WRITER IN RESIDENCE
Wolverine Farm Publishing and Wolverine Farm 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 in collaboration with our other monthly residents.
2022 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
DECEMBER Annabelle Fern Praznik
Annabelle Fern Praznik is a writer living on the front range of Northern Colorado. She is the author of a self-published collection, The Unfolding, a series of nonfiction vignettes, and “Like a Woman,” a widely celebrated spoken word poetry performance. In her work, Annabelle focuses on domestic environments while interrogating events that affect the personal, family, and social bodies. From Colorado State University, Annabelle has a BA in English Literature concentrating in Creative Writing. She is an MFA and teaching fellowship candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Join Annabelle at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
NOVEMBER Amanda Jo Reisenweber
If you can’t find her, she’s eating cereal in the bathtub. She’s always ready with a smile and a longer-than-necessary hug. Amanda Jo has been writing since she could hold a pen and still prefers to use paper to express her thoughts. Her writing has been described as a melody of truth and she likes to use it to paint scandalous ideas of empowerment across your mind’s eye. Her words create discomfort and deliver joy and her hope is that they help you burn away any parts of yourself that don’t feel true or desired.
Amanda Jo turns 40 this month. The last year was wildly unpredictable and she’s looking forward to being older and wiser now. Having arrived in Fort Collins in October of 2021, there is still so much for her to discover. She spends her days with her daughters, puppies and plants and she stands at the ready for an adventure. But first, coffee
Join Amanda Jo at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
OCTOBER Tara Dairman
Tara Dairman writes middle-grade novels and picture books about kids with strong passions and big questions about the world. Tara’s books include The Girl from Earth’s End, the All Four Stars series, The Great Hibernation, and Desert Girl, Monsoon Boy(illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan). These titles have been named to best-of-the-year lists by A Mighty Girl, Kirkus Reviews, Bank Street College of Education, and CCBC.Tara holds a BA in creative writing from Dartmouth College and has traveled to more than 90 countries. After a few years of adventuring around North America in an RV, Tara and her family now live in Colorado. Find more at taradairman.com.
Join Tara at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
SEPTEMBER Brad Vogler
Brad Vogler moved to Fort Collins some years ago for the MFA Program in poetry at Colorado State. He is the author of my radius, a small stone (Spuyten Duyvil), i know that this ritual (Lute & Cleat), and three chapbooks: errand : a version of (Meekling Press), Amid the Waves Which (Beard of Bees), and Fascicle 30 (Little Red Leaves Textile Series). His work has found a home in places that include: Cutbank, Denver Quarterly, Grama, Versal, and Volt. He works with Delete Press, Posit, and is the editor/web designer of resting Opon. His latest project is A Viewing Space, a collection of poems and photos with three other writers/photographers, and that should be out in the world soon.
Join Brad at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
AUGUST Silen Wellington
Silen Wellington(they/he) is a sculptor of sound, artist of people, storyteller, witch, genderqueer shapeshifter, mercurial name collector, and lover, among other things. They make art as an act of service, healing, disruption and magic, weaving together disciplines of poetry, acoustic sound, electronics, ritual, and performance art. In the world of writing, they were the 2021 winner of the Paul G. Quinnett Lived Experience Essay Competition hosted by the American Association of Suicidology, have been published in second edition of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, and served as co-editor & co-steward for the first two issues of Bleeding Thunder: A Zine Exploring Genderqueer Menstruation. Their writing is often heard on stage alongside their music and performance art. Their work has been performed in gardens whispering delightful fae dances to the trans-ancestors that escape definition, featured boys in dresses next to saxophones, unveiled prescription label collages amid chaotic soundscapes of dysphoria, and given permission to intramuscular testosterone injections under expansive life-giving harmonics. Besides writing & music, Silen enjoys harvesting stories, unhinged-unfettered-unapologetic dance, and falling in love.
Join Silen at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
JULY Abigail Thomas
Abigail Thomas was born and raised in Nebraska, and now calls Fort Collins her home. She started writing as a child, and currently focuses on poetry and nonfiction. She loves exploring identity, origin, and where the political and personal intersect. She has published works in undergraduate literary magazines and is currently working on a chapbook.
Abigail earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing with honors from Colorado State University. Nowadays, you can find her crafting, contemplating tattoo designs, and playing with her (partner’s) cat Umm.
Join Abigail at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
JUNE G Mcdonald
“blink and you’ll miss him”
Join G at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
MAY Ryan Thompson
Ryan Thompson has been writing since childhood. Notable early works include Murphy Brown and Mad About You episode recaps in his childhood diary, and overly personal essays published in his college literary magazine at the University of Northern Colorado. His education is in English Literature, Shakespeare studies, and film criticism. Ryan writes essays, poetry and short fiction, and is joining the Wolverine Farm fellowship to work on a play. He also worked for many years in narrative audio production, at NPR member station KUNC in Greeley, Colorado. Ryan spends a lot of time with his husband, an educator, and a menagerie of animals including Doug, a dachshund, Tiffany, a small cat, and three chickens: Charlotte, The Brown One, and The Other Brown One. He does not have an M.F.A., but often says casually and to no one in particular, “should I get an M.F.A.?”
Join Ryan at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
APRIL Melissa Mitchell
California born & Colorado raised, Melissa Mitchell calls Fort Collins home today. Writing since the age of nine, she has always seen the world through the lens of the smallest things. Nuance, innocence and connection knit her pieces together. Listening to her work has a way of bringing your own life into deep relief, revealing patterns and habits in your nature, aiming to inspire and affirm.
Melissa enjoys writing short fiction, poetry and essays. These days she finds herself procrastinating, learning to love well and feeling life so entirely that it overflows onto the page and into your lap. A writer not to be missed, indeed one to be kept close. Melissa earned her degree in creative writing from Colorado State University and has worked professionally as a technical writer and staff writer for various publications for over 15 years.
Join Melissa at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last week of the month.
MARCH Bryce O’Tierney
Bryce M. O’Tierney is a multidisciplinary artist from Anchorage, Alaska. Her work as musician and writer is scored through exchange: between nonverbal and verbal, human and greater-than-human, the improvised and composed. Lines of inquiry include: inheritance, embodiment, mental health, and the erotic. Bryce’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Anchorage Daily News, Tupelo Quarterly, and RHINO Poetry.
Bryce is currently an MFA Candidate & Teaching Fellow at Colorado State U., and holds degrees with honors from Northwestern University and Trinity College, Dublin. She composes, records, and performs in touring duo maeve & quinn with her twin, Maris (commissions with Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, Poetry Foundation, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Anchorage Symphony).
Join Bryce at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last Wednesday of the month (3/30).
FEBRUARY Ilana Held
Boston-born and Cardiff -bred, singer-songwriter and seasoned front woman Ilana Held performs under the stage name, Mystee. Drawing inspiration from love and loss in the face of a long spree of bad luck, Held weaves an American folk mentality into her hook-laden indie pop music. Find her music here.
Her favorite part of the songwriting process is crafting the lyrics. She likes to compare lyric writing to fitting together the pieces of a puzzle and uses it as an opportunity to craft a world in which her songs can live. Drawn to the page by her own personal demons and nightmares, as well as the turbulent nature of her personal journey, she uses songwriting as a form of therapy and self expression.
More recently, Held has started to broaden her writing into prose. She tries to focus on the tiny details that inform the fabric of truth. She is fascinated by the relationships between characters and the little tics that make stories relatable, the often over-looked instances that make a world come to life.
Join Ilana at our monthly Residence Showcase, the last Wednesday of the month (2/23).
JANUARY Samuel Clark
Samuel Clark (he/him/his) is a 2019 alumnus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he graduated with his MFA in fiction. He is the recipient of the LGBTQ+ writer scholarship for The Muse & The Marketplace 2019, a partial scholarship recipient to Sundress Academy for the Arts, and a 2021 candidate for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. He’s currently working on a novel length fairy tale retelling, with a focus on gender, sexuality, and toxic masculinity, and is signed on with Cassie Mannes Murray of Howland Literary. He lives in Fort Collins, CO with his adopted cat, Emily D.
Join Samuel at our monthly Residence Variety Show, the last Thursday of each month (1/27).
2021 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
DECEMBER Ava Serra
NOVEMBER Dana Guber
OCTOBER Jeremy Garrison
SEPTEMBER Erica Reid
AUGUST Nora Ashe
JULY Cory Marshall Spangler
2020 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
AUGUST Riley Ann
MARCH Cori Storb
FEBRUARY Thomas Ivory Jr.
JANUARY Ana Martinez-Casas
2019 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
JANUARY Joshua Zaffos
FEBRUARY Sarah Paige Ryan
MARCH Elaine Wall
APRIL Ally Eden
MAY John Staughton
JUNE Ivy Hughes
JULY Tirzah Goldenberg
AUGUST Brent Applegate
SEPTEMBER Chelsea Gilmore
OCTOBER Brianna Van Dyke
NOVEMBER Hanna Doreen Brown
2018 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
JANUARY Michael Bussmann
FEBRUARY Rico Moore
MARCH Sue Ring deRosset
APRIL Laura Pritchett
MAY Ed Hall
JUNE Jason Hardung
JULY Jack Martin
AUGUST April Moore
SEPTEMBER Meg Schiel
OCTOBER Courtney Zenner