency in Austerlitz, NY, the Byrdcliffe Residency in Woodstock, NY and the Yale Summer Painting Program in Norfolk, CT.
Lindsay McCulloch holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the University of
Virginia, and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Boston University. Her work includes
paintings, works on paper and artist books. McCulloch has exhibited her work internationally in
England, Spain and Iraq. Her work has also been featured in museums and galleries across the
United States including the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art at the University of Richmond
Museums, Richmond, VA; the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, MA; the American
Carson Wu's fiction has appeared in the North American Review, Onthebus, Confrontation, and
other literary journals. Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, but has lived in the Maryland area
the last fifteen years. He works at the U.S. Department of State.
Paula Whyman is the author of the linked story collection YOU MAY SEE A STRANGER (TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press), which won the 2017 Towson Prize for Literature. A music theater piece based on a story from the book is in development with composer Scott Wheeler. Paula’s work has also appeared in Ploughshares, VQR, McSweeney’s Quarterly, The Hudson Review, andThe Washington Post, and on NPR’s All Things Considered. Paula is a fellow of The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and Vice President of the MacDowell Colony Fellows Executive Committee.
A.A. Weiss is the author of the Luke Lundy thriller series (The Agency Books) and the travel memoir Lenin's Asylum (Everytime Press). His essays and short stories have appeared in various journals and twice received special mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. A recipient of grants from the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council, he lives with his family in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Stanley Patrick Stocker, a Philadelphia native, is the son of a meat cutter and a meat wrapper. A
graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Stocker is a lawyer in Washington, DC. His
writing has appeared in the New York Times and Shooting Star Review. He lives in the Maryland suburbs
with his wife and son.
Melanie S. Hatter is the author of two novels and one short story collection. Selected by
Edwidge Danticat, Malawi’s Sisters won the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and is
published by Four Way Books, 2019. The Color of My Soul won the 2011 Washington Writers’
Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was
released in 2014. Her short stories have appeared in The Whistling Fire, Defying Gravity,
TimBookTu and Diverse Voices Quarterly. She was a runner-up winner in the Fiction category