About Us

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Writing at the Ledges, founded in July 2005 by Rosalie Sanara Petrouske and Candy-Ann Little, is a group of enthusiastic, creative writers dedicated to supporting one another in their individual journeys. Friendship and feedback are our two main goals.

We consist of poets, novelists, children’s writers, historians and more!

The group has proven to be an astounding success.  It has helped our members to improve and expand their writing; many of whom have gone on to publish one or more works.

In October 2008, the group published its first anthology, Small Towns: A Map in Words. Our second anthology, Seasons of Life, came out in January 2011, and our third anthology, Voices from the Ledges, was launched in 2013.

A fourth anthology, Promptly Speaking, was published in 2018 by Jade Dragonfly Press and can be purchased on Amazon.

Our Members

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Rosalie Sanara Petrouske

Rosalie is the Co-founder of Writing at the Ledges. She says that “poetry saved her.” When she was sixteen years old, she lost her father, who spent many hours walking through the woods with her, teaching her about the natural world. She began writing about her loss and the improbability of life mingled with images of sky, forest, and the big lakes, Michigan and Superior, where she has lived on both shores during different seasons. Since then, her publications include Passages North, the Southern Poetry Review, Red Rock Review, American Nature Writing, and numerous others. In 2015, the Michigan Poet featured her poem, “New Year’s Day,” in a broadside. She has two poetry chapbooks, the most recent What We Keep from Finishing Line Press in 2016.

You can find Rosalie online here:
www.finishinglinepress.com
www.facebook.com/authorRosalieSanaraPetrouske
www.twitter.com/prosalie
email:

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April Allison

As a journalist, April’s greatest joy was in discovering and sharing the unrecognized stories of her community. While an editor/writer at the MSU College of Human Medicine, she researched and wrote The Conscience of Medicine, a book-length history of family physicians in Michigan. Continuing to work independently as a writer and editor, her creative focus has more recently turned toward poetry and fiction. She describes herself as contemplative by nature and justice seeking by conviction, and has a lifelong commitment to progressive social change movements.

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Karen Marie Duquette

Karen Marie Duquette is a poet, writer, and a retired state employee. She has a BSW in Social Work from Western Michigan University. After surviving traumas, Karen found relief within creative writing, as well as reading and writing poetry—always with the unquenchable need to tell. She began substitute teaching in an effort to share these palliative measures she found from carving the written word onto white spaces. She can’t help but teach others to find their voice, the voice each and every one of us has, whether we know it or not. As a result, she created Youth Mentoring Poetry Programs for middle-school students.

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Mary Fox

Mary Fox is a Detroit-born writer, raised in Warren, Michigan. She attended Lincoln High School, graduated, and enrolled in Michigan State University as an English major. Later, she earned a Masters with a concentration in writing from Central Michigan University. After 43 years of teaching English classes, she turned her interests toward her own writing and joined Writing at the Ledges. Finishing Line Press published her first book of poems Waiting for Rain in 2016 and Reading Lessons in 2019. Mary enjoys working with various political and charity groups, playing golf, swimming, spending days with family and friends, and, of course, writing. Her inspiration comes from family memories, classroom experiences, and everyday life. Currently, she is working on short stories and poetry. Her second book of poems Currently, she serves as the Coordinator for the Ritzenhein Emerging Poet Award contest, co-sponsored by the Lansing Poetry Club and Finishing Line Press.

You can find Mary online here:
www.finishinglinepress.com
www.facebook.com/Mary-Fox-Author-314426799266197/

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Mary Fry

Mary Fry is a native of Michigan, a wife and the mother of three grown children. She balances her time between work and family and has been a member of Writing at the Ledges for approximately four years. Mary enjoys writing poetry, prose and short stories.

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Jesse Goldberg-Strassler

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts, completing his fourth season in Lansing and his eighth season in minor league baseball in 2012. A native of Greenbelt, MD, and a graduate of Ithaca College, Jesse has received notice as Runner-Up or Honorable Mention for Ballpark Digest’s “Broadcaster of the Year” in 2008, 2011 and 2012. In between handling baseball and football play-by-play on Big Country 92.1 FM, Jesse serves as a baseball columnist for BallparkDigest.com and TheGoodPoint.com and has previously been published in Writing at the Ledges’ “Seasons of Life” and in Spot Literary Magazine. He has published two books – The Baseball Thesaurus and The Football Thesaurus.

You can find Jesse online here:
www.jessegoldbergstrassler.com
www.twitter.com/jgoldstrass

Sarah H Hauck
Sarah Hauck

Sarah Hauck started writing plays as a child. Her love of theatre continues to this day, and she has been a little bit of everything—playwright, actor, director, and producer. This plasticity of roles has informed her writing, as she sees how a play might be practically done. The poem the editors chose represents Sarah’s other favorite genre; she believes plays and poems both have an intimate, immediate tone. Her playwriting professor OyamO once said, “Don’t write a part for a specific actor. Write it for a good actor.”

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Loraine Hudson (Judith Wade)

Loraine Hudson lives and writes in Eagle, Michigan. She enjoys creating “tween” chapter books under her pen name, Judith Wade, especially stories with a little bit of fantasy—mermaids, ghosts, dragons and whatever else her imagination uncovers. She has written a variety of short stories (many for the Writing at the Ledges anthologies) and has even dabbled in poetry.

Her adult works are published under her real name. Her latest work is a cozy mystery

Lori loves oldies rock, stained glass, playing in her garden, snuggling with her dogs, horseback riding and, of course, writing. The next fun project is always just around the corner! She also relishes nature, and is often at her most creative when taking her ex-racehorse out for an amble through the woods

You can find Lori online here:
www.facebook.com/Author-Judith-Wade-1604938333105435
www.facebook.com/authorlorainehudson

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Sue Kaminga

Susan L. Kaminga is an author and editor. She is published in A Marry, Merry Christmas by Bradley Publishing; Trip of a Lifetime by Sleeping Cat Books; Pets Across America: A Collection of Pet Poems, Prayers and Proverbs and Pets Across America Volume 3, and in Patchwork Path: Treasure Box. She is a co-editor and a contributing author for Seasons of Life, a collection of stories written by her writing group; Writing at the Ledges. She is a co-editor for Driving Crazy, a hilarious road adventure written by Randy Pearson. Susan also edited the book Answering the Central Question, which was endorsed by Stephen R. Covey and written by Harvey Schoof and Peter Demarest. Susan shares her children’s stories, songs, and short fiction, as well as her writing workshops, at local schools and libraries. She lives in Michigan with her husband, Troy, and their two daughters.

Abe Khan
Abe Khan

In Abe’s own words:
My writings focus on the messages to be conveyed, unconstrained by linguistic or literary technicalities. Consequently, they tend to be rather imperfect. But then, so am I—imperfect. I specially enjoy writing about political, economic, and social issues facing the nation. Now retired, I devote my time to writing, gardening, and doing voluntary work for the elderly.

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Phil Kline

When Phil Kline was asked to teach a class in Sales at Lansing Community College thirty years ago, he discovered that professors who had never made a sale had written all of the textbooks and the average cost to students was $130.00. He complained to the Assistant Dean of the Business Department, who told him, “Write your own.” Because he had forty years of training salespeople, he started the job and wrote his own text, Customer Driven Sales, which was published nationally. Listed as the favorite speaker of Sales and Marketing International in “Who’s Who of National Speakers,” Phil is the author of several books including, One Helluva Soldier, Curse of the Kitsune, Floaters of Irma, and Growing Old, Ungracefully. He won a national contest with his play Hey Dick, and had two other plays performed in staged readings at the Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing.

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Mary Anna Kruch

Mary Anna Kruch is a career educator, having taught middle school classroom liberal arts classes and acting as reading specialist for 30 years in Williamston Middle School, followed by five years in the English Department at Grand Valley State University. She designed a spelling program for middle school students based on vocabulary presented in students’ other classes and on her belief in student-centered learning. She has published a textbook, Tend Your Garden: Nurturing Motivation in Young Adolescent Writers (Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2012), along with several professional papers. Presently, she supervises student teachers for Northern Michigan University, has edited several books of fiction for fellow writers, and leads a local writing group founded in 2012. Recent poetry appears in Wayne Literary Review, Trinity Review, Ariel Chart, Mark Literary Review, River Poets Journal, Snapdragon, Credo Espoir, Red Wolf Journal, Portage Magazine, The Remembered Arts Journal, Edition 3: East Lansing Art Festival, and Plum Tree Tavern, in addition to two essays in Persephone’s Daughter and four anthologies. Her photography has appeared in New Ravens Review and Wayne Literary Review. Her poetry collection, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky, was published in 2019 by Finishing Line Press. A full-length poetry collection, inspired by her Italian family near Rome, her American family, PTSD, and nature is under review by two publishers. Mary Anna enjoys the opportunity to take part in and facilitate writing workshops, present oral readings, and participate as a board member of Lansing Poetry Club.

You can find Mary Anna online here:
www.facebook.com/mascengakruch
www.instagram.com/mary_anna_kruch

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K L Marsh

K. L. Marsh grew up on the Straits of Mackinac with charming relatives who knew first-hand of the Great Depression and WWII, whose lives and loves ran the gamut from comedy to poetry and who taught her to love a turn of phrase descriptive of both. Since following her interests hither and yon, she resides in Lansing, Michigan, and returns often to scenes of her youth.

Colleen Nye
Colleen Nye

Colleen has been with the group since 2007. She not only has short stories in both Seasons of Life as well as Voices from the Ledges, but she’s a bestselling author and has been nominated for various awards. With seven solo novels out on her own, having written the biography of Alonzo “Chacho” Gomez as well as being the lead author of The Lunch Time Anthologies and co-leader of The Debut Collective, she has credited Writing at the Ledges as a major asset in motivation and a valuable resource.

You can find Colleen online here:
www.facebook.com/authorcolleennye
www.twitter.com/colleen_nye

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Randy Pearson

Randy D Pearson has been displaying his creativity for as long as he can remember. Starting at an early age drawing comic strips and cartoon books, he quickly realized he enjoyed writing stories more than he did sketching.

When he discovered his other childhood passion, the Atari computer, everything came together. He spent many late nights typing stories, winning several writing contests in the process.

His debut novel, Driving Crazy, was published nationally in 2015. It received rave reviews, both locally and internationally. In 2016, his short story collection, Tell Me a Story, was released. His latest, Trac Brothers, will be released in 2018.

You can find Randy online here:
www.randypearson.org
www.facebook.com/author.randypearson
twitter.com/RandyDPearson

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Kristina Pierson

Kristina Pierson grew up balancing on the backs of couches, bare feet wearing the upholstery while her mom typed the girl’s rambling narratives on the family computer. Now, Kristina is a poet and fiction writer. She is also the author of Girl Meets Fiction, a blog featuring book reviews and writing tips. Promptly Speaking is her first formal publication. In her spare time, Kristina enjoys volunteering, painting, and pestering her cats.

You can find Kristina online here:
girlmeetsfiction.wordpress.com

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Shelby Pontius

Shelby Pontius was first published when she was 17 in Writing at the Ledges’ anthology, Seasons of Life. This debut story was a remake of one she had written in the fifth grade. She began writing in elementary school, and has continued ever since. Her second work appears in the anthology Voices from the Ledges and she published her first book, The Little Pumpkin, in 2014. Shelby graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife, and dreams of writing more children’s books about the environment. She also enjoys writing rhyming poetry and young adult fiction. You can usually find her in the woods of northern Michigan, where she spends her time learning the ways of backpacking with her boyfriend, Ken.

Lanet Sawyer
Lanet Sawyer

Lanet Sawyer is an emerging poet and short story author. Her inspiration comes through travel experiences and observation. She also draws from many years of memories, including several years of commercial fishing in Alaska. A retiree from the State of Michigan, she continues her career as an Assistant in her daughter’s law firm. Hobbies include painting, watercolors, reading, fishing, and mushrooming.

Ms. Sawyer is a board member of Keys to Creativity, a community art gallery and event center, member of Writing at the Ledges, a Grand Ledge, Michigan, writers group, and founder of Seven Islands Art Guild in Grand Ledge, Michigan.

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G.S. Scott

G. S. Scott is the author of Cleansed, and Sorrow’s Heart, from the series The Chronicles of the True Tree, published through Blue Deco Publishing. He spent his youth sitting in a basement playing tabletop role-playing games. It got his creative juices flowing. Characters of all types banged around in his head, demanding to be let loose into the world. And he obliged them.
G. S. Scott is active in local writing groups and is an avid gamer, with the Fallout series topping the list. He enjoys local theater with his playwright domestic partner, Sarah. He knew she was the one when she quoted Monty Python on their third date.

You can find G.S. Scott online here:
www.g-s-scott.com/
www.facebook.com/GregorySScott
twitter.com/GregorySScott
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Brigette LeValley Thornes

Brigette’s fondest childhood memories involve writing “epic” novels in dollar store journals, jotting down tidbits while watching Nickelodeon or floating in the pool. Brigette still has too many plot ideas for her own good, and consuming stories remains a compulsion–whether it be an engrossing book or television series, she is easily obsessed.

Brigette is a graduate of Albion College and New Mexico Highlands University, where she received her M.A. in English. Currently, she teaches English courses at Lansing Community College. Last summer, Brigette was very excited to debut The Closing Prophecy, the first book in her speculative fiction Layna series. She continues to explore fiction and nonfiction, and loves to help others make their own writing the best that it can be.

You can find Brigette online here:
www.brigettelevalleythornes.com
www.twitter.com/briglevalley

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Kerry Tietsort

Greetings from Kerry. I’m a “thirty-something” (37 actually) self professed recreational, non-professional poet/writer.  I’m one of the few or only male in the Writing at the Ledges group. I’m also the true out-of-towner coming all the way from Mason. I have attended the third Saturday gatherings since the inception in 7/05. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience, friendship and fun. I began writing in early elementary school and mostly focused on short stories of mysteries or science fiction until high school.  Since then, it’s been almost exclusively poetry and journal entries. Perhaps like many people with busy lifestyles and a young family I struggle to set aside time and make writing a priority. I have resolved to do more and I believe I am moving in the right/write direction.

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C J Tody

Overall, creative… C.J. is a multimedia artist, personal and professional performance consultant, human resource development professional and ’DreamSculpting Interactive’ faculty.  She embraces experiential ‘excursions’ into creative discovery to guide the serial reinvention we often need to navigate a focused transition, which is the substance of some of her nonfiction and fiction.