Conference Faculty
Faculty bios:
Louisa Burns-Bisogno is an award-winning screenwriter, director, author, and international consultant with over 100 on-screen credits. Her movies have been produced on cable TV. and on all the major U.S. networks, as well as distributed internationally. Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Vanessa Redgrave are among the stars in her productions. Louisa has been a writing consultant to Russian and Italian TV. She has also written for popular American series such as The Young and the Restless and As the World Turns. Many of her stage plays have been produced. She has arranged for WestConn students to participate in Stage Readings of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York.
Brian Coutu is a graduate student at Western Connecticut State University, completing his Masters of Fine Arts in Professional writing. His passion for video games has spanned over two decades from the very beginnings of home consoles. His writing has appeared on numerous gaming websites including thatvideogameblog.com as well as IGN. com.
Kelly L. Goodridge has taught writing for over a decade at WCSU. She has written for The Ridgefield Press and Lewisboro Ledger and was awarded the Arthur R. Riel, Jr. Freelance Journalism Award at Fairfield University. Kelly's recent publications include essays in Reel Rebels, SFRA’s When Genres Collide and TV Rebels: People and Programs That Shaped the Medium, Volumes 1 and 2, and "Madame Luna," in a short story collection. Forthcoming publications include When the Ape-Hawk Strikes: Book One of A Modern Bestiary (a co-authored YA novel). Kelly holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, a M.A. in English from WCSU and a B.A. in English Writing from Fairfield University. She is a regular placement essay scorer for the WCSU Building a Bridge to Improve Student Success Program. Kelly can be contacted at kellyhasclass@sbcglobal.net.
James Lomuscio has been a journalist for 35 years, writing for Gannett, the New York Times, Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, and he is currently Associate Editor for WesportNow.com, an online news site covering Wesport, Connecticut. He also served as Editor of the Westport News and Westport Magazine and has won numerous writing awards, including three First Place awards from the New England Press Association and a First Place from the Society of Professional Journalists.
His book, Village of the Dammed: The Fight for Open Space and the Flooding of a Connecticut Town was a finalist for the 2006 Connecticut Book Award. He is also the author of the McGraw-Hill text Writing with Your Head and Your Heart: Balancing Logic and Emotion to Create Powerful Nonfiction. Mr. Lomuscio teaches journalism and creative writing in Western Connecticut State University's Department of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process, and he has served as a mentor in the university's MFA in Professional Writing Program.
Lynne Paris-Purtle has taught literature and writing for 29 years at WCSU and is currently an instructor in the Department of Writing, Linguistics and the Creative Process. In addition, she co-owns Campus Connections, a college admissions counseling business. She also scores freshman admissions essays for WCSU. Her publications include Dragonfly Wings, a collection of poetry, and A Hole in the Sky, a new poetry collection. Upcoming publications include Eggsistentialism, a memoir about her family’s experiences raising six baby chicks in suburbia. Works in progress include The Disadvantage Advantage: Raising Academically-Successful Children on a Shoestring and Nest For Rent, a novel.
Oscar De Los Santos is Chair of the Writing Department at WCSU. Oscar has written and edited several fiction and non-fiction books, including Hardboiled Egg, Infnite Wonderlands and Madame Luna and other Moon stories.
Marjorie Salem is presently an adjunct professor of writing at Western, after teaching English for thirty-one years at Bethel High School in Bethel, Connecticut. She has written for and edited newspapers, journals, doctoral dissertations, essays, short stories, and poetry.
Jasmine Dreame Wagner is the author of two chapbooks: Listening for Earthquakes (Caketrain Journal and Press, 2012) and CHARCOAL (For Arbors, 2008.) Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Aufgabe, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, New American Writing, Verse, and The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012.) Her fiction has appeared in the Seattle Review and Lost and Found: Stories from New York (Mr. Beller's Neighborhood Books, distributed by W.W. Norton, 2009.) A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Montana, Jasmine has received grants and fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Hall Farm Center for Arts & Education, Kultuuritehas Polymer, and The Wassaic Project. She lives in Connecticut where she teaches creative writing at Western Connecticut State University and makes folk and experimental pop music as Cabinet of Natural Curiosities.
