Reading Schedule

Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.

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Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. is an advocate, Kentucky Teacher of the Year,  the author of Gay Poems for Red States (University Press of Kentucky). He has an MFA in creative writing at the University of Kentucky. His  story has been featured across  US media, including ABC, CBS, The Washington Post, and Good Morning America. His advocacy has led him to engage President Biden and to testify before the United States Congressional Committee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. His creative work has been published in 100 Days in Appalachia, 2RulesofWriting, Young Ravens Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Harbor Review, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, Miracle Monocle, Good River Review, Salvation South, and Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide.

Kate Fox, Wendy McVicker, Bonnie Proudfoot, and Kris Williams

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Bios: Kate Fox is the author of The Company Misery Loves (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) and two poetry chapbooks: The Lazarus Method (Kent State University Press) and Walking Off the Map (Seven Kitchens Press). Her work has appeared in Great River Review, Kenyon Review, New Ohio Review, and Pleiades, among others. She earned her Ph.D. in American literature/creative writing from Ohio University, where she worked as an instructor, editor, and assistant to the president. She also served as editor of the Ohioana Quarterly from 1999-2007. She lives in Athens, Ohio, with her partner, Bob DeMott, and their two English setters.

 

Wendy McVicker, a longtime Ohio Arts Council teaching artist, had to stop calling herself a rogue poet when she became poet laureate of Athens, OH in 2020. Her books include Zero, a Door, Stronger When We Touch (both from The Orchard Street Press), the latter co-authored with Cathy Cultice Lentes; and, forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, Alone in the Burning. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies and journals, online and in print. She loves collaborating with other artists, and performs whenever she can with musician Emily Prince, under the name another language altogether.

 

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays can be found in journals and anthologies. She has been nominated twice for Pushcart Prize as well as a Best of the Net. Her novel, Goshen Road (OU/ Swallow Press) received WCONA’s Book of the Year and was Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway. Her 2022 poetry chapbook, Household Gods, can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig editions, along with a forthcoming chapbook of short stories, Camp Probable.Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.  Learn more about Bonnie at https://bonnieproudfootblog.wordpress.com/

 

Kristine Williams lives and writes in Athens, OH. Her chapbook, Like an Empty House, was published in 2021 by Finishing Line Press. She has been published in the Huffington Post, Hawk and Whippoorwill, Riverwind, Women Speak, and Essentially Athens Ohio. She is the former managing editor of Riverwind, a now defunct literary magazine out of Nelsonville, Ohio. She has been a contributor to and a juror for The Women Of Appalachia Project’s (www.womenofappalachia.com) Women Speak since it began in 2009.

Jen & Tatum L'Heureux

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Bio: A lover of all art forms and having been called simple, sometimes it’s the beauty of sharing what’s inside that means the most. Jennifer L’Heureux enjoys sharing her passions and stories through words. She is excited to be a part of what lies ahead and looks forward to growing as a writer.

- Tatum's bio forthcoming -

Jane Ann Fuller & Deni Naffziger

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Bio: Deni Naffziger is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Desire To Stay (Stockport Flats Press, 2014) and Strange Bodies (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2023), A Story of Flying (a children's coloring tale supported by the Ohio Arts Council, 2006, translated into Spanish in 2010), and 3 chapbooks.  She co-authored Revenants: A Story of Many Lives with poet Jane Ann Fuller, which was awarded a special projects grant by the Ohio Arts Council.  Naffziger is a Weatherford Award and Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur Award. She directed the Writers' Collaborative at Passion Works Studio in Athens, Ohio, for 25 years where she also served as Poet-In-Residence (2023-2024). Her work has appeared in journals including New Ohio Review, Atticus Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Spoon River Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, West Branch, Main Street Rag, Pikeville Review, YARN, Pudding Magazine, Asylum, The MacGuffin, and Northern Appalachian Review.

 

Jane Ann Devol Fuller earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and taught English at Hocking College for over 30 years where she also helped edit Riverwind literary journal with Deni Naffziger. They also collaborated on Revenants: A Story of Many Lives, published with a grant from the Ohio Arts Council. Fuller’s Half-Life (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021), was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards. A recipient of the James Boatwright III Poetry Prize, her work appears in numerous journals. Fuller had the honor of writing the foreword to New Beginnings, Logan Hocking School District’s first literary anthology, and teaching summer workshops for the school district to middle school students.