Meet Our Staff

A Westport native, Amanda Parrish Morgan returned to Connecticut after time in Chicago, Cape Town, Philadelphia and Washington DC. She has worked as a grant writer, high school English teacher, college professor, and Westport Writers Workshop instructor. Her first book, Stroller, was published in 2022 and her shorter work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Wired, The Washington Post, The American Scholar, LitHub, and elsewhere. Amanda lives in Fairfield with her husband and two children where she can often be found out on a long run, renovating her 100-year-old house, or sampling the area’s best ice cream.

Liz is a writer and editor who received her M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts (2008) and M.A. in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Liz began her professional career in publishing, both at a literary agency and as an Editorial Assistant at Random House before teaching middle and high school English at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Quality Women’s Fiction, Town & Country, Literary Mama, Brain Child, Mothers Always Write, The Rumpus, and Big Fiction Little Truths among other places. Liz teaches Introductory & Intermediate Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Creative Writing.

Julianne Mulvey grew up in Alaska, California and Texas. After getting her business degree, she made her way to Manhattan to work as an investment banker specializing in M&A and Project Finance before refocusing on her passions. In addition to her work at Westport Writers’ Workshop, Julianne is also an editor for a large education consulting company and teaches at SoulCycle. Julianne lives in Connecticut with her husband, three children, two dogs, and two cats. She appreciates sarcasm and beautiful sentences.

Julie Sarkissian is the author of Dear Lucy, published by Simon and Schuster and nominated for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her essays, short fiction, and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, The Huffington Post, The New York Observer, and Flavorwire, among others. Born and raised in Southern California, she has a BA in English from Princeton and an MFA from The New School.

She worked for Sackett Street Writers in Brooklyn, NY, as a fiction instructor and manuscript consultant before moving to Westport, CT, with her husband and two young children.

Janae is a New York Times bestselling author who received her M.F.A. in Writing for Children from The New School (2010). Earlier in her professional career, she got an inside look at the publishing world while spending seven years working for Simon & Schuster. In 2020, she published her debut middle-grade novel, From the Desk of Zoe Washington, which received critical acclaim and was named Best Book of the Year by publications such as Parents Magazine, Booklist, Chicago Public Library, and the Boston Globe. She’s since published three additional novels for middle grade readers (On Air with Zoe Washington, A Soft Place to Land, A Split Second), with more on the way. Janae grew up in the NYC suburbs and now lives in Connecticut with her husband, daughter, and miniature schnauzer named Cookie.