Alissa Butterworth

Alissa Butterworth author, editor and educator. She received her MFA in fiction from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, and her BA in creative writing and English literature from Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA. Her work, both prose and poetry, has appeared online and in print in such publications as The Alumni Arts Review, Prolog and The Reading Eagle. Her short story "Concerning the Death of Leighton Caulfield" was named an honorable mention in the 11th Annual NYC Midnight Short Story Contest. Alissa was also a finalist in the 2019 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest.

Alissa's short story "The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves" debuted as part of the Satellite Collective's Telephone international Art exhibit in the spring of 2021, and the piece was published in the accompanying print anthology put out by Crosstown Press.

Alissa has appeared on television and the radio, and has interned with both the Reading Eagle and Consequence magazine. In addition, she's worked as a reader for several literary magazines. Alissa's also a proud student committee alum of the Emerging Writer's Festival, hosted by Franklin and Marshall College, a week-long event for students and the larger community that brings new writers and poets to the Lancaster, PA area to foster literary culture each spring.

She has been the recipient of the Hensel Award, a Hackman summer research grant, and a Marshall Grant and scholarship from the Key West Literary Seminar to attend the "Emerging Writer's Seminar" in Key West, FL. She's pursued scholarly research and presented academic papers on topics as varied as religious influences in the dramas of Christopher Marlowe, to the emergence of the novel, to the function of an absent character in fiction. Her academic interests include American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century, narrative structure, and characterization--though she is an avid reader of anything she can get her hands on and enjoys most of it.

Alissa has completed her first novel, The Prodigal; and is working on or currently hatching several other book-length projects, as well as shorter pieces. Though her primary genre is fiction, she also works in poetry, journalism, creative nonfiction and memoir. She has taught creative writing to young teens through graduate students, and runs a popular and longstanding Writer's Workshop in Arlington, MA. She is particularly interested in helping students discover (or rediscover) their own voices and gifts. Alissa has a rotating roster of other writing and literature classes she teaches, as well.

Alissa regularly consults with writers independently to help them develop ideas and projects, to be a set of professional eyes partway through or at the completion of a manuscript, or to otherwise assist a writer through the writing process. She's worked with writers developing short as well as longterm manuscripts, including grants, micro/flash pieces, novels, fiction and nonfiction.

Alissa also offers independent, one-on-one learning experiences curated especially for individual writers. Topics explored can be anything from learning about the writing process, setting up a sustainable writing practice, the mechanics of grammar, or a deep dive into a writing topic you'd like to know more about.

If you are interested in working with her in this capacity, or to consult on a project, please feel free to get in touch!