Universal Table

Michele Markarian, a core member of the Wising Up Editorial Group, is a writer and actor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her short plays have been presented by the Boston Theatre Marathon, the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, YAT in South-West London, the Fine Arts Association of Ohio, American Globe Theatre in Manhattan, Brooklyn College, and the Minnesota Shorts Festival of Plays, among others. Her ten-minute play Old Friends was a finalist for a 2006 Heideman Award from Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. Her plays have been published by Dramatic Publishing, Heuer Publishing, and six of her plays are collected in her recent book, Unborn Children of America and Other Family Procedures. Her short fiction can be found in the Wising Up anthologies Families: the Frontline of Pluralism, View From the Bed; View from the Bedside, Daring to Repair, and Creativity & Constraint. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild. 

WILLIAM CASS

William Cass published his first collection of short stories, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, with the Wising Up Writers Collective in 2020. He has had over 200 short stories published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. He was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, has received three Pushcart Prize nominations, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. A recently retired educator, he lives in San Diego, California. His work has also appeared in the Wising Up anthologies Connected: What Remains as We All Change and The Kindness of Strangers.

STEPHANIE HART

Stephanie Hart teaches writing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She is a guest lecturer at Parsons the New School for Design, where students read excerpts from her most recent book, Mirror Mirror: A Collection of Memoirs and Stories. Stephanie worked as Children’s Editor for the online webzine ducts.org, featuring the work of elementary, middle school, and high school students from many parts of the United States and the world. She is the author of the young adult fiction novel, Is There Any Way Out of Sixth Grade?  Her short stories and personal essays have appeared in the Wising Up  anthologies Connected: What Remains as We all Change and The Kindness of Strangers as well as literary magazines The Sun, Jewish Currents, And Then, and ducts.org. She is currently at work on a novel about the McCarthy era.

MARY KAY RUMMEL

Mary Kay Rummel’s ninth poetry book, Nocturnes: Between Flesh and Stone, has just been published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco. Her first book, This Body She’s Entered, won a Minnesota Voices Award from New Rivers Press. She is co-editor of Psalms of Cinder & Silt, poems about experiences with fires in California. Her nonfiction books include Teachers’ Reading/Teachers’ Lives and American Voices: Webs of Diversity. Professor emerita from the University of MN and retired from California State University, Channel Islands, she and her husband, Tim, divide their time between Minneapolis and Ventura, CA where she is a former Poet Laureate of Ventura County. She is a founding member of the nonprofit, Ventura County Poetry Project. Her poetry has appeared in various Wising Up anthologies, including Goodness, Crossing Class, and Surprised by Joy.

MICHAEL KONIK

Michael Konik is the author of thirteen books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, most recently The Unexpected Guest. He has contributed to the Wising Up anthologies The Kindness of Strangers and Goodness.

JOHNNY TOWNSEND

Johnny Townsend has published stories and essays in Newsday, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Salt Lake Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, The Humanist, The Progressive, and in many other publications, including the Wising Up Press Anthologies The Kindness of Strangers, Goodness, and Flip Sides,. His books include The Tyranny of Silence, Lying for the Lord, and Human Compassion for Beginners. He wrote the first book on the Upstairs Lounge fire, an arson at a French Quarter gay bar which killed 32 people on Gay Pride weekend in 1973, and he was an associate producer for the documentary Upstairs Inferno. His books have been named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. His latest projects are Am I My Planet’s Keeper? Cooperating in the Midst of a Mass Extinction and Racism by Proxy. 

J.O. HASELHOEF

J.O. Haselhoef is the author of Give & Take: Doing Our Damnedest NOT to be Another Charity in Haiti. She has also written for literary journals such as Storm Cellar, San Fedele Press, and Fiction Southeast. She has published essays in the Wising Up anthologies Goodness, Re-Creating Our Common Chord, and Surprised by Joy.

PATRICIA BARONE

Patricia Barone bases much of her work on her teaching, nursing and visual arts experience. She feels that the affective demands of geriatric nursing made her emotionally stronger. Patients and families have taught her much about resilience and compassion. Her most recent book is The Scent of Water, a collection of poetry. The Wind, a novella and Handmade Paper, poetry, were Minnesota Voices Award winners from New Rivers Press. She has received a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction and a Lake Superior Contemporary Writers Award. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in several Wising Up Anthologies, including Siblings: Our First Macrocosm, Creativity and Constraint, Daring to Repair, and View from the Bed: View from the Bedside. Having survived 63 years with clinical depression (she is 73), she is now open about her hidden disease in the hopes that she can help decrease the stigma attached to mental illness.

GEANIE JONES

Geanie Jones is a National Certified Counselor with over 12 years of experience in the field of community programs and community health. Since 2007, she has led strategic initiatives to address violence, child abuse prevention, parent education, and mental wellness working with several local community groups and school systems in Georgia. Before entering community health, she worked diligently to deliver programs and services to families in DeKalb County, particularly in the city of Clarkston with one of the most diverse communities in the United States. A graduate of Agnes Scott College; she has a MS in Professional Counseling from Mercer University.

LILIA TRÁPAGA TENNEY

Lilia is the founder and director of the theater group El Caldero (The Cauldron) whose goal is to make poetry and literature accesible for younger Mexicans. Born in Mexico City, she has been a resident of San Miguel de Allende for 25 years. She has a degree in Political Science from Universidad Iberoamericana, and a post graduate specialization in Rural Development from the Public Administration Institute in Paris, France. She also studied drama at the University Centre of Theater,  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Her main interest is the Spanish language. As well as being a playwright, she is a translator, and a  Spanish teacher, and has given a number of talks about literature for the Cervantes Everywhere Festival.  El Caldero, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, has received two grants from the Culture Institute of Guanajuato State.