Sylvia Sukop is passionate about interdisciplinary, intercultural, intergenerational, and interreligious modes of research, teaching, advocacy, and creative collaboration.
Her three-decade career as a writer and independent journalist—and in senior communications/editorial roles in museums, foundations, higher education, and international development—cemented her belief in the power of narrative to intimately illuminate histories and transform public understanding.
In 2016 Sylvia pivoted, moving from Los Angeles to pursue an MFA in Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Graduating in 2018, she was awarded the Senior Teaching Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. She is a recipient of the 2015 Harriet Perl Tzedek Award from Congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim, and of fellowships including Lambda Emerging Writers, PEN Emerging Voices, NewGround: Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, and a Fulbright in Germany. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Sylvia is widely published in journals and anthologies including Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology from Middle America (2020), Journal of Lesbian Studies (2019), Creative Nonfiction (2017), and LAtitudes: An Angeleno’s Atlas (2015).
As director of Washington University’s 2021 Summer Writers Institute, Sylvia initiated community partnerships and launched a public program series free and open to all. The daughter of German immigrants, she volunteers as a Refugee Youth Mentor with the International Institute of St. Louis, and as a mentor for MFA App Review, an initiative aimed at increasing access to fully funded MFA programs and building community among underrepresented writers. She’s an avid cyclist and hiker who misses the inclines (and sometimes the weather) of Southern California.
