Luther College Writers Festival

Michael Bazzett is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber (Milkweed Editions, 2021), as well as a verse translation of the creation epic of the Maya, The Popol Vuh (Milkweed, 2018), named by the New York Times as one of the best poetry books of 2018. His translation of the selected poems of Humberto Ak'abal, If Today Were Tomorrow, was published by Milkweed in 2024. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in both poetry and translation, he lives in Minneapolis.

Megan Mayhew-Bergman is an author, speaker, and teacher who writes about the natural world and remarkable women in a science- and art-forward way - and likes to help others do the same. She is the author of three books, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season. As a journalist, essayist, and critic, she has written columns on climate change and the natural world for The Guardian and The Paris Review. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011 and 2015, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.Currently, Megan serves as Director of Middlebury College’s Creative Writing Program and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.

Jennifer Case is the author of We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood (Trinity University Press, 2024) and Sawbill: A Search for Place (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Her essays have appeared widely in journals such as The Rumpus, Orion, Ecotone, Literary Mama, and North American Review, among others. She teaches at the University of Central Arkansas and serves as an assistant nonfiction editor at Terrain.org. You can find her at www.jenniferlcase.com.

Born and raised in Montana, Giano Cromley is the author of two young adult novels and a collection of short stories. He is a recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and was a BookEnds Fellow with Stony Brook University. He is an amateur woodworker, a certified wildlife tracker, and an English professor at Kennedy-King College, where he is chair of the communications department. He lives on the Southside of Chicago with his wife and two dogs. [photo credit: Jeff Bohman]

Tamara Dean is an author of fiction and nonfiction whose most recent book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), is about living mindfully with nature and community in a time of uncertainty. Her work has appeared in the American Scholar, the Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, STORY Magazine, the Southern Review, and elsewhere. Her essay "Safer than Childbirth" received a 2024 Pushcart Prize special mention and "Slow Blues" was named a 2021 National Magazine Award finalist. More at www.tamaradean.media.

Katherine Hannigan is the author of the national bestseller and award-winning middle-grade novel Ida B ( ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and Possibly Save the World), as well as True ( ...Sort Of), an Amazon.com Best New Children’s Book of 2011. She wrote and illustrated Dirt + Water = Mud (a 2019–20 Iowa Goldfinch Award nominee), Emmaline and the Bunny (Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2009), and Gwendolyn Grace (Atlanta Parent Best Books of 2015). She has undergraduate degrees in education and math and painting and an MFA in studio art. She has worked as an education coordinator for a large Head Start program in New York state and as an assistant professor of art and design at Iowa State University. Currently, she writes, and works on an organic vegetable farm in northeast Iowa.

Patrick Hicks is the author of more than 10 books, including The Collector of Names, This London, Adoptable, In the Shadow of Dora, and Across the Lake. He also wrote the critically and popularly acclaimed novel The Commandant of Lubizec. His work has appeared on NPR, The PBS Newshour, American Life in Poetry, and his first novel held company among only 20 books selected for National Reading Group Month. Hicks has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, won the Glimmer Train Fiction Award, and has been a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, the Steinberg Essay Prize, the Screencraft Cinematic Book Award, and an Emmy. A former visiting fellow at Oxford, he has won a number of grants, including from the Bush Artist Foundation, the Loft Literary Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. After living in Europe for many years, he now lives in the Midwest, where he is the writer-in-residence at Augustana University as well as a faculty member in the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. His latest book is Greater Minnesota.

Lovar Davis Kidd, known as L.D., is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, and abstract artist from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices, his work often incorporates immersive artistic experiences and social justice themes. L.D. holds an MFA in choreography from the University of Iowa, where his research explored the connections between contemporary movement practices, Black vernacular aesthetics, and technology.

Drawing from his biracial background, Kidd's artistic approach is deeply informed by social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles, which also inspire his apparel company, 100% OVER RACISM.

With a significant performance history, L.D. has showcased his talent across the United States, including roles in the 2nd National Tour of In The Heights, Sacramento Music Circus's Aida, Disney California Adventure Park's Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular, and the Radio City Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular. He has also performed with Helanius J. Wilkins’s D.C.-based EDGEWORKS Dance Theater and LA-based dance companies Word In Motion and Urban Poets.

Akwi Nji is a multidisciplinary artist whose work blends poetry, music, and visual art to explore themes of identity, resilience, and belonging. Named Iowa Poet of the Year by the Iowa Music Awards and a recipient of the 2025 Governor’s Emerging Arts Leader Award, she creates immersive performance experiences that blur the boundaries between genres. At the Luther Writers Festival, she joins forces with artists Lovar Davis Kidd and Chuy Renteria for an interdisciplinary collaboration that unites spoken word, movement, and imagery—where art becomes both expression and activism.

Jim Reese’s latest book is Coming to a Neighborhood near You: The Repercussions of Crime and Punishment (Potomac Books, Sept. 2025), which draws on his extensive work with both the Federal Bureau of Prisons and South Dakota Department of Corrections. He spent 14 years in residency for the National Endowment for Arts’ interagency initiative with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where he established Yankton Federal Prison Camp’s first creative writing and publishing workshop. Reese is the author of eight books, including the nonfiction collection Bone Chalk, and has received several awards for his writing and public service. www.jimreese.org

Jesus “Chuy” Renteria is a writer and dancer from West Liberty—Iowa’s first majority Hispanic town. Renteria’s writing explores the spaces between cultures. Their memoir We Heard It When We Were Young released in 2021 with the University of Iowa Press and was recommended by Xochitl Gonzalez on the Today Show, as well as being featured in the Chicago Review of Books and on NPR. Renteria was the recipient of the Poets & Writers 2023 Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Award for Fiction. They are the arts and culture editor for Little Village Magazine and write the Substack “Of Spanglish and Maximalism.” They are working on their second book. [photo credit: Hao Zhou]

Rev. Dr. William R. Russell, a specialist in the life and work of Martin Luther, works at the intersection of the academy and the church, where he interprets the Reformer’s chief insights for modern audiences. With a PhD from the University of Iowa and an MDiv from Luther Seminary, Russell has served in a variety of academic and pastoral ministry settings and authored/translated 10 books and dozens of articles and reviews. A sought-after speaker, he has addressed audiences from Canada to Brazil, Malaysia to Nigeria, Norway to South Africa. He is married to Ann Svennungsen, and they have three grown children and four grandchildren.

Books that he has written, translated, and/or edited include: What to do During an Epidemic by Martin Luther, The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings by Martin Luther, and Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Revised Third Edition.

Rachel Swearingen is the author of the award-winning story collection How to Walk on Water and Other Stories. Her stories, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Electric Lit, VICE, the Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Off Assignment, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Berlin Writing Prize, the New American Press Fiction Prize, the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize in Fiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and the Mississippi Review Prize in Fiction. Originally from rural Wisconsin, Rachel earned a BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a PhD in English (creative writing) from Western Michigan University. She has taught writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute–Chicago, Cornell College, Western Michigan University, and Kalamazoo College. She lives in Chicago. [photo credit: Barney Cokeliss]

An Alabama native, Amy Weldon is professor and department head of English at Luther College, where she codirects the Luther College Writers Festival. Her most recent book is Creature: A Novel of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, and her next book, now under contract to Bloomsbury Academic, will be A Thing of Beauty: Reading the Romantics in a World on Fire. Read more at amyeweldon.com.

Rachel Yoder is the author of the novel Nightbitch, now a feature film written and directed by Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams. Selected as an Indie Next Pick in August 2021, Nightbitch has gone on to be named a best book of the year by Esquire and Vulture and recognized as a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications such as Harper’s, the New York Times, the Paris Review, the Southern Review, and the Sun. She is an assistant professor of screenwriting at the University of Iowa.