Meet Our Board

At out Annual Meeting in April, the membership elected three new board members -- Denise Baker, Mardi Link, and Michael Sheehan. Read their bios below.

The membership also elected Anne-Marie Oomen as president.  Anne-Marie is a founding member of Michigan Writers Inc., a much-published poet and memoirist, and a creative writing instructor at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Aaron Stander stepped down as president after three years. Thank you, Aaron, for your dedicated service and impressive accomplishments! Aaron continues on the board as vice president.

Michigan Writers directors serve for three-year staggered terms.  An election of directors and officers is held at the Annual Membership Meeting in April. 

Anne-Marie Oomen

Anne-Marie Oomen is author of  Pulling Down the Barn, which received a Michigan Notable Book Award; and the forthcoming  House of Fields (Wayne State University Press); two chapbooks of poetry, Seasons of  the Sleeping Bear, and Moniker with Ray Nargis; and the forthcoming Uncoded Woman, a collection of poems (Milkweed Press). She is represented in New Poems of the Third Coast:  Contemporary Michigan Poetry.  She edited Looking Over My Shoulder: Reflections on the Twentieth Century, an anthology of seniors' essays funded by Michigan Humanities Council; has written and produced several plays including the award-winning Northern Belles, as well as Wives of An American King based on the James Jesse Strang story.  She recently stepped down as  Chair of Creative Writing at Interlochen Arts Academy where she is faculty editor for the Interlochen Review.  She and her husband have built their own home in Empire, where they live with a large cat named Walt Whitman. 

Aaron Stander spent most of his working years in the Detroit area, where he taught writing and trained writing teachers.  In 2000 he and his wife, Mary K Monteith, left teaching positions at Oakland Community College and moved permanently to their cottage home in Interlochen.  Aaron is author of Summer People, a mystery set in Northern Michigan, and is a regular contributor to the Dunes Review.  He is at work on Color Tour, a sequel to Summer People. When not writing or thinking about writing, Aaron spends a lot of time in his kayak, mostly capsized. Aaron has served on the Board of Directors of Michigan Writers since 2002 and took over as president in March 2005.

Patricia Malone is the Chief Financial Officer of a local manufacturing firm.  She has an MBA from Ohio State University and is presently pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration from Lawrence Technological University where she hopes to publish her dissertation soon.  Patricia, her husband Sean, and their two children moved five years ago from Columbus, Ohio, to a small farm in Antrim County where Patricia plans to one day write and explore organic farming.

A native of Traverse City, Michael Callaghan recieved his BA in English and a Graduate Writing Fellowship from Western Michigan University. Michael's first chapbook-length collection of poems The Grace of the Eye was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize upon publication by the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press in November of 2005. Michael lives in Interlochen with his wife Melonie, and son Seamus.

Denise Baker is the owner of SmartypantsWrite.com, a freelance writing business serving nonprofits and socially responsible businesses.  She is Associate Editor of Whisper in the Woods nature journal.  Denise served as Managing Editor of Monitor, Indiana's environmental magazine, for 14 years.  Her poetry has appeared in Bitter Oleander, Whisper in the Woods and Branches.  Her articles, essays and e-books have appeared in Trailhead, Whisper in the Woods, Monitor and myriad health, fitness and outdoors websites.  Denise and her husband Andy Knott divide their existence between working for the Watershed Center and herding their five cats.  She enjoys regarding dusk, talking to sunflowers, savoring fine dark chocolate and swashbuckling at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. 

Ann Bardens-McClellan

Ann Bardens-McClellan received her Ph.D. in English at the University of Nebraska, 1983.  She has taught literature, composition, and creative writing at several colleges and universities, including the University of California-Irvine and Central Michigan University.  She has published dozens of poems and articles in anthologies and literary magazines across the country, and her poems have won many awards, including the National Poetry Competition from the Chester H. Jones Foundation and the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award. She has been Poet-in-Residence in colleges and elementary schools from California to Michigan.

    Now a resident of Interlochen, Ann works with visual artist Eileen Paul Millard of Frankfort on book projects, performances combining poetry, art, and music, and "Words and Color" workshops. Canoe Press published a book of their

  Marcy Branski spent her professional years as a high school English teacher and librarian.  She has always dabbled in poetry, but during her working years her prose was limited to newsletter articles, reports and instructional tracts.  "It never occurred to me to write fiction, "  she says.  Since moving to Traverse City a couple of years ago, Marcy has continued to write poetry and is now at work on short stories, as well as her first novel.  She has published one story, Raw Images, and several poems.  She is the coordinator for novel groups within Michigan Writers.

Fleda Brown

Fleda Brown is the author of six collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and Georgia Review. From 2001 to 2007 she served as the poet laureate of  Delaware. Both she and her husband recently retired from the University of Delaware English Department and will make their home in Traverse City.

William A. Corbett received his BA in journalism from the University of Michigan (1969).  He began his writing career as a newspaper reporter before becoming a freelance writer.  He is author of Financial Guide for Catholics  (Our Sunday Visitor, 1989).  His non-fiction articles have appeared in Catholic Parent, Our Sunday Visitor, Sea Magazine, Argosy, and numerous other publications. Additionally, he served as editor and publisher of two nationally circulated quarterly newsletters.  His published fiction includes one short story; he is currently working on a novel. Bill is employed as a Certified Financial Planner ^® professional at a regional brokerage firm, and lives in Traverse City with his wife, Deborah Holden.  They have four grown children.