Erin Bartels, Keynote ● Erin is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things, The Words between Us, All That We Carried, The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water, Everything Is Just Beginning, and The Lady with the Dark Hair. A two-time Christy finalist and winner of two WFWA Star Awards and two Michigan Notable Book Awards, Erin has been a publishing professional for more than twenty years. After eighteen years in Michigan’s capital city, she now lives with her family in a charming small town surrounded by farm fields and pasturelands.
Caitlyn Horrocks ●Caitlin Horrocks is author of the story collections Life Among the Terranauts and This Is Not Your City, both New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selections. The Wall Street Journal named her novel The Vexations one of the Ten Best Books of 2019. Her stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Paris Review, One Story, and other journals and anthologies. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her family.
Robert Weir ● Robert Weir is a freelance journalist, author and presenter who writes and speaks about people, peace, social justice and travel. He has written 29 books, including a medical memoir, a parent care memoir, a spiritual memoir and 23 accounts about his domestic and international travel experiences. Starting in 1996, Robert has crafted over 200 published articles, mostly about people, for Encore Magazine in Kalamazoo. He lives in Portage, Michigan, but views himself as a citizen of the world.
Allison Spooner ● Allison Spooner is the award-winning author of the Amazon Bestseller and #1 New Release, The Lost Girl: A Neverland Story,” and the Amazon Hot New Release, “The Things We Cannot Change: A Story about the Ghosts Created by Addiction,” a fictionalized true story. She’s also published two collections of genre-crossing flash fiction, Flash in the Dark: A Collection of Flash Fiction and The Problem with Humans: And Other Stories, and has contributed to several horror and science fiction anthologies.
Nancy Gideon ● Nancy Gideon aka Dana Ransom, Rosalyn West and Lauren Giddings, is the award-winning bestseller of over 80 romance novels ranging from historical and series contemporary suspense to dark paranormal, as well as screenplays and non-fiction writing books.
Randy Pearson ● Randy D Pearson’s award-winning short stories have been featured in several anthologies, including LCC’s Washington Square Review, Pets Across America, and all four Writing at the Ledges anthologies. In addition to a collection of short stories he indie-published in 2016, he has released four novels. His first novel was the road trip comedy Driving Crazy, which was optioned by Marshall, Michigan’s West Prospect Pictures. He then wrote two Michigan-based action-adventure stories, Trac Brothers and Trac Brothers II: Santascoy’s Revenge. His latest is a sci-fi comedy series.
Alex Kourvo ● Alex Kourvo is an editor with over fifteen years experience helping both new and award-winning authors get their books ready to publish. She’s the co-founder of the Emerging Writers Workshop, where she’s been giving monthly workshops for writers since 2014. Alex has written two how-to books for writers: The Big-Picture Revision Checklist and No Hero Wants to Save the World.
Karen Dionne ● Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of two psychological suspense novels set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness, The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and translated into dozens of languages. The Marsh King’s Daughter was named one of the best books of 2017 by iBooks and many other booksellers and reviewers, and was released in theaters in 2023 as a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn.
Jamaal May ● Jamaal May is the author of Hum and The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books). Individual poems appear nationally and internationally, being translated into multiple languages. He is the recipient of numerous honors including The Spirit of Detroit Award, The Benjamin Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and two finalist nods for the NAACP Image Award. Jamaal hopes his work can serve as a bridge between interior landscapes and various communities.
Ruelaine Stokes ● Ruelaine Stokes serves as the current Lansing Poet Laureate. She is a poet, spoken word artist, teacher, and arts organizer, as well as a member of Voices of the Revolution, a feminist performance group focused on social justice issues. A collection of her poetry, Jar of Plenty, was published in 2021, and this past summer, she and former Lansing Poet Laureate Laura Apol co-edited a book titled My Secret Lansing, a collection of poetry and prose by 64 area residents about special places and hidden treasures in the Greater Lansing Area.
Sarah Carson ● Sarah Carson’s poetry and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, The Slowdown, Guernica, The Missouri Review, and The Christian Century, among others. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, including How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan (Persea Books, 2022). She has been a recipient of and finalist for grants and fellowships from Tin House, the Poetry Foundation, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and the Michigan and Illinois Arts Councils.
Dennis Hinrichsen ● Dennis Hinrichsen is the author of 11 books of poetry. His most recent is Dominion +Selected Poems from Green Linden Press. His awards include the Akron, Field, Tampa, Michael Waters, Grid and Wishing Jewel Poetry Prizes, as well as an NEA, the Third Coast Prize and a Best of the Net. He taught at LCC for many years and was the first Poet Laureate of Greater Lansing from 2017-2019.
Sylvia Hubbard ● Award-winning Detroit author and founder of Motown Writers Sylvia Hubbard has independently published over 60 dark romance and intriguing suspense stories in the over 20 years she’s been in the literary business. As an avid blogger, podcaster, social media manager & digital strategist, Sylvia has received literary recognition for her literacy work, plus has had nine #1 Bestsellers. She is also a speaker, literary encouragement doula & busy mompreneur expert.
Christina Wyman ● Christina Wyman is a teacher and writer living in Michigan with her husband and their silly rescue cats named Alfred and Greta Cannoli. She grew up in a tiny apartment with her family in Brooklyn, New York, where she dreamed of becoming a writer. Her work has been published in New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Elle, Ms. Magazine, The Independent, and other outlets. Christina is also the USA Today bestselling author of the middle grade novels Jawbreaker and Slouch. When she’s not writing, you can find Christina stocking up on chocolate or trying to convince her husband to adopt more cats. Most recently, she’s developed a passion for eating strawberry jam straight out of the jar.
Lev Raphael ● Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery and has recently published close to 90 personal essays and short stories in a wide range of print and online journals, receiving two Best of the Net nominations. Lev’s suspense novel Assault with a Deadly Lie (Terrace Books, UWP) was a Midwest Book Award Finalist. He has also won a Lambda Book Award, the Reed Smith Award for fiction, and International Quarterly‘s Innovative Prose Award for a personal essay. His work has appeared in 15 languages and his co-authored self-help book for kids and their parents, Stick Up for Yourself! (Free Spirit Press) has sold over 300,000 copies. He was a long-time book reviewer for The Detroit Free Press, Michigan Radio, Lansing Public Radio, and WKAR in East Lansing. Lev has done hundreds of invited talks and readings in nine different countries. A former guest assistant professor at MSU, he currently mentors, coaches, and edits writers at writewithoutborders.com.
AGENT: Carrie Howland ● AGENT – Carrie Howland is a twenty-year veteran in the publishing industry. She worked for fourteen years as a literary agent at two New York City based agencies before founding her eponymous agency, Howland Literary, LLC in 2018.
Carrie holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Albion College, where she was the Poetry Editor of The Albion Review. Her poetry has appeared in various literary journals and magazines.
She has been featured in several publications discussing her work as an agent including Poets & Writers, SCBWI insight, Akashic Books, and Slice Magazine.
Carrie is accepting submissions for: adult literary and upmarket fiction, contemporary romance, short story collections, prescriptive nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, essay collections, and memoir.
Ruth McNally Barshaw ● Ruth wrote and illustrated the six Ellie McDoodle Diaries, a highly-illustrated middle grade novel series with Bloomsbury. She illustrated four books for ages four to twelve, and also wrote four funny short stories for an app for ten year olds. She received her first sketch-journal from a prescient art teacher at age 15 and has been keeping journals ever since (now numbering hundreds). She’s worked as an illustrator since freshman year at Michigan State University. She and author-husband Charlie live in Lansing and travel extensively presenting in schools. See her work at www.ruthexpress.com.
A Rally of Writers 