Spring 2026 Online Workshop

Paul Brooke is a Professor and the Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he teaches Advanced Creative Writing, Environmental Literature, Creative Photography, Experimental Photography, Fiction, Poetry Writing, Nonfiction, Editing and Digital Publishing, Contemporary Literature, Diverse Voices, Novel Writing, Major Authors, and Literary Theory. His writing has been featured in numerous journals and has received severals distinctions and awards.
Brooke has published eight books including Light and Matter: Photographs and Poems of Iowa, his first full-length collection, by Campbell & Lewis Publishers in 2008; Meditations on Egrets: Photographs and Poems of Sanibel Island in 2010; Sirens and Seriemas: Photographs and Poems of the Amazon and Brazil by Brambleby Books in 2015; Arm Wrestling at the Iowa State Fair by Finishing Line Press in 2018; The Skald and the Drukkin Tröllaukin by Gold Wake Press in 2022; and Pantagruelian: Photographs and Poems of Torres del Paine by Gold Wake Press in 2024. His latest book, The Cities of the Plains An Anthology of Artists and Poets, was published in 2024 and he served as the editor and designer of the collection that features 57 Iowa artists and poets.

Joy Lyle lives on a farm with her husband Trent near Keota, Iowa, where they raised three children who are grown and have families of their own. She began her teaching career as a graduate student at the University of Iowa and graduated with an MFA degree in English with a poetry emphasis from the Writers' Workshop. For over thirty years, Joy taught at Indian Hills Community College: composition, communications, poetry writing, literature, and developed an online poetry writing class, originated and edited the student publication, started a creative writing club, and organized poetry readings. Joy is a member of the Iowa City branch of the American Pen Women, and since 1995 has served as the high school editor for the Iowa Poetry Association. She is also active in her local church community, serving on the administrative board and committees, and is a member of her local library board. Some of the places her poems have been published are the following: Poetry Northwest, Cutbank, Hammers, The Sewanee Theological Review, Flyway Journal of Writing and Environment; the anthology Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day; Mid-America Poetry Review, Lyrical Iowa, and Iowa Telepoem Booth.

Rustin Larson's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, and North American Review. He won 1st Editor's Prize from Rhino and was a prize winner in The National Poet Hunt and The Chester H. Jones Foundation contests. A graduate of the Vermont College MFA in Writing, Larson was an Iowa Poet at The Des Moines National Poetry Festival, and a featured poet at the Poetry at Round Top Festival. He is a poetry professor at Maharishi University, a writing instructor at Kirkwood Community College, and has also been a writing instructor at Indian Hills Community College. Rustin Larson's first book manuscript (eventually titled Loving the Good Driver) was a semi-finalist in the University of Wisconsin Press Poetry Series in 1991 (Ron Wallace, Series Editor: "Your fine manuscript was a semi-finalist here.") Among Rustin's published books are Library Rain, Conestoga Zen Press, 2019 which was named a February 2019 Exemplar by Grace Cavalieri and reviewed in The Washington Independent Review of Books' Howling Enigma, Conestoga Zen Press, 2018; Pavement, Blue Light Press, 2017; The Philosopher Savant, Glass Lyre Press, 2015; Bum Cantos, Winter Jazz, & The Collected Discography of Morning, Blue Light Press, 2013; The Wine-Dark House, Blue Light Press, 2009; and Crazy Star, Loess Hills Books, 2005. His honors and awards also include Pushcart Prize Nominee (seven times, 1988-2010); featured writer, DMACC Celebration of the Literary Arts, 2007, 2008; and finalist, New England Review Narrative Poetry Competition, 1985.

Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, as well as the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine. Marquart served as Iowa’s Poet Laureate and the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment.  The author of seven books—including The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and Small Buried Things: Poems—Marquart has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine’s Elle Lettres Award.  In 2021, Marquart was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent books are The Night We Landed on the Moon: Essays Between Exile & Belonging (2021) and a poetry collection, Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems (2023).  For more information: debramarquart.com 

Rachel Morgan is the author of the chapbook, Honey & Blood, Blood & Honey (Final Thursday Press, 2017). Her work is included in the anthology, Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America (Ice Cube Press, 2016). Her work recently appears or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Fence, Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, Salt Hill, The Laurel Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, and Barrow Street. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and a Pushcart. She was a finalist for 2017 National Poetry Series. Currently she teaches at the University of Northern Iowa and is the Poetry Editor for the North American Review. She is a 2020 recipient of a residency at Gullkistan, Center for Creativity in Iceland and the winner of the 2020 Fineline Competition. 

Michaela Mullin is a poet, arts writer, and editor living in Des Moines, IA. She earned her BA in English from Drake University, her MFA in Creative Writing from University of Nebraska, and her PhD in Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought from the European Graduate School. She is a recipient of the Helen W. Kenefick Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and the Thomas Dunn Scholarship in English. Her full-length poetry collection, must, was published in 2016. She is the Associate Editor at Nomadic Press, Oakland, CA.

Geneva Toland is a writer, farmer, naturalist, and educator residing on Báxoje territory (Ames, IA). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Canary Literary Magazine, West Trade Review, HerStry, and Decapitate Magazine, among others. She is currently a student in Iowa State University's MFA program in Creative Writing and the Environment. Read more of her work at www.genevatoland.com

A Nebraska native, Shannon Vesely is a retired English teacher who resides in rural southeast Iowa. Since retirement, she writes essays for her website, Sanctuaries (www.shannonsvesely.com), collaborates with local composers, writes creative nonfiction and poetry. She has been awarded three writing residencies, and her poetry has appeared in journals such as Nebraska Life, Platte Valley Review, Alicorn, Evensong, Sad Girls Club, and Wingless Dreamer. Her book, The Way of Things (Rogue Faculty Press, 2021) was recently awarded the 2022 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. Her father, a Nebraska poet, claimed that we all have at least "one good poem in our hidden heads." She writes with the continued desire to uncover her one "good poem."