Shannon Hamann (1966-2004) received a B.A. with distinction in Communications, film and broadcasting, with an English minor, from the University of Iowa in December 1986 (graduating Phi Beta Kappa).  He received an MFA from the University of Iowa Program in Creative Writing (The Iowa Writers' Workshop) in December 1991, and was working on a novel during his time in the Steinbeck Fellows' program.  The work remained unfinished at his untimely death.  His family has set up a memorial website: http://shannon-hamann.memory-of.com/

 

Robert F. James received his MFA in Creative Writing with a primary concentration in fiction and secondary concentration in creative nonfiction from San Jose State University. He holds a BA in English (Creative Writing) from George Mason University. His short fiction and nonfiction has appeared in Carve Magazine, Rainbow Curve, why vandalism?, and numerous other publications. He continues to work on a fictional memoir and an historical novel set in 1920's Southern Illinois, the preface of which was published as a short story, "In the Old World," in Carve Magazine's September 2006 issue. Robert is also Project Editor for the Outdoor Life Magazine Survival Manual (2012) and another book for Field and Stream magazine (sched. 2013).

Greta Manville's Steinbeck Fellowship involved updating, researching, and compiling new entries for what has become the online searchable bibliography of secondary literature on John Steinbeck (http://www.steinbeckbibliography.org/). Since 2003, Ms. Manville has continued researching and writing, hunting down errata, providing invaluable insights and updates, and lending her keen editing skill to the Center's staff.  She lives in Arizona, where she writes mystery and suspense novels, participates in writers' conferences and critique groups, and has served as a contest judge for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She has won first place in contests conducted by SouthWest Writers and Authorlink.com as well as the grand prize for the Sparrowgrass Forum's "Poetic Voices of America" contest in 1999.  Ms. Manville (who also writes as G. C. Manville) belongs to the Arizona Authors Association, Sisters in Crime (Desert Sleuths Chapter), and West Valley Authors Association. Death Key is her third published novel with two others in progress. Greta was the contest coordinator for the 2006 Arizona Authors Association's Literary Contest.

 

Eran Williams' Steinbeck Fellowship resulted in a manuscript of short  stories based in West Africa where he served as a Peace Corps volunteer planting trees in Mali, and as an English Teaching Fellow setting up training programs at the Central Bank of Guinea.  Four of the short stories were published in The Santa Monica Review andThe Crab Orchard Review. One of the stories, "The Helpmeet" won both a Phelan Award and the Associated Writing Programs Intro Journal Award.  Eran is currently an English Language Officer in the Foreign Service.

Talila Baron is an award-winning, Bay Area-based writer who has written short stories, one-act and full-length plays, and screenplays. In 2002-03, she was a Steinbeck Creative Writing Fellow and completed her first collection of short stories. In 2001, she was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Chesterfield Screenwriting Competition as well as the PlayLabs Theatre Festival. In 2003, her first full-length play, Corpus Delicti, received a staged reading through the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, California. In July, 2004, her second play, Burning, won the Jane Chambers Award and received a reading at NYU as well as the Abingdon Theatre in New York. In March, 2005, her most recent full-length work, Afterimage, received a workshop production at the Magic. Ms. Baron holds an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University.