Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow

2008 Residents

 

 

Adam Blackman-Brooklyn, NY

 Adam would like, in this short bio, to make himself out as intrepid, a sort of Indiana Jones of the soul. The truth is, he's lived in a few cities, had some odd jobs but feels settled for the foreseeable future (2-5 years or until the best book deal ever swoops in)
managing a bookstore that raises funds for homeless New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS. He lives in Brooklyn in a lovely apartment with a deck, which anyone who's been to New York knows is cause enough to sign a 10-year lease. He earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, has some clips from a feature writing stint in Maine, one published story, and some personal essays he's pretty happy with at lostwriters.net (Wanderlust section).

 

Susan Belsinger-Brookeville, MD, 2008 Moondancer Fellowship Recipient

Susan is a culinary herbalist and educator, food writer, and photographer who has authored/co-authored 18 books and has been published in more than 25 national magazines and newspapers. She is passionate about her work—sharing the joy of gardening and cooking through teaching and writing—and inspiring others to get in touch with their senses of smell and taste. www.susanbelsinger.com

 

 

Rosaleen Bertolino-Fairfax, CA 

 

Rosaleen writes fiction in a small town in northern California where locals sport “Mayberry on Acid” stickers on their bumpers. Needless to say, she does not lack for raw material. She is a recipient of a Marin County Arts Council individual artist’s grant. Her work has been praised by Don DeLillo and Diane Johnson. Rosaleen was recently published in www.tertuliamagazine.com. 

 

Connie Baechler- Smyrna, GA 

 

Connie holds both an M.F.A in poetry and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in literature and women’s studies. Her awards include finalist status in the 2008 Rita Dove Poetry Prize and The Ledge and Concrete Wolf chapbook competitions, fellowship at the Hambidge Center, and participation in the University of Arizona’s poets-in-residence program. Her poems have appeared in Kalliope, Hurricane Review, Mad Poets Review and other literary magazines. Connie’s short story, “Coconut Milk,” adapted from her novel manuscript featuring an American heroine’s adventures in Malaysia, appeared in Pearl magazine. Her most recent work appears in Desire: Women Write About Wanting (Seal Press). Connie is a Star in the Zona Rosa, a series of writing-and-sisterhood workshops founded by her friend and mentor, the nationally-acclaimed author Rosemary Daniell, and is an active member of Rosemary's Atlanta Zona Rosa Alpha Babes group.

 

 

Joe Cangelosi-Conway, AR

Dr. Joe Cangelosi is the Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing in the College of Business at the University of Central Arkansas. He has published 30 proceedings. His main areas of research interest are in health care management and marketing, and data quality and analysis. As a resident at the Writer’s Colony in May 2006 and May 2007, he produced manuscripts entitled “Who is Making Lifestyle Changes Due to Preventive Health Care Information? A Demographic Analysis,” accepted for publication by Health Marketing Quarterly, and “Which Preventive Health Care Information Sources are Most Important? A Demographic Study.” Joe is an active marketing research consultant in the central Arkansas area completing projects for the state of Louisiana and Arkansas.

 

Chuck Carlise-Houston, TX

 

Chuck Carlise was born in Canton, Ohio, during the Jimmy Carter Administration, and has since lived in 12 states and 2 continents. He studied writing and literature at Wittenberg University and received a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of California at Davis, after which he spent six months in Taormina, Sicily, and (following a brief teaching stint at UC-Santa Cruz)worked asa political organizer in Portland, Oregon, for three years. He has been awarded the C.T.Wright Poetry Prize and been a finalist in open competitions with New Letters, the Atlanta Review, and Nimrod. Currently he is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston, where he also teaches undergraduate writing, creative writing with inner city schools, and serves as Non-Fiction Editor for the literary journal, Gulf Coast.

 

Gillian Daly-Norwich, Norfolk, England 

Gillian studied law at Oxford University and was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of British Columbia. She is a qualified barrister and a university lecturer in human rights law. She is currently completing an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Her short fiction has appeared in Mslexia and her poetry in The Gift, a recent anthology by Gatehouse Press. During her stay at the colony, she will be working on her first novel.

 

 

Rosemary Daniell-Savannah, GA

Rosemary has developed the nationally acclaimed Zona Rosa approach, working with writers at all levels of experience, described in her book The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself and her most recent title Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women’s Lives. Other titles include: Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex and Suicide in the Deep South, Sleep- ing With Soldiers and Confessions of a (Femate) Chauvinist. zonarosa.com

 

 

Kristina Darling-St. Louis, MO 

Kristina Marie Darlingis a graduate student in American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned a degree in English with honors in 2007. She is the author of five chapbooks of poetry and nonfiction, including Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006) and The Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006). A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2006, her poems, essays, and reviews have or will

appear in many journals including: Janus Head, Rattle, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Rain Taxi, The Main Street Rag, The Adirondack Review, CutBank, The Mid-American Review, Jacket, Redactions: Poetry and Poetics, and others. Kristina has served as editor at a variety of small press publications, including Stirring, PIF Magazine/PIF Press, the storySouth Million Writers Award, and The Cordite Poetry Review, where she guest edited a feature on new American prose poetry.  

 

 

Cody Ford-Fayetteville, AR

“Cody Ford is the son of a traveling minister and a butcher's daughter. He loves cigars, fedoras, and vintage ties. He works as a freelance journalist and a music publicist for artists like Benjamin Del Shreve and Lauren de Miranda. Kody is a graduate student in Communication with an emphasis in film studies at the University of Arkansas. He is currently working on a novel and lives in Fayetteville, AR with his English bulldog Ruben.”
 

 

Cynthia Gallaher-Chicago, IL

Cynthia is a Chicago-based poet and writer, author of three books and a writing workshop leader for more than 15 years. She is on the Chicago Public Library’s list of “Top Ten Most Requested Chicago Poets” and named one of “100 Women Making a Difference” by Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine. She looks forward to cooking and writing during her Fall 2008 residency in the Culinary Suite, which marks her second visit to the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow.

 

 

Allison Harnden-Las Vegas, NV 

Allison Harnden is a non-fiction writer transitioning to prose and poetry. Her writing has appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune, The Reader, “Planning, Managing and Policing Hospitality Zones” and numerous trade journals, including World Travel and Tourism Development, Job Giant, Hospitality Networker and Main Street News. In the 2008 Texas Poetry Calendar, Allison’s poem is “Miss February”. She currently resides in Las Vegas where she is finishing her novel, “Exiting”.

 

 

Betty Craker Henderson-Monett, MO

Drawing on a lifetime of personal Ozark experience, Betty writes short stories, novels and non- fiction. Prior to a successful free-lance career, she was a librarian and news editor. Today she struggles to find time to write in addition to dealing with elderly parents, numerous grandchildren and the love of her life. However, she continues to persevere by short stints on the computer and regularly running away from home to retreats at Dairy Hollow. She is still working on Junkyard Bones, a juvenile mystery and marketing and polishing an adult non- Trash to Treasure: the Evolution of an Ozark Junkyard.

 

James Hughes-Vicksburg, MS

 

 James recently returned from a teaching stint in Slovakia and Thailand to catch up on his writing. His short story, “An Open House”, was bought by The New Yorker when he was 22 years old and as he says, “wound up doing me more harm than good. I came to depend all too much, and all too soon, on approval from others... a sure path to paralysis for a young writer.” He is published in Living Blues magazine, the Minnesota Review, Oxford American, Greensboro Review, Planet Weekly, Mississippi Writers and many other periodicals and anthologies.

 

 

 

Maha Hussain-Montreal, Quebec, Canada 

Maha is a BCL/LLB Candidate at McGill University's Faculty of Law. She also holds an AB in Anthropology from Princeton University. Prior to law school, Maha was an aid worker in

Tanzania and Pakistan, where she assisted refugees and local communities affected by conflict and natural disaster. She has also provided legal aid to refugees in Cairo, working with families and individuals from Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and other African countries. Maha has also worked for corporate law firms in Toronto and New York. Her current project is a historical novel about the 19th-century east African slave trade.

 

 

Debra Kirschner-Brooklyn, NY

Debra wrote, directed and independently produced the feature film The Tollbooth, which stars Marla Sokoloff, Rob McElhenney, Idina Menzel and Tovah Feldshuh.

The Tollbooth has played across the country at festivals and events, as well as art house theaters in New York, Long Island and Florida. Her short film Changing Clothes

toured festivals across the country. She has a screenplay in development called Pippi Was Here and a television project in development that is still untitled. Debra leads a creative writing workshop for women over fifty-five at Emmanual Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY, and runs a creative writing program at the Hoboken Shelter in New Jersey for for homeless adults and is a member of New York Women in Film and Television.

www.thetollboothmovie.com.

 

Elisa Korenne- New York Mills, MN, 2008 Goodenough Fellowship for Composers/Songwriters

Singer-songwriter, writer, and composer Elisa Korenne relocated to rural central Minnesota after a decade cutting her teeth in the competitive New York City music scene. Elisa has been gaining national recognition as a songwriter, composer, and educator and has been awarded four national artistic fellowships in the last two years. She has been a headliner at regional, national, and international festivals. receiving a variety of national songwriting honors. Elisa’s music can be heard on her critically-acclaimed debut album Favorite. She is now working on her Ordinarily Unsung project, a collection of songs about members of the fringe in American

history, that will be incorporated into concerts, an interactive educational workshop, and, ultimately, a one-woman musical.ww.elisakorenne.com.

 

Claire Koshar-Montverde, FL

With an Education degree and many years at her dog training school, Claire combined her love for teaching with her love for dogs. Her book, A Guide to Dog Sports: From Beginners to Winners, was named among the 10 Best New Books by the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. She is working on Best Ever Bobby, a children’s puppy training book and Skillet Sketches, perceptions of her beloved Florida.

 

 

Pat Laster-Benton, AR 

 Pat writes a weekly general-interest column for the Amity (AR) Standard and is a contributing editor for CALLIOPE: A Writer’s Workshop by Mail, based in Tucson, AZ. She is a founding member of the Central AR Writers (prose) and has led workshops for poetry groups throughout the state of Arkansas. She is an award winning, multi-published poet grandmother raising a teenage grandson. Pat is currently working on a novel set in the Ozarks during the 1930’s.

 

 

Ann Leach-Joplin, MO

Ann is a life coach, freelance writer and director of Life Preservers: a global grief support community. She is a certified grief recovery specialist and founded the Cancer Support Network when living in Illinois, where she facilitated support groups for those living with cancer and AIDS and their caregivers.

 

Brenda K. Lewis—Ravenwood, MO 

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Brenda holds graduate degrees in Slavic Languages and Literature, Soviet and East European Area Studies, and English. In her professional life, she has worked in the tour and travel industry, in journalism, and as a university administrator. She currently teaches English composition and literature at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, MO, where she also serves as an associate editor for The Laurel Review, a national literary journal. Published works include translations, feature articles, news stories, editorials, personal essays, literary essays, and radio essays. She lives (much to her surprise) on a farm in northwest Missouri with her husband and six cats, where she juggles the varied responsibilities of being a farm wife, a university instructor, and a writer. About this last role she says, "My personal experience as an urbanite transplanted to rural America informs my writing, which explores the dynamic of place as a foundation of human character." In addition to Dairy Hollow, Brenda has been a resident at Ragdale, an Illinois writers' colony, and Norcroft, on the north shore of Lake Superior.

 

 

Mark Lewandowski – Terre Haute, IN 

Mark earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University in 1991 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Indiana State University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Siauliai, Lithuania, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland. His essays and stories have appeared in many journals, but most recently in The Florida Review, Cimarron Review and Mochila Review. Mark’s prose has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and listed as "Notable" in The Best American Essays (2x), The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.

 

Lissa Lord-Kansas City, MO 

Lissa received her graduate degree from the University of Michigan and has been an academic librarian for the past twenty-two years. Her published writings are book reviews and articles in professional journals, websites, online tutorials, and two blogs.Her love for the experience of writing is based in electronic textual resources. Lissa says the "real" writer was discovered when the power of dyslexia melded within the Internet's web to find the creative of self discovery. Words. Reading them. Writing them. Words are the constant struggle people with dyslexia know well—all the time. This challenge does not end with graduation and successful professional pursuit. Unbeknownst to her at the time, this struggle transformed into an acceptance of the beauty of Word. Writing to art is the literate journey of which Lissa is writing during her stay at Dairy Hollow. Find more of her work at www.wordlayers.com.

 

Elizabeth Mack-Omaha, NE

Elizabeth received a BFA in Creative Writing and MA in English/Nonfiction Writing from The University of Nebraska at Omaha. She currently teaches English at UNO and is freelance writer. Elizabeth is also working on a collection of nonfiction essays titled Healing Springs, a mix of nature essays, travel narratives and memoir. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in South Dakota Review, Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, and Nebraskaland.

 

Mary Mackie-Claremore, OK

Mary is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma where she recently received a Faculty Senate Award in the School of Liberal Arts for Excellence in Teaching. She has completed a novel, "Whose Woods These Are," a story collection, "Headline News" and a novella, "Below the Salt." She has had short stories, poems, and articles published in a variety of venues and is the poetry editor of the Journal Cooweescoowee. Originally from Massachusetts, “I've been told I'm "too charming to be a Yankee" which she take as a gracious complement.  

 

 

Mike McCarthy—Chicago, IL 

 

With a M.A. in Writing from DePaul University, a twenty two year career as writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer Prize nomination for feature writing for the Wall Street Journal (2006), Mike decided to break from journalism entirely and shift into creative writing. His first book, “The Sun Farmer” was named by the Chicago Tribune as one of its Favorite Books for 2007. While at WCDH, Mike plans to continue exploring through poetry themes that have fascinated him: American technology and health and our evolving relationship with food and nature. www.thesunfarmer.com

 

Jenifer Nipps-Ada, OK

Jenifer Nipps is a freelance writer and contract medical transcriptionist in Ada, Oklahoma. She currently writes website reviews for the OWFI Report, the newsletter for the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc., and is a previous vice-president for that organization. She plans to work on a book-length nonfiction project known as The Idea Pocket. www.jenifernipps.com.

 

 

Jerdine Nolen- Elicott City, MD

Jerdine is 2007 Recipient of the Maeve Marie Fellowship for Children’s Books- the author of 11 children’s books with two more in the works. She holds a B.S in Special Education from Northeastern Illinois University and an M.Ed. in interdisciplinary Arts Education from Loyola University in Chicago. She says, “I love writing. Stories give us insights and hopeful answers to questions no one person can answer on their own. I like to write about possible impossibilities or impossible possibilities.” www.jerdinenolen.com

 

  

Lenore Norrgard-Portland, OR 

Lenore Norrgard is working on the second draft of a dramatic screenplay, UBUNTU, about an estranged father and daughter reconciling across vast social divides. She also is working on a memoir and some non-fiction pieces about her work as a spiritual activist. The recipient of an Oregon Literary Award, Lenore has written short stories, poetry, worked as a journalist for Reuters News Service, and published in Out/Look, The Sacred Hoop, The Oregonian, and Alternatives Magazine. 

 

 

Sandra Jackson-Opoku-Chicago, IL, 2008 Maeve Marie Fellowship for Children’s Book Writing

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an award-winning writer and the author of two novels. The RiverWhere Blood is Born earned the American Library Association Black Caucus Award for Best Fiction. Hot Johnny (and the Women Whom Loved Him) was an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction. Sandra frequently writes on travel, community, and culture in the African Diaspora. Recent work appears in the Los Angeles Times, Transitions Abroad, Islands, literarytraveler.com, and Skywritings, the inflight magazine of Air Jamaica. Her scripts and dramatic work were featured in productions at Central City Productions, the Chicago History Museum, and ETA Theater. Ms. Jackson-Opoku's work has earned such honors as the CEBA Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, the New York Film and TV Festival Silver Medal Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, the General Electric/CCLM Award for Younger Writers, several Illinois Arts Council Awards, a Ragdale US/Africa Writers Fellowship, the Kimberley Colen Memorial Grant for New Children's Writing, and many others.She has taught at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Miami, Nova Southeastern University, and the University of Chicago Writer's Studio. She teaches in the English Department at Chicago State University where she serves as Fiction Coordinator in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program. Ms Jackson Opoku’s current project is “Sea Island Summer”, a children’s novel. 

 

 

 

Curtis Parkinson-Maynooth, Ontario, Canada 

 

 Curtis Parkinson of Maynooth, Ontario, Canada, began writing after retiring from a career as a chemical engineer. He has published several award winning children’s books and young adult novels. He studied at George Brown College and won the Arthur Ellis Mystery Award 2005. While at WCDH in 2006 he completed his novel Death in Kingsport and is currently finishing the sequel while also working on a mystery for adults. Hisyoung adult novel Dominic’s War,completed atWCDH in 2007, is a historical novel based on a true story involving a young Italian boy and the part he played in WWII, and has been honored with a national award by school children in Canada.

 

 

Marilyn Probe—St. Louis, MO 

 

Marilyn holds a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology and a Doctorate in Adult and Community Education. Her writing passion is poetry and she is the winner of several poetry contests particularly in the area of aging. Her current project is the development of a poetry chapbook, which will include her nature poems written while at the Writers’ Colony , that she will use to show how images whether drawn or photographed might enhance the truth of seniors. She will then use her chapbook to present to senior residences, encouraging them to respond with their own writing.

 

 

Theodora Ranelli-Olympia, WA

 Theodora Ranelli knocked over a candle at the Easter service because she wanted to touch the flowers on the other side. In that vein, her writing speaks to boundaries and binaries, to the almost-there-i-want-that moments. Her writing showcases the beauty and complicated nature of organization, as well as a tribute to staying. She goes to school at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where she delves into religion, creative writing, and gender and sexuality studies. Theodora is using her time at Dairy Hollow to work on her novel about Marian visions, criminalization of Muslims, and Abrahamic theology.

 

 

Stephanie Rosenbaum—San Francisco, CA 

Stephanie Rosenbaum is a food writer, editor, and teacher. She has written about food, restaurants, and agriculture for San Francisco magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Chow, Vegetarian Times, Time Out New York, Edible Brooklyn, Citysearch and Greenwich magazine, and has taught food writing at Stanford University's Continuing Studies program. Table Ready, her food and gardening column in the Bay Guardian, was nominated twice for a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award. In 2007, she earned a certificate in ecological horticulture from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz. She also holds a degree in English Literature from Princeton University. In 2006, she was the Tyson Foods Culinary Fellow at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. Stephanie is the author of Honey: from Flower to Table (Chronicle Books, 2002) co-author of The Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside the Box (Chronicle Books, 2001); and the author of Williams-Sonoma Kids in the Kitchen: Fun Food, a cookbook for young cooks ages 9-12 (Williams-Sonoma, 2006). She has worked as an assistant cookbook editor at Chronicle Books and as a contract editor, contributor, and researcher for Williams-Sonoma.

 

 

Paul J. Sampson--Terrell, TX 

Paul has been a professional writer and editor for many years. He has published poems and essays in literary journals, both print and electronic, and has served as the nonfiction editor of the online magazine Eclectica.org. He has written articles for many newspapers, magazines and medical and professional journals. For several years he was an associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. His work has appeared in literary anthologies and one of his poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His book of poems, Dirge in a Resolutely Major Key, was published by Unicorn Press.

 

 

Lenore Shapiro-Westfield, NJ

Lenore, a retired school psychologist, is working on a historical fiction novel for young adults inspired by her study in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem, Holocaust Memorial History and Learning Institute and Museum which was funded through a Pope John XXIII Scholarship award. She has been a recipient of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship and has been published in the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Yankee Magazine and many children’s magazines. Lenore is an active grandmother, spending time between writing stints, visiting her children and grandchildren across the U.S.

 

 

Marian Szczepanski-Houston, TX

Marian Szczepanski has received writing awards and fellowships from Clackamas Literary Review, Vermont Studio Center, The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, Hedgebrook, and Houston Press Club. Her primary focus is fiction, but she also contributes frequent feature articles to Houston Woman Magazine. Her poems and essays have appeared in more than a dozen literary, university, and expatriate publications. Marian earned an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College in 1997. She is currently at work on a fourth novel set in a small, picturesque Ozark town much like Eureka Springs.

 

 

Judith Tannenbaum-El Cerrito, CA

Judith Tannenbaum is a writer and teacher whose work focuses on community arts and issues of cultural democracy. She has taught poetry in a wide variety of setting, from primary school classrooms to maximum security prisons. Her books include: Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin (a memoir published by Northeastern University Press) and Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades (a book for teachers published by Stenhouse Publishers). Disguised as a Poem was a finalist in the Creative Non-fiction category of PEN-West’s 2001 Literary Awards. Tannenbaum has also edited a teaching text (published by Jossey-Bass) and an anthology of youth poetry (published by Aunt Lute Books) for WritersCorps, where she currently serves as training coordinator. In addition, she has published one book, four chapbooks and one portfolio of poems, as well as many articles about teaching, poetry, and prison. http://www.judithtannenbaum.com  

 

Mike Tebo—Hattiesburg, MS

  

As a high school English teacher, Mike was named“Teacher of the Year” in Hattiesburg, Mississippi Schools in 1997 and Coach of the Year several times. Retired from teaching, Mike is revisiting and revising several of his short stories into a more definite collection ready for submission. He has published several articles on English Leadership for Teachers of English and was the recipient of the 1996 NEH Fellowship endowment for summer studies in William Faulkner.

 

 

James Temple-San Francisco, CA, 2008 Tyson Culinary Fellowship recipient

 James Temple is a business writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, focusing on real estate and development. Previously, he was a general assignment reporter for Bloomberg News, a retail reporter for the Contra Costa Times and a just about everything reporter at the San Francisco Business Times. Along the way, he has devised elaborate justifications for writing about eating, drinking or traveling at each of these publications. James has won several writing awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, East Bay Press Club andNational Association of Real Estate Editors. He earned a journalism degree from Ohio University.

 

 

 

John Van Kirk-Huntington, WV, 2008 Eureka! Fellowship for Short Stories recipient

John Van Kirk was born in Morristown, NJ. He is a graduate of Webster University, in St. Louis, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Maryland. Now a professor of English at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, Van Kirk has at various times during his life been a waiter, a bartender, a housepainter, a carpenter, an insurance salesman, a sailor (in 1991 he crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a 28 foot cutter), and a Navy helicopter pilot. He is an avid birdwatcher, an amateur musician, and recently was awarded his 2^nd degree black belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido.

 

Katherine Whan-Decatur, GA

Katherine Whan holds a master’s degree in journalism from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College. Her column about Sex and the City appears on TBS.com under the name “Kate Simon,” and her work has appeared in a variety of other print and online publications. She has received grants for fiction writing from Vermont Studio Center and the Kappa Alpha Theta Foundation. Katherine is currently working on her second novel while also holding down a “day job” in marketing at a large consulting firm.

 

 

 

Anne Webster-Atlanta, GA

 Anne Webster'spoems and essays have appeared inmany publications, including most recently, Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century and The Poetry of Nursing, atextbook for colleges. Ann weaves themes from her childhood, her experiences as a nurse, a mother, and her own battle with a serious illness, into her poignantly realistic work.

Her collection ofpoems, A History of Nursing,will be publishedlate in 2008by Kennesaw State University. 

 

 

Diane Welland-Springfield, VA

Diane is a registered dietitian and food/nutrition communications consultant/writer specializing in food service with articles published in Food Management Magazine, Cooking Light, The National Culinary Review and Catering Magazine. She has served as Executive Director and Director of Communications for the International Caterers Association, editor for two US Foodservice magazines and Adjunct Faculty in the Hospitality Management Department at Northern Virginia Community College. Diane holds an MS from New York University and dual Bachelor degrees in Communication and Human Nutrition from Rutgers University. She is currently working on her first novel.

 

Donna Williams-Fayetteville, AR

Donna is a veteran creative director, copywriter, and broadcast producer, as well as a former corporate advertising / marketing executive. She left her very successful career in 2004 to work on freelance advertising and marketing projects, consult with non-profit organizations, and to work on her first novel. She currently serves as Board President for the Communication Arts Institute in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

 

 

 

Lonnie Whitaker-High Ridge, MO 

An attorney by trade and a well published author of Ozark life and nostalgia, his stories have appeared in Missouri Life, The Ozark Mountaineer, and the Out of the Ozarks Writers Guild Journal. Lonnie is the recipient of the 2005 Starr Fellowship at the WCDH and was a third-place winnerin the 2003 John Woods Community College Fiction Contestfor Come Saturday Morning. In 2007 he was an editor of Hourglass Books’ anthology, Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories from the Left hand of God. He will complete his first novel, which is set in the Missouri Ozarks in the 1950's in his Fall 2008

stay at WCDH.