Below, find the bios for our 2017 workshop presenters.
Bridget Adams is a writer from upstate New York. She is currently in pursuit of her MFA in Fiction at Bowling Green State University. She serves as Fiction Editor at Mid-American Review.
Roseanna Boswell is a Poetry MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her work has appeared or will appear soon in: Driftwood Press, Maudlin House, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Glittermob, and elsewhere. Roseanna is currently acting as the Managing Editor for the Mid-American Review.
Christopher Bowen is a Midwestern chef and author of the books We Were Giants, When I Return To You, I Will Be Unfed, and the forthcoming, Debt. He has read and toured throughout the United States.
Jenna Bush is a senior English major at OSU Lima. She is an assistant editor for Asterism.
Erin Carlyle’s work has been featured in magazines such as The Yellow Medicine Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Third Point Press, and her recent chapbook was published with Dancing Girl Press. She holds an MA in Literary and Textual Studies from Bowling Green State University and a graduate certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies from Western Kentucky University. At present, she is pursuing her MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University.
Katy Cesarotti is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction at Bowling Green State University.
Annie E. Cigic is a first-year MFA student in Creative Writing at BGSU. She is from Cleveland, Ohio. When she is not writing or reading poetry, she is learning more about surrealism in her spare time. She will start submitting her poetry to numerous journals this fall. She also really loves her cat, Kitty.
Lawrence Coates has published five books, most recently The Goodbye House, a novel set amid the housing tracts of San Jose in the aftermath of the first dot com bust. His work has been recognized with the Miami University Press Novella Prize, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction.
Brad Felver is a fiction writer and essayist. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in magazines such as One Story, Colorado Review, and New England Review. He teaches at BGSU.
Kiera Gaswint is a graduate student in the Masters in Literary and Textual Studies program. Interested in all things popular culture, Kiera can often be found with her nose shoved in a comic book, watching Netflix or some other popular program, or off seeking her own adventures.
Madeline Grigg is Poetry MFA graduate student at BGSU. Originally from Texas and recently from Maine, she has worked in web and radio news media and enjoys listening to nerdy podcasts.
Dan Gualtieri is a graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program at Bowling Green State University, and a native of Columbus, Ohio. He is passionate about philosophy, literature, and the Midwest.
Kari Hanlin is a first-year MFA fiction student at BGSU. She predominantly writes short fiction set in West Virginia involving characters with mental illness, because art apparently imitates life. In her spare time, she spontaneously rescues animals and re-watches The West Wing.
Theodora Hannan is a graduate student in the Masters in Literary and Textual Studies program. While most of this year will be spent writing a thesis on queer history, Theodora hopes to multitask by doing it all to a good soundtrack (music recommendations welcome).
Nick Heeb is a native of western South Dakota. His fiction has appeared in the South Dakota Review, BULL: Men’s Fiction, and elsewhere.
Susanne Jaffe is a former executive and editor in New York City trade publishing and the former executive director and creative director of Thurber House, a nonprofit literary center in Columbus, Ohio. She has taught at Thurber House and a library learning organization in Columbus. She is the author of several published works of fiction, many of them published traditionally and the most recent two self-published with 5-star ratings on Amazon. For more on Susanne, please go to either: www.susannejaffe.com or to her Amazon author page at: http://amazon.com/author/susannejaffe.
Sarah Kiepper, MA, MS, is the new Director of Career Services (2017) at ETI Technical College in Niles, OH. Ms. Kiepper earned a BA in Justice Studies from Kent State University (2002); an MA in English Literature, and Graduate Certificates in Composition and Women’s Studies from The University of Akron (2005); and an MS in Criminal Justice from Youngstown State University (2007). With 13 years experience teaching at the college-level at both public universities and proprietary colleges, and five years as a director / manager in education, and student and career services, Sarah loves any aspect of her professional positions in which she can make a difference in the lives of the students. She has presented many papers/experiences at professional conferences, and is the President of the College English Association of Ohio’s Annual Spring Conference (2018) where she is also past editor of CEAO’s English Notes. Ms. Kiepper enjoys boating, photography, and writing fiction and poetry (she’s been published in YSU’s Penguin Review and UAkron’s Akros Review). Sarah resides in NE Ohio with her husband Greg, his dog Oakley, and her soulmate Hickory: a two year old beagle / dachshund mix.
As co-director of the Toledo Poets Center, Joel Lipman facilitated readings for over 150 visiting writers and edited numerous books under the Toledo Poets Center Press imprint. Recipient of 5 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships, in 2010 the Ohioana Library honored him with the Pegasis Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts.
Anthony Lograsso is from metro-Detroit and is currently studying for his MFA in poetry. He obsessively plays Overwatch and will watch any Tom Hardy movie. He also watches Netflix religiously and wishes Avatar the Last Airbender was still a thing.
Howard McCord is the author of forty volumes of poetry, essays, and fiction. HIs Collected Poems is coming out in French in January 2018, joining three other volumes translated into French. A filmscript for his novel, The Man Who Walked to The Moon, is under development. He has mentored many well-known poets.
Margaret McKeon is an outdoor educator, poet and doctoral candidate in language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia. A person of Euro-settler ancestry, for her research she is creating poetry and stories about land relationship and colonialism.
Heather McLeod teaches arts education at Memorial University, in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. She pursues a critical research agenda and is interested in arts-based methods. A recently-funded research project includes a parents and poetry project.
Ashley Meihls is a senior studying English at OSU Lima. As managing editor, she has had a hand in every aspect of making Asterism a reality.
Marcy Meyer, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Ball State University. A winner of the 1996 ICA Redding Dissertation Award and the 2001 CSCA Federation Prize, Marcy has presented and published her research internationally. Currently, Marcy is developing the art of yoga poetry.
Dr. Conor Nelson is Associate Professor of Flute at BGSU. He attended the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and Stony Brook University, winning school-wide concerto competitions at all three institutions. He is an internationally recognized soloist and educator.
Bonnie Nish is Executive Director of Pandora’s Collective Outreach Society. Bonnie has a Masters in Arts Education from Simon Fraser University and is pursuing a PhD in Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Bonnie the author of two books, is an also an Expressive Arts Therapist.
Rebecca Orchard is a fiction writer and classical musician from Northeast Ohio via Baltimore and New York City. She serves as Assistant Fiction Editor at Mid-American Review and is coordinator of Winter Wheat 2017.
Dorothy Ellen Palmer is a writer, disability activist, and a retired Drama Teacher and Improv Coach. Her novel, When Fenelon Falls (Coach House, 2010) was nominated for a ReLit Award. Her memoir, This Redhead and her Walker Walk into a Bar, will be published by Wolsak & Wynn in 2019.
Jane Piirto is active in the poetic inquiry community. She is an award-winning poet and scholar. One of her most downloaded articles (still) is her 2002, “The Question of Quality and Qualifications.” Her poem, “Here,” is the title of a recent anthology of women poets from Michigan State University Press.
Remi Recchia is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Bowling Green State University, where he serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for the Mid-American Review and teaches Creative Writing. His work has appeared or will soon appear in Old Northwest Review, Front Porch, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry, among others.
Andrew and Donora A. Rihn are co-authors of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: An Election Cycle (Moria Books/Locofo Chaps, 2017), a poetry chapbook about falling in love and getting married during the 2016 election. They live in a tiny house in Portage Lakes, OH with their two rescue dogs.
Poet Gisela Ruebsaat’s work has appeared in literary and academic journals and has been presented locally and internationally at ISPI symposia. Her poetry collection, Heart Mechanic, was published in 2016. Gisela, a former lawyer, has worked as a speechwriter for justice ministers and legal analyst for a feminist advocacy organization.
Nicholas Rys is an MFA candidate in fiction at Bowling Green State University. His fiction, poetry, reviews, interviews and essays have been featured in various places, both online and in print.
Kelly Boyer Sagert is a Bowling Green State University graduate (BA in Psychology, 1983) and the writer/researcher of Trail Magic: The Grandma Gatewood Story, a 2017 Emmy Award nominee. A fulltime freelance writer, she has written four full-length commissioned plays, 14 books and thousands of shorter pieces.
Hadeel Salameh is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University. Her work has been published in Anchor Magazine, Apogee Journal, Muftah, SLAB Literary Art, and Soundbook and has received an Honorary Mention in Carnegie Mellon’s Martin Luther King Jr Writing Awards.
E.B. Schnepp is a poet hailing from rural Mid-Michigan who currently finds herself stranded in the flatlands of Ohio with a MFA from Bowling Green State University and a bad procrasti-baking habit. Her work can be found in Hypertrophic Lit, Maudlin House, and Crab Fat, among others.
Anna Short is a Midwestern writer attending Bowling Green State University’s Creative Writing MFA program with a focus on Poetry. She received a degree in Digital Communication from Siena Heights University. She has work featured in the Southern Indiana Review and in the Winter 2017 issue of Pleiades.
Eric Wasserman is the author of a collection of short stories, The Temporary Life, and a novel, Celluloid Strangers. He is an Associate Professor of English at The University of Akron where he teaches fiction writing, literature and film studies.
Anne Weyer graduated from Ohio State with an English degree, and has five children and two dogs. She spent most of her adult life as the owner of a small retail store, and finds her fellow human beings fascinating. She enjoys meandering conversations and cheap domestic beer.
Dr. Kasie Whitener is a regular contributor to the South Carolina Writers’ Association Columbia II Chapter where she recently blogged “Writing About Death” and got interested in how to keep our universal death experience from dragging down the drama of our fictional funerals. Dr. Whitener is a member of the South Carolina Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau, an entrepreneur and frequent workshop presenter to the Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cups Columbia. Her fiction has appeared in The Petigru Review and Spry Literary Magazine. Her short story “Cover Up” won the Carrie McCray Award for fiction and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016.
Dara Wier’s books include You Good Thing, Remnants of Hannah, A Civilian’s Journal of the War Years, and Selected Poems. Her works have appeared in numerous journals, including Tin House, American Poetry Review, jubilat, and Fairy Tale Review. A Guggenheim Foundation and NEA award recipient, she is also a BGSU MFA grad.
Allison K. Williams is a memoirist, travel journalist, and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Smokelong, Prairie Schooner, and beyond. She is the social media editor at Brevity.
