2022 Board Nominees

The annual WLT Board of Directors election is has ended, and the entire slate was accepted. All nominees will start their new terms on January 1, 2023.

You can see the full list (including bios and photos) of current board members here.

Returning Board Members

Jane Anderson is a wildlife biologist and a bit of a wanderer, with Texas being the ninth state she has called home. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. from University of Florida. Her professional specialty is invasive species – critters that have been introduced places they don’t naturally occur and are causing trouble – with a particular expertise in invasive monkeys and parrots. Jane has published her academic works widely in scientific journals. In her free time, she writes essays and memoir about her work as a scientist. She lives in Round Rock, Texas, with her husband, son, and two dogs. Current interim term expires December 31, 2022.

John A. McDermott completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his MA at Marquette University, and his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He’s been teaching at Stephen F. Austin State University since 2004. In 2006, SFA created the sole BFA program in creative writing in the state of Texas. Since then, he has directed dozens of BFA and MA theses, primarily in fiction, and taught workshops in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. His own writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Brevity, Florida Review, and Southeast Review, and he’s the author of the poetry collections “The Idea of God in Tennessee” and “Writhe.Waltz.” His scholarly writing has appeared in journals such as the Raymond Carver Review and the Journal of Popular Culture. John lives in Nacogdoches, Texas. Current first term expires December 31, 2022.

Amanda Moore graduated with the highest honors from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor with a B.A. in English and Spanish. She earned a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. Amanda is the General Counsel and Director of Legal Services at the Texas State Teachers Association where she represents public school employees. She is a member of the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association and the Executive Committee for the School Law Section of the State Bar of Texas. In 2015, Amanda won first place in the Texas Bar Journal Short Story Contest for her story, “The Corner Man.” Amanda is an avid reader and has written several member book reviews for the Writers’ League of Texas where she has been a member since 2014. Amanda lives in Austin, Texas. Current first term expires December 31, 2022.

New Nominees

Amanda Churchill is a writer living in Texas. Her work has been featured in Hobart Pulp, Witness, River Styx, among others. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas. Amanda is a Writers’ League of Texas 2021 Fellow. She attended the 2021 Community of Writers workshop in fiction as a James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship recipient. Churchill has also attended the Tin House Summer Conference, the One Story Summer Workshop, and StoryBoard Chicago. She was a Fall 2020 mentee in AWP’s Writer to Writer program. Her debut novel, THE TURTLE HOUSE, a work inspired by the life of her grandmother, a Japanese war bride, is forthcoming in early 2024 from Harper Books.

Jamira Richardson is a fiction writer based in San Antonio, Texas. In 2020, she graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary’s University’s honors program with a B.A. in English Literature and Language. Later that year, she became the youngest writer in the inaugural cohort of the Writers’ League of Texas Fellowship Program.

Stephanie N. Rodriguez is a writer and photographer in Austin, Texas. She holds a B.A. in English from Sam Houston State University, is a Writers’ League of Texas 2021 Fellow, and serves as a Programming Advisor for Austin’s Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Chapter. As a Little Free Library Steward, she loves providing her community with access to a diverse selection of literature. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys hiking and kayaking with her family, reading, and playing board games. You may also find her cleaning up local lakes and rivers, and helping wildlife in need. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Castle of Horror Anthology Volume 6: Femme Fatales, The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, Blue Mesa Review, River Teeth, Southeastern Naturalist, and elsewhere. You may read her work at snrodriguezwrites.com, or follow her on Twitter at @nicole4thoughts

Jean Synodinos is the proud 2021 Writers’ League of Texas Bess Whitehead Scott Fellow in Creative Writing for older emerging writers. Since 2020, her stories have appeared in The Normal School, Los Angeles Review, Everyday Fiction, and Orca: A Literary Journal. A graduate of Duke University, Jean has worked as a professional actor in New York City, a performing songwriter in Austin, and a painter. She is hard at work on her first novel, Rat Girl‚ a dystopian climate fiction/ghost story set in a permanently flooded New Orleans. Rat Girl was a finalist in the 2022 WLT Manuscript Contest. Jean lives with her partner and their peckish but beautiful mutt in Austin, TX. Find her at jeansynodinos.com or on Twitter/Instagram @jeansynodinos.

Amanda Wenger is a Houston-based writer and critical care nurse. She is a former Writers’ League of Texas Fellow, a FORGE NYC Fellow, and the recipient of a 2022 Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. She has attended residencies at The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Vashon Artist Residency, In Cahoots Residency, and Greywood Arts to work on her first novel, which was selected as a finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest and received an honorable mention for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Diverse Worlds Grant. She has designed and facilitated writing workshops for health professionals as the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Humanities Artist in Residence and served as a guest instructor through the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.