Elizabeth Nonemaker

Background

About Elizabeth Nonemaker

I’m a writer, radio/audio producer, and journalist based in Baltimore and New York. I specialize in arts and culture coverage, especially classical music. For two years, I served as the Executive Producer of Podcasts for WQXR, New York’s classical music radio station. Before that, I wrote about classical music for The Baltimore Sun and other publications, and was the managing editor and in-house audio producer for 21CM.org, a digital magazine focused on the topic of artistry and entrepreneurship for musicians in the 21st century. I started out as a pianist and classical composer: I went to music school, wrote commissions for groups like the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society and Definiens Project, and earned residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. But in 2015 I decided to hang up my composing hat to develop my interest in writing. As an arts journalist, I try to fuse my expertise in talking about craft with a people-first approach to storytelling: For me, the best arts coverage illuminates some of the technique behind creative work while deepening the mystery of it, and it humanizes the people and labor that make it possible. I maintain my own artistic practice: These days, it’s writing fiction. I earned an MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction from the University of Maryland, College Park, where I also worked as an instructor of rhetoric and creative writing classes. There, I discovered that teaching is another one of my passions. In the classroom, I worked to create an atmosphere that valued open discussions about students’ mental health and the purpose of their work. Particularly in creative writing workshops, I taught from the conviction that even if a student never wrote another story or poem after the class, the experience of learning empathetic, collaborative exchange in workshop would contribute to an open-minded and imaginative life for years to come. In my free time, I love to get outside, whether it’s hiking, biking, learning how to rock climb — or just a neighborhood walk with my dog.