Donald Hall, Author and 2006 Poet Laureate
The fourteenth United States Poet Laureate from 2006-2007, Donald Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1928, and received his formal education from Harvard College and Oxford University. For the past thirty years he has lived on Eagle Pond Farm in rural New Hampshire. He was named the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2006, after a long and successful career in writing.  One of his children's books, Ox Cart Man, earned the 1980 Caldecott Award for a perfect marriage of story by Donald Hall and illustration by Barbara Cooney.

Steve Feffer                                                                                                          back to top
Steve Feffer’s plays have been produced or developed by theatres that include the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre (New York), Philadelphia Festival Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Stages Repertory Theatre (Houston), National Jewish Theatre (Chicago), Whole Art Theatre (Kalamazoo), Ruckus Theatre (Chicago), and Untitled Theatre #61 (New York).  Steve’s play “And Yet…” was published in Best American Short Plays 2010-11 (Applause Books); and his play “Little Airplanes of the Heart” was published in Best American Short Plays 1997-98 (Applause). Steve has won a number of national playwriting awards including the New Jewish Theatre Project Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture for "Ain’t Got No Home," the Southwest Plays Award for a Play for Young Audiences for "The House I Call Love," and the Jamie Hammerstein Award from Ensemble Studio Theatre for “Little Airplanes.”  Steve’s writing on theatre and performance is published in journals that include Comparative Drama, Journal of Popular Music Studies, The Journal of Jewish Literary History, and Third Coast; and in the books "Interrogating America Through Theatre and Performance" (Palgrave) and "Teaching Literature in Virtual Worlds" (Routledge).  Steve is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), where he directs the graduate and undergraduate playwriting programs. 

Beverly Matherne, who is approaching her third year as the new poetry editor of Passages North literary magazine, is also director of the Visiting Writers Series in the Department of English at Northern Michigan University. She is the author of four bilingual books. Her latest, Bayou des Acadiens (Blind River), short fiction and prose poetry, is forthcoming from Les Éditions Perce-Neige. Three previous titles are from Les Éditions Tintamarre and Cross-Cultural Communications of New York. Two chapbooks, from March Street Press and Ridgeway Press, launched Beverly’s career as poet in 1994, when she read from them in English and French on Grace Cavalieri’s The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress, live from Washington, D.C. Beverly has received eight first-place prizes, including the Hackney Literary Award for Poetry and a Sojourn “Best of Submission” translation award. Four of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work appears in many literary magazines across the country, including Interdisciplinary Humanities, Metamorphoses, Platte Valley Review, and Verse. She also has work in anthologies from publishing houses such as Beacon Press, Louisiana State University Press, and New Rivers Press. Finally, her work has appeared in poetry exhibitions in Paris, New York, Montreal, and Quebec, and in literary magazines and anthologies in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Eric Gadzinski                                                                                     back to top
Eric Gadzinski has taught English at LSSU since 1995. One of the founders of LSSU’s creative writing program and of the literary journal now called Border Crossing, he teaches creative writing and poetry. He holds a PhD in English from Temple University, where he wrote his dissertation on American soldier poetry of the Vietnam War. Aside from his academic research and publication in the poetry of war and modern American poetry generally, his own poetry has been published widely in a variety of online and print journals, and one of his poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006.  He has been a regular workshop leader at the annual Creative Writing Festival held at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. He is currently preparing a poetry collection for publication.  In addition, he is editing a collection of poems and stories by State Prison inmates, following a year and a half long workshop he was invited to conduct. Before coming to LSSU, he taught writing, developmental writing, and literature at Temple.          Appearing in:  Hermansville,   Baraga,   Houghton,   Ontonagon

Zoe Zolbroad is a writer, editor, traveler, and parent. Her novel, CURRENCY, came out from Other Voices Books in 2010. It won a Nobbie Award and was selected as an honorable mention by Friends of American Writers. Set in Thailand, CURRENCY is about a Thai man and an American woman who together become embroiled in dangerous schemes.

Janice Repka                                                                                   back to top
Janice Repka’s short stories and poetry have appeared in journals such as Potomac Review, The Louisiana Review, Writer’s Journal, and Antietam Review. She is also the author of two novels, The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco, a Junior Library Selection and 2008 Nebraska Golden Sower Award Honor Book, and The Clueless Girl’s Guide to Being a Genius, both published by Dutton Children’s Books. She is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative writing at Lake Superior State University, and a founder of the LSSU Visiting Writer Reading Series. She has a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and a MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University.  Find out more at www.janicerepka.com     
Appearing in:  Manistique,  Chatham,  Newberry    

Nancy Barr                                                                                   back to top 
A transplant to Michigan's Upper Peninsula at the age of 9, Nancy Barr grew up in the tiny town of Rapid River nestled at the top of Little Bay de Noc. She earned an associate's degree from Bay College and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Lake Superior State University.  Her favorite memories as a young child are of weekly trips to the neighborhood library with her late mother to spend hours poring over books of all kinds.  Nancy Barr was a reporter and editor for 10 years at two U.P. daily newspapers. She now works at MTU in the mechanical engineering department and earned an M.S. in Rhetoric and Technical Communications in 2011. When not writing, Nancy enjoys hiking and photographing the natural beauty that abounds in the Upper Peninsula. Her novels include "Page One: Hit and Run" (July 2006), "Page One: Vanished" (May 2007), and "Page One: Whiteout" (November 2009), all from Arbutus Press.

Martin Reinhardt                                                                           back to top  
Dr. Martin Reinhardt is an Anishinaabe Ojibway citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians from Michigan. He is an assistant professor of Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University, and is the co-owner and education division director of First Nations, LLC. He is a former research associate for the Interwest Equity Assistance Center at Colorado State University, and the former vice president for diversity and research for Educational Options, Inc.  He has taught courses in American Indian education, tribal law and government, and sociology. He has a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from the Pennsylvania State University, where his doctoral research focused on Indian education and the law with a special focus on treaty educational provisions. Martin has previously served as: a member of the Michigan Indian Education Council; Chair of the American Association for Higher Education American Indian/Alaska Native Caucus; Co-Primary Investigator for the Michigan Rural Systemic Initiative; and as an external advisor for the National Indian School Board Association. He also holds both a Bachelor's and a Master’s degree in Sociology.