The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow / Board and Staff

VISION

Our vision is to is to create a lasting contribution to the literary arts by providing a sanctuary where writing is nurtured, honored, and shared.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is to nurture writers of all backgrounds, genres, and levels of experience in a supportive environment that builds community, stimulates new thinking, energizes creative expression, and optimizes productivity.

INCLUSIVITY

The Writers' Colony nurtures writers of all backgrounds, which means we want to ensure everyone considering coming to The Writers' Colony and participating in our programming feel welcome, included, and encouraged. This goal is being realized by the following actions:

We seek out feedback and participation from our Writers in Residence who come from marginalized communities.
We seek out organizations who serve people from marginalized communities for collaboration and feedback.
With the assistance of alumni DW McKinney, we have developed an Ambassadors program to connect potential Writers in Residence with our alumni from similar backgrounds.

For more information on our inclusivity efforts, please contact us at director@writerscolony.org.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Janet Allured

President of the Board

Janet Allured, Ph.D., retired Professor of History and Women’s Studies at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is currently adjunct professor of Women’s History at the University of Arkansas. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on southern women and has co-edited several volumes in Louisiana history, including one in the University of Georgia Press’s series on southern women entitled Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times (2009). Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950-1997, was also published with Georgia (2016). She is currently working on books about southern progressive women in the twentieth century.

KJ Kumwalt

Vice President

Elise Roenigk

Treasurer

Open

Secretary

KJ Zumwalt is a long-time Eureka Springs resident. She has been an award-winning restaurateur for more than 20 years, currently chef/owner of KJ's Caribe Restaurant and Cantina Mexican Restaurant in Eureka Springs. She is originally from Arkansas and attended Harding University, where she received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Marketing. She loves to kayak, hike, and swim in the great outdoors of the Ozarks in Northwest Arkansas.

Will Morris, JD, LLM

Will Morris is an experienced attorney specializing in estate planning, probate, and tax law. A graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Law and Southern Methodist University, where he earned his LLM in Taxation, Will combines large-firm expertise with a client-centered approach, offering personalized, flexible services and fixed-fee engagements.

In addition to his legal career, Will is a passionate writer. After years of crafting unpublished poetry and prose, he embraced his creative voice to author a forthcoming book, set to be published next year. Inspired by feedback from his editor, a colleague of Joseph Campbell, Will honed a distinctive "philosopher’s voice" to guide his writing, mirroring his thoughtful approach to mentoring others in their creative journeys.

Born in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and raised in Hawaii, Will has a deep appreciation for family and community. Married to Lisa Bercher Morris for over 40 years, he is a proud father of three sons and grandfather to three. Will’s dedication to education, mentorship, and lifelong learning is evident in his work with nonprofit boards and as a writing judge at the Writers Colony, where he encourages others to discover their own voices. Through both his legal practice and creative pursuits, Will strives to inspire and empower those he serves.

Board Member

Sherri Perry

Board Member

Sherri C. Perry is a longtime WCDH resident writer for over twenty years and is working on her fifth book. She holds a Master’s in English along with higher education teaching certification from Harvard. She has worked with non-profits for over forty years including Ronald McDonald House, the Houston Area Women’s Center and the USO. She lives in Houston, Texas, where she teaches and was named a National Speech & Debate Association’s educator of the year. She brings decades of experience in volunteer leadership, project management and public speaking to the board and is honored to give back to the organization that has given her so much.

Mark Graff

Board Member

A cyber security practitioner and thinker for 30 years and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Mark Graff is currently Founder and CEO at Tellagraff, LLC. He is an expert Chief Information Security Officer, having filled that role for NASDAQ for three years, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for nine. He has appeared as an expert witness on cybersecurity before both Congress and the Presidential Commission on Infrastructure Survivability, and served as an expert witness on, for example, electronic voting machine software for the state of California.

A past chairman of the international Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), Mr. Graff has lectured on risk analysis, the future of cyber security and privacy, and other topics before the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the Federal Communications Commission, the Pentagon, and many other U.S. national security facilities and “think tanks.”

Graff's 2003 book, "Secure Coding: Principles and Practices" (co-authored with Ken van Wyk), has been used at dozens of universities around the world to teach how to design and build secure software-based systems. Graff and van Wyk teamed again to produce "Enterprise Security Software: a Confluence of Disciplines" with two new co-authors in 2014.

Specialties:
Enterprise security methods and technologies
Cybersecurity training
Application security and secure coding
Future of cyber security
Election security