SUMMER CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
Creativity is the Bees' Knees
SPEAKERS AND EXPERTS
Rachel Reese
Rachel Reese is a prose-ist who likes a good story.
Mrs. Reese has supported story literacy for a wide range of academic populations including those at local school districts, college campuses, juvenile justice facilities, and public libraries. Though neither a mathematician nor a teacher, she compiled a portfolio of stories for a Masters degree in secondary mathematics education. She did this because of her own challenges in math that arose from the lack of good dialogue in the subject claiming, “If math is the universal language, why do so many people have trouble understanding it?”
As a writer of young adult and short fiction, characters voice themselves through her and move her stories forward. Regardless of whether the subject is a quadratic equation or a teenager who travels through space on shared thoughts with extra-terrestrial beings, a good story is about something or someone with something to say.
When not taking dictation from her characters, you may find Mrs. Reese speaking in their voices at local open mic venues as well as other places in the South such as Austin, New Orleans, and Nashville.
Andrea Hefner
Mrs. Hefner is a poet who rhymes from time to time.
She was recently published in the Blackwater Review.
Mrs. Hefner discovered a love for writing, reading, and speaking at a young age. Her mother was an influential piece of the ability to understand what that discovery meant and fostered the love of words in her daughter. Andrea was active in theater, oratory, and writing clubs during an unsettled childhood in which words provided shelter.
A love for all things medical added to the interest of learning and Mrs. Hefner succeeded along many parts of her journey in life. She has been an EMT, a phlebotomist, a medical assistant, a certified professional coder, a certified physician practice manager, and is currently pursuing a degree in health science management. She finds that taking care of others and poetry go hand in hand.
Mrs. Hefner values family and loves to explore the legacy of lives lived. She finds great pleasure in her two children, her husband, her two sisters, and misses her parents. Perhaps one of her greatest joys is when she finds a spark of kinship with writers. She is active with many groups in the local area to ensure that the spark becomes a fire. The Panhandle Poetry Project, Say the Word, Stone Soup, and Raider Writers are all part of her extended family.
Interested in speaking?
Contact Victoria van Hoorebeke
(850) 305 - 4687
Include when you are available during the workshop, what you would like to speak on, and what you would like put onto the speakers and experts page.
I am also looking for local poets to speak at an invitational mic poetry session during the workshop.
