PRESENTERS
Below are presenters scheduled for the 2020 conference before it was cancelled due to Covid-19. We will be updating this page with 2021 presenters in the coming months!
2020 Keynote Speaker
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Literary Journal & Small Press Editors
J. Bruce Fuller, Texas Review Press
J. Bruce Fuller is a Louisiana native. His chapbooks include The Dissenter's Ground, Lancelot, and Flood, and his poems have appeared at The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, McNeese Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Louisiana Literature, among others. He has received scholarships from Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He currently teaches at Sam Houston State University where he is Managing/Acquisitions Editor at Texas Review Press.
Chelsea voulgares, Lost BalLoon
Chelsea Voulgares is the editor of the literary journal Lost Balloon. Her stories have been published in journals such as Passages North, New World Writing, gravel, Midwestern Gothic, and Jellyfish Review, and she has been recognized by a number of organizations and magazines including The Hambidge Center, Glimmer Train, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council. Her story “Hotbox” was longlisted in Wigleaf‘s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions of 2019.
Presenters
bonnie jo stufflebeam
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam's fiction and poetry has appeared in over 50 publications such as LeVar Burton Reads, Fairy Tale Review, and Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror as well as in six languages. She has been a finalist for the Nebula Award and won the Grand Prize in the SyFy Channel's Battle the Beast contest; SyFy made and released an animated short of her short story "Party Tricks," set in the world of The Magicians. She is the curator of the Art & Words Show in Fort Worth, Texas where she lives with three cats: Gamora, Don Quixote, and Gimli.
addie tsai
Addie Tsai is the author of the queer Asian young adult novel Dear Twin. Addie teaches courses in literature, creative writing, dance, and humanities at Houston Community College, and has also taught creative writing at Writers in the Schools, The Jung Center, Inprint Houston, and Kore Press (Tucson, Arizona). She collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater on Victor Frankenstein and Camille Claudel, among others. Addie holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. Her writing has been published in Banango Street, The Offing, The Collagist, The Feminist Wire, Nat. Brut., and elsewhere. She is the Nonfiction Editor at The Grief Diaries, Senior Associate Editor in Poetry at The Flexible Persona, and Associate Fiction Editor at Anomaly.
CYNTHIA CHILDRESS
Cindy Childress, Ph. D. is The Expert’s Ghostwriter. She provides ghostwriting and consulting services for entrepreneurs and creatives that go on to achieve bestseller status, book TEDx Talks, and win awards. In addition to working on more than 15 published books, she’s written her own, The Write Your Book Blueprint and, co-authored with Helen Racz, The Logical Law of Attraction.
Cindy holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and teaches creative writing classes at Writespace Houston. Her poetry collection, Unwinding the Double Helix, has twice been a semi-finalist for the Word Works Washington Prize.
Cindy holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and teaches creative writing classes at Writespace Houston. Her poetry collection, Unwinding the Double Helix, has twice been a semi-finalist for the Word Works Washington Prize.
mattheW KRAJNIAK
Matthew Krajniak is an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. He is an editor of Wendy Battin: On the Life & Work of an American Master (Unsung Master Series, 2020), and his interviews and fiction have most recently appeared in Gulf Coast, Poetry Foundation, and The Avalon Literary Review.
charlotte wyatt
Charlotte Wyatt earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Houston in 2019. She is a recipient of the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize for fiction, and was the 2017-18 Inprint/Creative Writing Program Fellow. She has served as a Fiction Editor for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts and teaches fiction in Houston with Inprint and Writespace. She serves as the Fiction Director for the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, where she also directs admissions. Her work can be found in or forthcoming from Gulf Coast, Joyland, and Electric Literature.
lorenzo martinez
With a Masters in Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and a Phd, in Music from Columbia University, Mr. Martinez started his professional career as a musician, performing, teaching and composing. He appeared in recitals on radio and television and his musical compositions were performed nationally and at international festivals. The television show Captain Kangaroo featured some of his works and for Group Soup, a children’s book published by Viking, he contributed the tile song. In addition, a book of his children’s songs, The Circus, was published by Clarus Music.
Born in Cuba, Martínez was part of Operation Pedro Pan, a secretive airlift that brought more than 14,000 Cuban children fleeing the Castro’s regime to this country between 1960 and 1962. Martínez wrote a memoir, Cuba Adiós, where he recounted his participation in this program. The book received first prize in the International Latino Book Awards, and was a finalist in Readers’ Favorites and Book Buzz. It also received a special prize from the Houston-based group Conversing Through Poetry. The book was featured in the Miami City Herald and earned Martinez citations from the Miami City mayor, Tomás Regalado, and Carson City mayor, Albert Robles. As a result, Martinez was featured in Houston Matters, a radio show where he spoke about the book, and was the keynote speaker at an international conference on Cuba held at Lone Star College in the Woodlands. Martinez has a picture book, The Ballerina and the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich and has had other writings published in online literary journals. Currently Martinez is working on a mystery book and another memoir.
Born in Cuba, Martínez was part of Operation Pedro Pan, a secretive airlift that brought more than 14,000 Cuban children fleeing the Castro’s regime to this country between 1960 and 1962. Martínez wrote a memoir, Cuba Adiós, where he recounted his participation in this program. The book received first prize in the International Latino Book Awards, and was a finalist in Readers’ Favorites and Book Buzz. It also received a special prize from the Houston-based group Conversing Through Poetry. The book was featured in the Miami City Herald and earned Martinez citations from the Miami City mayor, Tomás Regalado, and Carson City mayor, Albert Robles. As a result, Martinez was featured in Houston Matters, a radio show where he spoke about the book, and was the keynote speaker at an international conference on Cuba held at Lone Star College in the Woodlands. Martinez has a picture book, The Ballerina and the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich and has had other writings published in online literary journals. Currently Martinez is working on a mystery book and another memoir.
D.L. Young
D.L. is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the Independent Press Award.
His Dark Republic novels are Mad Max-style futuristic thrillers set in Texas. He's currently working on a new cyberpunk series.
His Dark Republic novels are Mad Max-style futuristic thrillers set in Texas. He's currently working on a new cyberpunk series.
Kathleen bagley
Kate Pentecost was born and raised on the Texas/Louisiana border, where ghosts and rural legends lurk in the pines and nothing is completely as it seems.
She holds an MFA in Writing for Children &Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She was recently nominated for a Rhysling award for her poem "Small Town Witches."
Her debut novel, Elysium Girls, is available in print and audio formats wherever books are sold.
She holds an MFA in Writing for Children &Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She was recently nominated for a Rhysling award for her poem "Small Town Witches."
Her debut novel, Elysium Girls, is available in print and audio formats wherever books are sold.
