 Faye Rapoport DesPres is a career freelance journalist and business/non-profit writer. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College's Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Newton, Massachusetts, and currently writes creative nonfiction, poetry and journalism.
Faye's maternal grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s and settled in the South Bronx, where her mother was raised. Her father is a Holocaust survivor who arrived in New York as a teenager after World War II. Faye was born in New York City, but grew up in a rural area of upstate New York after her parents moved north when she was six years old.
Faye began writing as a child, and went on to earn a Bachelor's Degree in English and American Literature at Brandeis University. Her love for animals and the outdoors led to a master's degree at the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry, where she studied environmental science and journalism. She spent her early career in the communications departments of environmental organizations working to protect wildlife and natural resources. At one point Faye wrote a bi-weekly column for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, "The Nature of Things," which was published in weekly newspapers throughout Massachusetts. She also produced "The Massachusetts Audubon Society Radio Show" for WADN, Walden Radio. During this period Faye also published poems in small literary journals.
In 1999, Faye won a Colorado Press Association award while working as a staff writer for a Denver weekly. Her freelance work has since appeared in Animal Life, Trail and Timberline and other publications. In 2005, she wrote a variety of short news items for The New York Times travel section.
Faye's mentors at Pine Manor included Joy Castro, Michael Steinberg, Randall Kenan and Laban Carrick Hill. She also attended workshops with Amy Hoffman and Ray Gonzalez.
Currently, Faye lives in the Boston area with her husband, Jean-Paul DesPres, three indoor cats, and several feral cats she cares for with help from The Cat Connection. She works as a freelancer, writes, and dreams about having a dog someday, along with a little goat named Fairfield. |
