Upcoming Presenters for the October 2014 IWC Creative Writing Conference!

This week’s post highlights four of the conference presenters. Information about their presentations can be found in the conference schedule at:  http://indianawritersconsortium.org/IWC-creative-writing-conference.asp

Dana Bowman, presenter of "Can We Be Funny?" Good Wit and Good Writing 

Dana Bowman is a wife, a mother, a teacher, a runner, a horrible cook, and a writer, all simultaneously.  Bowman states:

This is only possible because my family provides me with loads of material.  I am the author of Momsieblog where I meet other moms, and we will grip hands tightly and walk through the days of endless Cheerios on the floor (well, everywhere) and other such conundrums of motherhood.  It is here that I address such scintillating topics as: “Why must we discuss this while Mommy is on the potty?”

 

I am the grateful recipient of two awards for my writing, and have been published in Today’s Christian Woman, Covenant Home Companion, Home Altar, Paper Tape, Blast Furnace Literary Magazine, and Aspiring to Inspire, a women’s anthology.  I also speak on the topic of women in recovery.  I currently teach writing at the local college and hope, one day, to understand how my current students can function in the same way that my toddlers do. 

Gabriella Brand, presenter of The Writer and The Writing Group 

Gabriella Brand's short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in such publications as Room Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Citron Review, PIF, Echoes, and 3Elements Review. One of her short stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2013. Gabriella holds a BA from Antioch College, Ohio, and an MA from Middlebury College, Vermont. In the past, she served as a Middle School Head in three schools. Today, she is a frequent presenter in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut. She is a passionate teacher of English, creative writing, and foreign languages. She speaks fluent French, decent Spanish, baby Italian and is learning Japanese. She and her family usually spend the summer in Quebec, where she hikes, canoes, daydreams and writes. But she is never far from one of her writing groups!

A link to her poem "Newcomer," published by PIF magazine can be found here: http://www.pifmagazine.com/2011/01/newcomer/

Marion Cohen, presenter of From Diarist to Memoirist 

Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 20 books, including the forthcoming poetry chapbook, “Parables for a Rainy Day” (Green Fuse Press) and “Crossing the Equal Sign” (Plain View Press), poetry about the experience of mathematics. She received her math Ph.D. from Wesleyan University (Connecticut) and teaches math and writing at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA, where she developed the course, “Truth and Beauty: Mathematics in Literature.” Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, and three grandchildren.





Her newest publication, Still the End: Memoir of a Nursing Home Wife, can be found here: https://www.createspace.com/4471844

 

Here is a link to a YouTube video where she talks about her memoir:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DckUcnZx7rA  

 

Lauren Mallet, presenter of "Hot Pockets, Butterflies, and Chevron: Fifth Grade Creative Writing Pedagogy and the Richmond Writes! Poetry Contest" 

Lauren Mallett is an MFA candidate in Poetry and the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Purdue University. She earned a BA in English Writing and Spanish from Denison University in 2010 and taught fifth grade in a public, dual-language immersion classroom in Richmond, California for three years before returning to the Midwest for graduate school.

 

In 2012, Richmond Confidential reported on the Richmond Writes! Poetry Contest, describing Mallett as follows:

 

Lauren Mallett introduced herself to the audience as “the proud 5th grade teacher of Richy and Cedes,” two students from Washington Elementary who presented their poems. “[This contest] is an incredible opportunity for the students to be celebrated,” Mallett said. “Over time, the more that we can celebrate these students through this kind of contest, they are going to rise to the occasion and really be able show what they got.”

 

To find out more about Richmond Writes follow this link: http://richmondwrites.wordpress.com/