Our Board

Rachel Coonce is an award-winning nonfiction writer, literary arts community leader, and expert in broadcast audio and video production. Her nonfiction has received awards from New Letters magazine, The Missouri Review, and the Maryland State Arts Council. She is the recipient of an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, a BA from St. John’s College, and a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is cofounder and Executive Director of The Inner Loop, a literary arts nonprofit in Washington, DC.

Mark was the founder and leader of BakerHostetler’s International Arbitration and Litigation practice team. He is a member of the ICDR and AAA Commercial Panel of Arbitrators, and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. His two books – written after taking Writer’s Center workshops – are Squeezing Silver, The Trial of Nelson Bunker Hunt (2018) and The Case of the Welched Reward (2023). His photography exhibition will be on display at the Center in July 2025. He has chapters in three prominent legal books, Going First Makes A Difference: Decision-Making Dynamics in Arbitration (Wolters Kluwer, 2017), Enforcing Arbitral Awards against Foreign States (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and the upcoming Key Features of Arbitration and Litigation Involving Private Parties and Foreign States (Elgar, 2025). He has numerous articles in professional journals such as “Cross Examination in International Arbitration in Disputes Resolution Journal,” “Barricades at The IMF: Creating A Municipal Bankruptcy Code For Foreign States,” The International Lawyer, and “Welcome to the Jury System: Supreme Court Limits Sovereign Immunity for State-Owned Companies” in Business Law International. As a speaker on litigation, arbitration, and sovereign immunity issues, he has appeared at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, and American Bar Association and International Bar Association conventions. He has represented foreign governments, major international companies, and businesspeople in litigation and arbitration nationally and internationally. He is ranked in Chambers Global and The Best Lawyers in America© and is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Attorney William DeVinney has a broad litigation practice that includes antitrust, intellectual property, employment, securities and other complex commercial litigation. He has extensive trial experience, both as a member of trial teams and as first chair in jury and bench trials, arbitrations proceedings, and regulatory hearings, and has argued cases before several federal and state appellate courts.

Ariel Felton is a GA-born journalist and essayist with over a decade of experience in feature writing, travel writing, and copywriting. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Vogue, The New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” section, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Bitter Southerner, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Savannah Magazine, Under the Gum Tree, and more. Her essay “A Letter to My Niece,” first published in The Progressive, was listed as notable in Best American Essays 2020. Previously based in Savannah, GA, Ariel served on the boards of several literary nonprofits, including the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home Foundation, the Savannah Book Festival and Seersucker Live.

Varun Gauri’s debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus, was selected for NPR’s Books We Love 2024, chosen as a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner in Adult Fiction, and won the 2024 Carol Trawick Fiction Prize. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recognized in Best American Nonrequired Reading. Varun teaches courses in behavioral economics and development economics at Princeton University. Previously, he was an economist in the World Bank’s research department, where he founded and headed the World Bank’s behavioral science unit, eMBeD. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Behavioral Science and Policy, BMJ Global Health, and Health and Human Rights, as well as on the World Economic Forum Council on Behavior, the advisory board of the Center on Law and Social Transformation, the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Behavioral Science, the OECD Expert Group on Behavioral Insights, the Board of the Behavioral Economics Action Research Centre at the University of Toronto, and the American Political Science Association Task Force on Democratic Imperatives. His research has appeared in top journals in economics, political science, and philosophy and has been covered in The New York Times, The Economist, Le Monde, The Hindu, The Guardian, and Frontline.

Shelby Settles Harper is an award-winning fiction writer and an attorney with expertise in federal Indian law, civil rights, and civil liberties. She is an enrolled citizen of the Caddo Nation, an Indian tribe in western Oklahoma. Shelby’s writing explores race, class, gender, and identity. She holds a JD from the University of Colorado School of Law, an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and a BA in Political Science from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. From 2014-2017, she proudly served as an ambassadorial spouse in Geneva, Switzerland. Shelby is from Muskogee, Oklahoma and resides in Chevy Chase, Maryland with her family.

Angie Kim moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy, she studied philosophy at Stanford University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her debut novel, Miracle Creek, won the Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, and was named one of the 100 best mysteries and thrillers of all time by Time, and one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and the Today show. Happiness Falls, her second novel, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a book club pick for Good Morning America, Barnes & Noble, Belletrist, and Book of the Month Club.

Eugenia Kim’s debut novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, won the 2009 Borders Original Voices Award, was shortlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was a Washington Post Best Historical Novel and Critic’s Pick. Her second novel, The Kinship of Secrets, was a nominee for the New American Voices Award, a Library Reads best book of November and Hall of Fame list for 2018, and an Amazon Best Book of the Month/Literature and Fiction. Several of her short fictions and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. She is a two-time Washington DC, Council on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship recipient, and received fellowships at Yaddo, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and elsewhere. She was a judge for the PEN/Faulkner 2022 Fiction Award, and she teaches fiction and nonfiction at Fairfield University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. eugenia-kim.com

Steve Majors is the author of High Yella: A Modern Family Memoir and the forthcoming graphic novel, Light Bright. Steve’s writing explores issues of race, class, culture and identity and his personal essays have been published in national outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, CNN.com and NBC Think.

Steve’s writing skills were honed as a journalist. For many decades he worked as a TV producer, first in major TV markets across the country, and then in New York where he held successive leadership positions at CNBC, MSNBC and NBC’s Weekend TODAY show.

Most recently, he’s led marketing and communications for national nonprofits. He is currently chief of external affairs at Teach For America.

Jim is a 40-year veteran of marketing communications. When asked to define marketing success, his answer is to find simplicity in complex ideas: “Marketing is selling people what they want or making them want what you have to sell.” As an innovator in traffic safety advertising, Jim has directed marketing campaigns that have focused on teen drivers and pedestrian safety, among other issues. His clients have included AARP, The Department of Energy, and Printing Industries of America. Prior to his work in advertising and marketing, Jim toured with and managed a music group called Happy Feet, which backed recording artists including Chubby Checker, Lou Rawls, and Chuck Berry.

Karen Outen’s debut novel Dixon, Descending (Dutton, 2024) was a Library Journal Editor’s Pick, was shortlisted for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and was longlisted for both the Crook’s Corner Book Prize and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, The North American Review, Essence, and in the anthologies Where Love is Found and Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood. Her essays have been published in Scoundrel Times, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, and the anthology From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and their Machines. She received a 2018 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Careers in the Making Fellowship from the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She has taught writing at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MFA, and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She is the 2025-26 Writer-in-Residence for the Howard County (MD) Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo).

After many years as a trial and appellate lawyer, David O. Stewart became a writer of history and historical fiction. David’s most recent book, George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, was published on February 9, 2021. His previous histories have explored the writing of the Constitution, the gifts of James Madison, the western expedition and treason trial of Aaron Burr, and the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. His histories have won the Washington Writing Award for best book of the year, the History Prize of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the William H. Prescott Award of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. David also has written three historical mysteries set in the early twentieth century: The Lincoln Deception (called the best historical novel of 2013 by Bloomberg View), The Paris Deception, and The Babe Ruth Deception. In 2011, David founded the online book review, The Washington Independent Review of Books, and currently serves on the organization’s board. He also served on the boards of the Friends of the Library of Montgomery County and Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church.

Meera Trehan took her first fiction writing class at The Writer’s Center and has been a fan ever since. Meera is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Stanford Law School. She practiced public interest law, with a focus on worker’s right, voting rights, and constitutional law before turning to creative writing. She is actively involved with the children’s writing community through the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Highlights Foundation. Her debut novel, The View from the Very Best House in Town, released in the US and UK in 2022 and was named a Junior Library Guild Selection (audio book and print book) and an Amazon’s Editor Pick. Her second novel is forthcoming in 2024.

Mier, then Mayor of the adjacent Town of Chevy Chase, went over to welcome The Writer’s Center and Al Lefcowitz when the organization moved to Chevy Chase in 1992. Al immediately recruited Mr. Wolf for the Center board. Since then, Mr. Wolf has worked on a number of community outreach projects for the Center, most recently creating the high school writing competition. Mr. Wolf coordinated board officer nominations for some years as well. He is a retired attorney, having worked most of his career in the Office Of General Counsel at HUD in both litigation and grant advisory capacities. His non-professional life has been devoted to volunteer activities ranging from Town service to serving on boards of numerous organizations, including Round House Theatre. Mr. Wolf has received awards from the U.S. Congress, the State of Maryland, Montgomery County and the Town for his many years of volunteer efforts. He worked for Montgomery County as a part time Senior Fellow assigned to create an international Sister Cities program. Originally from Austin, MN (“Spamtown USA”), Mr. Wolf has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and J.D. from St. John’s University.