Luther college, decorah, iowa
Preacher Rev. Norene Smith
Download 0.51 Mb.
|
Preacher Rev. Norene SmithBayshore Lutheran Church, Whitefish Bay, WI Noon: Festival ends
The Vibrant Word: Festival Presenters Lauri Anderson, English Department Chair at Finlandia University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, has published eight books of fiction, including Hunting Hemingway’s Trout, Heikki Heikkinen and Other Stories of Upper Peninsula Finns, Misery Bay, Back to Misery Bay, Impressions of Arvo Laurila, Children of the Kalevala, and Small Winter Wars. His latest book, Mosquito Conversations, a finalist for the Maria Thomas Award, was selected for a GobalTeach.Net listing. His books’ presses include Athenaeum and North Star, and his books have been nationally reviewed and studied at universities. He has received nine grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a featured author on Finnish National Television. Nancy K. Barry is a professor of English and Assistant Dean at Luther College, where she teaches courses on creative nonfiction and women’s literature. For many years, she has taught essays and memoir writing at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Her one-act play, Lessons from Cancer College, premiered in 2010, details her experience of sustaining her work as a writing teacher while undergoing cancer treatment. Her essays have appeared in Iowa Woman, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun. Jill Peláez Baumgaerter is the author of Finding Cuba (Chimney Hill Press, 2001), a collection of poems that explores her Cuban ancestry through the themes of political and theological exile and separation. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Leaving Eden (White Eagle Coffee Store Press, 1995), Namings (Franciscan University Press, 1999) and My Father’s Bones (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2006); a textbook/anthology, Poetry (HBJ, 1990); and Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring (Cornerstone Press, 1998), in addition to over forty essays. She has been a Fulbright scholar, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is the winner of the White Eagle Coffee Store Press’s poetry chapbook contest, the Goodman Award, an Illinois Arts Council Award, and the Illinois Prize of the Rock River Poetry Contest. She is past president of the Conference on Christianity and Literature and serves as poetry editor of The Christian Century. Currently she is Professor of English and Dean of Humanities and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. Jill's website is at 
Brianna Van Dyke is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruminate, a quarterly literary and arts magazine engaging the Christian faith (www.ruminatemagazine.org). She has a BA from Westmont College and an MA from Colorado State, both in English literature. Brianna has presented at writing, publishing, and editing conferences across the country and directs a national publishing internship for undergraduate and graduate English students. She lives in Fort Collins, CO, with her husband, two children, and two dogs. She dreams about documenting a pilgrimage of labyrinths and handcrafted ales. Since 1989 Philip Bryant has taught at Gustavus Adolphus College, where he is Professor of English. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Indiana Review, American Poetry Review, and Nimrod. He has a chapbook, Blue Island (Crossroads, 1997) and a poetry collection, Sermon on a Perfect Spring Day (New Rivers, 1998). His poetry has appeared in several anthologies, including Where One Voice Ends Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry. In 2009 Blueroad Press published his collection of jazz poems, Stompin’ at the Grand Terrace, along with an accompanying CD. Susanna Childress spent the better part of her first decade in the Philippines, where her parents were missionaries. Her debut volume of poems, Jagged with Love, was selected by former US poet laureate Billy Collins for the 2005 Brittingham Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press and by the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale for the 2006 Devil's Kitchen Literary Award for the best book of poems published in the previous year. Recently, her fiction has been selected by David James Duncan for a short story award from Ruminate Magazine. She earned a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University, taught as a Visiting Professor at Hope College, and has just completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship with the Lilly Fellows Program at Valparaiso University, where she was mentored by Walter Wangerin, Jr. and served as a lecturer in the Humanities and English at Christ College and the English Department. She lives with her husband in Holland, Michigan, and they are enjoying their first child, a boy, born in May. Robert Cording teaches English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross where he is the Barrett Professor of Creative Writing. He has published five collections of poems: Life-list, which won the Ohio State U Press/Journal award (l987); What Binds Us To This World (Copper Beech, l991); Heavy Grace (Alice James, l996); Against Consolation (CavanKerry, 2002); and Common Life (CavanKerry, 2006). CavanKerry published his new collection, Walking With Ruskin, in September. Bob has received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in poetry and two poetry grants from the Connecticut Commission of the Arts. His poems have appeared in numerous publications such as The Nation, Georgia Review, Southern Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Orion, and the New Yorker. Barbara Crooker’s poems appear in The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Century, Christianity and Literature, Sojourners, Windhover, The Cresset, Tiferet, and Rock & Sling. She has published three poetry collections: Radiance, which won the 2005 Word Press First Book Award; Line Dance (Word, 2008), which won the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and More (C&R, 2010). She has received three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships in Literature and the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award.
Jill Alexander Essbaum has three full-length collections of poetry: Heaven (U Press of New England, 2000), which won the 1999 Bakeless Prize in Poetry; Harlot (No Tell Books, 2007); and Necropolis (NeoNuma Arts, 2008). Jill’s poems have appeared in many journals including Poetry, Christian Century, Image, Gulf Coast, and No Tell Motel. A former NEA Literature Fellow, her poem "On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica" was included in The Best American Erotic Poems, 1800-Present, and her poem “Apologia” (published in Image) appears in The Best American Poetry 2010. A single-poem chapbook, The Devastation, is forthcoming from Cooper-Dillon Books. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Jill teaches in the UCR-Palm Desert Low Residency MFA program. She lives in Austin, Texas. David Faldet is Professor of English at his alma mater, Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, the town where he grew up. He is in the sixth generation of his family to live in the basin of the Upper Iowa River. In his book, Oneota Flow: The Upper Iowa River and Its People (U of Iowa, 2009), he blends history, environmental research, and personal experience to demonstrate that taking care of the rivers around us is a necessary way to take care of our future. He earned his MA at the University of Washington and his PhD at the University of Iowa on a Danforth Fellowship. He has also taught in Idaho and in England. Much of his published scholarship deals with William Morris, a writer and artist who was an early environmentalist. Rachel Faldet grew up in small town Wisconsin and received her Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Iowa. She has taught writing to Luther College students for twenty years, partnered on writing projects with high school classrooms, and led writing workshops with disabled adults. She edited the grant-funded book From My Perspective: Essays About Disability (2009), which was featured on Iowa Public Radio's The Exchange. As co-editor of Our Stories of Miscarriage: Healing with Words (Fairview, 1997), Rachel has appeared on NBC's Today show. Her personal essays – published in The Christian Science Monitor, Carolina Quarterly, Wapsipinicon Almanac, Iowa Woman, and Tapestry–deal with connections to other females. She is at work on a memoir about the sister-in-law she never met in person. At Susquehanna University Gary Fincke is the Writers Institute Director, as well as the Charles Degenstein Professor of English and Creative Writing. Winner of the 2003 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and the 2003 Ohio State University/The Journal Poetry Prize for recent collections of stories and poems, he has published twenty-two books of poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, most recently The Canals of Mars (memoir, Michigan State, 2010), The Fire Landscape (poems, Arkansas, 2008), Sorry I Worried You (stories, Georgia, 2004), and Amp'd: A Father's Backstage Pass, a nonfiction account of his son's life as a rock guitarist in the band Breaking Benjamin (Michigan State, 2004). Winner of the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry Magazine, the Rose Lefcowitz Prize from Poet Lore, and the George Garrett Fiction Prize, Gary has twice been awarded Pushcart Prizes for his work, recognized by Best American Stories, and cited nine times in the past eleven years for a "Notable Essay" in Best American Essays. Cristy Fossum, self-published author of the Sunday by Sunday series <www.sundaybysunday.com> , lives in Columbia, South Carolina. Raised Methodist in Illinois, she has been a member of thirteen Lutheran congregations in Illinois, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and South Carolina. A full-time mother and homemaker for ten years, she has since worked in public relations and in special education. Most recently, she taught at Provost Academy in South Carolina, a virtual high school. She attended Wartburg College for two years, earned a BA from the University of Illinois in Chicago (1971) and an MS in special education from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (1990).
Carol Gilbertson’s poems have appeared in various journals including The MacGuffin, Christian Century, Vineyard, Pebble Lake Review, and the radio program Voices from the Prairie. Her poem “Hercules” won the 2006 Flyway Sweet Corn Prize for Poetry; “On the Train from Krakow” earned honorable mention in the 2009 MacGuffin Poet Hunt. She has written three hymn texts with different composers. Her poem “Night Rising” inspired composer Philip Wharton’s composition “Nightrising” for flute, oboe, and strings, and she wrote the libretto for “Birdsongs,” a song cycle for mezzo-soprano by Wharton. She co-edited the essay collection Translucence: Religion, the Arts, and Imagination (Fortress, 2004); her essay in it, on the religious imagination in the literature classroom, earned the NCTE Donald Murray Prize. A Professor of English at Luther College, she has been the Dennis M. Jones Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities, has directed the Luther Poetry Project and a study abroad program in Nottingham, England, and is current director of the Lutheran Festival of Writing. A St. Olaf grad with an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, John Graber has published over fifty poems in national magazines, including The American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Great River Review, and JAMA. He has two chapbooks, Walking Home (Pudding House) and Only on This Planet (Parallel Press). The 2007 Lutheran Festival of Writing led to the publication of his poetry collection, Thanksgiving Dawn, by presenter Jim Bodeen’s Blue Begonia Press (2008), and he was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize. Graber’s voice emerges from the language, moods, and tones of scripture. He and his wife spent six years teaching college students in the Holden Village Christian Life Enrichment program. Now living in Stockholm, Wisconsin, John has taught in area colleges and high schools. He teaches a workshop in “The Writing and Repair of Poetry,” along with doing many duties at his church. Gracia Grindal, Professor of Rhetoric at Luther Seminary, taught English at Luther College from 1968 to 1984. She has published many articles on the history of Scandinavian-American Lutheran hymnody, and her hymn texts and translations appear in hymnals of several mainline churches. Her books include A Treasury of Faith: A B C Hymns on the Revised Common Lectionary (2006, 2008, 2009), Hymns Of Grace (2002), and We Are One in Christ (1997). Her poetry collections include A Revelry of Harvest (2002), Sketches Against the Dark (1982), and Pulpit Rock (1976). In 2007 Gracia provided a commentary on original sketches by Linka Preus for the new translation of Preus’s 19th-century diary (edited by Luther College History Professor Marv Slind, 2007). Gracia’s study of Scandinavian women hymn writers, Preaching From Home, is forthcoming from Eerdmans. She created the Reformation Festival and has served on a number of church boards, including the hymn text committee for the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and the Task Force for the Study of Ministry. Gracia earned a BA from Augsburg College, an MFA from the University of Arkansas, and a MA from Luther Seminary. She is now completing a cycle of hymns on Old Testament lectionary texts and a series on the Epistles, and is working on a study of Scandinavian-American Lutheran parsonage traditions. View Gracia’s website at A graduate of St. Olaf College and Christ Seminary-Seminex, Patrick Cabello Hansel is an ELCA pastor who has served for 25 years in bilingual multicultural inner city ministries in the Bronx, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, where he has developed arts programs for youth and adults. He studied with Phillip Schultz, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, and was one of four poets in the 2008-2009 Mentor Series of the Loft in Minneapolis. Patrick has published poetry and essays in Fire Ring Voices, Main Channel Voices, Alitcom, Turtle Quarterly, Sojourners, The Other Side, and Philly Edition ’99, the celebration of Philadelphia poets by The American Poetry Review. He is currently serializing his novella, Searching, in the monthly Alley News in Minneapolis. He and his wife are co-pastors of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Patrick Hicks is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana College (SD) as well as the author of five poetry collections, most recently Finding the Gossamer (2008) and This London (2010), both from Ireland’s acclaimed press, Salmon Poetry. His fiction and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The Utne Reader, Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter, and Natural Bridge. His stories have been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize, he recently won the Glimmer Train New Writer’s Fiction Award, and several of his stories have been nominated for Best American Short Stories. He has received a number of grants, including one from the Bush Foundation for work on his first novel. A citizen of Ireland, he has also lived in England, Germany, and Spain. Mary Crockett Hill is the author of A Theory of Everything, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Autumn House Award (2009), and If You Return Home with Food, winner of the Bluestem Poetry Award (1999). Her poems have been nominated for five Pushcart Awards and selected for the Best of the Net anthology. She teaches at Roanoke College in southwestern Virginia and edits the Roanoke Review. Diane LeBlanc is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Dancer with Good Sow (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Hope in Zone Four (Talent House Press, 1998). Awards include literary fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council, a Brenda Ueland Prose Prize, a Robert Penn Warren Award, and a Pushcart Prize nomination for poetry. Diane received the Bechtel Prize from Teachers & Writers Collaborative for her essay “Weaving Voices: Writing as a Working Class Daughter, Professor, and Poet.” Diane directs the writing program at St. Olaf College, where she teaches writing and women’s studies. Diane’s website is at 
Download 0.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
|