Faculty
Our Department Chair
Prudence Arceneaux
Poetry, Prose, Forms of Literature, Fiction
MFA in English & Creative Writing
Prudence Arceneaux, a native Texan, is a poet who teaches English and Creative Writing at Austin Community College, in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in various journals, including The Academy of American Poets’ Poem- A- Day, Limestone, New Texas, Hazmat Review, Texas Observer, Whiskey Island Magazine, African Voices and Inkwell. She is the author of Proprioception, and of two chapbooks of poetry– DIRT (awarded the 2018 Jean Pedrick Prize) and LIBERTY.
Jeffrey Chan
Fiction
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
Jeffrey Chan has over twenty-five years experience teaching writing. He has taught in ACC’s Composition and Literary Studies Dept. since 2007 and Creative Writing Dept. since 2023, and since 2010 tutored writing, helping pilot online and embedded tutoring. He helped pilot ACC’s Great Questions Seminar in 2015-16. He received a Hickock Fellowship in Creative Writing at Kansas State (1996-7), then earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State in 2000. He taught creative writing and served as an editor at The New Orleans Review at Loyola University from 2001-2011. He was last seen writing haiku about the moon.
Robert Crowl
Fiction, Poetry
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
Robert Crowl is a writer, educator, musician, and performer who’s been teaching in and around Austin, Texas for fifteen years where he lives with his wife and two kids. Currently, he’s a professor of composition, literary studies, and creative writing at Austin Community College, but he grew up in Oklahoma and Texas. His writing has appeared in Passengers Journal and the West Trade Review, but his current project is a memoir that explores inherited trauma, his mother’s penchant for strays, and his father’s battles with substance abuse. Follow him at robcrowlwriter.com.
Mark Cunningham
Screenwriting
Ph.D. in Radio-Television-Film
Mark D. Cunningham is Department Chair of Radio-Television-Film at Austin Community College. He has written essays focusing on John Singleton’s Poetic Justice, Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, Ice T’s role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and alternative spaces of blackness in Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy. His forthcoming book Once Upon a Time in South Central L.A.: John Singleton’s Hood Trilogy is being published by the University Press of Mississippi.
Ysella Fulton Slavin
Poetry, Fiction
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
Ysella Fulton Slavin, a poet and fiction writer, grew up in New Mexico and El Paso, has her MFA from American University and lived with her guitarist husband in Argentina where she taught and also translated the short story collection, Voices from the Pampas. For 20 years she taught at El Paso Community College, was the faculty advisor for the Literary Journal, Chrysalis and director of PaPaGaYo: Community Literary Center. Besides teaching at ACC, she is the Outreach Coordinator for LAHC. She has published the novel Pomegranate and her work has also appeared in Folio, The Juggler, American Literary, BorderSenes among others.
Dee Garcia
Fiction
MFA in Creative Writing
Dee Garcia is a Texas-based, queer Chicano writer, editor, and instructor whose roots run deep in South Texas—particularly “el 956.” He navigates between reflecting and chronicling at the intersection of identity and culture, chismeando his way through IRL and AFK discourse. He insists his students call him “Profe” at Austin Community College’s Creative Writing Department, and outside campus walls, he serves as the nonfiction editor for Infrrarealista Review, where he and a band of literary misfits are committed to amplifying voices across Texas. His debut essay collection, Bien Chingon: Vatos and Other Essays, is slated for publication in Spring 2026 by Plancha Press.
Luke Garza
Screenwriting
MFA in Screenwriting
Luke Garza is a screenwriter and producer. As a story analyst for HBO Films, Ratpac-Dune Entertainment, and Phoenix Pictures, he evaluated projects for potential development into feature films, TV movies and series, and critiqued the works of David Mamet, Elmore Leonard, Ron Bass, and J.J. Abrams. He also co-produced three independent features: the horror film Vampire Winter, the documentary Andy Paris: Bubblegum King, and the sci-fi anthology Xenophobia. His favorite film is The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin and written by William Peter Blatty
Andrew Heinrich
Playwriting
MFA in Dramatic Writing
Andrew Heinrich (he/him) is a playwright, director, actor, and violence designer living and working in San Antonio, TX. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Texas State University with a BFA in Theatre, and an MFA in Dramatic Writing. His plays have won national recognition and have been produced in Texas, California, New York, and beyond. Andrew is an Assistant Professor in the Drama Program at Austin Community College. Produced works include Flood, Instructions for Dancing, and Canvas.
Arun John
Fiction
MFA in Creative Writing
Arun John is a published writer and has an MFA in creative writing from New York University. Since 2007, Arun has been a faculty member in the Composition and Literary Studies Department at Austin Community College. Currently, he is the chair of the Liberal Arts Gateway Program at ACC, where he supervises course redesigns and the program’s administration across various departments at the college. Before joining ACC, Arun taught creative writing at NYU and was a writing instructor at the City University of New York System. Arun continues to reread and marvel at the writing of Etgar Keret, Han Kang, Sylvia Plath, and Albert Camus, among others.
Tessa Livingstone
Poetry
MFA in Creative Writing
Tessa Livingstone is a poet and professor in Austin, TX. She enjoys engaging the transformative and macabre in her poems, which have appeared in Willow Springs, Northwest Review, Salt Hill, Juked, Five:2:One, Whiskey Island, Water~Stone Review, Heavy Feather, South Dakota Review, and Portland Review, among others. She holds an MFA from Portland State University.
Amber Luttig-Buonodono
Screenwriting, Poetry
MFA in Screenwriting
Amber Luttig-Buonodono (she/her) was born in Michigan but spent much of her childhood in the United Kingdom. She began writing when she was three years old and has since gone on to write award winning screenplays, commissioned plays, and published poems and novels. When Amber is not writing, she spends her time teaching at ACC, cold-reading Shakespeare’s canon (boom) with her international friends on Zoom, caring for her many pets, and drinking an unhealthy amount of hot yaupon tea with oat milk. Her favorite book is “The Tale of Custard the Dragon” by Ogden Nash.
Katie McClendon
Fiction
MFA in Creative Writing – Fiction
Katie McClendon grew up on the West Coast, adventured into the Midwest, and settled herself down right here in the South. She received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Purdue University and teaches in the Humanities and English department at ACC. Her fiction has appeared in Cutbank Literary Magazine, Emerge Literary, Juked, and Smokelong Quarterly. Her poems have been published in Crab Fat Magazine, MareNostrum, and Portland Review, among others. She believes great writing will change both the writer and the reader, and that words have the power to make extraordinary things happen.
Joe O’Connell
Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir
MFA in Creative Writing
Joe O’Connell’s novel in stories, Evacuation Plan, was short-listed for the Writers League of Texas Book Award and won the North Texas Book Award. His biodoc Rondo and Bob won eight film awards and screened at festivals around the world. His first documentary, Danger God, is about B-movie stuntman Gary Kent who inspired the stuntman character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Joe earned an MFA from Texas State University and more recently completed the Book Project of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver while working on upcoming historical novel The Contortionists. He teaches fiction and memoir at ACC.
Malena Pennycook
Playwriting
MFA in Playwriting
Malena Pennycook (she/they) is a writer, performer and producer of new plays. Malena’s work has been developed at the Off-Broadway Playwrights Realm, The Playwrights Center, STAGES, Crashbox, Teatro Vivo and The Kennedy Center, among others. Her play How Should A Conversation Be? was shortlisted for the 2025 Yale Drama Prize. She is published by Concord Theatricals. Malena’s current work explores surprising integrations of narrative and movement. BFA NYU Tisch Experimental Theater Wing. MFA Playwriting UT Austin. malenapennycook.com
Eli Ryder
Fiction, Playwriting
MFA in Creative Writing, M.A. in English
Eli Ryder‘s (he/him) horror and sci-fi has appeared in numerous online, in-print, and audio publications, and his plays have appeared on stage in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He teaches full time for ACC and has appeared as a panelist and podcast guest for several venues discussing both the craft of writing and the thrill of dark fiction. He is a Roswell Award honoree and stole his M.F.A. from U.C. Riverside. He plays D&D, has the best kid ever, and is an avid lover of all things spooky.
Louisa Spaventa
Poetry
MA in English/Creative Writing
Louisa Spaventa (she/her) earned an MA in English/Creative Writing from UT Austin and employs literature to broaden community and mold identity. Studies with performance artist Linda Montano at UT inform her art/life philosophy, alongside her background in punk rock zines and college radio. Her writing appears in the Barrelhouse anthology Bring the Noise, Coconut Poetry, No Tell Motel, and various other publications. She has contributed to alternative weeklies in Austin, Atlanta, and Santa Barbara. At ACC since 2003, Louisa received the League Excellence Award in 2023. Queer texts, music, and dance are her lifeblood.
Sarah R. Stockton
Poetry
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
Sarah R. Stockton is a poet and hybrid-genre writer based in Austin, TX, by way of New England, Indiana, and Los Angeles. Her poetry has been featured in publications including The Cimarron Review, The Quarterless Review, and Peach. Her poetic interests include desire, popular culture, ekphrasis and art criticism, the family, and how the legacies of imperialism show up in unexpected places. She holds an M.F.A. from CalArts and currently teaches in the Creative Writing and Composition and Literary Studies Departments at ACC.
Madeline Vosch
Fiction, Nonfiction
MFA in Creative Writing
Madeline Vosch writes and teaches fiction and nonfiction. Her first book, Undead: A Memoir, is forthcoming from Beacon Press. An excerpt of Undead was selected as the winner of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest in 2021. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Washington Post, and The Rumpus, among others. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant and was an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow in 2021.