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Four grads return for Great Lakes Writers Festival

Lakeland College will welcome back four graduates to help celebrate its annual Great Lakes Writers Festival, set for Thursday and Friday, November 1-2.

The festival is free and open to the public, and begins with a reading on Nov. 1 at 11 a.m. in the Bradley Theatre. The two-day event will showcase the written work of Jean Kuehnel (1987 graduate) Dawn Hogue (1990), Matthew Henriksen (2001) and Jodie Liedke (2006).

"I briefly toyed with the idea of inviting a few previous and most popular GLWF featured writers to return this year," said Karl Elder, the organizer of the Festival and Lakeland's Fessler Professor of Creative Writing, "but the sesquicentennial being a time of celebration, what could be better than a festival for which a handful of our graduates display their wares? It's time we learn what they can now teach us."

The festival will spotlight each author's work as well as feature readings and writing workshops with each author and other members of the Lakeland faculty. The community is encouraged to participate in the workshops as it can be a great way to interact with community members and share the art of reading and writing. A complete schedule is available on the Festival website at www.greatlakeswritersfestival.org.

Along with the community, English teachers and creating writing instructors are also invited to participate. The workshops are a great way to learn new techniques and skills to pass on to students. On Friday, teachers and professors are encouraged to bring their students as there will be contests and prizes for high school students in attendance.

"I expect that high school students who attend the events on Friday will be most impressed with the insight and advice they receive about writing," Elder said, "as well as hearing about the rewards to be had by becoming a good writer."

A less formal reading will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Pub on Lakeland's campus on Thursday night. It will be a great chance to visit with the writers in a relaxed environment and connect on a personal level. It will also be a good opportunity to see the energy from the writers as well as understand how they got where they are today.

"I anticipate energetic performances during the readings," Elder said. "These four alumni are among our most gifted—not only for their writing, but the profound effect they had as leaders while they were students."

Jodie Liedke, the most recent graduate, received her BA from Lakeland College in 2006 where she studied writing, English and communication. For the past three consecutive years Liedke has organized and help manage the Great Lakes Writers Festival as well as helped serve Seems magazine as an assistant editor and managing editor.

Matthew Henriksen graduated from Lakeland College in 2001 with a BA in writing. After graduating he went on to receive his MFA from the University of Arkansas in 2004. Henriksen finished and released his first book of poems, Ordinary Sun, in 2011, and was shown in the Boston-based publisher Black Ocean. The book was listed in Publishers Weekly as "20 of the Best Books on Independent Presses You Should Know About".

Dawn Hogue finished up her BA in English at Lakeland College in 1990. Before she became a writing instructor at John Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth, she taught English at Sheboygan Falls High School for 21 years. Not only is Hogue the author of two AP English test prep books, but she is also the creator of an online professional networking community for AP English teachers.

Jean Kuehnel studied jazz piano at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee before receiving her BA at Lakeland College. Following her degree at Lakeland College she went on to graduate school in Wichita, Kansas. She initially went in as a poet but came out with a novella. She currently works as a full time computer program developer and lives in North Carolina.
    
To register for the event and get directions to Lakeland, visit the Festival website at www.greatlakeswritersfestival.org.

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