First Sunday Prose Reading & Open Mic

First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic
Presented by the Writers Guild at Bloomington
The featured readers are: Dennis McCarty, Annette Oppenlander, Wendy Teller

Come early to sign up for Open Mic!

Dennis McCarty Through a rich and varied life, Rev. Dennis McCarty has carried on a 60-year love affair with the nuance, beauty, and eccentricity of the English language. A passionate writer since age seven, his output has ranged from edgy blues and folk song lyrics to plays to high fantasy novels and, finally, to religious reflection. He is best known for a string of sword-and-sorcery fantasies published by Del Rey/Ballantine in the 1980’s-1990’s. One, Flight to Thlassa Mey, is regarded as a minor classic in that category. Recently retired from a career as a Unitarian Universalist minister, he now lives near Bloomington, just off Highway 46. Since coming to southern Indiana, he has been a devoted hiker and intermittent turtle rescuer. He occasionally performs a one-person version of his play, Servetus: the Radical Reformed Musical. His current writing project is a book of reflections as a religious atheist, to be published in early 2018: Monuments: One Atheist’s Tour through Time, Culture, and Meaning.

Annette Oppenlander is an award-winning writer, literary coach and educator. As a bestselling historical novelist, Oppenlander is known for her authentic characters and stories based on true events, coming alive in well-researched settings. Having lived in Germany the first half of her life and the second half in various parts in the U.S., Oppenlander inspires readers by illuminating story questions as relevant today as they were in the past. Oppenlander’s bestselling true WWII story, Surviving the Fatherland, was elected to IWIC’s Hall of Fame and won the 2017 National Indie Excellence Award. Her historical time-travel trilogy, Escape from the Past, takes readers to the German Middle Ages and the Wild West. Uniquely, Oppenlander weaves actual historical figures and events into her plots, giving readers a flavor of true history while enjoying a good story. Oppenlander shares her knowledge through writing workshops at colleges, libraries and schools. She also offers vivid presentations and author visits. The mother of fraternal twins and a son, she lives with her husband and old mutt, Mocha, in Bloomington, Ind.

Wendy Teller writes fiction, memoir, and history. Her stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Naperville Sun, and Rivulets. Her story Dusting the Towels received the Richard Eastman Prose Award. Wendy’s current project is a historical novel, Becoming Mia Brower, which takes place in the 1960s in Cambridge Massachusetts and Berkeley California. She lives with her husband and her elderly cat Dummy in Bloomington Indiana