Wisconsin Love!
Cheeeeeeeeeeeeese!
I’m so thankful for love I’ve been getting from my home state of Wisconsin! If you ain’t know, I am from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, born and raised. I left Milwaukee after graduating from Marquette University in 20o2 and began a journey of self-discovery that took me to St. Petersburg, Florida; Carmel and Indianapolis, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois; and back to Florida, to finally settle in Tampa Bay in 2009.
Though I haven’t lived in Milwaukee in over twenty years, I have never forgotten my beloved city nor passed up opportunities to visit. I developed and ran a summer writing workshop with Milwaukee Academy from 2009-2012. I stopped in Milwaukee for book tour stops with Once and Future Lovers and Windy City Queer: Dispatches from the Third Coast. And for the past four years, I’ve returned to Wisconsin to teach at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point.
My current memoir work explores my Milwaukee upbringing in more ways than one, and if you’ve read my essay “Bars” or “None of this is Bullshit,” you know that there is a lot to explore!
Going back to Milwaukee, to Wisconsin in general, is always a chance to connect with dear friends and family who still call Brew City home and an opportunity to visit the burial sites of my ancestors. Going home is special to me and I’m so happy to know that no matter where I live, Wisconsin always finds a way to show a homegirl love!
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction
I won honorable mention for the Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction from the Art Lit Lab, which is based in Madison, Wisconsin. The award, named for Kay W. Levin (1925- 1989) who was a board member of the Council for Wisconsin Writers in its formative years, began in after Levin’s death in 1990. Ms. Levin had written children’s fiction before she and her husband, Robert, moved to Cleveland, Wisconsin, in 1974 from Chicago. Slowing to the pace of rural life, she turned her attention to essay writing, using as her inspiration events from everyday life on Kingfisher Farm, where they lived. Her articles on topics as diverse as her daughter’s death in a car crash to the harvesting of maple syrup appeared in The Milwaukee Journal Wisconsin Magazine among other publications. Levin was a champion of Wisconsin writers and the award in her name lives on to encourage essay writers into the future.
You can read my award-winning essay, “If You Scared, Say You Scared,” at the Bellevue Literary Review.
Mining Your Story in Mineral Point
Join us for the eighth annual Writing Retreat at Shake Rag Alley, open to writers of all levels.
Explore storytelling, research, poetry, experimental forms, and working across genres with retreat faculty Sheree L. Greer, Matthew Guenette, Raki Kopernik, B.J. Best, and Kim Suhr, with immersive workshops, manuscript consultations, and engaging talks. This weekend of writing in community will challenge you to explore new forms, deepen your writing practice, and are led by award-winning published authors and active, experienced teachers of writing.
Choose your writing workshop with a focus on research in writing (Greer), poetic forms (Guenette), or generative fiction (Kopernik) and join a community of writers for a three-day intensive with prompts, sharing, and feedback. Interwoven around these main workshops are morning writing time, pop-up talks with B.J. Best (interactive fiction) and Kim Suhr (next steps with your writing), as well as social events, a faculty reading, and open mics. The community of Mineral Point will be sure to inspire with its galleries and local artists. Shake Rag Alley’s campus provides bio-breaks and quiet spaces to write as well.
REGISTRATION CLOSES 5/10/2024
