Great River Writers Retreat Reading at RIPL, Sept. 1 at 5:30 p.m.

The Midwest Writing Center is proud to present the winners of the Great River Writers Retreat from both 2021 and 2022 as they share their work and current projects for a live reading at the Rock Island Public Library.

Jo Ivy Young (2022) is currently working on her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa. She has won the Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators Work-in-Progress Award, and placed as a nonfiction research finalist for SCBWI. She recently won Author Mentor Match. She is a former archaeologist who loves birds, bugs, and books. Jo’s also a verified tree hugger (just ask the trees in her neighborhood).

Jeffrey Wolf (2021) was a recent finalist for the Third Coast Fiction Prize and the Arkansas International Emerging Writer’s Prize. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Gulf Stream, descant, Jewish Fiction.net and others. He has an MFA from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and teaches English at Columbia College Chicago.

Both winners will be sharing some of their experiences and reading from the projects they will be working on during the retreat on September 1st at 5:30 pm in the Rock Island Public Library (401 19th St, Rock Island, IL 61201) Community Room on the second floor. Please join us to celebrate Young and Wolf’s talents, as well as the retreat itself, which has proved a profound resource for fostering the development of the written word.

The Great River Writers Retreat is generously sponsored by Dr. Nicolas Shammas and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.