Nancy Niblack Baxter is the author of eight books on Indiana and Civil War history, including the Heartland Chronicle Series. The Movers was the Waldenbooks Preferred Reader selection for Atlantic states 1987; Lords of the Rivers was the National Association of Presswomen Best Novel of the Year 1990. Nancy Baxter has edited more than 200 books and is now senior editor at Hawthorne Publishing in Carmel.  She is the 2000 recipient of the Eli Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award in history from the Indiana Historical Society.  She is a Co-Vice President of the Board of Directors of The Writers’ Center of Indiana.

Julianna Thibodeaux is a writer of art criticism, journalism, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published locally and nationally. She has received feature writing and criticism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and was awarded an Arts Council of Indianapolis Creative Renewal Fellowship for writing and visual art in 2002. She earned her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in 2009.

Nelson Price is the author of Indiana Legends: Famous Hoosiers from Johnny Appleseed to David Letterman, Indianapolis Then and Now, Legendary Hoosiers and Indianapolis Leading the Way, and is a free-lance journalist, writing for magazines and for the Indianapolis Star, where he was a feature writer for twenty-one years. A popular public speaker for civic groups and schools, Nelson has won more than forty state, local, civic and national awards for his profiles of newsmakers. A frequent guest on TV and radio talk shows and speaks across the Midwest about the lives of famous Hoosiers and about interviewing techniques, he is a member of the Writers’ Center of Indiana.

Bryan Furuness has published stories in Ninth Letter, Southeast Review, Sycamore Review, Hobart, and other literary magazines. He received his MFA from Warren Wilson College. Currently, teaches at Butler University, where he serves as the prose editor for Booth. A member of the Board of Directors of the Writers’ Center of Indiana, he blogs at www.bookchoy.com.

David Hassler is the president of the Board of Directors of the Writers’ Center of Indiana and a long-time member of the Writers’ Center faculty. He holds an MFA from Spalding University, where he worked with Sena Jeter Naslund, Brad Watson, and Silas House. His award-winning work has been published in journals including Maize and the Santa Fe Writers’ Project. He served as student editor for The Louisville Review and managing editor of the Writers' Center’s Flying Island.  He is working on his second novel while his first is seeking a home.

Sarah Layden's fiction and poetry appear in Stone Canoe, Blackbird, Gargoyle, The Evansville Review, PANK, the anthology Sudden Flash Youth, and elsewhere. She is the winner of two Society of Professional Journalists awards, an AWP Intro Award, the Allen and Nirelle Galson Prize for fiction, and Purdue University’s Paul Sidewell Award for her novel, Sleeping Woman, which is excerpted in Freight Stories and the Dia de los Muertos anthology. She teaches writing at IUPUI and Marian University in Indianapolis. Find her online at www.sarahlayden.com.

Claudia Labin writes for the theatre and the screen. Her plays have been produced and given staged readings in a variety of local theatres and published in the Indiana Theatre Journal. “Straight from the Heart,” which she created to promote the arts in Indianapolis, aired on Channel 16 from 1994-1997. She was the winner of the Drury University One-Act-play competition in 2001 and a finalist for the Arts and Letters Prize in Drama, a juried competition judged by the late August Wilson (2007). She has a MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Writers’ Center of Indiana.

Rebecca Kai Dotlich is a poet and picture book author whose work has been featured on Reading Rainbow and has appeared in magazines such as Ladybug and Highlights, as well as in numerous anthologies, textbooks and collections. Her books have been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection, 10 Best Books for Babies, IRA Children's Choice, Indiana Best Read Aloud.  Her concept book Away We Go!, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino, was awarded the Gold Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Award, and What is Science? was a finalist for the SB&F prize for 2007 and has been named to Bank Street's Best Books of the Year.  Rebecca has been a contributing columnist and poetry advisor to Creative Classroom magazine, and has been asked to serve on the International Reading Association's Committee on Poetry & Prose Awards for 2007-2008. Her poetry books include Castles; old stone poems, and Over In The Pink House; New Jump Rope Rhymes.

Wendy Vergoz's poems have appeared in The Christian Century and Anglican Theological Review, and she also reviews poetry books for ATR. Wendy's poem, "No Matter," appeared in “Arts Kaleidoscope: Art, Poems, and Videos,” an exhibition of visual art and ekphrastic poems at Gallery 308 in Muncie, Indiana. She has presented workshops on poetry at both NCTE and ITW. Wendy currently teaches writing at Marian University.

Candace Denning has published two novels, showing that dysfunctional relationships can be humorous. Her first screenplay was produced in Indianapolis and premiered at the Heartland Film Festival.  She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literature and the Virginia Prize for Fiction.  She has also received grants from the Arts Commissions of Virginia and Indiana and a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

Hannah Haas is a poet and prose writer, whose work has appeared in journals such as Folio and Another Chicago Magazine. Her book manuscript was a finalist for the New Issues Poetry prize and a semifinalist for the Kenyon Review Poetry Prize. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Writers’ Center of Indiana.