Lake Region Writers Network (LRWN) is a nonprofit organization formed to serve writers in west central Minnesota.

The network spans west central Minnesota including Becker, Clay, Douglas, Grant, Otter Tail, Pope, Stevens, Traverse and Wilkin counties.

LWRN’s purpose is to promote networking among writers and serve as an informational exchange for literary events, educational opportunities and online resources.

The LWRN Board governs and oversees its operations.  The following people are members of the LWRN Board:

Anderson

Luke Anderson grew up on a 160-acre family farm in the far southeast corner of Grant County, until he graduated from Hoffman High School. He earned a B.A. degree from Augsburg College, a M.S. from George Williams College in Chicago and has studied at the Graduate Schools of Business at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin. He retired in Battle Lake after a thirty-five-year career managing and consulting with non-profit organizations. Luke is active in the creative arts as a writer of memoir and as a woodcarver. He has been published in several anthologies and has won awards in literary competitions. He is a member of the Fergus Falls Writers’ group and is a founding member of the Lake Region Writers. Luke is currently serving as the LRWN President.

Stowman

Gerri Stowman completed her M.F.A. in Creative Writing after retiring from a career in journalism. Her passion is creative nonfiction and her work appears in Relief Journal, Red Weather, Otter Tail Review, and numerous magazines and newspapers. She attends the Fergus Falls Writing Group. Gerri is currently serving as the LRWN Vice-President.

Kildegaard

Athena Kildegaard writes poetry mostly, but she has also written short stories, scripts for television, columns, and nonfiction. She has two books of poems, Rare Momentum (2006) and Bodies of Light (forthcoming), both from Red Dragonfly Press. Her poems appear widely in literary journals and anthologies. She has received grants from the Lake Region Arts Council and from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is a lecturer at the University of Minnesota, Morris.  Athena is currently serving as the LRWN Treasurer.

Annie Clark is an English teacher at Alexandria Technical College. In addition to teaching, she is the director of the college’s writing center, The Writer’s Block, and the faculty advisor for the Creative Writing Club. Before teaching, Annie wrote for the Pope County Tribune and owned her own company, Evergreen Publishing, where she wrote and edited for various businesses. Annie grew up in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, attended boarding school in Faribault, MN, and college in Minneapolis and St. Cloud. Annie is currently serving as the LRWN Secretary.

Vinz

Mark Vinz recently retired after 40 years of teaching at Minnesota State University Moorhead where he also served as first coordinator of the university’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is the author of six chapbook collections of poems as well as several full length collections, most recently, Long Distance. Mark is editor for Dacotah Territory Press, which has published a number of short collections by writers in the region, and the co-editor of several anthologies.

Kratzke

Heidi Kratzke works as a staff writer/ photographer for the East Otter Tail Focus newspaper in Perham, MN. She is co-owner of Creative Culture Media, which offers web, graphic design, and writing services. Heidi holds a weekly writing group in her home, in addition to organizing a monthly community writing workshop. She has helped spearhead a young writers program with Firestarters Ministries in Ottertail, MN.  Heidi is currently serving as the LRWN Conference Director.

Kagan

Richard Kagan, Professor Emeritus at Hamline University, has taught the Culture of Travel Writing for many years. He has a Ph.D. in History and has authored several books, articles, book reviews, and poems. He has traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and Europe and served on the editorial board of the journal Critical Asian Studies for over 30 years. His most recent contribution is as consultant to the highly praised book, This is China, published by Berkshire. He is also editor of a forthcoming book (September 2010), Pictorial History of M-State College.

Rundquist

Tim Rundquist has self-published two novels and edited and published three literary anthologies, Otter Tail Review, Volumes I, II, and III, which include work from emerging writers as well as Minnesota authors. His first children’s book, Ollie’s Otter Tail River Adventure, published by Otter Tail Power Company (2009), was the winning entry in the company’s first book competition. Tim is an attorney who works from his law office in Fergus Falls. Tim is currently serving as the LRWN Anthology Editor.

Hempeck

Stash Hempeck has a B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota, Morris, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and is currently a PhD student in English at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Prior work has been published in Red Weather, Otter Tail Review, River Poets Journal, Manorborn, Lovechild, among others. In 2008, three of his poems were included in the poetry anthology County Lines, produced in celebration of Minnesota’s sesquicentennial. Recently, two poems were chosen for the Poetry on Wheels program in Fargo, ND. He comes from a long line of peasants who earned their livelihood through tilling the soil and working with wood. Currently, he lives in northwestern Minnesota with his youngest son and their two dogs. Stash is currently serving as a co-editor of the LRWN anthology.

Lein

Linda Frances Lein is an writing instructor at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She has published four books: Mother to Mother: Letters about Being a Mom (1999), Country Reflections (2000), Hannah Kempfer: An Immigrant Girl (2002), and The Making of a Small Town: Carlisle, Minnesota (2008). From 1999-2003 she wrote a bimonthly column called “A Day in the Life of a Farm Wife” for AGRI-GUIDE. The stories were set on the Lein Farm and surrounding rural community where she lives. Linda is primarily a creative nonfiction writer, but she has had poems published in The Rambler and Red Weather as well, and she is currently working on two novels. Linda is currently serving as the LRWN webmaster.