WOLVERINE FARM WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
Wolverine Farm Publishing and Wolverine Farm Letterpress and Publick House strive to be valuable resources for local writers of all genres. In order to better serve the writing community and encourage individual authors and poets to interact with one another and build a strong network, we present the Writer in Residence (WIR) program. Each month we select a local writer who agrees to be present and in good writing form at the Publick House throughout the month, and to perform a free, public, in-house reading or workshop.
2019 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
JANUARY Joshua Zaffos
Joshua Zaffos is a reporter and writer in Fort Collins, and also an instructor of environmental communications and journalism at Colorado State University. His work, covering the environment, science, and culture across the West and beyond, has appeared in High Country News, Audubon, Slate, Wired, Yale Environment 360, Hakai, and many other national and local outlets. Web: joshuazaffos.com Twitter: @jzaffos
FEBRUARY Sarah Paige Ryan
Sarah Paige Ryan writes fiction and nonfiction about all the stuff that sparks wonder. She has published a camping guidebook, a memoir, and short stories and magazine articles about everything from cellular clocks to climate change. Her heart is in kidlit, and she’s hard at work on picture books, a YA novel, and a chapter book series. Hopefully, she’ll be able to invite ya’ll to a book release party someday. Web: https://sarahpaigeryan.
Special Event:
MARCH Elaine Wall
Elaine Wall has degrees in economics and accounting, which she does not use. Her writing has been read by her friend, Melissa, who likes it quite a bit, and her parents and brother and sister-in-law, who are sort of meh about it. Her wife and kids are her greatest pride. But she would like to win a fancy literary prize one day—a Pulitzer or the Man Booker Prize, say—so as to flip the bird at the haters. Yes, her family, too. Because, can you imagine the Thanksgiving after that went down? They’d be eating crow. Instead of turkey, she means. Or, in her brother’s case, Tofurky. So, he’ll be eating a soy-based crow substitute instead—“croy,” let’s call it. She believes the Wolverine Farm Writer in Residence program is the first step toward her goals of limitless adoration and world domination.
Elaine writes fiction—the science kind, mostly—has written three novels, and many poems.
APRIL Ally Eden
Ally Eden is a writer and photographer based out of Fort Collins. You can catch her live at coffee shops, slam competitions, or late at night in damp grassy knolls where street cats congregate. When she’s not narrating her own stories, she’s relaying them for others as an English/Spanish interpreter. Ally also speaks, dances, plays and performs under the moniker Gato Hato. Check out her spoken word album,Aullar, on gatohato.bandcamp.com or follow her photography @gato_hato on IG and at allyeden.com.
Special Event:
Dabble in the Dark: a communal writing experience on May Day (May 1st). We’ll hear micro-fiction that finds levity in the occult, taboo, perverse and unseen, as well as write some together based on prompts. Darkness: it’s not just for Halloween!
May 1st, 7:30-9pm
MAY John Staughton
June Ivy Hughes
Ivy Hughes is a ghostwriter who has written dozens of business and self-help books on the behalf of CEOs through Forbes and Success magazines. Ivy has also written business and travel articles for Success, Entrepreneur and the Boston Globe among dozens of others; launched multiple online, community-based publications in Michigan and Colorado; attended several writing retreats in Europe; given a Tedx talk based on a blog that turned into a memoir; and received writing fellowships to both Germany and Argentina. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Syndic and Eckleburg.
Ivy is currently working on a memoir about how her diagnosis of an aggressive form of breast cancer in 2017 drastically changed the relationships within her family. She lives in Fort Collins with her wonderful twin two-year-old boys and will soon teach yoga for those who have suffered physical and psychological trauma at the Yoga Shack.
https://www.focoyogashack.com/
To read Ivy’s writing, visit ww.ivyhughes.com. To follow her cancer journey, click here.
Twitter: @ifracassi
FB: https://www.facebook.com/public/Ivy-Hughes
Instagram: ifracassi
Special Event: How to Find Your Authentic Voice in Memoir Workshop
This 1.5 hour workshop will help those interested in writing memoir find their authentic narrative voice. Participants will be asked to work through written exercises on the spot as a way for the entire group to learn about where, when and how voice does and does not work. By the end of the workshop, each participant should have a few tools that will help them identify and improve their voice.
Event details:
7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Monday, June 17
Web: joshuazaffos.com Twitter: @jzaffos
July Tirzah Goldenberg
Tirzah (Teer-tzah) Goldenberg was raised in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. She has a BA in English Literature from the University of Exeter in England and an MFA in Poetry from Colorado State University. She is the author of the poetry collection Aleph (Verge Books 2017). Her next collection is forthcoming from the same press under an unpronounceable Paleo-Hebrew title. She is currently working on a novella about Jewish identity in rural America, parts of which she will be writing at Wolverine throughout the month of July!
Web: joshuazaffos.com Twitter: @jzaffos
AUGUST Brent Applegate
G.B. Applegate’s story is the quintessential aspiring author story. After completing three very optimistic novels in his late twenties and early thirties, resulting in a heap of rejection letters and one near miss with a big city literary agency, he crashed headfirst into what can only be called life. Mortgage, diapers, burp blankets and a wife who valued comfort and stability over the excitement and spontaneity of poverty derailed his literary ambitions and led him to an admittedly happy existence of entrepreneurship and #soccerdad cliches. But there was always that something missing. That piece that every writer understands. That niggling itch. That elephant in the room. So in the winter of 2019 he returned to the craft, starting the books anew, with nary a glance at the originals. Since that time Wolverine Press has been his sanctum, his place to reacquaint himself with that patient elephant, his home away from home, his backscratcher to the ever present itch. He is happy to be here.
Web: joshuazaffos.com Twitter: @jzaffos
SEPTEMBER Chelsea Gilmore
Chelsea Gilmore is a writer, artist, and herbalist living and working in Fort Collins. She has always been inspired by the natural world and communicates this passion through her craft. Her work explores the boundaries of the familiar, the natural, the dream, the memory, and the layered experience of story. Chelsea combines letter writing, poetry, herbal reverence, and the mystic in her latest project; “Love Letters to Plants.” Excited to delve into the combined world of writing and sculptural art forms this fall, she is inspired to weave these threads into her next artist in residency program in Longmont, CO. Chelsea received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Colorado State University, trained for two+ years in herbal studies, and currently works as an Artist and Educator across the front range.
contact: csrg65@gmail.com
IG: @chelseagilmoreart
Event: Sunday September 22, 4-6pm
Learning to let go of love Letters
OCTOBER Brianna Van Dyke
Brianna Van Dyke is a poet and creative nonfiction writer fascinated by the intersection of words and beauty and spirituality. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruminate, a contemplative literary arts magazine entering it’s thirteenth year of publication. She earned her MA in literature from CSU and lives in Fort Collins with her husband and their two children.
November Hanna Doreen Brown
Hanna Doreen Brown is just a short girl from Rochester, NY, but she also calls herself a passionate musician who likes to play music in Colorado. Drawing from a deep love for music history, Hanna writes and plays in the traditions of Folk, Bluegrass, Americana, Country, and Honky Tonk. She also enjoys seeking inspiration from the musical stories and lives of Colorado seniors living in care facilities. Hanna plays full time in nursing homes and senior centers as well as in venues, bars, and on the road, trying to create more connections between the music worlds of the old and the young and between historical songs and those being written and produced today. To find out more about her work in Colorado care facilities, visit the Sound Affects site.
Special Event: The Organized Open Mic Sunday Nov. 24th 3:30-6pm
Like an open mic, but organized around a theme.
As the November writer in residence at Wolverine Farm, Hanna Doreen Brown is spending the month exploring her own musical influences and the idea of “paying tribute” to music of the past.
She invites musicians and music lovers/listeners alike to join in a public event dedicated to showcasing the songs that musicians of this town love to cover. Bring an instrument or just yourself (guitars/amps/mics will be available if you want to drop in casually!) and play a song or two by someone who has influenced you musically.
2018 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
JANUARY Michael Bussmann
Michael Bussmann was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1978. He is a now an adult-aged-person living in Northern Colorado. His work can be read in printed places like The Matter Journal, The Front Range Review, The Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park and some other places too.
Special Event: January 18th with Franklin K. R. Cline.
FEBRUARY Rico Moore
Rico Moore’s journalistic work is presently focused on investigating and telling the stories of human impacts on wildlife and their habitats in Colorado, with particular emphasis on good governance, particularly at the state level, state and regional environmental agencies, the fossil fuel industry, ecology, conservation biology, climate change, and advocacy.
Rico completed an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on critical theory and literature at CU-Boulder. His graduate work, a Masters of Fine Arts in poetry at CSU-Fort Collins, investigated the role and function of language in poetry as it establishes and mediates relationships between people and the natural world. And along with experience working in the sciences, conservation and advocacy, he is well-positioned to report on complex, interrelated and evolving stories that impact the living earth and our relationship with it. Rico is also a fifth generation northern Coloradan and an avid outdoorsman, hunting and fly-fishing since youth. He lives with his wife and their cat in Fort Collins.
Special Events: February 2nd, First Friday at the Farm & February 5, Pub Talk with Wildlife Journalist Rico Moore
MARCH Sue Ring deRosset
Sue Ring deRosset, MA-CNF, is a teacher and editor and the author of The Vulture Trees (WFP, 2016). She has taught creative writing workshops at Front Range Community College, Northern Colorado Writers, and Fort Collins’s Book Fest. In 2010 she was the managing editor of Matter journal and a judge for the Anthology category of the Colorado Book Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Sun, Wildlife Conservation, Utah Holiday, Matter, Front Range Review, and other national and regional journals and magazines. She lives in Fort Collins, where she is at work on a memoir and a series of novels. Through Draft Horse Writing & Editing Services, Sue Ring deRosset works one-on-one with writers on the Front Range as a creative writing coach, developmental book editor, and copyeditor. Please visit: drafthorsewriting.wordpress.com
Special Event: March 31st Craft Chat! Narrative Arts & Subversive Structures. A free workshop!
APRIL Laura Pritchett
Laura Pritchett is the author of nine books and one play, which premiers at Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins, Co, from April 8 to May 6 (www.basbleu.org for more info). Her work has been the recipient of the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, and others. More at www.laurapritchett.com or www.makingfriendswithdeath.com
Special Event: April 16th Death Prep Extravaganza
MAY Ed Hall
Dr. Ed Hall is an ecologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University. His research covers topics including: the causes and consequences of microbial biomass; and the interactive human and natural dimensions of tropical watersheds. His primary study site is Lake Yojoa, a lake located in the highlands of central Honduras that has had human inhabitants for 4500 years. As a writer in residence at WFP Ed is exploring different ways of knowing and understanding through meditation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the scientific method. He will give a short reading and lecture to the public later this year titled, “How do we know: the value of objective and subjective approaches to learning and knowing.”
June Jason Hardung
Jason Hardung’s work has or will appear in many journals and magazines including: Cimarron Review, 3AM, Monkey Bicycle, Evergreen Review, Entropy, The Common, Metazen, Word Riot, and The New York Quarterly. He has two books of poetry out on Epic Rites Press and Lummox Press. In 2013 he was named Poet Laureate of Fort Collins. Sometimes he teaches the therapeutic value of poetry to teenagers in juvenile detention facilities and rehabs in Colorado, based on his own struggles with the justice system, drug addiction and mental illness.
Special Event: June 29th, Local Literary Magic: Four Poets
JULY Jack Martin
Jack Martin lives in Fort Collins and teaches high school in Arvada, CO. He received his MFA at CSU. His poems have appeared in many journals including Ploughshares, Agni, Georgia Review, and Matter; and most recently in North American Review, Wisconsin Review, Rust+Moth, HCE Review, Diagram, and Tupelo Quarterly. He has poems forthcoming in Matter, Superstition Review, and Ghost Town.
Special Event: July 26th, The Soggy Bottom Rhubarb Boys’ Brimstone and Poetry Extravaganza
AUGUST April Moore
April Moore is Director of Northern Colorado Writers, the author of two books, and a freelance editor. Her first book, Folsom’s 93, is a historical nonfiction about the lives and crimes of Folsom Prison’s executed men and her second, is Bobbing for Watermelons, a novel. She has written for publications and her short stories have appeared in anthologies. April is also a freelance illustrator and often collaborates with other authors on projects. Currently, she is working on a young adult novel.
SEPTEMBER Meg Schiel
Meg Schiel owns the largest collection of Pride and Prejudice in Colorado, loves to run, and adores a black cat named Kippen. She lives just outside city limits with her husband and two children.
OCTOBER Courtney Zenner
Courtney Zenner is a nonfiction writer. She grew up in Colorado, searched the globe for the perfect home, and chose to settle near the Rocky Mountains. She was a Writing Fellow at Barnard College and a Bowie Fellow at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. Her work has appeared in The Sun and Sabal. She is currently writing a memoir about the legacy of mental illness in her family, a story set in the countryside of Vietnam, a Zen monastery in Southwestern France, the streets of New York City, and the suburbs of Denver. She lives in Fort Collins with her family.