Visiting Writers Series

John Ryan 

John Ryan (Playwright) made his NYC playwriting debut with My Pal Bette at The Producer’s Club NYC. It premiered at the 2007 Orlando International Fringe Festival before playing a 3-month sell-out run at The Parliament House Resort and returned to the Orlando Fringe in 2018, winning the Patron's Pick Award. His hit comedy, Something's Weird in Weeki Wachee, played the 2014 Orlando Fringe, where it was named to the Orlando Sentinel's Best of the Fest list and played a 2-month sellout run at The Footlight Theater. 2010 saw New York productions of his comedies, Fire Island Follies and New Rochelle as part of the NYC Heritage of Pride Festival and Cringefest NYC, respectively. Most recently, he wrote, performed, and directed Strange Bedfellows at the 2019 Orlando Fringe. His cabaret collaborations with Janine Klein have been seen at NYC’s The Duplex, Mad Cow Theatre, The Winter Park Playhouse, The Footlight Theatre, and Orlando Fringe. Locally, his work has played Theatre Downtown, The Footlight Theatre, Orlando Fringe, and The Fred Stone Theater. For his work as a writer, he has received the Rollins College Friends of the Annie Playwriting Grant, Two Orlando Fringe Sell-Out Awards, Orlando Fringe Patron's Pick, The Fringe DIVA award, and was referenced in USA TODAY’s travel piece, “Affordable America: Orlando.”

Caitlin Lochner

Caitlin Lochner is a nerd, traveler, and architecture enthusiast who worked as an assistant English teacher in Tokyo for three years before pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida. She loves reading and writing anything with magic, adventure, and complex found-family relationships. She can typically be found absorbed in books, games, or manga, or else obsessing over said books, games, and manga. A Soldier and a Liar is her debut novel, and its sequel, An Outcast and an Ally, releases April 21, 2020.

Vanessa Blakeslee

Vanessa Blakeslee’s most recent book, Perfect Conditions, was named the 2018 gold Forward Indies winner for short stories by Foreword Reviews.

Michele Parker Randall

Michele Parker Randall is the author of Museum of Everyday Life (Kelsay Books, 2015). Her work has appeared in Nimrod International Journal, Atlanta Review, Tar River Poetry, Southampton Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been a finalist or semi-finalist for the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, Peter Meinke Poetry Prize, the Split this Rock Poetry of Provocation and Witness Contest, and a handful of others. She is currently working on a manuscript about the lives of the neuro-divergent and their caregivers, a portion of which will be published as a chapbook by Finishing Line Press. She is a Sullivan Visiting Lecturer at Stetson University, and co-runs a community writers workshop in the city of Sanford, FL.

Iljeen Jo

Iljeen Jo lives in Chicago where he spends his days working on a first novel. He is a former competitive figure skater, a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and an avid martial artist. He received an MFA in 2018 from the University of Central Florida as Provost Fellow.

Tahirah Dean

Tahirah Dean is a lawyer by day and a creative non-fiction writer by night. She is currently working on a book about love and marriage in the U.S Muslim community.

Lorena Parker Matejowksy

Lorena Parker Matejowsky is a resident of Central Florida but spent her first thirty years in Texas. Her poetry was selected for the 2018 Association of Writers & Publishers (AWP) Intro Journal Prize and University of Virginia Press' annual Best New Poets 2018 anthology. Her work has appeared in Split Lip, The Tahoma Literary Review, Redivider, SWIMM, Borderlands, and more. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA program at University of Central Florida.