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Resident Faculty
Mark Hummel
Mark Hummel's fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals including The Bloomsbury Review, Dogwood, Fugue, Talking River Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, and Zone 3. He spent twenty years teaching fiction and essay writing in college classrooms, directing writing programs, and administrating a writers’ conference. Hummel is the editor of the online nonfiction magazine bioStories (www.biostories.com). An adjunct faculty member at Journeys School in Jackson, WY, his current writing is focused on novel length fiction.
Craig Johnson
New York Times Bestselling author Craig Johnson has received high praise for his Sheriff Walt Longmire novels which have received a superfecta of starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. The seven books have garnered awards such as the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, the Western Writer’s of America Spur Award as well as the Mountains and Plains book of the year.
Johnson’s novels have been translated into numerous languages and have won the Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs, and the Le Prix 813.
The books are now being produced as a television series this year entitled Longmire for the A&E Network starring Robert Taylor, Lou Diamond Phillips and Katee Sackoff. Warner Horizon is the studio and Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning Greer Shephard and Michael Robin (The Shephard/Robin Company) are executive producing alongside writers John Coveny and Hunt Baldwin.
Jeremy Schmidt
Jeremy Schmidt is a writer and photographer of natural history and adventure travel, especially along the winding frontiers between the modern world and what’s left of the natural and indigenous. He is the author or co-author of more than fifteen books and hundreds of articles for magazines including Audubon, International Wildlife, National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Natura (Italy), Panorama (Netherlands), Outside, GEO, and others. For twelve years he was the adventure columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.
Assignments have taken him to all continents except Antarctica, to report on panda research in China, apartheid’s impact on the national parks of South Africa, volcano surfing in Russia, Buddhist pilgrims in Tibet, the nature reserves of Costa Rica, India’s last working elephants, throat-singing reindeer nomads in Mongolia, the survival of mountain gorillas of Congo during the Rwandan genocide, and more.
His book Himalayan Passage won the first Barbara Savage Award for adventure writing; it’s recently been called a “classic of Himalayan travel as it used to be.” He figures that just means it’s an old book. Other awards include the 1992 Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing (in National Geographic Traveler), and the Ranger Rick John Strohm Award for children’s writing.
Tina Welling
Tina Welling is the author of the novels Fairy Tale Blues and Crybaby Ranch, published by NAL/Penguin. She has lived in Wyoming 30 years and resides in Jackson Hole. Her non-fiction has been published in The Writer, Body & Soul, and other national magazines as well as four anthologies. She has won awards and writers residencies and has served as judge for writing competitions and on panels for writers' conferences. She conducts creative writing workshops wherever invited. Her latest novel, Cowboys Never Cry, was published in the fall of 2010.
Kyle Mills
Kyle Mills is the New York Times bestselling author of ten political thrillers. He initially found inspiration from his father, a former FBI agent and director of Interpol, who is still able to put Kyle in touch with the people who give his books such realism. Avid rock climbers and mountain bikers, he and his wife have lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for fifteen years but these days are running for warmer climates in the winter.
Lise McClendon
Lise McClendon is a fiction writer, mostly, although these days she also is also a small press editor and publisher under the banner of Thalia Press. Her latest thriller is Jump Cut, published under the pen name Rory Tate. She co-edited the short story anthology, Dead of Winter, for Thalia Press in 2011. A former Jackson Hole resident, she now lives in Bozeman, Montana.
Tiffanie DeBartolo
Tiffanie DeBartolo started her career as a screenwriter and filmmaker, writing and directing Dream for an Insomniac, which starred Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston.
Her first novel, God-Shaped Hole, was released in 2002; her second novel, How To Kill a Rock Star came out in 2005 and next up is a graphic novel about Jeff Buckley.
She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in addition to her writing career, Tiffanie is the Chief Executive Super-Goddess of the indie record label Bright Antenna. Noted skills and non-skills: Her rock-n-roll Jeopardy prowess would humble you, she makes a mean peach pie, and she can only type with two fingers.
Laurie Gunst
Laurie Gunst was born and raised in Richmond Virginia, the youngest daughter in a Jewish family with a paternal ancestor who fought for the Confederacy and a mother who campaigned for civil rights. She was partly raised by the African American women who worked for her family, and the experience of growing up between these two worlds has shaped her life and writing.
After earning a doctorate in history from Harvard and a master’s in journalism from Columba, she published her first book in 1995. Born Fi’ Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Posse Underworld is her account of ten years she spent exploring that island’s gang life and the political corruption that spawned it. Her second book, Off-White (2005), is a memoir of her family—both sides—and the fierce contradictions of being what the title says.
She’s presently at work on a new book, LoveSick, a mind/body exploration of love’s downside: when the stress of being with the wrong person sends your health south. Laurie Gunst lives in Dubois, Wyoming.
Christian Burch
Christian Burch has worked in various capacities with children in the Jackson area for more than 15 years. In addition to teaching, Christian is a self-taught painter and the author of the Josette Frank Award and Stonewall Award winning book, The Manny Files and its sequel, Hit the Road, Manny. Both were Lambda Literary Award Finalists.
Catherine McKenzie
Catherine McKenzie was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. An avid runner and skier, she is the author of the international bestsellers, Spin and Arranged. Spin and Arranged, and her third novel, Forgotten, will be published in the U.S. by William Morrow in 2012. The beauty of the Tetons and the conference's unique style make her proud to be part of the "local" conference faculty. She is at work on her fourth novel.
Shawn Klomparens
Shawn Klomparens is the author of the novels Jessica Z. and Two Years, No Rain.
