Ours is a “working board,” composed of active members. Officers are elected in the spring of each year. Meet the 2011-12 board:
Geoff Penney
President
Geoff was born and educated in England. He is married, with three grown children and three grandchildren. He’s lived in London, New York, Boston and San Francisco, and came to Winston-Salem when he retired in 2004. His autobiography has been a work in progress ever since, but he enjoys reading extracts aloud at Open Mic.
Robin Chalkley
Vice President for Communications
Robin Chalkley is a freelance copywriter who has served in the field of advertising for more than thirty years. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he has worked as a creative director and senior copywriter at several advertising agencies before settling into the freelance life. In 2003 he was honored by the Advertising Federation of the Roanoke Valley with the Silver Medal, its lifetime achievement award. He has written two exciting and magnificently entertaining novels – one unpublished and the other unfinished. He is very happily married and living near Winston-Salem.
Susannah Cecil
Vice President of Member Services
Susannah graduated from Wake Forest University in Health & Exercise Science, and holds a master’s degree in counseling from UNCG. A Licensed Professional Counselor, Susannah practiced for several years in community mental health, then for a private medical practice in Winston-Salem. In recent years, she had a creative epiphany, joined Winston-Salem Writers and integrated her two degrees! She now ‘practices’ as a mind/body yoga instructor at the YMCA. She writes nonfiction, fiction and possible smatterings of poetry. She & her college-sweetheart-husband live in nearby Clemmons with their 3 very active children, and one Jack Russell terrier – Otis.
Susan Williamson
Vice President for Programs
Susan is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, with a masters from the University of California at Davis. She is an adjunct instructor for Gardner-Webb University in biology and environmental science and a freelance writer for the Weekly Independent and the Stokes News. She writes fiction and nonfiction. In former lives she has been an extension agent, a newspaper editor, substitute teacher, riding instructor, horse trainer, decorating store owner, community and adult education coordinator, and office manager. She and her husband enjoy horses, gardening and life on a small farm in Rural Hall.
Sam Barbee
Treasurer
Sam Barbee was awarded an Emerging Artist’s Grant from the Winston-Salem Arts Council in 1994. His poems have been accepted by Atlantis, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, Potato Eyes, Wellspring, Georgia Journal, Mount Olive Review, St. Andrews Review, Charlotte Poetry Review, Negative Capability, Pembroke Magazine, Lone Wolf Review, and Windhover: a journal of Christian Literature. In the spring of 1999, he was the highlighted poet in Independence Boulevard in Charlotte. He has been a featured poet on WFDD Public Radio. In 1991, he received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem “The Blood Watch.” His first collection, Changes of Venue , was published in the spring of 1997 by Mount Olive Press. A second collection, Put Asunder, is being circulated with publishers this fall. Sam lives in Winston-Salem with his wife and two fine children, and works with the Winston-Salem Recreation Department.
Cheryl Newell Davis
Secretary
Cheryl has worked in human services most of her career as an addiction specialist. She directed the first drug court (therapeutic court) in Texas, has directed a perinatal program and is now with adolescent populations in individual, group and family therapy. She says it has been a roller coaster, never boring! She has been compelled of late to spend more time writing and feels an urgency to connect with other writers in order to learn technically speaking and receive honest feed back on her writing.
Nathan Ross Freeman
Board of Directors
Award Winning Script Writer, Filmmaker, Intensive Spoken Word Educator, Nathan Ross Freeman, an Impact Communications Specialist, was awarded 2007 B.E.S.T. Outstanding Faculty as Member of the Intensive Writing Faculty teaching Screenwriting/Playwriting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Mr. Freeman was the 2008-09 Visiting Writer at Salem College: Upper Level Screenwriting, Introduction and Intermediate Poetry and Creative Writing. Mr. Freeman is a member of the NC Humanities Speakers Bureau, Founder of Montage Showcase Ensemble, Assegai Film Group, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Authoring Action Youth Institute, Mr. Bones Film, Llc, The Quad Films, Llc. Mr. Freeman was a Panelist for the 2009 NC Arts Council Playwrights/Screen Writer Fellowship.
Dan O’Sullivan
Board of Directors
Daniel Gregory John O’Sullivan (Beare) prefers to be called DanO. He’s in his nifties, a husband, father, G-da and fancier of all things old (antiquities). He is a writer, poet, punster and ordinary human. From an upper middle class background, Dan is currently starving for his art. Described as lazy, arrogant, recalcitrant, irrepressible and helpful by a few of his favorite people, he has a collage education (several colleges, no degree). Dan has three fiction manuscripts in varied stages of editing, several hundred poems and a website: http://web.me.com/danosullivan/DanOSisms, adding daily profundities, occasional Photems and a none too serious blog.
Carol Roan
Board of Directors
Carol holds master’s degrees in music from Indiana University and in business from Columbia. She began her professional career as a singer, and later developed a method for teaching others how to communicate with an audience. She is the author of Clues to American Dance (Starrhill Press) and Speak Up: The Public Speaking Primer (Press 53), and co-editor of When Last on the Mountain: The View from Writers over 50 (Holy Cow! Press). She currently teaches voice and stage presence in Winston-Salem.
Jennifer L. Stevenson
Board of Directors
Jennifer is a founding member and past president of Winston-Salem Writers. As Vice President of Programs, she created, developed and established WSW’s extensive curriculum of writing methods and practices. As an award-winning reporter, columnist and educator, Stevenson brings more than 25 years of experience to WSW. Her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines around the country. As a senior staff writer for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for groundbreaking work covering desegregation and racial justice issues. She’s lectured on writing and media ethics at New York University, University of South Florida, the University of Tampa and in public schools in Florida and North Carolina. Stevenson, who lives in Winston-Salem, now serves as WSW’s Director of Outreach Services and is establishing writing programs for under-served populations.
Tony Lindsay
Board of Directors
Tony retired six years ago from a career in business. He has written fifty humorous short stories, five of which have been published in magazines and literary journals. Tony loves Open Mic and the friends he has made through WSW. He hopes to have a book of his stories published within a year.
Vijya Campagne
Board of Directors
Vijya Campagne relocated to Winston-Salem in 2005 after living in New York City and New Jersey for thirty-five years. She has extensive experience in education and training program management, strategic planning, instruction design and grant writing. Her career track includes seven years at several nonprofit organizations, fourteen years at the New York City Private Industry Council and ten years at the NYPD. She credits WSW for helping her discover her creative writing voice shortly after becoming a member in the Fall of 2005, an experience that started her new life in North Carolina. She is currently writing her first fiction titled Points of View. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Baldwin Wallace College and her masters in adult education from City University of New York.
Dan Coulter
Board of Directors
Dan is an educational video producer whose company, Coulter Video, focuses on Asperger Syndrome and autism. The DVDs Dan has written and produced have been endorsed by autism experts at Harvard Medical School and Yale University, and recommended by the School Library Journal. Dan was a radio disc jockey and television weatherman before joining AT&T as a TV writer/producer director. During his corporate career, Dan’s jobs included serving as a national media spokesperson for AT&T, as financial media relations director at Lucent Technologies, and as vice president of communications at Global Crossing. Dan has extensive experience writing television scripts, news copy, advertising copy, news releases, employee communications and executive speeches. Among his awards, Dan received a Golden Reel of Excellence for comedy writing from the International Television Association.