Staff & Interns

Eve Bridburg, Executive Director

Eve founded Grub Street in 1997 with the goal of creating a supportive yet rigorous place to study writing beyond the halls of academia. The experiment was a success from the beginning, convincing Eve that there was a great desire in Boston for a literary arts center where emerging and established writers could inspire and teach students at all levels of development.

In 2005, hungry for a new adventure, Eve joined the Boston office of The Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary and Entertainment Agency as literary agent. Eve developed, edited, and sold a wide variety of books to major publishers including Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, Grand Central, Abrams, and St. Martins. Her titles include Donovan Campbell’s New York Times Best Seller Joker One, Blogger Matt Logelin’s New York Times Best seller Two Kisses for Maddy, Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s critically acclaimed short story collection Doctor Olaf Van Schuler's Brain, and Len Rosen’s Edgar-nominated thriller All Cry Chaos. Eve also developed a list of expert-driven parenting, health, and spiritual titles by working closely with experts and collaborative writers in an effort to bring cutting edge thinking and research to trade audiences.

Returning to Grub Street as Executive Director in April 2010, Eve’s mission has been to expand Grub Street’s offerings to better educate and equip writers to take full advantage of the new opportunities ushered in by the digital age. She wants to make Grub Street the most dynamic ecosystem for writers in the country. Under her leadership, Grub Street has doubled in size, relocated to a beautiful new space, launched new, innovative programming, and expanded scholarship opportunities and outreach.

Eve’s work leading Grub Street has recently been recognized by the National Arts Strategies when they selected her to join their Chief Executive Program, a two-year initiative designed to unleash the collective power of 100 of the top executive leaders in the cultural sector to re-imagine the potential of cultural institutions and to figure out how they can contribute to civil society in the 21st century. Eve was also named one of Boston’s 50 most powerful women by Boston Magazine in 2010.

Eve has presented on publishing, the future of publishing, and on what it takes to build a literary arts center at numerous conferences, including AWP, O’Reilly’s Tools of Change, Grub Street’s own The Muse and the Marketplace, Whidbey Island Writers Conference, The Sanibel Island Writers Conference, and Writers at Work.

Before starting Grub Street, Eve attended Boston University’s Writing program on a teaching fellowship, farmed in Oregon, ran an international bookstore in Prague and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with awards for academic excellence in Philosophy and Religion from Colgate University.

Christopher Castellani, Artistic Director

Christopher Castellani is the author of three novels, each published by Algonquin Books: A Kiss from Maddalena (2003) won the Massachusetts Book Award, was a Top Ten BookSense pick, and has been published in five countries and three languages; The Saint of Lost Things (2005)was long-listed for the IMPAC/Dublin award and was also published abroad; All This Talk of Love is forthcoming in February 2013. In addition, he has contributed essays on creative writing to numerous anthologies, including Naming The World, edited by Bret Anthony Johnston, Now Write! edited by Sherry Ellis, and, most recently, Mentors, Muses and Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives, edited by Elizabeth Benedict.

Chris has been involved with Grub Street since 2000, when, upon graduation from the MFA program at Boston University, he was hired to teach his first fiction workshop. He has since held many positions at the organization, including head instructor, board member, and Executive Director. Throughout his time at Grub Street, Chris has had the great pleasure and honor of hiring the instructors who’ve formed the core curriculum and working with them to make the organization as rigorous and supportive as it can be.

Of all his accomplishments at Grub, Chris is particularly proud of his work as the curator and visionary of “The Muse and the Marketplace,” Grub Street's flagship annual event, which gathers 500+ authors, editors, agents and aspiring writers from all over the world. Each year, Chris works to create the most dynamic mix of authors, editors, literary agents and special guests so that emerging and aspiring writers will have a truly unique, inspired, and one-of-a-kind experience. Chris's unique and rigorous artistic vision coupled with his ability to bring in world-renowned writers like Julia Alvarez, Chuck Palahniuk, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Grace Paley and Charles Baxter as keynotes have set a new standard for writing conferences and made the Muse a national model.

Chris is also proud of his work creating Grub's National Book Prize, which now offers a $5,000 cash award. The prize recognizes talented writers who have made a commitment to their careers beyond their first books; since its inception, it has honored a wide range of poets, fiction and non-fiction writers from all over the U.S. Recent winners include Eileen Pollack, Debra Allbery, Frances McCue, Sheri Joseph, Linda Gregg, Susan Richards Shreve, Vestal McIntyre, Alan Cheuse, Rebecca Seiferle, Dinty W. Moore, Rick Barot, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto and Gina Ochsner.

When he's not at Grub Street, Chris is a sought-after teacher and speaker. He has presented on numerous craft topics at dozens of writing conferences and given talks and readings at various colleges and universities, including Harvard, Tufts, The University of Connecticut, Allegheny College, CUNY and Brown. He has been twice a fellow at Bread Loaf and visiting writer at Swarthmore College and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He is currently on the fiction faculty of the MFA Program at Warren Wilson, where he teaches every other semester. He holds a BA in English from Swarthmore College and is ABD in English Literature at Tufts. For more about Chris and his books, visit www.christophercastellani.com.

Whitney Scharer, Development & Communications Director

Whitney joined the Grub Street staff in 2004, though she was involved as early as 1999 as a student and volunteer. Since then, she has held many positions within the organization, working in programming, administration, fundraising and marketing. Her greatest joy in her current role as Development and Communications Director is sharing her passion for Grub Street’s mission, whether it be by writing the weekly email newsletter, chatting over coffee with a donor, or signing up a student for his first Grub Street membership.

As a fundraiser and marketer in a very small shop, Whitney is proud to have grown Grub Street’s membership ranks from 25 members in 2004 to well over a thousand members today; to have created and implemented Grub Street’s grant writing strategy and received funding from foundations such as the NEA, the MCC, the Boston Foundation, the Boston Cultural Council, the Calderwood Foundation and many others; and to have organized and led all aspects of Grub’s annual fundraising gala since its second annual date in 2005.

Whitney is also proud of her recent accomplishments as Grub Street’s social media maven. The Grub Street Daily, which she conceived and started in February of 2011 and now manages, has already developed a robust readership. Grub Street’s Twitter (@GrubWriters) and Facebook accounts have thousands of followers, and Grub Street now uses social media almost exclusively to promote its events and workshops.

Whitney received her BA in English Literature from Wesleyan University and her MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, where she was the recipient of the Loren D. Milliman fellowship for her second year of study. She holds a Certificate in Professional Fundraising from Boston University. Her short fiction has appeared in the Cimarron Review, Mare Nostrum, and the Bellevue Literary Review, and was awarded the Horgan Prize for Short Fiction. Whitney grew up in Colorado and now makes her home in Somerville, though she occasionally yearns to be back in the Mile High City. When she's not blogging about her daughter, Lydia, at The Crib Sheet, she can be found at work on her first novel.

Sonya Larson, Program Director

Sonya Larson joined the Grub Street staff in 2005, when the organization offered 80 classes a year with a staff of two. Since then she has managed Grub Street's many and proliferating programs, as well as been Grub's unofficial event coordinator, accountant, webmaster, registrar, and IT strategist. Some of her most significant accomplishments include quintupling the size of the Manuscript Consultation service, designing and implementing Grub's system of online registration, overseeing the structural strength of the Muse and the Marketplace conference, and designing hundreds of new Grub classes.

As Program Director, Sonya oversees the operations and financial health of Grub Street's earned-income programming, including 600+ annual workshops and classes, the Manuscript Consultation service, the Muse and the Marketplace conference, the Novel Incubator, the Launch Lab, and more. With the Head Instructor, Sonya curates the breadth and depth of Grub Street's classes, with an eye toward making them as innovative and relevant to the modern writer as possible. She supervises the work of programmatic staff and interns, and loves designing systems to make that work effective and enjoyable for everyone involved. She manages the growth and design of Grub Street's online technologies, including website functions, databases, and software to streamline Grub's internal operations. Sonya also represents Grub Street at conferences nationwide, including AWP, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and Book Expo America.

Sonya works to ensure that Grub Street's programming is of the highest quality, operates with the highest efficiency, and with the most fun. Her greatest pleasure is ensuring that all writers who partake in a Grub Street program leave feeling inspired and energized to work hard at their art.

Sonya received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she served as editor of The Madison Review. Her short fiction has been a Top 25 finalist for Glimmer Train's 2009 Very Short Fiction Award, a finalist for Nimrod's 2009 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, and has appeared most recently in Del Sol Review, The Red Mountain Review and The Hub: Boston's Literary Occasional. She has twice been nominated for Best New American Voices, and has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the University of Wisconsin-Madison writing program. She is currently writing a novel, a work-in-progress about Chinese immigrants in the 1930s South, which earned her a 2009 Emerging Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation.

Rowan Beaird, Program and Operations Manager

Rowan Beaird graduated from Kenyon College with a degree in English Literature and an emphasis in Creative Writing. She spent her junior year abroad in Joyce’s birthplace, where she won the Trinity College Dublin Young Writers Award. During her senior year she worked as an Associate at The Kenyon Review and completed work on her honors thesis, a collection of short stories based on obituaries. Though Rowan had brief forays into the fields of copywriting and educational travel, she is thrilled to now have Grub Street as her professional home.

At Grub, Rowan is responsible for ensuring that students have a fantastic experience from start to finish. She communicates with instructors, helps to coordinate the Author Services program, and keeps the Grub space in order. During her free time, she is a reader for Ploughshares and spends most of her Saturdays tutoring students at 826 Boston. A native of the suburbs of Chicago, Rowan now resides in Somerville.

Sean Van Deuren, Volunteer Coordinator

Sean’s role at Grub Street is to help engage members and empower them to create a richer life for themselves here. He also coordinates the internship program, manages volunteers, and runs YAWP. He graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature & Publishing,and a minor in Psychology. At Emerson, he was the President of the long-form improvisational comedy troupe This Is Pathetic, and Editor of Prose for the literary magazine Gangsters In Concrete. During his senior year, Sean won a writing competition hosted by Emerson's Publishing Club and his short story collection, I Am Happy You Are Here, was made into a book. The proceeds from the book launch of I Am Happy You Are Here were all donated to 826 Boston, where Sean volunteers and helps to write grants. Despite being completely harmless in every capacity and having a serious aversion to his own sweat, he still managed to earn a black belt in the martial art of Tae Kwon Do. Sean was raised in Maryland and currently lives in Boston.

Lauren Rheaume, Registrar

Lauren graduated from Bridgewater State University with a degree in English, concentration in writing, and minor in art. There she enjoyed co-editing the student fine arts journal The Bridge. In addition to working at Grub Street, Lauren is the Director of marketing and outreach for The Review Review, a website which reviews literary magazines, interviews journal editors, and offers publishing tips. She grew up on the south coast of Massachusetts, and now resides in Quincy.

Chip Cheek, Head Instructor

Chip Cheek's stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Harvard Review, Washington Square, Night Train, Quick Fiction, and Minnetonka Review, among other publications. His stories also appear in the current edition of the textbook What If: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter (Longman, 2009), and Brevity and Echo: An Anthology of Short Short Stories (Rose Metal Press, 2006). He is the recipient of a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award for 2011, as well as scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop. He is currently at work on a novel.

Drew Arnold, Development Associate

Moving on from a public relations career in the Pacific Northwest, Drew Arnold migrated to the great literary hub of Boston where he is earning an MFA in fiction from UMass-Boston. Previously, he was the founding editor of Whitman College’s undergraduate creative writing magazine, quarterlife. He spent a year writing daily poems based on trending Google search terms. And he currently manages a somewhat monthly fiction readings/events e-newsletter.

Drew joined Grub Street as a Development Intern in the fall of 2012 and was hired as Development Associate the next spring. His role at Grub Street is to give donors the complete Grub experience they deserve.