Consumerism & the Stuff of Consumption

Rachel Hinton Originally from Vermont, Rachel Hinton lives in Chicago, where she works as an editor and teacher. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Tahoma Literary Review, The Boiler, Cimarron Review, the Denver Quarterly, and other journals. She is currently working on a collection of poems tentatively titled Hospice Plastics that explores the theme of consumption as it relates to illness and medical care.

Kristi Quillen is a poet, educator, and editor originally from Houston, Texas. She recently completed an MFA at Oregon State University and is spending her time traveling between Costa Rica, where she lived for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer, and wherever life takes her.

Sheri Reda is a writer, editor, librarian, and certified master celebrant who develops programming, performances, and ceremonies for milestone events in people’s lives. She writes poems and personal narratives and performs in Chicago’s live lit community. Her book of poems entitled Stubborn was published in 2018 by Moria press, and additional poems are included in the Haynaku 15 anthology published by Galatea Press. Sheri is a member of the Narrative Medicine Committee at Advocate and the Board  Programming Committee at the CG Jung Center in Evanston.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of twelve books, including West Side Girl & Other Poems, Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press), and the forthcoming High Water Lines (Prolific Press). She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com.

Jennifer Steele is native of Middletown, CT, current Chicagoan, and the author of the chapbook A House In Its Hunger (Central Square Press, 2018). She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2008 and is a 2015 Callaloo Fellow. She is the inaugural recipient of the 2019 Lucille Clifton Creative Parent Award from Raising Mothers Magazine and her work has appeared in Hypertext, Callaloo, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and others. She is working on a full-length collection of poetry entitled, Belt, and beginning a new journey in developing a collection of creative nonfiction.

Nellie Vinograd is an emerging poet currently based in Denver, CO. Her writing often explores routine and traditions in order to see what we desire from our repetitions. She holds a B.A. in English from Guilford College. Her work has been published in The Stirling Spoon and is forthcoming in THAT Literary Review. She is proudly serving as an AmeriCorps member with City Year Denver for the 2019-2020 school year.

Nina Corwin — WMG Literary Events Curator.
Nina Corwin is a published poet, Founding Editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal and psychotherapist/advocate for victims of sexual assault. She is the author of two books of poetry, The Uncertainty of Maps and Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints. Her work has appeared in ACM, Forklift OH, Hotel Amerika, New Ohio Review, Southern Poetry Review, Verse and has been nominated for the Pushcart prize. Corwin is an Advisory Editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal and co-edited Inhabiting the Body: A Collection of Poetry and Art By Women. She has read and performed her work across the country, at times set with musical or choreographic compositions.

Jennifer Steele – WMG Literary Events Outreach Coordinator.
Jennifer Steele is a published poet and educator and serves as Partnerships Coordinator for Teen Services at Chicago Public Library.  She served as co-founder and co-curator of the Revolving Door Reading Series. Her work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Callaloo Journal, Columbia Poetry Review, Warpland Journal, So To Speak, and others, and is a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop fellow. She has taught creative writing and digital media arts across Chicago since 2008 and has collaborated with numerous youth organizations and cultural institutions, designing innovative arts programming.

Kurt Eric Heintz – WMG Literary Events Audio Recordist.
Kurt Eric Heinz once taught computer graphics programming at Columbia College, and worked as an independent web developer. He’s since become the lead video director at Britannica. Heintz is known for his poetry videos, begun in the early 1990s. He also videoconferenced his colleagues’ poetry in the late 1990s — years before Skype and the iPhone. He was a technical adviser to the Electronic Literature Organization in its earliest years, and is the video content editor for Another Chicago Magazine.

Thank you Angela Narciso Torres, for your wonderful work and support for WMG and our Literary Program!