2012 Writers' Institute Instructors
Kimberly Aime, a full-time freelance writer and avid blogger has taught in the technology field for four years, first as a technical writer at Epic Systems and most recently as a technical trainer for Dean Health Systems. She has attended graduate school at Ohio State University and University of California Santa Barbara and studied Social Media through Media Bistro’s Social Media Boot Camp. She’s also worked in social media in the nonprofit sector as well as to market her writing. Check out her blog, Badger Girl Learns to Cook, at www.learntocookbadgergirl.com and follow her on Twitter, @BdgerGrl.
Bridget Birdsall is an author, artist and teacher. She has taught creative writing, literature, poetry and playwriting at Edgewood College and Madison College. She also served as a Visiting Artist at local Madison high schools and as a Graduate Assistant at Vermont College of the Fine Arts. Despite a life-long struggle with dyslexia, Bridget made a mid-life decision to pursue her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Today, she is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Marge Chandler Scholarship from the international foundation that supports women writers, A Room of Her Own (AROHO). In 2009, she was also a finalist for their $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award. Her YA novel August Atlas, is seeking a publisher under the representation of the Jonathan Lyon’s Literary Agency, it received an honorable mention in the Writer’s Institute’s First Page Contest. Ordinary Angels took first place, then went on to become her debut novel. Bridget recently joined the UW-Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies team, where she’s thrilled to have the opportunity to help other writers get their words out in the world.
Laurie Buchanan is a Holistic Health Practitioner, board certified with the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. She is the anchor writer for the “Inner Alchemy” column in Sibyl Magazine. Her articles on energy medicine, personal transformation, and spiritual awareness appear in magazines such as Evolving Your Spirit and Mindful Metropolis. An engaging combination of concise word pictures with vivid photography, her high-traffic blog—Speaking from the Heart—is enjoyed by almost 1,000 people each week.
Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, which was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller, called one of the best books of 2011 by the New Yorker, and translated into 10 languages. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian; in literary journals such as The Paris Review, AGNI, Gulf Coast, and Best New Poets; and in scientific journals such as Cognitive Science. Christian has been featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Charlie Rose Show, NPR's Radiolab, and the BBC, and has lectured at Google, Microsoft, the Santa Fe Institute, and the London School of Economics. Christian holds degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry from Brown University and the University of Washington. He lives in Philadelphia.
Christine DeSmet teaches fiction and screenwriting for UW-Madison Continuing Studies. She’s an award-winning novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter who has optioned to New Line Cinema and others. She’s also written stage plays. At UW-Madison, Christine mentors and critiques writers throughout the year, helping them polish their material for agents and publication. Her memberships include Writers Guild of America, East; Sisters in Crime; Romance Writers of America; Electronic Publishing Internet Connection; and Jewels of the Quill.
Anne Greenwood Brown is a YA author. Her debut novel, Lies Beneath (about murderous mermaids on Lake Superior), is coming June 12, 2012 from Random House Children's Books. She is represented by Jacqueline Flynn of Joëlle Delbourgo Associates, Inc. Anne has also published in Literary Mama, and her creative nonfiction is featured in other books on writing craft. Anne is a guest blogger on the popular writing blog Writer Unboxed, and she is a member of The Apocalypsies, an online group of 2012 YA and MG debuts.
Jeanette Hurt is the author of five books and a contributor to two other books. Most recently, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wine and Food Pairing was published by Alpha Books. Her book The Cheeses of California: A Culinary Travel Guide, received first place in the 2010 Mark Twain Travel Writing Awards Competition as best travel book of the year. The Cheeses of Wisconsin: A Culinary Travel Guide, received second place in the 2009 competition. She is also the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Cheeses of the World, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tapas. She is also a contributing writer to 1001 Foods You Should Try Before You Die and the upcoming My Dog’s Life: Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Jeanette also teaches culinary and wine classes, and has been a featured speaker at the Kohler Food & Wine Experience, Wine and Dine Wisconsin, Wisconsin Cheese Festival, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and Sonoma Cheese Conference.
Prior to beginning her freelance career in 2002, she worked as a reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago, the Milwaukee Sentinel and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Christopher Mohar is the recipient of a Carol Houck Smith Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin, The Southwest Review’s McGinnis Ritchie Award for Fiction, and a Sternig Short Fiction Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Christopher has taught fiction at two UW's (Seattle and Madison) and in a men's correctional facility, and in past lives has been a metallurgical engineer, a busboy, and a legal assistant’s assistant. His recent and forthcoming work can be found in Gastronomica, Creative Nonfiction, Lit, Devil’s Lake, Fiction Writer’s Review, and the anthology New Stories from the Midwest - 2011 (Indiana University Press).
Jim Papandrea is a teacher, author, speaker, and musician. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in music and theatre arts, Jim went on to receive his M.Div. degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, with a concentration in youth ministry. He then spent several years in full-time ministry, focusing on youth and music ministry, and serving as a consultant in youth ministry. Jim holds a Ph.D. in the history and theology of the early Christian church from Northwestern University, with secondary concentrations in New Testament interpretation and the history of the Roman Empire. Currently Assistant Professor of Church History at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary (on the campus of Northwestern University) in Evanston, Ill., Jim has also taught as an adjunct instructor for Barat College, Elmhurst College, Loyola University Chicago’s Institute for Pastoral Studies, and the lay formation programs of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois. He currently also teaches in the Chicago Catholic Scripture School and the Deacon Formation Program of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is the author of several academic and inspirational books. Check out Jim's website www.JimPapandrea.com.
Susan Reetz has been producing corporate and documentary video for more than 18 years and is a partner at Rucinski & Reetz Communication, LLC. She also teaches a course on Writing for Visual Media at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Her scripting, directing, and producing work has earned awards from numerous national and international festivals including the MCA-I Golden Reels, Tellys, New York Film and Video Festival, Auroras, Communicator Awards, and the Chicago International Film & Video Competition.
Laurie Scheer is a former vice president of programming for WE: Women's Entertainment. She has worked as an assistant, d-girl, and producer for ABC, Viacom, Showtime, and AMC-Cablevision. Having years of development experience within the hallowed halls of networks, studios, and production companies, Laurie knows how to analyze manuscripts and scripts as they enter the competitive media marketplace. She has also been involved in producing series for the Web, films for video games, and other digital based forms of entertainment. Laurie has been an instructor at numerous universities across the United States from Yale to UCLA. As a professional speaker, she has appeared at annual conventions for NAB, NATPE, Reel Screen, WIFV, FTX West, the Willamette Writers Conference. She is an Associate Faculty Associate with UW-Madison Continuing Studies and teaches online and in-person. She is also the director of the annual Writers’ Institute for UW Madison’s Continuing Studies department. Her current interest is in exploring ways to preserve good storytelling within the 21st century multiplatform marketplace.
Heather Shumaker began her writing career as a graduate student in Madison writing radio scripts for Earthwatch Radio. She began writing full-time in 2006, and is the author of the upcoming book It’s OK Not to Share: And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Tarcher/ Penguin August 2012). Her publications include Parenting, Organic Gardening, Wisconsin Natural Resources and other online and print media. Heather writes nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, and fiction and is represented by Joelle Delbourgo Associates.
Tina Schwartz graduated in Marketing Communications with an Advertising Emphasis, working a media buyer and marketing sales rep before becoming a full-time writer. She teaches “Writing for Children & Teens” at local community colleges throughout Illinois and Wisconsin, along with offering on-line classes on her website www.tinapschwartz.com.
As a full-time freelance author, Tina has had three non-fiction books published, with six more to be released in 2012. She’s a regular contributor to www.patch.com (AOL’s on-line newspaper) with more than 30 featured articles to her credit. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) and Toastmasters International.
Brendan Sullivan is a creativity coach, helping individuals, organizational teams and leaders to create more innovative ideas, more dynamic solutions and a more creative work environment. His corporate clients include Kellogg’s, Harley-Davidson, Aetna, Nestle Purina, Abbott Labs, the Chicago Public School System, PepsiCo and many others. His work is influenced by his over 20 years as a professional improvisational actor, teacher and coach, trained at the world famous Second City Conservatory. Brendan also was the creative producer for the Chicago-based Jonathon Brandmeier radio show for ten years. Brendan’s first novel, “The Living Wills,” co-written with Rick Kaempfer, was published in December by Eckhartz Press. Brendan lives in Chicago with his wife and four school aged children.
Penelope Trunk writes a blog that has earned mid-six figures for the last five years. She is the founder of three Internet startups and launched her most recent startup by selling equity in her blog to investors.
Trunk's writing has been syndicated in more than 200 newspapers including the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal. She has published essays in Time magazine and Los Angeles magazine and has published two books—Brazen Careerist (Time Warner) and Six Sex Scenes (University of Colorado).
Trunk was named one of the top bloggers to watch by hundreds of organizations, including: BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! and Microsoft.
Angela Voras-Hills earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts- Boston, where she taught creative writing and managed the Breakwater Reading Series. She has served as fiction editor for Madison Review, managing editor of Breakwater Review, and currently reads poetry submissions for Ploughshares. Her recent awards include the Martha Collins Prize in Poetry, a fellowship from the Writers’ Room of Boston, and a scholarship to attend the Key West Literary Seminar and Writers’ Workshop. You can find her work in MARY, ripple(s), and Cimarron Review, among others.
John Vorhaus is the author of five novels, two classic books on writing, 10 books on poker and one book on strip poker. His “sunshine noir” novels, The California Roll and The Albuquerque Turkey, feature the adventures of world-class con artist Radar Hoverlander. His writing books, The Comic Toolbox and Creativity Rules are considered bibles of the genre by writers from New Zealand to Norway. And his latest poker book, Decide to Play Great Poker (co-authored with Annie Duke) is consistently the top-selling poker book on Amazon. In addition to writing rather prolifically, John Vorhaus travels the world teaching and training television writers and creating television shows. His latest creation is Contracorriente, a social-action drama developed and produced in Nicaragua. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact, and secretly rules the world from www.johnvorhaus.com.
Mary T. Wagner is a criminal prosecutor in Wisconsin, and a former newspaper and magazine journalist. Over the years her by-line has appeared in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as well as in magazines across the country. More recently, her essays have appeared online both on her website, www.runningwithstilettos.com, and at Flashionista, MORE.com, Shortbread Stories, RedRoom, The Front Porch Review, Growing Bolder, and The Write City. Life experience includes being the mother of four and a former girl scout troop leader, truck stop waitress, office temp, judicial clerk, and radio talk show host.
Laurel Yourke, of UW-Madison Continuing Studies, is the author of Take Your Characters to Dinner: Creating the Illusion of Reality in Fiction. This text forms the backbone of credit and noncredit courses offered in print and online to writers all over the world. She is a recipient of the UW-Madison Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and the Council of Wisconsin Writers Award for Encouragement of Wisconsin Writers. Her critique workshops for intermediate and advanced fiction writers and poets have existed since 1995. Her poetry collection, Waiting for Beethoven, came out in 2005, with the second edition published in 2006. Her poetry has appeared in university presses; Wisconsin Academy Proceedings, and other periodicals and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her articles have appeared in Anew and the Wisconsin Academy Review. She has a short story in the 2008 Cup of Comfort for Cat Lovers. Currently, she's working on a nonfiction book about revising the novel.