Tanya Whiton is a Portland, Maine-based writer. An itinerant childhood in a military family has greatly influenced both her writing and her determination to stay in one place as an adult. Although the traveling urge often overtakes her, Maine is her home and haven.

Ms. Whiton’s stories and poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Solstice, A Magazine of Diverse Voices; The Way Life Should Be: Contemporary Stories By Maine Writers, North Dakota Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Northwest Review, Crazyhorse 63 American Fiction: Volume 10, Words & Images, and The Café Review.

After earning a Masters Degree in Fiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2001, Ms. Whiton taught creative writing, literature, and composition for the University of Southern Maine for six years, in addition to teaching workshops for MWPA, Stonecoast Summer Writers’ Conference, and the Lesley Seminars.

From 2001–2005, she was a regular contributor to the Portland Phoenix, where her pieces on boxing and no-holds-barred fighting won two New England Press Association Awards. She has also published numerous articles about healthcare, dance and performance art, fashion, food, and travel, and contributed work to Casco Bay Weekly, The Bollard, and Maine Public Radio.

The recipient of the 2009 Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Poets, and the 2000 Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Fiction Writers, she has performed her work in venues ranging from the Black Cat in Washington D.C. to the Big Buck Mall in Washington, Maine. She collaborated on the adaptation of her short story “The Deal,” into an eponymous short film, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2003 U.S. National Short Film Competition.

Ms. Whiton is currently at work on a collection of interrelated short stories and a poem series about growing up as a Navy brat. She is the Assistant Director of the Solstice Creative Writing Programs of Pine Manor College.