Conversations from the Barn

Geoffrey Lamar Wilson, also known by his stage name LAAMAR, is a Minneapolis based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. After spending his 20's studying and performing music in New York, and working the craft coffee cafe circuit in Brooklyn, he returned to his hometown in 2016 to "settle down". He emerged on the local music scene in 2023 with his song Home to My Baby, a song which resonated deeply across the state in the wake of the Philando Castile and George Floyd murders. In this and subsequent tracks on his debut EP Flowers, he explored the challenges of being black in America and Minnesota, at a time when many folks were seeking understanding and connection across social and cultural lines. He carried this momentum into several very busy years of performances supporting notable local and national touring artists, appearing at music festivals and shows across the state, and as a guest on various radio, podcast, and television broadcasts(and one billboard). In 2025 he released a full-length record In the Light, to critical acclaim. An album which expands his creative palate, turning the lens inward towards fatherhood/partnership, and further outward toward stories rooted in humanism, empathy, nature, and poetry. Instagram   Torey Erin is a Minneapolis based interdisciplinary artist primarily working in moving image, sculpture, installation, ecology, and land art. Torey received her Bachelor's of Fine Art and Master's of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota. Torey's work amplifies environmental phenomena to create places where people may share their stories and co-create new art works. She has created a living participatory land artwork for the 4Ground Land Art Biennial titled Love Letters to the Earth, where she invited the community to discuss ecological grief and write devotions to earth on handmade seed paper to plant into a perennial garden. She proposes ways of re-imagining material approaches to art and landscape that serve human and non-human life, focusing on environmental change, empathy and relationality. During her most recent residency at Franconia Sculpture Park, she transformed one acre of turf grass into native prairie, inviting participants to seed the landscape by hand and dance the seeds into the ground. This intention is to connect people to landscape through ritual and body movement that will benefit non human species and soil quality for years to come. Torey has exhibited at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Mirrorlab, Soo Visual Art Center, Company Projects, Public Functionary, Q2 Gallery, Rosalux Gallery, Yeah Maybe Project Space, FilmNorth, Gamut Gallery, and has an outdoor installation at Silverwood Park in Minnesota and Rabanus Park World Garden in Fargo, North Dakota; she has created costume and set/interior design at First Avenue, the Palace Theater, and the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. Torey's films have been featured in the Franconia Environmental Film screening, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Regis Center for Art, Duluth Film Festival, Trylon Cinema, Saltless Sea Cinema, Headwaters Film Festival, and Franconia Sculpture Park's 5 Minute Film Festival. She is a recipient of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Grant, Everwood Farmstead Artist Retreat, 4Ground Midwest Land Art Biennial (with support from Plains Art Museum and Franconia Sculpture Park), Joan MaCloed student Leadership Award (landscape architecture), 2020 Minnesota Artist Initiative Grant, Springboard for the Arts Hinge Artist Residency, Jo Tushie Fellowship, the Blacklock Sanctuary Fellowship, and is a Landscape Architecture Foundation Olmsted Scholar. She is the current Franconia Sculpture Park inaugural Prairie Artist in Residence of 2024. She is a Research Fellow at the Minnesota Design Center working on the Empowering Small Minnesota Communities project and Design Assist, which include asset based community co-design, climate resilience, and systems thinking for long term development strategies. She is also an adjunct professor in architecture/landscape architecture at the University of Minnesota College of Design. website

Chris Stedman is a writer, podcaster, and professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. He is the author of the books IRL, Faitheist, and the forthcoming Nothing in Particular, as well as the writer and host of Unread, named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by the Guardian, Vulture, HuffPost, Mashable, the CBC, and others, and honored by the 2022 Webby Awards under Podcasts – Best Writing.  Chris is the founder of Good Judy Productions, a new podcast studio based in Minneapolis committed to telling stories that, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, take the "view from below," or "the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering." The studio's first series, for which Chris was awarded a 2025 Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Expression Grant and 2025 Arts Impact for Individuals Award from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, is currently in production and will be distributed by iHeartPodcasts. In addition to his books and podcast work, Chris has written popular essays for outlets including the Atlantic, Pitchfork, BuzzFeed, VICE, the Washington Post, and others. At Augsburg, Chris teaches on the search for meaning. He has also held fellowships in Augsburg's Center for Democracy and Citizenship and Interfaith Institute, and in 2023 the university appointed him as the Institute's inaugural Research Fellow in support of his ongoing work studying the religiously unaffiliated. He was also awarded a Director's Residency at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, named 2025 Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and 2025 Scholar-in-Residence at Susquehanna University, and invited to be in residence at Write On, Door County and at the New York Mills Cultural Center for this research and writing. Previously the founding director of the Yale Humanist Community and a fellow at Yale University, he also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University and as a Trainer and Content Developer at Interfaith America. In 2018, Augsburg selected Chris for their annual First Decade Award, which recognizes alumni "who have made significant progress in their professional achievements and contributions to the community" ten years after graduating. chrisstedmanwriter.com

Kurt Robert Engh is a theater-maker with the goal to expand the framework of what "theater" is in order to adapt the art form to a twenty-first century audience. He transposes experimental practices to narrative stories, addressing how contemporary audiences consume live performance. He is specifically interested in exploring Midwestern identity, creating characters as complicated as real people, and taking advantage of the metaphysical space of the stage. He likes testing the endurance of audiences and uncovering ways to contextualize a physical space in a digital culture. He borrows more from concerts, obscure YouTube videos, contemporary film, restaurants, clubs, and social media than he does classical theater. Kurt wrote and self-produced an anti-romcom "Only Ugly Guys" in June 2024 at Open Eye Theatre, which reviewer Cherry and Spoon called "funny, clever, inventive, and very modern." He produced, adapted and directed "Naïve. Super" at Norway House in September 2023, with a new actor at each performance, experiencing the play for the first time. He hosts "Running Errands," a short-play incubator for writers/directors/actors to experiment with new ideas at Bryant Lake Bowl (March/May/July/September 2023 and beginning again quarterly October 2024).   Dave Osmundsen is a queer and Autistic playwright whose work has been seen and developed at BLUEBARN Theatre, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, Purple Crayon Players, Great Plains Theatre Conference, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Clamour Theatre Company, Premiere Stages, the Valdez Theatre Conference, and more. His play Light Switch was a Distinguished Achievement recipient of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award. A recipient of the Blank Theatre/Ucross Foundation's inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize, his plays have been published by The Dionysian, Canyon Voices, Exposition Review, Concord Theatricals, Broadway Play Publishing, and more. MFA: Arizona State University.

This is a special conversation with Em Haas, Everwood Farmstead's 2025 Artist Retreat Administrator. Em joined us at the farm this summer to support the 34 artists who traveled from all over the country and Canada to work in the Retreat. Em is a recent graduate of St. Olaf College with a Bachelor of Arts degree focused on English, Creative Writing and Ancient Greek. Em was also a Senior Admissions Fellow for the college, serve as the Literary Editor for The Quarry Literary and Fine Arts Magazine, and work as a copyeditor for The Olaf Messenger. Post Everwood, Em is interested in pursuing full-time work in copyediting and copywriting. LinkedIn

Nissa Nordland Morgan is a playwright, actor and musician in Minneapolis, MN. She is a member of the Twin Cities' Playwright Cabal and Artistic Director of Twin Cities Horror Festival. Her plays "The Fae", "Incarnate", "Stabby Stab Stab" and "Kin" were performed as part of the Twin Cities Horror Festival; "The Fae" was nominated for Best Original/New Work through TC Broadway World. Her Minnesota Fringe play "Xena and Gabrielle Smash the Patriarchy" was awarded the TC Arts Reader Critic's Choice Award and won the Theatre in the Round Venue Pick. Nissa co-wrote "Finger Lickin' Good" with Heather Meyer and it won a Minnesota Fringe award for Artist Pick. She's been a mainstage cast member and writer at the Brave New Workshop. Her ten-minute play Catnipped won second place at the MN Shorts Festival. She has collaborated in devising new works with Umbrella Collective, The Winding Sheet Outfit, nimbus theatre and Four Humors. Nissa earned a BA in Theatre Arts from Southwest Minnesota State University. newplayexchange.org

Sarah Elstran is an independent musician that bridges the gap between bright-eyed pop composition and hands-on atmospheric live layering of voice. Her vocal loops give us the kind of detail and wide multi-octave range that we might come to expect from a marquee pop star, while her production decisions continually keep us guessing as to what rabbit holes her tracks might fall into next.  thenunnerymusic.com Amanda Hanlon is a painter and printmaker. She lives and works out of her home located in a historic river town in Minnesota. Amanda has received a MFA in Painting from the University of Washington - Seattle, a BFA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She has taught classes in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking in Savannah, Georgia. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Minnesota, California, Georgia, Washington and Wisconsin. amandahanlon.com

Originally from Colorado, Genevieve Waterbury grew up in the mountains and in the ballet studio at Boulder Ballet and eventually studied dance at Colorado State University. She then joined Nevada Ballet Theatre in Las Vegas where she collaborated annually with Cirque du Soleil. One of her favorite moments from NBT was working intimately with Cynthia Gregory on character portrayal for the company's performance of Giselle; It deepened her interest in acting and dance theater, ultimately prompting the move to New York City.  In New York, Genevieve had opportunities to work across many genres including a Butoh Residency at Kaatsbaan with Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh), a lead dancing role in the original cast of RED, a New Musical by Lawrence Dandridge ("Ain't Too Proud" National Tour), dancing in New York Fashion Week for JAHNKOYxPUMA, and several seasons as a company member with nathantrice/RITUALS. Genevieve moved to Minnesota in February of 2020 and made her local choreographic debut at Sher Demeter's River's Edge series that fall. Highlights since then include setting On the Bank of Snake River for Christopher Watson Dance Company, collaborating with Melody Gilbert as dancer/choreographer for her documentary Judy's Thoughts, and creating commissioned ballets Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse, Lunar Lullaby, and Dirty Dancing, for Ballet Co.Laboratory. Genevieve also directs Ballet Co.Laboratory's second company, and the non-professional Performance Ensemble. She creates original choreography for these groups each season. Her short stories, Tortoise and the Hare and Danse Macabre were performed alongside the company at Orchestra Hall and the Cowles Center.  genevievewaterbury.com   Cym Warkov creates ceramic pieces that explore the tension between imagination and construction. That invites conversation between herself and the medium she's working with.  Cym grew up In Northern CA & Minneapolis. Her parents (both artists) thrived in the Minnneapolis art scene. Her mother, Lynne Lockie, founded the Women's Art registry of Minnesota in the 70's. Her father, Saul Warkov, taught photography at the UofM. Both parents were founding members of the Minnesota Zen Center. She's mostly self-taught through a lifetime of various experiences and vocations all leading up to my current endeavors. She lived in Los Angeles for 30 years, raising 2 children there. She worked as a hair colorist, creative team member for Aveda and as a hair & make-up artist in the entertainment industry before earning a degree in landscape architecture from UCLA. Cym's always had a personal creative / artistic practice and decided to return to Minneapolis to explore this seriously in 2018. As of today, she has a thriving business as a ceramic artist. cymwarkovceramics.com      

Nichole Gronvold-Roller is a painter who received a BFA in Art Education from Minnesota State University of Moorhead, an MA in Art Education from Boston University, MA, and an MFA in Painting from Bradley University. In addition to being an artist, Nichole is a full-time high school art teacher in Tremont, IL, where she has been teaching for the past twenty-six years. Furthermore, she is a contributor writer for the Inland Art column with Community Word.  nicholesgallery.com   Dr. Brianna Matzke's dynamic pianism shows "a sense of refinement, flair, and technical prowess" (clevelandclassical.com). An avid performer and commissioner of new music, she has collaborated with many composers, including Tina Tallon, Marc Mellits, Michael Fiday, Elliot Cole, Molly Joyce, Alexandra du Bois, D. J. Sparr, Danny Clay, Jennifer Jolley, John Glover, and Evan Williams. She has appeared in concert at across the globe; recent appearances include concerts in Italy, Beirut, São Paulo, and in series such as TriBeCa New Music, Vanguard New Music Series, ETHOS New Music, Re:Sound Festival, neif-norf New Music Marathon, and the Accidental Music Festival. She has given multiple concerts with the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, and has performed with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the concert:nova chamber ensemble. briannamatzke.com

Cori Nakamura Lin (she/her) is a Japanese, Taiwanese, Okinawan-American multimedia visual artist based in Chicago. By painting, documenting, and weaving, Cori is finding her way to a world that prioritizes ecological and community care. Descended from East Asian island peoples and born and raised in the midwest, Cori's art practice is an ongoing self-archive where she examines her own multiple identities as a story of self.  Cori's work asks: How do we dream beyond our fears in the face of climate collapse? How do we carry multiple legacies, multiple ancestors, through the generations? How do we honorably re-root as unmoored people on occupied lands? Primarily using gouache, watercolor, and paper-cutting when making images, Cori layers fluid washes with sharp paper edges to create dreamy, textured paintings that investigate liminal spaces in the natural world and her cultural identities. She is inspired by Japanese records of yōkai, kawaii visual culture, and Okinawan textile practices, and she is currently learning basket making practices to help her process her relationship to the lands that she lives on. Learning from the work of Black and Indigenous feminist abolitionists — like Mariame Kaba, Kelly Hayes, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore — and Afro-diasporan and Indigenous futurists —like Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, and Grace Dillon—Cori Nakamura Lin aims to create art that will outlive her into the next seven generations. corilin.co   Tori Hong (she/they) pursues an interdisciplinary art practice expressed through illustration, textiles, printmaking, and installation. Positioned within queer theory and praxis, her work explores the concepts of ritual, pleasure, self-determination, and political resistance. Hong endeavors to bring the past into the present — and the present into the future — by incorporating Hmong and Korean aesthetics into their practice. Expressed through repetition, saturated colors, and confident lines, Hong's art embodies and expresses their authentic self, encouraging her audience to do the same. Born in 1992 in Minneapolis, MN, Hong is currently based in Providence, RI working toward her MFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. Hong has been awarded the Everwood Artist Retreat (2024), Springboard for the Arts Hinge Arts Residency (2021), MRAC Next Step Fund (2020), Forecast Public Art Early Career Research and Development Grant (2020), and more. Ntxoo Art reclaims the name Hong shares with her mother and sister: Ntxoo ["un-Zong"] meaning "shade" or "shadow". ntxoo.art

LESLIE VINCENT is a prolific songwriter and jazz vocalist. Equally at home singing the Great American Songbook, musical theater, and contemporary rock and pop, she has quickly become one of the most notable voices to emerge in the vibrant Minneapolis music scene, being hailed for her joy-filled performances and her "fun, human, beautiful interpretations" (Levi Weinhagen).  Born into a military family, Vincent spent childhood moving along the East Coast and United Kingdom, where she spent her spare time singing along to Frank Sinatra and the Les Mis soundtrack. The one constant was music. Today, Vincent has become an accomplished bandleader, playing 50+ shows a year across the Midwest, using her theatrical chops to bring drama, comedy and poise to the stage. In 2020, she released her debut album These Foolish Things, which garnered much critical attention from fans and music critics in the Twin Cities, especially from Jazz88 FM, where she's become a regular in-studio guest. She's recorded with the band Viewers Like You and performed alongside Twin Cities legends including jeremy messersmith, Joyann Parker, and Patty Peterson. With the release of her new album About Last Night, Vincent is poised for the national spotlight, mixing jazz standards, vintage blues, and her own fresh originals. lesliedellavincent.com

Molly Beth Griffin is the author of four picture books: Ten Beautiful Things, The Big Leaf Leap, Rhoda's Rock Hunt, and Loon Baby. She has also published a young adult novel, Silhouette of a Sparrow, two chapbooks of poetry, and a series of beginning readers. Two more picture books are forthcoming in 2024: Rings of Heartwood: Poems on Growing and Just Us. Silhouette of a Sparrow (winner of the Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature) was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and ForeWord's Book of the Year, and was featured on ALA's Rainbow List and on the Amelia Bloomer List of Feminist Literature. Ten Beautiful Things received four starred reviews and was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Rhoda's Rock Hunt won a Northeast Minnesota Book Award and a Jeanette Fair Book Award, and was a Star of the North nominee. Molly was the recipient of the 2014 McKnight Artist Fellowship in Children's Literature as well as two MSAB Artist Initiative Grants. Molly is represented by Jennifer Flannery of Flannery Literary. mollybethgriffin.com   Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022), finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards and named one of the best memoirs of 2022 by Library Journal. She has also published two full-length poetry collections, Threnody, (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and The Truant Lover, (Nightboat Books, 2006), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. A recipient of the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in non-fiction, and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly the Institute for Community and Creative Development). She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member and director of the college's Environmental Conversations program. She lives in Minneapolis on the west bank of the Mississippi near the Great River Road with her partner, the writer Rachel Moritz, and their son. www.julietpatterson.com    

Carlisle Evans Peck (they/them) is a genderqueer composer and singer-songwriter of Northern European settler descent based in Minneapolis. Their work is focused on the power and magic of song and the human voice, rich with queer narratives, magical realism, and mythic symbolism. As a singer-songwriter and a music-theater composer, they consider songs as vessels for forgotten stories, landscapes of emotion through which to wander, and spells and offerings. www.carlisleevanspeck.com Elle Thoni (they/them) is a queer femmebeast playwright and public artist from the banks of the Mississippi River on Dakhóta land in Minneapolis, MN. In search of wildness amidst this great unraveling, they write plays about shapeshifters, emergent ecologies, and unlikely kinship. Drawing from a divergent background in ensemble-devised performance, large-scale street puppetry, and documentary theater, Elle creates pieces that are as lush and dynamic as the living systems they are inspired by. www.ellethoni.com

As a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Vinnie has dedicated the majority of his life to making sense of the world through melody, rhythm, and verse. From, picking up the violin at age 12 and later busking on the streets of France, to learning to play the upright bass to set out on the road with the Last Revel, to finding the guitar as a tool to reimagine his process and find joy in playing with his indie-rock project Friend Dog, he's always felt that the song has been his only way to process his experiences in the world. He's found that a beginner's mind in his work is the only path to authenticity, and authentic, earnest expression, is really, the whole point of his music. TheLastRevel.com  

Ondara offers a unique take of the American dream on Tales of America, his debut album. By Eric Danton   Ondara grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, listening to American alt-rock and making up his own songs for as long as he can remember. After moving to Minneapolis in 2013, he began making his way in the local music scene, continually writing songs about what he saw, felt and experienced in a place far different from home. From a stockpile he says is hundreds of songs deep, Ondara chose 11 for Tales of America. They're captivating tunes built around acoustic guitars and adorned with subtle full-band accompaniment for an openhearted folk-rock feel. He sings in a strong, tuneful voice well-suited to the gorgeous melancholy he expresses on the wistfully lovelorn "Torch Song," or his steadfast infatuation on "Television Girl." Ondara sings rueful lyrics in an anguished tone on "Saying Goodbye," and leaves plenty of room for interpretation on "American Dream," the first single." I knew I wanted a song called 'American Dream' on the record, but I didn't have that song," Ondara says with a laugh. "I couldn't find it. I wrote like twenty songs called 'American Dream' before I found the one that ended up being the record." His persistence is evident throughout Tales of America, which is indeed a classic American tale. It's the story, told in song, of an immigrant seeking a new life, who dedicates himself to achieving his vision through hard work and determination. See his website.

Ben Noble is a Minneapolis-based artist and producer. Noble's serene, innocent melodies drift lithely along sonic textures that range from sleepy-time folk to intrusive, experimental hyper-synth scapes. Through any aural difference, the heart is the same: Noble wants to embody his truth and experiences in his music. bennoblemusic.com Chris Bartels is a producer, musician, husband, and father from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has spent hours upon hours of his life crafting textures, melodies, emotions, soundscapes, and stories through music. Bartels' musical obsessions are varied, plentiful, and often. anthemfallsmusic.com

Allison Vincent is a performer, director, writer, and teacher known for devised work, physical theatre, and gender-bending performances. She has been honored to collaborate with companies and theaters across the Twin Cities, including The History Theater, Jon Ferguson Theater, WLDRNSS, Theater Forever, The Four Humors, Mainly Me, The Illusion, The Guthrie, Frank Theatre, Sod House, Strike Theatre, Transatlantic Love Affair, the University of Minnesota, and Walking Shadow. Allison has received two Ivey Awards for her work creating performance in ensembles and three Golden Lanyard Awards from the MN Fringe as a director.  In addition to performing, Allison is a co-artistic director and founding member of Transatlantic Love Affair, a teaching artist at the Guthrie Theater and Loft Literary Center, and has collaborated as a writer on over twenty produced scripts. In 2022 Allison wrote and performed a solo storytelling show about caretaking for her father succumbing to dementia as a Pillsbury House + Theatre's Naked Stages Fellow. Recently she's had her scripts published in The Empty Room, Rejection Letters, Dirty Girls Come Clean, and Roi Fainéant Press. She teaches at the University of Minnesota in the Writing Studies Department's First Year Writing Program. LinkedIn   Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja's approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will's artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic. Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States. Including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer's Evening, the Red Eye Theater's New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase and the Candy Box Dance Festival. They were the recipient of a 2018-'19 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Website Link

Rachel Moritz is the author of two poetry books, Sweet Velocity (Lost Roads Press, 2017), and Borrowed Wave (Kore Press, 2015), as well as five chapbooks. She's also the co-editor of a collection of personal essays, My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After (The Experiment, 2019), which won the Foreword INDIES Award in Silver. Rachel's work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Aufgabe, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Iowa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, VOLT, Water-Stone Review, and other journals. Her poems and critical writing have been featured in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Verse Daily, and in the anthologies Queer Nature, Rocked by the Waters: Poems of Motherhood, Uncoverage: Asking After Recent Poetry, and Jean Valentine: This World Company. She's received a 2019 Best American Essay Notable mention as well as awards, grants, and residencies. Rachel teaches creative writing with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Unrestricted Interest, and CommonBond Communities. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner and son. www.rachelmoritz.com   M. Ahd grew up moving frequently. They have resided in New Jersey, Iowa, Texas, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. M has worked as a software company recruiter, sports camera operator, reader to the blind, and arts magazine writer, among other jobs. After teaching high school English and coaching Quiz Bowl for a decade, they now write from home full time. M has been the recipient of the 2016 Barnes and Nobel Regional My Favorite Teacher Contest, named the 2018 National High School Quiz Bowl Coach of the Year, and a finalist for the 2019 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series. M lives in Minneapolis with their spouse, two dogs named Zero and Eleven, and a rotating cast of teens and young adults in need of a spare room.

John Noltner is a freelance photographer based in Minneapolis. For 25 years, he has created images at home and around the world for national magazines, Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations. His images have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Forbes, Health, Midwest Living, New York Daily News and more.  He is the author of two award-winning books from his series A Peace of My Mind. His work exhibits regularly across the country and he leads lectures and workshops around the idea that art and storytelling has the ability to transform hearts and communities. www.noltner.com   Darren Garvey is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer best known for his extensive touring and session work as a drummer and percussionist. He has written and released records under his own name (Under A Common Ceiling, Heart Attack Sleeves, Social Distance), co-written with the likes of Daniel Rodriguez (Elephant Revival) and Jimmie Linville (Daniel and the Lion), and appears on 200+ albums as a session musician and sideman in his 25+ year career.  Garvey's latest single No Love Is Wrong is a song of acceptance and possibility inspired by and dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Followed up by the release of his cover version of Friday I'm In Love, Garvey is currently putting the finishing touches on his third full-length studio album. A member of Colorado transcendental folk sextet Elephant Revival since 2016, Darren is widely regarded for his creative and collaborative work in the folk and indie music communities as a cross-pollinator. As a drummer Darren has worked with Daniel Rodriguez, Cameron McGill & What Army, Shook Twins, Courtney Hartman, Steve Poltz, John Craigie, Bonnie Paine, Andreas Kapsalis Trio, Danny Barnes, Lindsay Lou, Chicago Farmer, Daniel and the Lion, Miles Nielsen & The Rusted Hearts, Sandra Bernhard, Danny Burns & The Defectors, Ernie Hendrickson, and Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons. www.darrengarvey.com

Debra J. Stone's poetry, essays and fiction can be found in Brooklyn Review, Under the Gum Tree, Random Sample Review, Green Mountains Review (GMR), About Place Journal, Saint Paul Almanac, Wild Age Press, Gyroscope, Tidal Basin, and forthcoming in other literary journals. She's received residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Callaloo, The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, New York Mills Arts Residency and is a Kimbilio Fellow. Sundress Publishers nominated her essay, Grandma Essie's Vanilla Poundcake, Best of the Net, judged by Hanif Abdurraquib in 2019 and in 2021 her poem, year-of- staying–in place, was nominated Best of Net and Pushcart nominated. www.debrajeannestone.com Anna Farro Henderson is a scientist and artist. She served as an environmental policy advisor to Minnesota Senator Al Franken and Governor Mark Dayton. Her publications have appeared in Kenyon Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, The Common, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Seneca Review, Water-Stone Review, Cleaver Magazine, Punctuate, The Normal School, Bellingham Review, and Identity Theory. She is a recipient of a Minnesota State Art Board grant, a Nan Snow Emerging Artist Award, an Excellence in Teaching Fellowship at the Madeline Island School of the Arts, and a Loft Literary Center Mentor Award. She founded The Nature Library art installation that was up in the Landmark Center in Saint Paul for several months in 2019. She teaches creative process at the Loft Literary Center. www.eafarro.com

Sam Kalda is an illustrator and artist based in Saint Paul. His commissioned works include editorial, book, advertising and pattern illustration. In 2017, he received a gold medal in book illustration from the Society of Illustrators in New York. His first book, Of Cats and Men: History's Great Cat-loving Artists, Writers, Thinkers and Statesmen, was published by Ten Speed Press in 2017. He recently illustrated his first picture book, When We Walked on the Moon, written by David Long and published by Wide Eyed Press in 2019, as well as the follow-up, When Darwin Sailed the Sea. www.samkalda.com Matthew Ricketts is a Canadian composer based in New York City. His music moves from extremes of presence and absence, from clamor to quietude, at once reticent and flamboyant. Matthew's music has been called "lyrical, contrapuntal, rhythmically complex and highly nuanced" (The American Academy of Arts and Letters) and is noted for his "effervescent and at times prickly sounds," "hypnotically churning exploration of melody" (ICareIfYouListen) as well as its "tart harmonies and perky sputterings" (The New York Times). He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow. www.matthewricketts.com

KRISTI COLE kristicole.com Kristi Cole (she/her) is a Queer, Queens-based performer and choreographer with a Bachelors of Arts in Dance and Political Science from The George Washington University where she received the Elizabeth Burtner Theatre & Dance Award for her excellence as a performer, as well as a Luther Rice Research Fellowship. In 2019, she founded Kristi Cole & Guests with the mission of bringing together artists to create powerful and thought- provoking interdisciplinary work. Her stage and film work has been presented in the tri-state area and Atlanta, Georgia as well as in Toronto, Canada. MAX COKER Max Coker is a digital audio/visual performer and installation artist based in Brooklyn with a background in radio, sculpture, and software engineering. Education includes media studies, new media art, engineering and computer science from Stony Brook University and Brooklyn College. As an artist's assistant to collaborative duo LoVid based on Long Island, Max gained skills and knowledge of video technology and paradigms of video art performance. Performances fill spaces with improvised sound mixing and real time video composite projections using an amalgamation of custom software and a collection of found sound and video.

In this podcast, we sit down with artists Kim Gordon and Melanie Johnson to hear about their week at the Everwood Artist Retreat. KIM GORDON www.kimgordonfineart.com "Art has been at the core of my life since early childhood. Making art is as inherent and important to me as speaking, allowing exploration of the exterior/natural world and of my place in it. I work with landscape because it encourages my connection to the world around me." MELANIE JOHNSON melanielynnjohnson.com "My drawings recall the sensory and emotional connections inherent in my bonds with animals and the natural landscape, and the ways in which animals provide some of my earliest empathetic relationships and routine caregiving experiences."

David Huckfelt has shared stages with a staggering diversity of artists: from Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris & Greg Brown, to Bon Iver, Arcade Fire & Gregory Alan Isakov, and more recently an impressive array of Native American musicians including John Trudell, Quiltman, Keith Secola, and Annie Humphrey. In thousands of shows across the United States, Canada & overseas, Huckfelt's grassroots following has grown from small-town opera houses, Midwestern barn concerts, and progressive benefit events to national tours and festival stages like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Edmonton and Calgary Folk Fests, and the legendary First Avenue club in his beloved Minneapolis home. Jeremy Ylvisaker is a multi-instrumentalist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is a member of the indie rock bands Alpha Consumer along with Michael Lewis and JT Bates, and The Cloak Ox with Andrew Broder of Fog, Mark Erickson and Dosh. He plays guitar in Andrew Bird's touring band alongside Martin Dosh on drums and Michael Lewis on bass.

Bart Buch is a puppet artist, poet and arts educator who focuses on interpreting poetry from written text into puppet performances and looks for the poetic qualities of any story to highlight. He calls his work "puppet poems." In 2016-2018, he conducted a community residency with youth, artists and community members, co-creating several performances about the "helpers" of the Phillips neighborhood. The neighborhood project ended in a main stage production called Make-Believe Neighborhood at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT), featuring puppets, projections, live music by Martin Dosh with mixed-in covers of Fred Rogers' songs by Sylvan Esso, Andrew Bird, Bonnie Prince Billy, Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, Jayanthi Kyle, Leslie Ball, and MPLS imPulse Chorus. Make Believe Neighborhood was received warmly by theatre reviewers and audiences and was rated the 3rd best Twin Cities theatre performance in 2018. 

Minnesota-based artist, Kristin Dieng, has been developing her skills as a glass artist for the last decade. When a chronic illness forced her to leave her career in international affairs, Kristin sought a new way of interacting with and interpreting the world. She found mosaic art. Kristin's art explores the way in which colorful light-filled art can serve as a source of healing, both for herself and for those interacting with her art. While Kristin specializes in brightly colored nature-themed work, as well as complex geometric patterns, she takes particular joy in creating artwork that interacts with both its viewer and its environment.

Kerry Alexander is a songwriter and musician, and the front-person of indie rock band, Bad Bad Hats. She was born in the Twin Cities, but grew up in Birmingham, AL. Alexander returned to Minnesota to attend Macalester College, which is where she first started to perform live the songs. She performed at open mic nights at the Dunn Bros on Grand Ave and posted her music to MySpace, eventually meeting Chris Hoge, with whom she started a band in her senior year. A performance at the Macalester Battle of the Bands (they lost) led to a record contract and the start of a now decade-long Bad Had Hats journey. As part of Bad Bad Hats, Alexander has written and released three full-length albums, two EPs, and traveled the country (and Canada!). A lover of radio and making playlists, she has also been a guest DJ on 89.3 The Current.

Feeling detached from her previously released work as years lapsed, Duluth, Minnesota's Sarah Krueger set out to Hive, a small studio nestled near the river in her hometown of Eau Claire, WI. In the course of two separate sessions, (the first on the cusp of a long winter, and the second on the fringe of summer's swell), Krueger assembled a cast of collaborators to help flesh out a collection of songs that would later become the catalyst for Lanue. Culled from the title of a poem that found its way to Krueger from a thrift store shelf, Lanue comes to us as a project that stands firmly in front of a fresh creative backdrop and boasts a more developed taste and sincerity than Krueger's previous releases — both a welcome departure and anticipated return.

Julie Landsman's first love has always been poetry. Over the past thirty years her poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies. She is presently a poet and teacher for the Alzheimers Poetry Project. In 2019 she won the Bechtel Essay contest for "Music and Story: How We Enter."  Her three published memoirs , Basic Needs, A Year With Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Press) A White Teacher Talks About Race and Growing Up White (Rowman & Littlefield) center around education and her connections to the stories of her students. She spent 28 years teaching in Minneapolis Public schools and the Minnesota Center for Arts Education High School

"Performer is the word that sums up what I do. You can find me on a stage doing theatre, sharing my own music, or in front of the camera. I prefer my name as my pronoun, but they/them is good is well. I started acting in my elementary school and church. I also would write songs with my brother to perform to our family. My first community theater performance was in 7th grade, which was also the time that I started writing music seriously. I focused on my rap career off and on, mainly doing music with a Christian theme. I decided to fully pursue acting and music, so I left my small town in Wisconsin, and moved to Minneapolis.  So far, this city has been a dream. It's helped me to continue to grow into the person I am daily."

Michael Hanna is an actor and musician based in Minneapolis, MN. He has performed at The Guthrie, Mixed Blood, and Jungle Theater, as well as stages across the country. He's the front man and manager of Ready Freddie, a Queen Tribute band. (IG @readyfreddiempls) As an eponymous singer-songwriter, he's performed at The Warming House, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Moto-I.

Rachel is a Minneapolis-based musician, songwriter, Kith + Kin Chorus director, sideman, auntie, artist and tiny home inhabiter. She has released four albums and four EPs, including the country ep, a split 45 of countryish duets with longtime friend and collaborator, Anaïs Mitchell. In 2016, with the release of To Gentlemen, Rachel parted ways from performing as "Rachel Ries" and now writes for and tours with her new project, HER CROOKED HEART. HCH carries Rachel's wry and powerfully tender writing farther down the path of instrumental expansion and distillation. HCH's debut album,To Love To Leave To Live, was released May 2019.

Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Uprising Theatre Company in Minneapolis, the co-founder of QueerTheology.com, and will soon publish with Eerdmaan's books. Shannon is a recipient of the Playwrights' Center Jerome Fellowship in 20/21 and he was a Lambda Literary Fellow for 2019 and a Finnovation Fellow for 2019/2020. He is a sought after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops. His work with Brian G. Murphy at QueerTheology.com has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. Shannon's plays include Body+Blood, in a stand of dying trees, Line of Sight, Twisted Deaths, The Resistance of My Skin, and Who Has Eyes To See. He's currently working on a television pilot.

Cleo Person is a dancer, emerging choreographer, and writer. Her work explores the soulful qualities of the human being and the mysteries of the natural world. Working with the languages of classical ballet, modern dance, and poetry, she aims to connect audiences with the beauty and intelligence of our inward and external environments. She is a graduate in dance of The Juilliard School, and currently resides in Southern California, where she works as a collaborative multi-disciplinary artist. She has worked with groups such as the Arts Fusion Initiative of NYC (http://www.arts-fi.com), has been commissioned to choreograph by Perry Mansfield Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, and has had poetry published in Border Voices Anthology.

Carrie Elkin is one of those rare artists with a tidal wave singing voice, and a stage whisper writing voice that brings you to the edge of your seat, emotionally. Like Patty Griffin or Brandi Carlile, she straddles the Americana, Folk, and Indie Rock worlds, where meaningful songs meet the fierce-yet- fragile voices of powerful women. Like these other seminal artists, Elkin has the gift of projecting very personal intimate moments into transcendent universal experiences that move us all.

Con Davison is a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist living in St Paul, MN, and is a member of the band Bad Bad Hats. Originally from Austin, Texas, Davison moved to Minnesota hoping to get away from an orchestral music degree and put the drums away for a while, an escape that only lasted as long as the 17 hour drive up I-35. Surrounded and supported by an amazing community of artists and musicians, Con has found a place for himself in the Twin Cities music scene as a jack of all trades with a sound that is all his own. He loves tacos, sleeping outside and playing with his two dogs.

Allegra was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, raised in Lexington, KY, and currently lives and works in Minneapolis, MN as a freelance illustrator, designer, and muralist. She received her BFA from MCAD in Fine Arts Studio in 2010, and since then has worked with both commercial and nonprofit clients. Recent clients include: Starbucks, Mondelez International, Google, Target, Penguin Random House, Buzzfeed, Eater, The Verge, The Globe and Mail Canada, AARP, and The Walker Art Center. Outside of her client-focused practice she maintains a fine arts painting practice.

Kate creates visual artwork that is grounded in the processing of experiences. Nature, wilderness, and organic materials are sources of inspiration as well as mediums for creation. Her work results in three-dimensional, complex, layered, and visceral forms. Her work often draws upon the totality of experiences found in the connection of mind, body, and spirit.

Ann grew up surrounded by flowers in a home beside a lake. She spent her summers in the garden and her winters buried in seed catalogs and old botanical books. Ann's work still tells the story of a tryst between garden and wild. Relying on materials that are often local and foraged, her colors, textures, and shapes reflect the beauty of the changing seasons. She has created designs for private dinners, lookbook shoots, restaurants, and weddings. And her Instagram account (@dearhyssop) is a must-follow.  

Vie Boheme is a Motown native, blossomed creatively in Pittsburgh and refined in Minneapolis. She is a multimodal artist; a choreographer, a dancer, singer, actress, poet, writer and producer of her own works. She brings athletic agility to her vocal performance by singing and dancing in unison, eliminating the boundary between the visual and audio experience. She weaves sentiment and storytelling through poetry and monologues in marriage to her choreography. Her choreography is designed to give a glimpse into the sometimes dark and complex emotional spaces people experience that seem elusive and ever present. The intentionality of her work produces a passage for viewers to connect to their own visceral experience.

Kendra is a painter who has shown nationally and internationally, with shows at the Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Var Gallery, Milwaukee, WI and at Beijing Normal University, China. Currently, she is director and owner of James May Gallery and enjoys curating and maintaining an active studio practice. We got to have a conversation with her at the end of her artist retreat at Everwood. "My oil paintings examine the longing for identity and the subsequent expectations associated with identity and memory. I question how identity is constructed through images, place, memory, decoy, and the miniature."

Inspired by the women who used to live on the land at Everwood Farmstead and the rich history that has followed them, a story has taken the form of an audio play which was fully created at the farm called: "The House At Echo's End." Enjoy! Book by: David Darrow Music/Lyrics: Cat Brindisi-Darrow Conceived By: Cat, David and Derek Prestly Safely Featuring: Serena Brook & Michelle Brindisi

Jess Arnold has played in the Twin Cities three-part harmony folk band Eustace the Dragon for six years and is pursuing her first solo project. She enjoys harmony, musical chaos, group sings, and the evening hour when everyone is singing drunkenly all over the place. Jess is enamored with relationship and story, and sings songs that are rich in both. Her melodies stir up a forgotten past as her voice effortlessly weaves through the often untouched parts of the heart. Lilting, piercing, in love with the earth and its inhabitants, Jess's performance speaks of the quiet, mesmerizing intensity of a midnight campfire. She is convinced that we are all diamonds.

"Mayer's is a subtle but moving magic." - mnartists.org Megan is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, loneliness, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. Her work offers glimpses of internal terrain and unexpected expressive delicacies. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, she constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and a victory in a gesture.

James Kennedy is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist based in New York City. As a playwright, composer, and director, his work has been produced and presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville/The Humana Festival of New American Plays, The Washington National Opera/The Kennedy Center, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Superhero Clubhouse, among others. In addition to his freelance work, he is currently the composer-in-residence with Playing for Others in Charlotte, NC and has spent six summers as the Artistic Associate for Education and Outreach at The Orchard Project.

Jeremiah is a playwright, librettist, songwriter, singer/actor, storyteller and producer who has worked professionally in the Twin Cities for 25 years. He runs two theater companies with his wife, Vanessa – Theater for the Thirsty and Bucket Brigade. Jeremiah is a published children's author, former adjunct professor in playwriting, voice over and on-camera talent, member of the Dramatist Guild, participant in Nautilus Music-Theater's Composer Librettist Studio, and proud father of three.

Raki is a queer, Jewish fiction and poetry writer. She's the author of The Things You Left, The Memory House (a 2020 MN Book Award finalist), and The Other Body. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction among others. She lives in Minneapolis. Miriam was born in Ireland and raised in the Southern United States. She is the author of two queer historical novels, An Impossible Distance to Fall and The Unbinding of Mary Reade. She lives in Minneapolis, but also calls Asheville, North Carolina home.

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American writer. She was born in a refugee camp in Nongkhai, Thailand and immigrated to Minnesota in 1985. Because of her unique background, her work is focused on creating tools and spaces for the amplification of refugee voices through poetry, theater, and experimental cultural production. Recorded at the end of her 2020 Artist Retreat, listen in on our conversation about her new play, zombies and cannibals, and spirits of the land.

Our first 2020 recipient of the Aspiring Artists Fund is Olivia Willett. Olivia is the Choir Director at Osceola Middle and High School and her application sought to expand the depth of her choral library with sheet music from composers diverse in race, gender and age. She explained, "because music is the expression of the human experience through sound, everyone who is touched by music should be able to see a representation of themselves in the music and find ways to connect to it."

Kate is a Creative Director and Designer specializing in environmental, exhibit, and stage design for both live events and permanent installations. At the time of this conversation, she is finishing a week in the Artist Retreat with long-time collaborator and director Peter Rothstein. We talk about what it feels like to create in the barn, as well as her connection to nature and beauty. 

Peter works extensively as a director of theater, musical theater, opera and new work development. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Theater Latté Da, a Twin Cities-based company dedicated to adventurous music-theater. We've had the good fortune of producing two Latté Da shows at Everwood, "All Is Calm - The Christmas Truce of 1914" and "Underneath the Lintel" with the amazing Sally Wingert. Recorded at the end of his time on the farm, listen in on our conversation about the new work he and collaborator Kate Sutton-Johnson have been working on, the good and hard challenges of these days, and the power of nature.