Staff
Sharon Oard Warner
Director
Sharon Oard Warner is Professor of English at the University of New Mexico. She is also Founding Director of UNM's Taos Summer Writers' Conference, which each July attracts writers from across the U.S. and around the world for a week of workshops and community. In 2006, the Taos Conference was recognized by USA Today as one of the ten great writers conferences in the nation. From 1998-2008, she served as director of creative writing. During her tenure as director, she rebuilt the program, instituted the new MFA degree, and negotiated the Joseph M. Russo Endowment.
Professor Warner is an active and involved teacher and writer. Since coming to UNM in 1994, she has been the recipient of three teaching awards: The Keleher Award for Outstanding Assistant Professor (1997); the Gunter Starkey Award for Teaching Excellence from the College of Arts & Sciences (2000); and the Wertheim Endowed Lectureship (2001). In 2007, the Board of Regents honored her with the Sarah Belle Brown Award for distinguished public service.
She has published three books—a collection of short fiction, an edited anthology, and a novel, Deep in the Heart, which was reissued in Australia/New Zealand and the Netherlands. She is currently completing a revision of her new novel, Sophie’s House of Cards. Her stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Laurel Review, Other Voices, Green Mountains Review, and elsewhere. Her scholarly essays have appeared in Studies in the Novel, Studies in the Short Story, Best Writing on Writing, The Writer’s Handbook, and in selected anthologies.
Barbara van Buskirk
Assistant Director
Barb began working with the UNM Taos Summer Writers’ Conference in November 2006 with more than a decade of department administrator experience at the University under her belt. She also has worked in arts administration at the Cape Ann Historical Association and Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. After earning her M.S. in Mass Communications from Boston University, Barb worked for a number of years in corporate communications as a writer, graphic designer and editor.
In 2000, Barb’s professional career as a visual artist took off. Her work has been exhibited in a number of national and international juried shows, and has had continuous gallery representation. Her monotypes are in public and private collections. For more information, go to Barb’s website at www.bvanb.com.
