N125
African American Poets: The Intersection of Identities & Ideals
Writers: Keli Stewart, I.S. Jones, Portia Cobb, Mario Willis
Moderator: Dasha Kelly
Four unique poets describe what it means to combine their culture and heritage with the lyricism and imagery of poetry.
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.
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.
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.
Mario “The Poet” Willis is a poet, podcaster and spoken word artist. A Milwaukee native, Mario has been featured throughout the city and the Midwest as a spoken word artist, writing guide and performance coach. He is a two-time member of Milwaukee’s National Poetry Slam Team; a Poetry Unplugged All-Star; a mainstay community member of one of the longest-running open mic venues in the city, Poet’s Monday at Linneman’s RIverwest Inn; and a curator of numerous open mic and writing series. Mario has the honor of serving as the current Poet Laureate of Milwaukee until 2024.
N127
Few Words, Big Impact
Writers: Deb DiSandro, Linda Benjamin
Moderator: Larry Nelson
While Deb DiSandro and Linda Benjamin have both written books, they’ve also made their names by writing short! DiSandro started her career with the popular newspaper column, Slightly Off, and Benjamin released several recorded essays on her Psychobabble segment on Milwaukee NPR’s Lake Effect Show. The two will talk about the joys and difficulties of creating impactful pieces in a very limited amount of space.
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.
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.
N129
Amy Reichert & Natalie Cana In Conversation with Andrea Lochen
Writers: Amy Reichert, Natalie Cana
Moderator: Andrea Lochen
Women’s Fiction writers Reichert and Cana join Andrea Lochen for a heartfelt and fun discussion on what it means to write Women’s Fiction.
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.
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.
N130
Women Of Mystery!
Writers: BW Hoff, Annaliese Ryan, Hannah Morrissey
Moderator: John Klima
The mystery genre is very popular among readers, but it is predominated by male writers. These three women writers talk about what a woman can bring to this time-honored genre.
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.
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.
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.
N133
Tabletop RPGs: Building Stories Together
Writers: Benjamin Riggs, Matt Forbeck
Moderator: J.R. Konkol
From Dungeons & Dragons and forward, role-playing games have dominated our imaginations and interests. Riggs and Forbeck will talk about the positives and negatives of role-playing games and how ultimately, they bring us all together.
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.
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.
N140
AllWriters’ Workshop
How Does She Do It? Kathie Giorgio Talks About Publishing 14 Books In All 4 Genres in 13 Years
Writer: Kathie Giorgio
Moderator: Kathie Giorgio
The most common question author Kathie Giorgio hears during readings, presentations, classes and lectures is “How do you do it?” In the last 13 years, Giorgio has sold 7 novels, 2 short story collections, 4 poetry books, and a book of essays, for a total of 14 books, hitting all 3 genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. And she did it while raising 4 children and starting and running a small business. How did she do it? Come and find out!
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.
