Our Board

Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a Washington, DC-based writer, teacher, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She’s the recipient of the following awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities: the 2016 Larry Neal Writers’ Award in Adult Fiction, the 2016 Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding New Artist, and Arts and Humanities Fellowships for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. She is also a 2017 Kimbilio Fellow and winner of the 2018 Robert Gover Story Prize.

Tara earned her MFA from American University in 2019. She teaches fiction in various venues such as American University, The Writer’s Center, Politics and Prose, and the National Gallery of Art’s Writing Salon.

Mark leads BakerHostetler’s International Arbitration and Litigation practice team. His book Squeezing Silver, The Trial of Nelson Bunker Hunt was published in February 2018. He has chapters in two prominent legal books, Going First Makes A Difference: Decision-Making Dynamics in Arbitration (Wolters Kluwer, 2017) and the upcoming Enforcing Arbitral Awards against Foreign States (Cambridge University Press, 2018) 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 is a member of the ICDR and AAA Commercial Panel of Arbitrators, and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has represented governments, major international companies, and individuals in litigation and arbitration nationally and internationally. He is ranked in Chambers Global and The Best Lawyers in America© (International Arbitration – Commercial and Governmental) and is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Sally’s first book-length work was published by Simon and Schuster in 2016. It is a war and family memoir centered on her father, who set up the White House Map Room for President Roosevelt, and his brother who was wounded in the Philippines and taken prisoner shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Sally brings 25 years of executive experience to The Writer’s Center from her career as a speechwriter and media and public relations executive. In the 1980s she was the speechwriter for an FCC commissioner and later its chairman, after which she became the FCC’s News Media Division Chief. In that position she served as the agency spokesperson through a tumultuous period in FCC’s history, beginning with the court-ordered break-up of AT&T, followed by the rapid deregulation of the telecommunications and broadcast industries. After leaving the FCC, she ran her own telecom policy consulting business but returned to the public sector as Director of Legislative Affairs and Public Information at FmHA, the lending agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In this position she managed relations between FmHA and the Congress and news media as well as oversaw the agency’s 1900 field offices. She also represented FmHA on Capitol Hill during the lengthy negotiations over the Farm and Agricultural Appropriations bills. In 1993, she returned to the private sector as a Vice President for Communications at Fleishman Hillard, a global public relations firm. In that position she managed a consortium of telephone companies competing for an FCC license to deliver personal communications services. After the consortium won their bid, she oversaw its public relations campaign as they brought that business to fruition. She later served as Corporate Vice President of Public Relations for two trade associations, The Software Publishers’ Association and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. In addition to her work at TWC, Sally has served on numerous Boards of Directors, including those of The Washington Shakespeare Company, the American Diabetes Association, the Washington Tennis Foundation, and Recording for the Blind. She graduated with a degree in English Literature from Sweet Briar College and spent a year studying Renaissance Literature at the University of Exeter, Great Britain.

John taught English language and literature at the U.S. Naval Academy for almost forty years, in addition to stints at Catholic University, Baruch College CUNY, and Smith College. He specialized in Old and Middle English literature, with interests in the early modern period and in psychological and anthropological approaches. He is the author or editor of books on Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon Lordship, medieval rhetoric and poetics, Chaucer, and the aesthetics of Beowulf and other Old English Poems. Most recently he has published on Chaucer’s Neoplatonism: varieties of love, friendship, and community. Retired from the world of scholarship, he has embarked on the practice of writing fiction. He was a founding member of The Writer’s Center and has taken many workshops in film script writing and the art of fiction. He has served on the Board since the early 1990s.

Joanne Hyppolite is an author, a curator and a mother. As an author she writes children’s books and adult fiction. Two of her popular middle grade novels include Seth and Samona, which won the 1994 Marguerite DeAngeli prize for New Children’s Fiction and Ola Shakes It Up – both of which explore African American and Haitian American intersections. Her short stories have also been published In the Caribbean Writer and The Butterfly’s Way: Voice from the Haitian Dyaspora. As a curator, she is best known for the Cultural Expressions inaugural exhibition at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where the position she holds is Supervisory Museum Curator of the African Diaspora. She is the mother of Charles, now a teenager and who long ago — with good reason — asked why he is never included as an accomplishment in her bios. She holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Miami and an M.A. in Afro-American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. An experienced public speaker, she lectures widely at schools, libraries, and conferences on African American and Caribbean culture.

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

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.

Ofelia Montelongo is a bilingual writer from Mexico. She received a BA in accounting and finance, an MBA, and a BA in English and Creative Writing. She has a MA in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Maryland. Her work has been published in Latino Book Review, Los Acentos Review, Rio Grande Review, and elsewhere. She was the 2019 Writer’s Center Undiscovered Voices Fellow. She currently teaches at the University of Maryland and was a PEN/Faulkner writer in residence in Washington DC. In 2021, she was named one of the PEN America Emerging Voices Fellows. ofeliamontelongo.com

Bill graduated from B-CC high school in 1967, when The Writer’s Center was the Bethesda Youth Center and he acted in plays on the Center’s stage. He left Bethesda for Trinity College in Hartford, CT, where he graduated in 1971 with a degree in English Literature and where he has served on the Board of Trustees and as Secretary of the College. He has served on the board of the Writer’s Center since 1999. Bill is the Sr. Managing Principal of MCS Capital LLC, a private equity fund sponsored by Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS) that invests in value-added hotel opportunities. Bill and Marcus formed the venture in 2011. Prior to MCS, Bill was Chief Investment Officer for Thayer Lodging Group in Annapolis; managing director of Hospitality Capital Partners for USAA Real Estate; Chief Investment Officer for MeriStar Hospitality REIT in Washington; and a principal in Dallas-based Metro Hotels. He also headed marketing for a CT and TX developer of apartments and condominiums, Portfolio Management, Inc. He is a member of the Hotel Development Council of the Urban Land Institute, serves on the steering committee of Americas Lodging Investment Summit, the New York City Hospitality Council and is a former trustee of the American Resort Development Association. He is also a director of Carey Watermark Investors, a non-traded REIT. He is a frequent speaker at lodging industry investment conferences and universities.

Chet’la Sebree is the author of Field Study, awarded the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Mistress, awarded the 2018 New Issues Poetry Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She has been awarded fellowships from Baldwin for the Arts, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Yaddo, and her work has appeared in The Yale Review, The New Republic, Kenyon Review, and Guernica. She is an assistant professor at George Washington University.

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.