Masthead

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Lisa’s third chapbook, Earthen Bound, was published in 2019 by Red Bird Chapbooks, the same publisher of Unintentional Guide to the Big City (2015).  Her poetry has been published widely and received honors from the 2017 Basil Bunting International Poetry Prize (Newcastle Center for the Literary Arts in the UK), Vallum Poetry, Crab Orchard, Elixir, Lynx House, and Word Works as well as been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards. Lodestar, her first chapbook, was published in 2011. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

John is the author of Scared Violent like Horses (Milkweed Editions, 2019), which was selected by Victoria Chang as the winner of the Jake Adam York Prize. He is also the author of one previous poetry collection, Ghost County (Midwestern Gothic Press), named a Best Poetry Book of 2016 by The Chicago Review of Books. Additionally, he was the 2016 winner of The Pinch Literary Award in Poetry, and his work has been featured on Poetry Daily. In 2019, The Chicago Guild Literary Complex named John one of “30 Writers to Watch.” John holds a BA in Writing and Publishing from Benedictine University and an MFA in creative writing from Southern Illinois University. He has received writing residencies from creative centers in Croatia, Iceland, and France.

Heather's fiction has been published in Witness, Shenandoah, Hunger Mountain, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and the Chicago Tribune, where her story won the Nelson Algren Award.  Heather has served in numerous roles: a former high school teacher, college professor, published journalist, essayist, and fiction writer.  She consults on a number of writing and assessment projects and and teaches classes for adults and teens through the Loft Literary Center.

David Logan is a member of the Professional Communications faculty at  Western Governors University and serves in the role of Course Lead in Evaluation & Assessment.  David’s work has appeared in a number of publications, including a book of essays published by Simon & Schuster.  Among his plays is Paint It Red, co-written with Judi O’Brien Anderson. He lives with his lovely wife in Ozark country, looks often at the stars, and discovers new wonders and wisdom through their two young boys. 

Amy is an author and recipient of numerous awards for her poetry and fiction, which have appeared in The Best Small Fictions, Ninth Letter, The Butter, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among others. Her collection, Primitivity, is a Black River Competition Winner (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). A SAFTA fellow, a CantoMundo Poetry fellow, and a fiction scholarship recipient to the Disquiet Literary Festival in Lisbon, Portugal, Amy has  performed her work at various venues including The Poetry Foundation in  Chicago and the St Louis BookFest. She is also a performer with Kale Soup for the Soul, a Portuguese-American artist’s collective. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has taught at Benedictine University as well as in a  variety of outreach venues, and currently teaches Humanities at WGU.

An ardent foreign-adventurist with chronic and gravitational home-soil leanings, Joanna Beth has presented widely throughout the United States and internationally on her research interests, which include flourishing, leadership, publishing, linguistic dialects, and writing. Publications include a novel and two book-length works on creative poiesis and leadership from (respectively) Southeast Missouri University Press, Benedictine University, and the University of Delhi; poems and short stories; as well as chapters and articles in journals related to leadership and creative craft. She serves as an executive writing coach for senior leaders at the Center for Values-Driven Leadership at Benedictine University and teaches at WGU. She lives and loves in a foothilled fraction of the Ozarks steeped in the wonders of nature and the blessings of generations.