Gaylord Brewer’s most recent publications are the poetry chapbook Ghost (Anabiosis Press, 2011), his 8th full-length collection, Give Over, Graymalkin (Red Hen Press, 2011), and the comic novella Octavius the 1st (Red Hen Press, 2008). His critical works include Charles Bukowski (Macmillan, 1997) and David Mamet and Film (McFarland, 1993). He has published 800 poems in journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. His most recent residency was in 2011 at Arteles Creative Center in Finland. During the summer of 2012, he’ll be in residence at the Camac Centre of Art in France. He currently teaches at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the journal Poems & Plays. He has also taught in England, Russia, Kenya, and the Czech Republic. In 2009, he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Council. His website is www.gaylordbrewer.com

A native of France where she was trained as a dancer, Brigitte Byrd is the author of Song of a Living Room (Ahsahta, 2009), The Dazzling Land (Black Zinnias, 2008), and Fence above the Sea (Ahsahta, 2005). About Song of a Living Room, the Huffington Post says “ “some of the most accomplished prose poems of the last decade. . . . Very, very highly recommended.” Byrd currently lives in Atlanta and is an Associate Professor of English teaching Creative Writing at Clayton State University.  She is also an editorial reviewer for Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies. http://brigittebyrd.com/

Nate Eppler is a playwright and teaching artist based in the southeastern United States. His plays include  Keeping Up With the Joneses, The Shorty Hawkins Play, Modern Love and Long Way Down.  Keeping Up With the Joneses, originally produced at the University of Memphis, was an official selection of the Kennedy Center/ American College Theatre Festival and was named runner-up for the American College Theater Festival National Student Playwriting Award. Nate was further awarded for his work on Keeping Up With the Joneses with the Larry Riley Rising Star Award, the Chattanooga Theatre Centre New Play Award and was named to the Top Ten Artists in Memphis by Memphis Magazine and best new artist by The Commercial Appeal. The University of Memphis production was listed in the twenty events that defined Memphis Theatre as part of their decade-end review. 

From 2002-04 Nate served as Playwright-in-Residence for Breezeway Theatre Company where he developed The Shorty Hawkins Play and Modern Love, which was subsequently adapted into a screenplay and produced for ArchAngel Media. Nate has participated in the Charter Theatre Company First Draft Project, the Bloomington Playwright’s Project and the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive. In 2005, Nate was commissioned by the Kennedy Center and the White House Historical Association to develop the play The Amazing (Unbelievable) and (Almost) True Story of Eisenhower’s (Golfing) Squirrels for young audiences. Nate is a proud recipient of both the Tennessee Arts Commission Professional Development Support Grant and the Individual Artist Fellowship. Nate currently serves as Playwright-in-Residence for the Tennessee Repertory Theatre.

Eppler Workshop Info
Second Draft Workshop:
Covers approaches to plot and structure and ways to reshape a dramatist's thinking about their play and examines strong practical strategies to turn a flabby first draft into a muscular second one.
Conflict Workshop:
Covers the historical emergence of conflict in drama and the application of conflict as the centerpiece of the well-made play and provides each student with a better understanding of the function of conflict and practical exercises, allowing the student to apply the understanding to their current work.

Kathy Rhodes is founder and senior writer/editor at TurnStyle Writing, Editing & Publishing. She is publisher/editor of Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal (www.asouthernjournal.com), in its sixth year of publishing fiction and creative nonfiction. She is editor of Muscadine Lines: A Southern Anthology (Cold Tree Press, 2006) and co-editor of Gathering: Writers of Williamson County (CPO, 2009). She is author of Pink Butterbeans: Stories from the heart of a Southern woman (Cold Tree Press, 2005). Her essay “The Wedding Hankie” was included in Chocolate for a Woman’s Soul II (Simon & Schuster, 2003). Her essay “An Open Letter” was published in The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 3 (W.W. Norton, 2009) and singled out for a review in The New Yorker.

She teaches weekly creative nonfiction classes for Williamson County Parks & Recreation. She also leads workshops in creative nonfiction, including the Alabama Writers Conclave in Birmingham, AL and the Writers Loft at MTSU in Murfreesboro, TN. She is a member of the Nashville Writers Alliance, a board member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance, and Past-President of the Williamson County Council for the Written Word. Currently, she lives in Franklin, Tennessee, and enjoys kayaking, walking her dog, photography, and of course, reading and writing.

Nancy Reisman is the author of the short story collection House Fires, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and the novel The First Desire, a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture. Her short fiction has been anthologized in the O. Henry Award Stories (2005) and The Best American Short Stories (2001). Reisman holds a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She lives in Nashville and teaches at Vanderbilt University.