Speakers
Dr. Randy Brooks & Shirley Brooks
Dr. Randy Brooks recently retired as the Dean of Arts & Sciences but continues to teach courses on haiku at Millikin University. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. In 1976 they started publishing a magazine called High/Coo: A Quarterly of Short Verse. They have been editing and publishing mini-chapbooks, chapbooks, paperbacks and clothbound editions of haiku ever since. Two of their most recent collections: Walking Uneven Ground: Selected Haiku of Bill Pauly, and My Red: The Selected Haiku of John Stevenson, won both Touchstone Book Awards from The Haiku Foundation and Haiku Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America. Randy’s most recent books include Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka of Randy Brooks and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach.
Marjorie Buettner
Marjorie Buettner is a Pushcart nominated, award winning haiku, tanka, sijo and haibun poet who has published widely throughout the U.S. and U.K. and has previously been an editor for the online journal
Contemporary Haibun Online. She has taught haiku and tanka at the Loft in Minneapolis and has presented various poetry workshops throughout Minnesota. Her new collection of haibun,
Some Measure of Existence (published by Red Dragonfly Press, 2014), won first place in the 2015 Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Awards; it was also nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards. She has a collection of haiku and tanka published by Red Dragonfly Press:
Seeing It Now, 2008. She writes book reviews for various haiku and tanka journals.
Shan Thomas
Shan Thomas is the Archivist for the Mineral Point Library Archives. She came out of retirement to take on the position. Shan lives in Mineral Point with her partner Gerry Glaeve, who, ten years ago, introduced her to Gayle Bull and the art of Haiku. While not a poet herself, she sat at the feet of some of the best Haiku writers in the country as they met around Gayle's dining room table and came to admire the art form. Caring for the American Haiku magazine collection is her small way of honoring the cultural contributions of Haiku and the memory of Gayle.
Charles Trumbull
Charles Trumbull (born Charles Perry Trumbull III, May 17, 1943, Flint, Michigan, U.S.A.). American editor, publisher, and haiku historian and poet. Author of two award-winning books of and about haiku, he served as president of the Haiku Society of America, honorary curator of the American Haiku Archive, editor of Modern Haiku and co-organizer of two Haiku North America conferences. Trumbull is the founding editor of Haikupedia. He has resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 2009.
Lew Watts
Lew Watts is the haibun co-editor of Frogpond and the author of Tick-Tock (Snapshot Press, 2019), a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards. His publications also include the novel Marcel Malone, the poetry collection Lessons for Tangueros, and a forthcoming collection of haiku and haibun from Snapshot Press. Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, he lives in Chicago with his wife, Roxanne Decyk. His other passions are fly fishing, rugby, and gin martinis.