Faculty & Staff

Scriptoria Co-director

Cynthia Beach is a longtime creative writing professor, writer, and coach who studied creativity under Dr. Eric Maisel. She authored Creative Juices for Writers and the 2024 novel The Surface of Water. Her articles, short stories, and contributions appear in newspapers, magazines, and books like Hope in the Mourning Bible (Zondervan), Media Ethics (Longman) and Writer's Digest. A frequent reviewer for The Banner, Cynthia has a journalism masters from Wheaton College and an MFA in fiction writing. She cofounded Breathe Christian Writers Conference and Scriptoria Workshop. Currently, she serves as Artist in Residence at Gilfillan Memorial Church in Dundee, Scotland. Her Surface sequel, A Thousand Wings of Light, launched in June. See www.cynthiabeach.com.

Speaker

Sharon Garlough Brown is a retreat leader, spiritual director, and author of the bestselling Sensible Shoes series and Shades of Light series. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Sharon has served on the pastoral staff of congregations in England, Oklahoma, and West Michigan and now lives in Dundee, Scotland, with her husband, Jack. Her spiritual formation novels and study guides explore ways to practice receiving, resting in, and responding to the immeasurable love and grace of God. Her children’s picture book, Not Finished Yet, models lament as a spiritual practice for children and the grown-ups who love them. For more information about Sharon, visit her website: www.sharongarloughbrown.com.

Faculty: Fiction Workshop

Hugh Cook is emeritus professor of English at Redeemer University and earned an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. His poetry has been published in Canadian literary journals such as Quarry, Canadian Poetry, The Canadian Forum, Folio, and The University of Windsor Review. His stories have appeared in literary journals such as The Malahat Review, NeWest ReView, Wascana Review, Descant, Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. His long works include the award-winning Heron River, The Homecoming Man, and Cracked Wheat. Hugh received the Leslie K. Tarr Award for outstanding contribution to Christian writing. 

Speaker

Lorilee Craker is the author of 16 books, including Anne of Green Gables, My Daughter and Me, the CBA and ECPA bestseller My Journey to Heaven with Marv Besteman, the Audie Awards nominee Money Secrets of the Amish, A is for Atticus, featured in People Magazine, and the New York Times bestseller Through the Storm with Lynne Spears. Find her on Instagram @the booksellersdaughter, or listen to her on her podcast, Eat Like a Heroine. A native Canadian, she lives in a century-old house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband, pets, and various international students from around the world. Now that she has raised three children, she is (mostly) unafraid of getting the leafy side eye from her many plant companions.

Faculty: Nonfiction Workshop

Jo Kadlecek learned to write by teaching it. After ten years in Colorado classrooms, she added writing to her career and has since worked as a reporter, editor, and instructor in NYC, an author on the Jersey Shore, a journalism professor at Gordon College in Massachusetts, and a communication manager at an international development organisation in Sydney, Australia. She has seventeen published books of non-fiction and fiction, including Woman Overboard and A Desparate Faith. Her journalism has appeared in The Boston Globe, Christianity Today, Huffington Post, North Shore Magazine, Religion News Service, Sight Magazine, and other outlets and non-profits. She now writes, teaches, reads, and travels from her home in Sydney, where she lives with her husband Chris Gilbert and their dog Lois Lane. Jo blogs at A SunBurnt Faith  and hopes someday to make the switch to Substack.

Faculty: Poetry Workshop

Lew "L. S." Klatt is the author of five collections of poems, including Cloud of Ink, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Interloper, winner of the Juniper Prize for poetry. His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, among them The New Yorker, Harvard Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Daily, The Believer, Best American Poetry, Image, The Southern Review, Boston Review, Blackbird, and VOLT.  His latest collection, Saint with a Peacock Voice, came out from Parlor Press in 2025. Recent poems of his have appeared in The Common, The Cincinnati Review, Mississippi Review, Image, Copper Nickel, Willow Springs, and Christianity and Literature. Besides his creative work, he has also published essays on poets, most notably “The Electric Whitman” in The Southern Review, “Kenneth Koch, Cincinnatian, Poet of Confetti” in The Cincinnati Review, and “Blue Buzz, Blue Guitar: Wallace Stevens and the Poetics of Noisemaking” in The Georgia Review.  Currently, he is curating an exhibition celebrating the visual dimension of poetry for the Center Gallery on Calvin University's campus called “The Poem as a Graphic Art,” set to be unveiled during spring semester, 2027, when he is on sabbatical.

Faculty: Midgrade/YA Fiction Workshop & Scriptoria Co-director

Gary D. Schmidt taught creative writing, children's literature, and medieval literature at Calvin University. He is the author of some two dozen books for young readers, among them the Newbery-Honor-winning The Wednesday Wars, the Newbery Honor and Printz Honor-winning Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, and the National Book Award finalist Okay for Now.  A complete list of Gary's books can be found here. His university press books include a study of the early American writer Hannah Adams, the image of the mouth of hell in medieval art and literature, and the beginnings of American children's books in the 1930s.  He lives in Alto, Michigan. 

Speaker

Murray Watts is a well-known UK playwright and screenwriter. His work has received many awards and critical acclaim like The Dream starring Jeremy Irons, The Miracle Maker, and KJB—The Book that Changed the World. His award-winning plays include Fatherland and Mr. Darwin’s Tree. Currently, he is the screenwriter for several feature films. Murray founded and directs The Wayfarer Trust, an international arts charity that supports and encourages artists (www.wayfarertrust.org). He lives in Freswick Castle in the far north of Scotland, a haven for visiting artists from around the world (www.freswickcastle.com).

Speaker

Vinita Hampton Wright has a thirty-year career as a book editor and author. She has presented retreats on creativity, writing, Ignatian spirituality, and prayer. An author of three novels and numerous nonfiction, she serves as a freelance editor and a spiritual director. Her work includes The Soul Tells a Story (InterVarsity Press) and The Art of Spiritual Writing (Loyola Press). Her latest book is Set the World on Fire: a 4-Week Personal Retreat with the Female Doctors of the Church (Ave Maria, 2022).

Staff

Dave Beach is a counselor, spiritual director, and co-author of Zondervan's The Essential Bible Companion of the Psalms. He studied under Dr. Dan Allender at the Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and taught college-level psychology and spiritual formation. His writing contributions also include Zondervan's grief Bible, Hope in the Mourning. He co-founded Soul Seasons Publishing. Currently, he serves as church officer at Scotland's Gilfillan Memorial Church. His new book, At the Edge of the Unimaginable: Navigating Shattered Worlds, is forthcoming.

Staff:  International Liaison & Hospitality

Ann-Marie Todd loves living in sunny Dundee and traveling the world. Born in the Kingdom of Fife, she is a retired Palliative Medicine doctor, mum to two adult sons, and married to John, a gastroenterologist. During her medical career, she used writing as a tool for her patients and loves hearing of others' life stories. Now her specialist subject is local cake and coffee spots in Dundee and beyond.