Brigitte Whiting
Brigitte joined Writers' Village University in 2009 as a lifetime member. She's a Student Advisor, has developed some poetry and nonfiction courses, and facilitates various MFA courses. She is one of the nonfiction editors at WVU's online literary magazine, Village Square. She's completed Fiction Writing Certificates at Gotham Writers Workshop and UCLA-Extension, and Nonfiction and 3-Year Fiction MFA Certificates at WVU. She's a perpetual student, enjoys sharing what she's learning, and is grateful for the online opportunities WVU provides.
Her work has been published in online journals.
She lives in Maine where she enjoys watching the wild creatures that visit her yard and figuring out their stories. They, and her yard, sometimes appear in her writing. She is a member of two weekly local writers' groups and is working on a variety of writing projects.
Carol Malley
I am fortunate to have been able to earn my living writing. As a journalist, I’ve covered everything from presidential elections and national conventions to courtroom trials. I’ve completed a citizen’s police academy, written restaurant and book reviews, a political column, investigative pieces and travel articles.
I’ve been humbled by winning awards and publication for my fiction, poetry and news reporting. Fiction awards include: Editor’s Choice Award from publisher Shaye Areheart, Carrie McCray Literary Award and the Historical Novel Society’s short story award. I was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for a novel in progress and for a short story, second prize winner in the Pen and Brush Inc. prose contest, second place in the 2006 Frontiers in Writing mainstream category and third place in its mystery, suspense and thriller category. Publications in print literary journals include: The MacGuffin, Black Magnolia, Santa Clara Review, Sojourner, America’s Intercultural Magazine, Larcom Review, River Oak Review, Peregrine, and several themed anthologies.
I’ve taught journalism at the University of Massachusetts and creative writing in the public schools. I believe in giving back for the opportunities I’ve had and led writing workshops for inner city teens and women. I’ve also edited three publications of writings by teenagers. I was poetry editor of Peregrine literary journal, president of the Pioneer Valley Press Club and participated in several Irish American Writers Exchange Programs in Ireland and in the United States
Charity Tahmaseb
I’ve been a member of WVU for close to twenty years—since the last century. No other online site has been a bigger part of my life. I wrote my first novel here. I met my friend Darcy Vance, who became not only my writing BFF and critique partner, but also my co-author. We’ve gone on to write two books together (so far).
I’ve jumped out of airplanes and worked for Green Giant. I spent twelve years as a Girl Scout and six on active duty in the Army. I now work as a technical writer since it’s quiet and consistent and I enjoy the work.
My writing has been published in a variety of places, everywhere from one of the big five in NYC to university presses, to teeny, tiny micro-presses. It has also been soundly rejected in its journey to publication.
Because writing is a journey, one with ups and downs. My hope is I can help others on their own journey, wherever that may lead.
Blog: Writing Wrongs
Cynthia Reed
As May 2013 rolled around, Cynthia discovered she'd taken the last in a series of English
language writing classes in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- and was considering starting them all over again. For wannabe writers, it was "the only (English language) game in town." She'd moved to Malaysia in early 2011--after about ten years in the UK--with a NaNoWriMo draft under one arm and no plans whatsoever to write short stories.
My Malaysian writing instructor, the amazing Sharon Bakar, suggested WVU. "You ought to check out Writers Village University," she said. "They've got an F2K special on right now." And so she did. And all these years later, she’s still here.
Malaysia’s no longer home –- it's Swedish lessons (and citizenship) now –- but WVU continues to be her foldable, packable, constant 'writing home.' When the MFA program began, she jumped into the three-year MFA Creative Writing certificate course. She has largely finished it, though there are a couple of major projects and story workshops yet to complete. She does love the flexibility of it but really ought to get busy.
Along the way she has had eight or so short stories published (She finds submissions the last thing she manage to do) and she is now editing and rewriting a linked collection of stories that span much of the 20th century. She says, “I never could have gotten this far without WVU resources, classes, ideas and instructors.”
Originally a California/Idaho/Washington girl, her 'old life' was in the high-tech world: technical writing, marketing communications, travel and social media for global corporations. Now, it’s the writerly life here in the woods, with Mr. Right and their Alaskan Malamute, Sesi, surrounded on three sides by the Baltic, writing less than she thinks she ‘should,’ but life is darned good.
Frank Richards
BIO: When Frank was a kid, he was a library rat. He preferred hanging out in the library and reading to doing schoolwork. He wrote his first science fiction story when he was still in grade school. Frank always knew he would someday be a writer. But first, he had to navigate what life threw at him.
Frank’s first "career," if you could call it that, was as a warrior – a soldier who eventually learned and taught karate. He then became a scholar, received a BA, an MS, and a doctorate, and taught MBA students marketing strategy in graduate school for ten years. He worked at the post office, starting as a distribution clerk in Long Beach California, and working his way around the United States in jobs like plant manager and postmaster and ultimately up to office director at headquarters in Washington DC, responsible for 12 billion dollars in retail sales. After that, he became a general manager in international business. Frank traveled to different countries starting up a package shipping business, helping other countries improve their postal services, and helping American businesses succeed overseas. Finally, he took an early retirement to fulfill his lifelong desire to write.
Frank lives in Virginia with his wife and their assortment of rescued animals. They've rescued cats and German shepherd dogs and have done volunteer work at various rescues. They are notorious "failed fosters;" they fostered three of their four dogs, then decided to adopt them themselves.
Frank came to Writers Village University in 2016 and began his studies for the MFA certification in fiction, which he received in May of 2021. The WVU coursework gave him the skills and confidence he needed to start submitting stories, and he has had over a dozen accepted and published so far. “I could not have done this without Writers' Village University.”
Facebook page: frankrichardsauthor
Website: authorfrankrichards.com
Helen Rossiter
At the age of seven, I informed my family that when I grew up, I was going to be an author and live in an authorage.
I was born in Kenya many years ago, then moved to London, England at the age of seventeen, where I came of age among the hippy crowd and flower power, the birth of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, anti-war and anti-anything rallies. In a moment of lucidity, I accepted an offer from the New Zealand government to immigrate there, where I worked in a variety of worthwhile but dull (to me) workplaces. In 1981, with my husband, three children, seven suitcases and high hopes, we moved to Canada.
My children have grown now and left home, my husband has moved out, and in the freedom of my solitude, I am finally able to focus on attaining my childhood goals.
I write short stories, mostly literary, because I am intrigued by what makes an ordinary life extraordinary, or a mundane situation interesting, or the commonplace surprising. What better way to do this than to write about familiar people in conventional situations by uncovering their innermost secrets.
I have been very fortunate to have been published, and to have won (among a few other contests) the Alice Munro Short Story Award just a week before she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. That’s less than Six Degrees of Separation between this would-be writer and one of the world’s greatest.
This journey of mine has been and continues to be an inspiration as I turn my apartment in Ottawa, Canada into my very own authorage, filled with books, papers, music and the realization that I can perhaps -- just, almost -- call myself an author.
Joyce Hertzoff
Joyce Hertzoff retired in 2008 after forty-five years in the scientific literature publishing business. The Crimson Orb, the first novel in the Crystal Odyssey series, was originally published by the Phantasm Books imprint of Assent Publications in June 2014. Soon after, the flash mysteries, Natural Causes and Say Cheese were published in the anthologies The Darwin Murders and Tasteful Murders. A short story, Princess Petra, appears in The Way Back anthology, and another one, A Woman Hobbles into a Bar, appears in the charity anthology Challenge Accepted. Her young adult fantasy novella A Bite of the Apple, published in 2016, won the New Mexico Press Women’s fiction contest prize in the YA category and second place in the National Federation of Press Women contest. In 2017, she republished The Crimson Orb and published the sequel, Under Two Moons. In March 2018, she published the third book in that series, Beyond the Sea as well as a middle-grade book, So You Want to be a Dragon. Joyce often shares a booth at conventions and markets with RJ Mirabal. She also had a remembrance included in New Mexico Remembers 9/11 published in 2020. At the end of 2020, she published the fourth book in her Crystal Odyssey series, Homeward Bound.
She is a mentor and facilitator at Writers Village University, an online university offering MFA certificates. She is managing editor for fiction for the MFA program’s ezine The Village Square. She’s been a member of SouthWest Writers since 2010 and participates in both online and in-person critique groups. She is also a member of Sisters in Crime and the Albuquerque section Croak and Dagger.
Shirley Eaves
I joined WVU back in 2007 and went through the first trial go-around of the MFA program back then. I learned so very much by hanging around writers such as Carol Malley and others, reading their work and comments.
My reading is a smorgasbord: fiction, nonfiction, short stories, and essays. Favorite authors are Elizabeth Berg, Anne Tyler, Wallace Stegner, Haruki Murakami and often whomever I'm reading at the moment.
I write fiction, nonfiction and some flash of both. Currently, there are two novels in progress, one of which is keeping me up at night. I will complete my fiction writing certificate at UCLA online in the spring of 2016.
My formal name is Shirley Eaves and my work has appeared in Short Story America, T-Zero Quarterly, Funny Story, and World City Stories. Two of my fiction pieces won honorable mention in the St. Louis Writer's Guild annual short story contest. I spent my formative years in the Midwest: Missouri and Illinois. Now I'm a Western woman living in Sedona, Arizona with my man and the coyotes, mule deer, javalinas, hummingbirds, Gambel's quail, and the occasional bobcat who stumble across our property.
Besides loving books, I'm a nature geek. I also love writers. We can be quirky, but we have fun.
Publications:
Joni Zipp
Joni Zipp joined Writers’ Village University in 2004. She’s served a variety of roles at WVU, including F2K Mentor, workshop facilitator, poetry course instructor, and group moderator. Joni is Managing Editor for WVU This Week, a WVU Site Guide and manages the WVU Support Desk. She’s a Lifetime WVU Member and the first point of contact for new members.
Karen Barr
Karen is editor in chief of Writers Village University’s online literary magazine, Village Square. A lifetime member of WVU--where she is working toward her three-year MFA--she has served in multiple positions including Moderator and Mentor of F2k, Staff and Student Adviser, and Workshop leader and facilitator. She has both designed and facilitated courses for WVU’s MFA Certificate Program.
Her work has been published in literary magazines and online in the U.S. and UK. Her short stories have won four times in the Write Invite online competition, based in the UK.
While her main love is literary short stories, she is currently working on a novel and screenplay as well as a nonfiction book on Classic Car Accessories. She has received certificates from the University of Iowa’s Creative Writing Program MOOCs.
She enjoys the privacy of her 34-acre home in Missouri where she lives with her husband, three miniature dachshunds and a white Labrador. Her hobbies include photography, painting and classic cars.
Leona Pence
I am a lifetime member of WVU. Back in 2009, a friend encouraged me to join a session of F2K which led me to discover the amazing Writers Village University. I had already written the first draft of a manuscript, but it was here at WVU in the Novel Group that I polished it up and found a publisher. Hemphill Towers is my main published work. I have a few contests, flash stories, and blog entries.
My four children were born and raised in Bartonville, Illinois where I still reside. I’ve been blessed with twelve grandchildren and soon to be, five great grandchildren. Two spoiled dogs, Luna and Jax, complete my family.
I am an avid reader of most genres. I enjoy watching movies on Netflix from my computer. My biggest pleasure has come from mentoring the Madeleine L’Engle Classroom in F2K. It changed my life, opened up a world of learning from people in other countries, and gave me some wonderful friends, most of whom are also WVU members.
Blog: Leona's Chatter
Linda Killian
I think a lot of us have a book in our hearts and heads that keeps us company and begs to be written.
When I retired from school counseling, instead of buying a new car, I took a trip to Europe. I actually sat on Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England. Word of warning - beware of spiritual energies that might be lurking where you sit. While in Rome, Emperor Hadrian’s name came up at the Pantheon. This temple to the gods was built around the First Century and burned twice, but his architects rebuilt it. I stood in the very center of the Pantheon and placed my hand on the marble columns outside. Again - beware where you sit, stand, and touch.
When I returned home to Alabama, Emperor Hadrian was in my head and dreams. I had not had previous experience with a muse. He took over the English romance novel I was drafting. He moved the setting to Rome and made the novel his own. I’m not complaining. Writing and self e-publishing three books has brought me great pleasure.
I could never have done this without the courses and friends at Writers Village University. I began by completing the F2K class four times, serving as intern in F2K, group facilitator, and all-around student. I’m now enrolled in WVU’s MFA program and continue to learn tons about writing historical romance and flash autobiographical fiction. The feedback I’ve received from both beginners and advanced members continues to help me improve my writing and thinking processes. I’d be lost without WVU.
Author Page: Smashwords.com
Luana Meissner
I’m a two time member of Writer’s Village University, originally joining back in the late nineties and finally coming home in 2014 to find out how much the village has grown. I loved WVU way back then and now I love it even more. Writing is my first passion and I strive to write every day. I would like to eventually see some of my stories published and maybe even a book or two. Thanks to the yearly NaNoWriMo challenge, I have completed the first drafts of 4 novels. Now I have the tedious task of tweaking them to publishable standards. So far the only things I’ve had published are several articles I wrote years ago for a local base paper. I’m recently retired from the RCAF where I did just shy of 26 years’ service as an Air Traffic Controller. During my time in the military I served overseas twice, in the Sinai and in Afghanistan.
I now reside with my husband, on a small acreage in Alberta, and love the peaceful quiet life. Our nearest neighbors are almost a mile away, and on a clear day you can make out the mountains in the distance. Between the two of us, we have 6 children, all grown and doing well, and 3 small grandchildren, who are little sweethearts. We also have two horses and a hard playing puppy that takes up most of my time.
Besides writing, my other main interests include herbology, nutrition and energy healing. I have recently earned my herbalist certificate and am now working towards becoming a master herbalist. I love teaching and have taught several workshops in different energy healing modalities. I enjoy sharing my knowledge, and helping others to realize their goals and dreams.
Luann Lewis
BIO: Luann Lewis is a Chicago native who has spent the last twenty years mostly writing legal documents and correspondence but is currently in semi-retirement and recently earned her Fiction MFA certification from Writers Village University. Dabbling in Fiction, Flash, Creative Nonfiction and Poetry, she has had pieces published in both online and print magazines as well as won a local contest and had a flash story used for an audio performance by Manawaker Studios. She is an avid writer of fanfiction which led to the creation of her first novel now under contract and soon to be published.
Margaret Fieland
Born and raised in New York City, Margaret Fieland has lived in the Boston area since 1978. She is an avid science fiction fan, and selected Robert A. Heinlein's “Farmer in the Sky” for her tenth birthday, now long past. In spite of earning her living as a computer software engineer, she turned to one of her sons to put up the first version of her website, a clear indication of the computer generation gap. Thanks to her father's relentless hounding, she can still recite the rules for pronoun agreement in both English and French. She can also write backwards and wiggle her ears. life.
Margaret’s poems and stories have appeared in journals such as Turbulence Magazine, Front Range Review, and All Rights Reserved. She is the author of four science fiction novels, and of Sand in the Desert, a collection of science fiction persona poems. She lives with her family on Cape Cod, where she enjoys weeding her garden and walking her dogs.
Website and blog: http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Poetic Muselings:http://poetic-muselings.net/
Penny Camp
Copy Editor in Nonfiction
Penny Camp is a lifetime member of WVU where she has received her Nonfiction MFA and is working toward her Fiction MFA. She has taken numerous writing classes over the years with a particular interest in creative non-fiction. She likes to participate in flash fiction/non-fiction competitions. As a passionate reader, she has an overactive imagination and the ability to daydream her way through any situation.
Penny’s day job as a commercial loan processor is what keeps the lights turned on. She lives in Pendleton, Oregon, home of the world-famous Pendleton Round-Up. She has a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon University and has dabbled in photography, jewelry making, and painting. She loves to travel and has traversed the full width of the United States and Canada twice on her motorcycle and once in a camp trailer.
Her work has been published in Village Square Literary, Women Riders Now, and Celebrating Our Mothers, An Anthology.
Phil Bernhardt
I know now I picked the wrong career path because I never settled anywhere until I started writing fiction. After a twenty-year career in the Navy, where I rewrote several ship's operation manuals and other instructions, I went on to work for a Virginia State Delegate, sold booze at Virginia ABC as Chief Administrator, and worked several years writing proposals and conducting financial analyses in support of government contractors. After becoming completely fed up interacting with both the Federal and State governments, I taught Principles of Accounting and eventually became a university administrator. I'm finally retired from everything except writing. And WVU is where I concentrate my online interaction.
I live in Virginia Beach, VA, with my first wife and only wife of many, many years. We have three offspring, two boys and one girl, and two grand girls. We are empty nesters except for our ten-year-old Scottish Terrier. I'm a graduate of Saint Leo University (BA), Old Dominion University (MSAccounting), and Golden Gate University (MBA). When I'm not writing or traveling, I'm reading anything from a history book to the back of a package, as long as the print's big enough.
RJ Hembree
In 1995 I built my first Web page as an Old Dominion University English major. I was managing editor for The Mace and Crown at the time, and one of our journalists told me about this thing called the Web. I’d taken philosophy courses online at NOVA, so was familiar with Gopher and newsgroups, but the WWW and HTML were news to me. Writers’ Village University evolved from this clumsy, first website. The initial motivation was to connect with others interested in postmodern literature, authors like Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, John Barth, Salman Rushdie, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What I found were like-minded writers, so began to share what I was learning about writing. This was the beginning of the Web’s first online community and school for writers. By the time I started ODU's MFA program in 1997, WVU had grown from 7 members to over 1,000.
Over the years, my focus changed from writing fiction to writing about writing. I’m a relentless researcher on the subject, and always on the lookout for fresh connections and ideas. When one has studied the craft long enough, the redundancy of popular writing texts and creative writing courses becomes clear. There’s so much more to discover about writing and what makes it work (or not work).
I’ve developed many courses since 1995, covering both conventional and artistic approaches to writing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. My joy is research and discovery, and even more, watching our members grow into fine writers. Many have published, won awards, and write professionally. We have a wide variety of experience levels in our membership.
I'm also a staff writer/photographer for Lake Powell Chronicle and Gateway to Canyon Country magazine.
Robin McCormack
Hello dear hearts. In the process of researching Master’s programs, I found WVU and discovered a wonderful community of writers. Which is why when Bob asked for volunteers to help with the MFA classes, I jumped in with both feet. I currently facilitate the core course, MFA700 Narrative Design, plus the Flash Non Fiction writing series and well as help moderate other courses. You’ll also find me roving the halls, answering questions and passing out chocolate in case of writerly emergency.
I’m an avid reader and reading is as necessary as breathing. I get rather crotchety without my books. Writing is different since I came to it so late in life. It’s a choice, a love, a desire. I don’t need to write, I want to write. Writing is a never ending process of learning and growing. After years of writing business letters, reports and briefs, I discovered that once I started putting pen to paper, I had an excuse to daydream. I’ve been writing for several years, but I don’t have anything published…yet!
When I’m not here, you can find me wrangling four fur babies, assisting my husband with our mom and pop audio repair shop, and/or homeschooling our 16 year old, who is a voracious writer and currently in 10th grade. Teaching and mentoring our son through the years lead me to further my education and I completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts a few years ago. I also am a blogger and host an online annual reading challenge - Read 52 Books in 52 Week.
The courses as well as the positive and constructive feedback have helped improve both my writing and critical thinking skills, and I have had fun while doing so. I look forward to working with you all.
Website: Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks
Robyn Groth
I got my MA in linguistics and have been homeschooling for nine years. I am married with three sons and a dog.
I got interested in writing seriously after reading a book that just blew my mind (Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur). I then tried to build sort of a foundation for myself by taking a few literature MOOCs, reading a lot, reading books on craft. I started feeling like I was kind of stuck after a while. Everywhere I looked I kept seeing the same advice to read Lamott, Goldberg and a few Writer's Digest books. I was frustrated with trying to find the next step to improve my writing.
Thankfully, I was told about WVU. I have learned so much since joining, from courses, yes, and also from all the great writers here. My to-read list of books on writing craft has improved in both length and quality, and all the feedback given and received has helped me wrap my head around things that were eluding me. I have had a few poems and stories published here and there in little magazines and webzines, and I look forward to writing more, reading all your wonderful pieces and working together.
Sati Benes Chock
I started reading at the age of three, and I’ve been infatuated with books ever since. Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew introduced me to mysteries, and before the time I was ten I’d read all of Agatha Christie’s novels. I grew up in a small New England town, where I dreamed of three things: not freezing for six months out of the year, living in an art museum like the children in the classic story From The Mixed up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler, and being a writer.
After graduating from college, I taught English in Tokyo before moving to Honolulu, where I got my MA in Japanese Language & Literature from the University of Hawaii. I won’t lie: the warm weather had a lot to do with it! I continued to teach until I found a museum job and fell in love with a coworker. One day he was offered a position that required us to—wait for it—live at a different museum. So, of course, I married him. Because it was destiny, right?
Someday I hope to write a mystery series set in Hawaii, starring a plucky heroine who works at a museum. Right now, though, I’m working my way through all of the delectable WVU classes like a chocoholic in a candy shop! And while my day job is still at a museum, my stories have been published in a number of online and print publications, including Amsterdam Scriptum, Hiss Quarterly, Flash Me Magazine, Thereby Hangs a Tale, and Mouth Full of Bullets.
Carolyn Red Bear
I grew up in Wisconsin where I felt like I never fit in. I graduated from Bryan Career College in Missouri, Womens Economic Ventures of California, and degrees from several courses in Creative Writing and Photography. I started a cottage school in Alaska where I wrote and taught the Literature Arts curriculum, wrote and edited the school newsletter and yearbook, and was also a volunteer and a small press while I was there. Through the years of working in Corporate Hotel Management, I started publishing my own poetry and children's picture books. After a long hiatus I am now residing in Albuquerque, NM working on my MFA Certificate at WVU while exploring more of my creative spirit.
Michael Hiebert
I've been seriously writing with the aim of being a published author since 2002, when I quit my "day job" to concentrate only on my writing, something my wife thought at the time thought also meant "unemployed deadbeat." It wasn't until ten years later that I managed to find a NY agent I "clicked" with. During the intervening time, I wrote a lot. I used to track my word counts and, two years running, I hit over a million. So, when my agent asked to see my work, I sent her sixteen finished novels. It took her another two years to sell one. DREAM WITH LITTLE ANGELS remains my most successful book to date.
I don't write crazy amounts of words anymore. These days, my year totals are more like 250,000 by the time you count first drafts, rewrites, short stories, etc. Currently, I have over ten books published, some traditionally through Kensington Publishing, NY, some self-published under my own imprint DangerBoy Books.
Right now, my agent is shopping two manuscripts for me and I am about to dive into the fifth Alvin book for my series with Kensington. I have the prologue completed and plan to toss together a short proposal to go along with it.
Throughout my writing career, I have deeply studied my craft. Not only through writing books (I own over three hundred of them, yet I doubt I'd recommend more than a dozen), but also through retreats, seminars, and workshops. In particular, the one-week short story workshop and two-week masterclass I attended through Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith were most valuable. I learned more in those three weeks than the rest of my life combined. I consider Kris my mentor.
Whatever else I know came from simply writing a lot. The more prolific you are, the more practice you get, the better writer you become. It's a simple formula, just not necessarily an easy one to follow. The key: stay on the path.
Website: http://www.michaelhiebert.com/
Wynelda-Ann Deaver
Wyndie lives in Northern California, just a couple of hours from her beloved ocean. She and her son enjoy searching for pirate treasure, mermaids, dragons and a really good story. Never short on imagination and the need to make dreams come true, they are always questing for their next magical moment.
