Lisa Fishman is the author of six books of poetry, including FLOWERCART, Current, and The Happiness Experiment. Her collection, 24 Pages and other poems, was published by Wave Books in 2015. She is the first Lorine Niedecker Poet-in-Residence in Fort Atkinson and Blackhawk Island. A dual citizen of the US and Canada, Fishman lives in Orfordville and Madison, Wisconsin and teaches at Columbia College Chicago.
Anjie Kokan is an award-winning writer and teacher who enjoys sharing her love of language and writing with people of all ages and abilities. She has been facilitating creative writing workshops in Wisconsin for over fifteen years. Anjie’s writing has earned recognition from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and the Wisconsin Writers Association. Anjie also teaches in the English Language Academy at UW-Whitewater and serves as the contest coordinator for the WITESOL Writing and Art Contest.
UW-Whitewater photo by Craig Schreiner
Andy Gricevich frequently makes poems, music, breakfast, mistakes and dinner in Madison, WI. His writings have appeared in various online and print journals, and in the collections A Book of Music (Minutes Books, 2012) and What Got (Connect Exits, 2018). Against the Principles of its Disappearance is forthcoming from Oxeye Press. An obsessive forager, he learns more than he consciously knows every day about his embeddedness among times, spaces and other beings. He produces live-culture hot sauces featuring wild-harvested ingredients for What Got Gathered, LLC. On occasion, he still performs as half of the veteran satirical cabaret-folk duo The Prince Myshkins. With a shifting cast of official and unofficial collaborators, he helps facilitate Oscar Presents, a Madison-based reading series aiming to act as a nexus for grassroots poetry communities, valuing unpredictability and friendship in and around art-making. Andy is uncomfortably writing this in the third person.
Amy Lutzke is the Assistant Director at the Dwight Foster Public Library. As such she has had the opportunity to be immersed in the world of Lorine Niedecker. Growing up on the shore of Lake Michigan she is a child of the water and considers herself lucky to live on the banks of the mighty Rock River.
Richard Meier is the author of four books of poetry, most recently February March April April (Oxeye Press) and In the Pure Block of the Whole Imaginary (Omnidawn). He has led workshops on poetry and walking in Chicago, Kenosha, Joshua Tree, Fort Atkinson, and at the Lynden Sculpture Garden. He is writer-in-residence at Carthage College and lives in Madison, WI.
Jeremy “Guzzo” Pinc was born in Chicago, 1972. He grew up in the suburb of Oak Park, Illinois before attending The University of Richmond 1990-1994. Following graduation with an Art History degree he traveled extensively, living in Italy, Montana and various parts of the Midwest. He began painting around 1995. His style has changed frequently throughout his career but there are consistent references to Modernism, Art Brut and Graphic Design within his work. Jeremy has shown his work at various galleries in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago and smaller towns in between. Most recently, he curated “Future Primitive” at The Bubbler (Madison’s Central Library) and will open a solo show at their main gallery in the fall of 2018. Collectors enjoy his work in the Midwest, as well as on the coasts in NY & CA and across the pond in Paris. Jeremy lives with his wife in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and recently was recruited into the MFA program at UW-Madison.
Chuck Stebelton is author of An Apostle Island (Oxeye Press, forthcoming) and two previous full-length collections of poetry, most recently The Platformist (Cultural Society, 2012). His first book, Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005), was winner of the inaugural Jack Spicer Award. As a birder and Wisconsin Master Naturalist volunteer he has offered interpretive hikes for organizations including Lynden Sculpture Garden, Friends of Lorine Niedecker, Woodland Pattern Book Center, and Interfaith Older Adult Programs. He currently serves as Program Coordinator for Interfaith Older Adult Programs in Milwaukee and is a participant in Lynden’s residency program.
Joel Van Haaften is a former museum director and educational programmer who currently works as a substitute teacher in the Fort Atkinson School District challenging students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. At times, when his students are finished with their lessons, he will encourage them into an impromptu poetry contest. He enjoys Lorine Niedecker’s poetry, has been active with the Solitary Plover study group, and has served as a volunteer with the Friends of Lorine Niedecker Poetry Festival.
Paul Wiegel lives and writes in Berlin, WI and is the founder of Fox River Poetry Company. He has has been writing poems for passersby on his 1963 Smith Corona typewriter at Flea Markets, art galleries, and storefronts for the past four years. In doing so, he hopes to bring an appreciation of poetry to a wider audience. One of his own poems was awarded the 2014 Joseph Gahagan Poetry Prize.