About Us

Michigan Writers’ Mission: To encourage and support writers of all ages, skill levels, and genres in the Great Lakes state by providing opportunities for networking, publication, and education.

Michigan Writers, Inc. was launched in the summer of 2001 when more than two dozen Traverse City-area writers pooled talents and resources to form a group dedicated to helping writers hone their craft and publish their work.

We host regular events where members can meet and mingle, including potluck buffets, workshops, and writers critique groups.  We publish Dunes Review and operate the MW Cooperative Press, which publishes chapbooks by members.

Once a month we sponsor Michigan Writers On the Air on Interlochen Public Radio,  which interviews local and visiting writers.  We hold workshops on all aspects of writing and publishing for writers at all levels of their development. And we help members keep in touch and informed through this web site and through MW News, a regular e-mail newsletter.

Our membership continues to grow as we find new ways to support and enhance our community of writers and readers. So now that you know who we are and what we do…

Won’t you join us?

Contact Us

Michigan Writers is a volunteer organization run by volunteer writers interested in meeting, connecting with, and having actual conversations with other writers. We don’t have an office with a general phone number, but we are reachable by all sort of electronic means.

We’re writers, and we love letters! Here’s our physical mailing address:

Michigan Writers
P.O. Box 2355
Traverse City, MI 49685

You can also reach us via the following email addresses:

For questions about Dunes Review, email dunesreview@michwriters.org.

For questions about the Chapbook Contest, email chapbooks@michwriters.org.

Send items for the MW e-newsletter to newsletter@michwriters.org.

For questions about writing groups, email groups@michwriters.org.

For questions about Michigan Writers membership, email membership@michwriters.org.

For questions about the website or technical issues, contact admin@michwriters.org.

For any other questions or general inquiries, send a message to info@michwriters.org.

Board of Directors

Sharon Angel

Sharon Angel

Membership

Originally from Flint Michigan, Sharon has been a resident of the Grand Traverse region for over 30 years and a member of Michigan Writers since 2014.  She has spent a lifetime appreciating and practicing various mediums of the creative arts such as writing, music composition, and the construction and illustration of handmade books.  With a keen interest in the Grand Traverse Bay watershed, she has performed original music to aid fundraising for the Boardman River Restoration and Protection Project.

For two years, Sharon has served as the editorial cartoonist for the Leelanau Enterprise and her artwork has appeared in the Northern Express.  Her poetry has been published in the NMC Magazine and her essay “Sorting Out Santa” was published by Oxford University Press as a contribution to “Culture:  A Reader for Writers.”

Currently, Sharon aids in the facilitation of a weekly, community writing workshop held in Downtown Traverse City and is joyfully immersed in the art of printmaking.

Robb Astor

Robb Astor

Robb grew up along Lake Michigan in the village of Pentwater and now lives in Traverse City, Michigan. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the United Republic of Tanzania. His collection of poetry, Bitter Dagaa, was selected for publication by Michigan Writers Cooperative Press in 2014. A number of his poems have been published in the Dunes Review. Many things inform Robb’s poetry — the natural spaces of Northern Michigan, astronomy, but mostly the daily wonder of encountering beauty in the strangest of things.

Kevin Avery

Kevin Avery

President, MW Cooperative Press Coordinator, Newsletter Editor

Kevin grew up in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. As a young man he embarked on a period of deliberate transience, living in Chicago, Colorado, New Hampshire, the U.P., and Kentucky. In the course of his wanderings, Kevin adopted various passions, including playing guitar, alpine skiing, backpacking, homebrewing, and kayaking–not to mention reading and writing stories and essays. He also managed to secure academic credentials: an A.A., a B.A. in English (Philosophy minor), and a M.A. in English, which he took at Northern Michigan University.

Kevin worked as a staffer for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and as an Assistant Professor of English at a community college in Kentucky. In June of 2014, he relocated to Traverse City, MI with his poet wife and their darling daughters. He now teaches writing and literature courses online, referees competitive soccer matches, and monitors the daily adventures of his daughters.

Kevin is the editor of the MW newsletter, and the managing editor for the MW Coop Press. His own creative work has appeared in Centripetal, WaccamawBig Muddy, and The MacGuffin.

Patricia Trentacoste

Patricia Trentacoste

Treasurer

Pat is a retired philosophy instructor (Oakland University and Wayne State), now living in northern Michigan. Past publications include essays in academic journals, a true-life piece for Woman’s Day Magazine, and a bi-weekly feature column for The Voice (Macomb and St. Clair Counties). Her recent fiction has appeared in Dunes Review and Adelaide Literary Journal. Pat also makes kinetic Nature-mobiles and volunteers as an art and writing mentor for the Benzie County Juvenile Court system.

Susan Odgers

Susan Odgers

Vice President

Susan Odgers is a Detroiter who moved with her husband to Traverse City in 1987. Together, they began the romanticized adventure of renovating a house in the historic Central neighborhood. Since 2008, Susan has written the “Adapted in TC” monthly column for the Traverse City Record Eagle. She’s also written articles for NMC Magazine, Riviera Reporter, Today’s Education, and Glamour. One of her Record-Eagle columns featuring Bat Girl and Oracle has appeared in Dr. Mark Howell’s book Serious Fun: The Power of Popular Culture. She is currently at work on a book of her Record-Eagle columns.

Susan is a member of the Traverse City Human Rights Commission, and was the recipient of the 2010 Traverse City Human Rights Commission Sara Hardy Humanitarian of the Year Award. Susan is seen as a “community connector” and has been a longtime board member of several organizations, including: Michigan Protection and Advocacy Services, Inc.; Munson Medical Center-Family Advisory Council; Recipient Rights and Cowell Cancer Center; and the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce – Leadership Grand Traverse Fellows Programs.

She has taught psychology at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) for over 25 years and was given the Adjunct Faculty of the Year award in 2000. She has also taught at Grand Valley State University in Traverse City since 2003. She has conducted writing workshops for persons who have experienced homelessness with NMC colleagues, Dr. Melissa Sprenkle and Michael Anderson. All of those workshop participants now have housing and participate at the monthly “Poets Meet Musicians” event at the Acoustic Taproom in Traverse City.

John Pahl

John Pahl

John is a retired college English teacher who writes poetry and fiction, still teaches writing part-time, belongs to an active local writing group, edits others’ books still in gestation or already in adolescence bursting to be published (mostly fiction), and takes notes at the Michigan Writers Board of Directors meetings, as a fairly reliable scrivener.
Teresa Scollon

Teresa Scollon

Co-Senior Editor, Dunes Review

Teresa serves with Jennifer Yeatts as Co-Senior Editor of the Dunes Review. Teresa is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator.

She is the author of a poetry collection: To Embroider the Ground with Prayer, from Wayne State University Press and a chapbook: Friday Nights the Whole Town Goes to the Basketball Game, from Michigan Writers Cooperative Press. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Moveen Poetry Prize. She teaches a creative, professional, and journalistic writing program for high school students: the Front Street Writers program at the Traverse Bay Area Career-Tech Center.

Daniel Stewart

Daniel Stewart

Secretary, Online Media

Daniel is an historian, print and book designer, radio producer, and memoirist. He has lived in Leelanau County, Michigan, since 2004, and most of what he does is related to the telling of good and true stories. He joined the board of Michigan Writers in 2012 as part of that mission. He is currently working on a memoir of caregiving and a novel nominally about wish fulfillment.

Daniel assembled this website from spare parts he found around the house; if you have any problems, let him know. Daniel holds a BA from Hampshire College and a PhD from Temple University.

Liam Strong

Liam Strong

Chapbooks Coordinator

Liam Strong is a non-binary writer and the former editor-in-chief of NMC Magazine, Northwestern Michigan College’s creative arts magazine. Instead of going to church on Sundays growing up, their father took them to the library. Though they didn’t acknowledge it then, that weekly ritual set them down an uncertain path in college. If music, psychology, or philosophy didn’t make enough sense for a career, then surely, writing would.  

After spending three years working between branches of the Traverse Area District Library, Liam has spent the past few years working as one of the main staff readers at NMC’s Writing and Reading Center, sometimes only to correct students on their semicolon usage. In the past year, they have worked as a teaching assistant in several developmental English courses, and have spoken at various writing center conferences in Michigan. 

Currently, they’re working on their Bachelor’s in English through the University of Wisconsin, as well as a staff writer for White Pine Press and The Promethean, where they write music reviews and the occasional news. You can also find Liam’s work in: Impossible Archetype, Painted Cave, Dunes Review, Monday Night, IDK Magazine, 3288 Review, The Maynard, Peach Mag, Blue River Review, and Panoply. They have recently been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2019. They live in Traverse City, Michigan.

Jennifer Yeatts

Jennifer Yeatts

Co-Senior Editor, Dunes Review

Jennifer serves with Teresa Scollon as Co-Senior Editor of the Dunes Review. Jennifer’s work has previously appeared in a few places here and there, though not so much recently. She received her MFA from the University of Idaho and currently writes from Traverse City, Michigan, where she is director of coffee at Higher Grounds Trading Company.

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