Linda Benjamin, LCSW, has been a clinical social worker for over thirty years. She was Supervisor of Program Development at WNET/Thirteen in New York. She hosted a live self-help radio program in New York City; wrote and aired her humorous radio segments Psychobabble, on Milwaukee’s NPR. She has published articles in The New York Times, Chicago Woman, and The Woman’s Newspaper of Princeton.
Dylan Bennett teaches political science at UWM’s College of General Studies with an emphasis on world politics including comparative political economy.
Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets, is the author of five poetry collections including Copper Yearning (2019), Apprenticed to Justice (2007), and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance (2020). An enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, Blaeser is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, a Professor Emeritus at UW–Milwaukee, and an MFA faculty member at Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. She lives in rural Wisconsin; and, for portions of each year, in a water-access cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota. Additional information is available here: http://kblaeser.org
Ellen Bravo is a long-time activist and author who worked with 9to5, the National Association of Working Women, for over 20 years, and co-founded the Family Values @ Work network which helped win paid leave and paid sick days policies around the country. She is the author of three non-fiction books, including Taking On the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation. Her first novel, Again and Again, about date rape and politics, was published in 2015. Ellen is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Visionary Award.
Simon J. Bronner is Dean of the College of General Studies and Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with campuses in Waukesha and Washington County. He is the author and editor of over 40 books, including Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies which he will discuss at the Festival of Books. Among his honors and awards are the Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award and Kenneth Goldstein Memorial Award for academic leadership from the American Folklore Society, Mary Turpie Prize from the American Studies Association, and the National Jewish Book Award from the Jewish Book Council. He is the editor of several book series, including Material Worlds for the University Press of Kentucky and Folklore and Ethnology for Rowman & Littlefield, and the journal Jewish Folklore and Ethnology. Before coming to UWM, he taught at Harvard University, Penn State University, University of California-Davis, Missouri University of Science & Technology, Osaka University (Japan), and Leiden University (Netherlands).
Dawn Burns is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction, and founder and co-organizer of the SwampFire Retreat. She was the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Fiction and has twice received the Paul Somers Prize for Creative Prose from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. Dawn’s book Evangelina Everyday tells the story of Evangelina McQuarry, an Indiana housewife who may appear simple and uncomplicated, but whose rich inner life is revealed as she prays for Downton Abbey characters, watches cockroaches, thinks about teeth, and ponders the worth of her unhappy life in hopes that it might one day change. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Women Under Scrutiny: An Anthology of Truths, Essays, Poems, Stories and Art, Gemini Magazine, The Offbeat, and MidAmerica. Dawn, an assistant professor in Michigan State University, teaches in the First-Year Writing Program. She is currently compiling five years of writing and sunrise photographs over Indiana’s Lake Wawasee into her, Dawn at Dawn: Sunrise Reflections. To find out more, visit dawnburns42.com.
Natalie Caña loves to incorporate her you’ll-never-believe-what-just-happened-to-me personal experiences, enthusiasm for telenovela tomfoolery, and love for her Latinx culture into creating funny, heartfelt, and just a little bit over-the-top contemporary romances for characters who look and sound like her.
Thomas Cannon was selected as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Oshkosh, WI in August 2021. He is the author of the books The Tao of Apathy and Shattered. His poems and short stories have been published in various journals such as Midwestern Gothic and Corvus Review. He and his wife have three children and two grandkids. Please connect with him at thomascannonauthor.com.
Louis V Clark III was born on the Oneida reservation of Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960’s, Clark learned to stand up for what he thought was right, aided by the guiding hand of many influential people. He joined forces with his beautiful wife during their high school years and together they ran away to build their own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way including a poetry professor who said that what he wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what he wrote was any good that it was already being done. Clark continued to write. In Clark’s fifth decade the University of Arkansas along with the Sequoyah National Research Center published his chapbook “Two Shoes.” This work received an Oneida Fellowship Award and a Wisconsin Arts Board Award. In 2016 the Wisconsin Historical Society Press published his Memoir in Poetry and prose “How to be an Indian in the 21st Century.” This book received the 2017 Midwest Booksellers Choice Award as well as Oneida/Wisconsin Arts Board Award. WHSP published his follow up book, “Rebel Poet” in 2018 and this work received a Midwest Independent Publishers Book award. Clark currently has a play “Little Boy Lost/Stupid Indian” scheduled for airing on public radio sometime this year.
Portia E. Cobb is a professor of Film, Video & New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee — an interdisciplinary artist working in documentary, photography and poetry. She draws inspiration from personal and collective history and memory to create work concerned with the politics of identity, place, dislocation and forced forgetting. Portia’s short documentary videos center her family’s Gullah Geechee heritage and have screened globally. Recent poems appear in poetry Through this Door: Wisconsin in Poems (2020); and Where I Want to Live: Poems for Fair & Affordable Housing (2018). She is currently working on her first poetry and photographic collection.
Deb DiSandro is the owner of Speak Up On Purpose and the founder of Business Speaker Academy, the place where authors and speakers go to practice the art of speaking to grow their businesses. www.debdisandro.com. During her 17-years as a newspaper columnist, Deb found her humorous voice, which culminated in her book, Tales of a Slightly Off Supermom: Fighting for Truth, Justice and Clean Underwear, Pelican Publishing, 2003. Deb was first featured in the Milwaukee Journal and her column appeared in the Sussex Sun, Waukesha Freeman, the Chicagoland Daily Herald, and other regional newspapers and magazines. National publications include Writer’s Digest, Woman’s Day and Better Homes and Gardens. As a writing instructor, Deb spoke at the Erma Bombeck’s Writer’s Conference, National Society of Newspaper Columnists Convention and other local and regional writing workshops. Her writing career led to a one-woman comedy show, comedy club appearances, storytelling awards, a TEDx Talk and 30 years as a National Speaker.
Chip Duncan has produced more than fifty non-fiction films for international broadcast and distribution. His work as a photographer and filmmaker has taken him to ice fields, war zones, slums, shipyards, museums, palaces, vineyards, beaches, deserts, rainforests, savannahs, and farmlands. He counts Peru, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and rural Kenya among his favorite places. Duncan’s previous books include the short story collection Half A Reason To Die (Select Books, NYC, 2017), photographic collections Inspiring Change (Thunder House Press, Milwaukee, 2019) and Enough To Go Around (Select Books, NYC, 2009). Duncan also speaks publicly on the impact of climate change as part of The Three Tenors of Climate Change. Ewaso Village is Duncan’s first book of poetry, and the first in a trilogy featuring indigenous cultures from around the world.
Tim Dunn is an associate professor of philosophy. His research interests include ethics, applied ethics, political philosophy, and the intersection of philosophy and popular culture. He is the co-author of a book on popular culture’s treatment of issues involving work-life balance. Most recently he submitted a paper for publication in a volume of papers on The Godfather and Philosophy.
Anna Esterle is a 16-year old high school senior. She is taking classes at UWM and doing independent study for her education. She just finished her first poetry book, Evening Dreaming, and is currently submitting to publishers. Anna has been writing poetry most of her life and always hopes to put those big emotions into a couple words.
Elly Fishman worked as a senior editor and writer at Chicago magazine. Her features have won numerous awards including a City Regional Magazine Award for her article “Welcome to Refugee High,” her first report on the students and faculty at Chicago’s Roger C. Sullivan High School. Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (The New Press) is based on the article, and won the prestigious Studs and Ida Terkel Prize for a first book in the public interest. A Chicago native and graduate of The University of Chicago, Fishman currently lives in Milwaukee with her husband and their daughter.
Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of federal Indian law, American Indian tribal law, Anishinaabe legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal ethics, and he sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Professor Fletcher also sits as an appellate judge for the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska, and the Tulalip Tribes. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.
Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer with over thirty novels and countless games published to date. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, 10 ENnies, and 17 Origins Awards. His latest work includes Biomutant, the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game, and the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels. He lives in Beloit, WI, with his wife and a rotating cast of his college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.
Barb Geiger spent her teaching career in Two Rivers and Waukesha, Wisconsin, surrounded by young children and wonderful books. Now retired, Barb attends AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop, pursuing her own dream of writing. Her first book, Paddle for a Purpose (eLectio Publishing, 2018), won First Place in the memoir category of the 2019 PenCraft Awards for Literary Excellence. Barb’s poetry and creative nonfiction have been accepted into the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poet’s 2021 Calendar and numerous Pure Slush anthologies. Her poem collection, Mississippi Meanderings, was awarded first place in the 2021 NaMoWriMo Poetry Chapbook Contest and is awaiting publication by Local Gems Press. Barb lives in Waukesha, Wisconsin, with her husband, Gene, and their chinchilla, Raji. She enjoys spending time bicycling, kayaking, reading, traveling and volunteering for a variety of organizations.
Kathie Giorgio is the author of seven novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and three poetry collections. Her newest poetry chapbook, Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku, was released in 8/2022. Her eighth novel, Hope Always Rises, will be released in 3/2023. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award In Fiction. Her poem “Light” won runner-up in the 2021 Rosebud Magazine Poetry Prize. In a recent column, Jim Higgins, the books editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, listed Giorgio as one of the top 21 Wisconsin writers of the 21st century.
Olivia Giorgio is a 22-year old senior at Mount Mary University, majoring in art therapy. Her poetry has been published in literary magazines, and is the finale in the poetry chapbook, Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku, written by her mother, Kathie Giorgio. She is nearly finished with the first draft of her novel. A gifted violinist, Olivia plays in the first violin section with the Wisconsin Intergenerational Orchestra. Making art is also a passion.
Margaret Hankenson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UWM at Waukesha. She teaches courses in Civil Liberties, American Government, Criminal Justice, and Public Policy. Her research interests are in media coverage of the presidency. She lives in the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee with her husband and two poodles.
Mary Catherine Harper, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award winner and two-time recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, was selected as the 2019 Ohio Arts Council Poetry Resident at the Fine Arts Work Center of Cape Cod. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and her chapbook, Some Gods Don’t Need Saints, (Finishing Line Press 2016) is available at Amazon.com. She co-organizes the yearly SwampFire Retreat (swampfire.org) for artists and writers. Her 2022 collection, The Found Object Imagines a Life: New and Selected Poems, is available at Cornerstone Press. See marycatherineharper.org for more information.
Elisabeth Harrahy’s work has appeared in Zone 3, Constellations, The Café Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Passengers Journal, Ghost City Review, Plainsongs, I-70 Review and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She received an Editor’s Choice Award in the Paterson Literary Review’s 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. Her poem, “Center of the Universe,” was awarded second place in the Jade Ring Writing Contest. She is an associate professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Leslie J. Harris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research focuses on rhetoric and public culture at the intersections of gender, race, and class. She is the author of State of the Marital Union: Rhetoric, Identity, and Nineteen-Century Marriage Controversies, and her most recent book on sex trafficking rhetoric is being published by Michigan State University Press. She is one of the principal investigators on Voices of Gun Violence, a public humanities project that has received funding from the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the Waterhouse Family Institute, and the National Communication Association.
Ross Hightower, after spending most of his life in the south, somehow found himself living in Milwaukee and loving it. One cold, snowy morning, not too long ago, he woke with a story stuck in his head. That wasn’t unusual, but what happened next was unprecedented. He wrote it down. That small story grew into his first novel, Spirit Sight. Now, with his second novel, Argren Blue, due next May, you might wonder why it took him so long to find his calling in life. He’s just grateful he has.
BW Hoff, thanks to her mom, grew up with Jim Rockford, Thomas Magnum and the Simon brothers. Her mom also gave BW Hoff her first mystery book on her tenth birthday. It was about a young girl named Trixie Beldon and a mysterious manor. This book saved BW Hoff during her tortuous stay at summer camp for one horrid week. Trixie Beldon was also the start of BW Hoff’s mystery obsession. Fast forward to her senior year of high school, BW Hoff won a writing honor, the Quill & Scroll Award, and ate at a banquet. It was there when she promised to her creative writing teacher that she would keep writing. So, in college, BW Hoff graduated with a BFA, minoring in graphic design. BW Hoff was aware that this made no sense. Many years have passed and, currently, BW Hoff is a new humorous mystery writer, emphasis on the word humorous. BW Hoff writes primarily to put smiles on people’s faces. During her spare time, she watches television with her husband, teases her two children, dines with her mom and dad, swims with her cousin, walks with friends and laughs with her older brother and sister-in-law. She also enjoys listening to 1920s Jazz and sleeping, but absolutely despises putting laundry away.
Elizabeth Hoover is the author of The Archive Is All in Present Tense, winner of the 2021 Barrow Street Book Prize. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in the North American Review, the Kenyon Review, and StoryQuarterly. She teaches in the English Department at Webster University in St. Louis.
Robert Glenn Howard is founder and Director of Digital Studies and DesignLab and Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has published six books and numerous articles and book chapters. Since the mid 1990s, Rob has researched and written about everyday and informal communication online. His 2011 book, Digital Jesus, was a 10 year history of conservative Christian communities online. His most recent works have explored communities of firearms users online with a forthcoming coedited collection of essays titled GunLore. Currently he is researching a single authored study of gun culture in the United States more broadly tilted GunTalk: Everyday Discourse, Weaponized. Rob is also affiliate faculty in the Information School, The School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Religious Studies Program, the Folklore Program, as well as on the advisory board for the Computer, Data, and Information Sciences Division.
I.S. Jones is an American/Nigerian poet, essayist and former music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, LA Review of Books, The Rumpus, The Offing, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Poetry at UW–Madison where she was the inaugural 2019–2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship and is the 2021-2022 Hoffman Hall Emerging Artist Fellowship recipient. For the last three years, she served the Director of the Watershed Reading Series with Art + Literature Laboratory. She is currently an instructor with Brooklyn Poets and the Editor-in-Chief of Frontier Poetry.
Nancy Jorgensen wrote the 2019 memoir Go, Gwen, Go: A Family’s Journey to Olympic Gold and the 2022 biography Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete. Both were co-authored with daughter Elizabeth Jorgensen and published by Meyer & Meyer Sport. A high school choir director for many years, Nancy is the author of two music education books, Things They Never Taught You in Choral Methods and From The Trenches: Real Insights from Real Choral Educators. Her essays and creative nonfiction appear in Ruminate, Prime Number Magazine, River Teeth, Wisconsin Public Radio, CHEAP POP, and elsewhere. In her free time, she performs in early music groups and collaborates on the piano with brass and woodwind players. Find out more at NancyJorgensen.weebly.com
Jenny Kalvaitis has a master’s degree in Public History from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, and she has worked in informal education and museum education for over ten years.
Alice Kehoe is an archaeologist who struggled for years to be accepted as a professional, although a woman. Her memoir, Girl Archaeologist: Sisterhood in a Sexist Profession, describes her childhood under a patriarchal father who disapproved of college for women, the heaven of a women’s college strongly supporting students’ intellectual pursuits, then the contrasting “benign neglect” of Harvard’s graduate program toward women. Marrying a fellow archaeologist enabled Kehoe to carry out fieldwork, until his ill-managed diabetes curtailed his fieldwork and hers as well. Teaching at Marquette University, she was underpaid and without support for teaching or research, but managed to travel and carry out research in a variety of countries, and to publish textbooks and research results, and many scholarly papers.
Jeff Konkol is a classical pianist and marginal triathlete, and is permitted to live in the sprawling home of four very large cats. He published his first table top RPG, Of gods and Men, in the early 90s, and has been running games within that setting ever since. He recently returned to writing with the hope of sharing those stories with a wider audience. His series, Rebirth of the Fallen, includes three novels, Citadel of the Fallen, Gathering of the Fallen, and The Flight of the Fallen. Book 4, The Crumbling City, will be released in December 2022.
Anne Lehman is retired from Milwaukee Area Technical College as a teacher of English and Speech. She began taking writing workshops with AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop so that she could put together her family portrait into poems. She finds being with a group of other writers offering suggestions to improve her work, as well as inspiring new ideas. The reflections on her life have run the gamut of emotions from laughter to tears and having other writers comment and encourage is helpful because of common goals.
Pao Lor, author of Modern Jungles, is professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. In Modern Jungles, Pao shares his unassuming and transformative childhood journey from his isolated, tribal village in central Laos to the heartland of America, an inspirational coming of age story capturing the essence of the enduring human spirit and the Hmong American experience. Pao’s story is a homage to individuals, communities, organizations, and countries that welcome and give persecuted individuals and families the opportunities for a new life. Prior to joining UW-Green Bay in 2005, Pao was a middle and high school administrator and teacher, high school and college soccer head coach, and university academic advisor. He resides in Kimberly, Wisconsin and enjoys time with his family and friends, traveling, biking, motorcycling, and playing soccer.
Martha Lundin is an educator and writer in Minnesota. They received their MFA from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Martha’s first book is The In-Between State: Essays.
Larry Miller is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and National Louis University. His undergraduate degree is in education, history, and political science; his masters’ degree is in education leadership. Larry taught high school in MPS for 17 years. Larry was an adjunct for 12 years for the Marquette College of Education, teaching Schooling in a Diverse Society. As a high school teacher he taught U.S. history, citizenship, world geography, world history, economics, political science, photography, video production, and physical science. He spent a number of his summers doing historical research to be able to enhance his teaching. This included spending the Summer of 1998 with the National Endowment for the Humanities, at the National Archives in Washington D.C., studying the Civil War and Reconstruction as part of a cohort reviewing primary documents. Before becoming a teacher, Larry Miller was a community and union organizer. Larry Miller is the President of the Milwaukee Public Schools Board of School Directors. He is also an editor of Rethinking Schools. Both his children, Nathaniel and Craig Miller, are MPS graduates. His wife of 47 years is Ellen Bravo.
Dale A. Morgan is a lifelong writer living in Waukesha who grew up in the Texas Panhandle. She spent her professional life as an educator, teaching English, History and Creative Writing. She holds a B.A. from Carroll University and an M.E.P.D from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Her memoir, String Too Short to Tie, published by Austin-Macauley, tells the mostly-true story of her return to Texas to settle her parents’ estate including a five-generation farm and ranch. She enjoys life with friends, family, her dog Charlie, and two sassy cats.
Hannah Morrissey is the author of the Black Harbor suspense series which includes Hello, Transcriber, The Widowmaker (2022), and Dead Ringer (2023). She graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and lives near Milwaukee with her husband and three pugs. Her debut novel is inspired by her experience as a police transcriber.
Carrie Newberry fell in love with writing fantasy fifteen years ago, when a shape-shifter named Kellan took up residence in her brain. She is the author of the Eternal Spring, Invisible Forest series. Wolf is a Four-Letter Word, sequel to Pick Your Teeth with My Bones, is her second novel. A Madison dog groomer by day, Carrie is also a member of the faculty at AllWriters’ Workplace and Workshop, an international creative writing studio based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She lives in Madison with a dog who sings along to the radio and a cat who chirps louder than the birds.
Mary Ann Noe has been writing since she could pick up a pencil. However, since then, she has published short stories, non-fiction, poetry, and the novels To Know Her (Black Rose Writing, 2021), A Handful of Pearls (Black Rose Writing, 2022), and Hannah’s Eyes (coming 2023). Her non-fiction essay “From Spa to Topless Beach” appears in Months to Years, and another, “Out of the Blue,” appears in the anthology Dumped: Stories of Women Unfriending Women. Her poetry is in numerous online and print magazines, as well as in the anthology Lifespan: Vol. 1 Birth, Vol. 2 Friendship, Vol. 4 Love, and Vol. 5 Work. Along the line, she taught high school English and psychology, but is now retired and happily communing with nature in Wisconsin.
Sheri Williams Pannell is a native Milwaukeean who has performed, directed or written for a number of Milwaukee’s theater and arts organizations including Bronzeville Arts Ensemble, First Stage, Florentine Opera, Milwaukee Chamber Theater, Milwaukee Fringe Festival, Milwaukee Rep, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Arts Museum, and Skylight Music Theatre. Beyond Milwaukee, Pannell has worked at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah’s Old Lyric Theatre, Children’s Theater of Madison, University Opera and University Theater at UW Madison. Pannell was honored to direct a production as part of the United Nations Conference on Genocide, hosted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2017, Pannell was honored as an Artist of the Year by the City of Milwaukee. A founding member and artistic director at Bronzeville Arts Ensemble, Pannell is also a director/teaching artist at Black Arts MKE and co-director of the drama ministry at Calvary Baptist Church. Summer of 2020, Pannell served as one of the founders of the Milwaukee Black Theatre Festival. A graduate of Spelman College, Pannell also holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tony Perkins earned a master’s degree in English/Creative Writing at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While there, he wrote articles for the school’s magazine, Arches. He won a gold medal, “For Best Editorial or Commentary” from The Milwaukee Press Club, and two awards from The Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Perkins is related to Ray Bradbury through their common ancestor Mary Perkins Bradbury, a convicted Salem witch. His mother named him after Anthony Perkins, of the Psycho movie fame. Writing is the avenue he uses to ease the effects of her thoughtlessness.
Kathy Randall, for many years, creatively brought science to life for her middle school students. In retirement, she spends her days weaving real science into magical adventures. She hopes to inspire young people’s curiosity about our natural world as well as a passion to protect it. When not writing, she can be found exploring the outdoors. Her debut novel, The Listening Tree, was published in October 2021. Visit her at www.kathrynrandall.com
Amy E. Reichert, author of six novels, loves to write stories that end well with characters you’d invite to dinner. Her writing has been called “Charming,” by People, a “Book you won’t be able to put down,” by Cosmopolitan, “This will give you more fuzzy feelings than you can count,” by Redbook, and “Light, funny, and easily digestible…worthy of second helpings,” by Real Simple.
Amy earned her MA in English Literature, honed her writing and editing skills as a technical writer for many years, and now serves on her library’s board of directors. She’s a wife, mom, amateur chef, volunteer baby snuggler, and cider enthusiast.
Benjamin Riggs is a writer, teacher, and podcaster. After graduating from Boston University with degrees in history and English, he moved to Egypt to teach. There he discovered the power and educational benefits of incorporating games into a classroom. Since then, he has taught in China, Japan, inner-city schools, and a Montessori school. In all, he continued to study first-hand the impact of games on the academic performance of his students. He received his MA in education in 2011. Riggs’s writing has appeared in gaming periodicals, books, and blogs. His podcast, Plot Points, is now entering its twelfth year. His work has appeared on Nerdist.com, The Unspeakable Oath, the nation’s premier horror gaming magazine, and on NPR. His articles on Geek & Sundry are frequently among the most-read and most-shared work on the site. He lives and teaches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his son and dear wife Tara.
Annelise Ryan is a Wisconsin-based, USA Today bestselling author of more than 25 novels, including the humorous Mattie Winston Mystery series, featuring a wry and cynical nurse-turned-coroner from a small Wisconsin town, and the spinoff series, the Helping Hands Mysteries. Her newest project as Annelise Ryan is the Monster Hunter Mysteries, featuring Door County bookstore owner and cryptozoologist, Morgan Carter. The first book in the series, A Death in Door County, was released on September 13th from Berkley. She also wrote the 6-book Mack’s Bar Mystery series, set in Milwaukee, as Allyson K. Abbott. Beth is a recently retired ER nurse who created pseudonyms, in part, so her patients wouldn’t know she spent her spare time thinking up clever ways to kill people.
Nona Schrader grew up in Wyoming next to the Wind River Mountains, which fostered her love of our planet. After completing her B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Wyoming, Nona moved to Wisconsin to teach. She retired three years ago and now enjoys writing her novel series. Published in March by All Things That Matter Press, Aqua, the first novel in the series, is a young adult environmental fantasy. Nona wrote this novel to inspire all humans to save pure water on our planet. Because Wyoming contains the headwaters of four major river basins in the western United States, it’s the perfect setting to discuss issues around water.
Keli Stewart is a writer, educator, community builder and founder of Front Porch Arts Center. Her writing has appeared in Quiddity, Muzzle Magazine, Warpland, Hip Mama, Calyx and other journals and publications. Keli has received artist fellowships from Hedgebrook, where she was awarded the Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Award, and the Augusta Savage Gallery’s Arts International Residency. An alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Callaloo Summer Writing Workshops, Keli’s writing was selected first place in the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois Center of the Book. She received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College in 2002, and her MFA in Poetry from Chicago State University. She was recently selected as a 2021-2022 School of the Art Institute Nichols Tower Artist-in-Residence. Her poetry collection, Small Altars was published by Bronzeville Books in 2021.
Jill Stukenberg’s novel News of the Air won the Big Moose prize from Black Lawrence Press. Her short stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic, The Collagist (now The Rupture), The Florida Review, and other literary magazines. She grew up in Sturgeon Bay, graduated from Marquette University and New Mexico State University (MFA), and is now an Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point at Wausau, where she advises an undergraduate literary magazine and helps organize the Central Wisconsin Book Festival. https://jillstukenberg.com/
Lawrence Tabak attended Northwestern University and the University of Iowa, from which he holds BA and MA degrees. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications including Salon, themillions, Fast Company, The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times. His novel In Real Life was published in 2014 and his lastest book, Foxconned, an exposé on economic development as seen through the Foxconn in Wisconsin fiasco, was published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. It received the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. A paperback edition from the University of Chicago Press will be available fall 2022.
Lisa Vihos has appeared in many poetry journals, both print and online. Her first novel, The Lone Snake: The Story of Sofonisba Anguissola, was released in May, 2022 from Water’s Edge Press. She has also published four chapbooks, and has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and numerous awards from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. She is a founding editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and the Sheboygan organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change. In 2020, she was named the first Poet Laureate of Sheboygan where she hosts the podcast Poetry on Air for Mead Public Library.
Ed Werstein is a Regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. In 2018 he received the Lorine Niedecker Prize from the Council for Wisconsin Writers (judged by Nickole Brown). Ed’s first book of poetry, “Who Are We Then?” (Partisan Press, 2009), was published in 2009 at the age of 60 after almost 40 years in manufacturing and union activity. “Communique: Poems From the Headlines” (Water’s Edge Press, 2021) is the latest of his four books. A 2019 chapbook of poems about his childhood, “Benediction & Baseball” (Fireweed, 2018), won prizes from the WFOP and from America’s Bookfest. More at edwerstein.com.
Kristen Whitson has a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and she has worked in digital preservation, community and indigenous archives, and LGBTQ+ archives.
Cara Wreen is a seventeen-year old Korean American writer living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Her poetry has been recognized by Scholastics Arts & Writing and her poem, “Tea Assortment”, won the Young Writers Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. When she’s not reading or writing, Cara can be found playing viola.
Chris Yogerst is associate professor of communication in the department of arts and humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His latest book, Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures, was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2020. His next book, The Warner Brothers, will be published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2023. Chris is also a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.