Staff & Contributing Members
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Steve Gillis | Founding Executive Director
Steven Gillis is the author of six novels and two short story collections. A founding member of the Ann Arbor Book Festival Board of Directors, and a finalist for the 2007 Ann Arbor News Citizen of the Year, Steve taught writing at Eastern Michigan University. In 2004 Steve founded 826Michigan, a mentoring program for students. In 2006 Steve co-founded Dzanc Books. Steve lives in Ann Arbor with his wife Mary, and two dogs, and regular visits from their kids, Anna and Zach. Steve can be contacted at steve@dzancbooks.org and barkingman@aol.com
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Charlene Choi | Director of Programs
Charlene Choi is a writer, editor, and creative director with a dedicated and driven focus on cultural and literary arts programming. She is co-founder of Dzanc House and has directed and taught poetry and writing at The Poetry Center in Western MA, the Iowa Youth Writing Project, 826NYC, and has served as Literary Programs Director at Flying Object, Associate Coordinator at PEN American Center, Associate Coordinator at The National Books Critics’ Circle, Associate Editor of LIT Magazine and more. Currently, she serves as Director of Programs with Dzanc Books.
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Michelle Dotter | Publishing Supervisor and Accounts Officer
Michelle Dotter earned a degree in Creative Writing before beginning her editing career with MacAdam/Cage Publishing in San Francisco. Before coming to Dzanc, she also worked with MP Publishing, Cameron + Company, Once Magazine, and myriad independent authors. She has worked with New York Times bestselling authors, along with winners of the National Book Award, the Whiting Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and recipients of other honors. The first three books on her shelf are CMoS, The Subversive Copy Editor, and the hilarious O Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun, and her quintessential Dzanc titles are The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsay Drager and My Red Heaven by Lance Olsen.
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Paola Ortega | Design Intern and Program Coordinator
Paola Ortega is an Executive Assistant at Readeezy and an intern at Dzanc Books. They graduated with an English degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2023. In their free time, they enjoy creating editorial illustrations for newspapers and magazines. Paola is a proud resident of the Midwest, where they live happily with their quirky tuxedo cats and bountiful plant family.
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Amanda May Moore | Resident Artist and Gallery Coordinator
Amanda May Moore is a printmaker and painter based in Ypsilanti, MI. She is the co-founder of Dzanc House, a new studio and gallery dedicated to showcasing the creative arts and talents of her local community. As both an artist and mental health advocate, she aims to promote diversity, joy, and peace through her work, which is characterized by a minimalistic design and a cornucopia of color and wonder.
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Jeff Kass | Contributing Writer and Creative Writing Lead Instructor
Jeff Kass teaches Tenth Grade English and Creative Writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, MI. He founded the Literary Arts Program at Ann Arbor’s teen center, The Neutral Zone, and served as program director for 20 years. He is also an award-winning author of two full-length poetry collections, My Beautiful Hook-nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave and Teacher/Pizza Guy, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book; the thriller Takedown, the YA novel Center-Mid, and Knuckleheads, Independent Publishers Gold-medal winning Best Short Fiction Collection of 2011. His newest poetry collection True Believer is forthcoming from Dzanc Books in December of 2024.
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Shane Collins | Contributing Artist and Creative Writing Lead Mentor
Shane Collins is an actor, writer, poet, and rapper from Ypsilanti, MI. He is currently directing for his third year an original production at Pathways High School and is working on his first mixtape. He is incredibly passionate about bringing artistic opportunities to everyone, but especially the youth. He believes the pursuit of art is radical, and the pursuit of bringing the youth closer to a more authentic version of self-expression is essential to revolution. Not everyone is meant to be the head revolutionary, but it's valuable all the same to the influence.
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Matthew Kirkpatrick | Contributing Writer and Creative Writing Lead Instructor
Matthew Kirkpatrick is a Professor of Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of the short story collection Light without Heat, the novella The Exiles, the novel The Ambrose J and Vivian T Seagrave Museum of 20th Century American Art, with a new novel forthcoming from Texas Review Press in 2025. His writing has appeared in many literary journals, including X-R-A-Y, The Rupture, The Rumpus, and more. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI with his wife, the writer Susan McCarty, an associate professor at Oakland University, and their daughter.
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Ashanti Campbell | Contributing Artist and Creative Writing Lead Mentor
Ashanti Campbell is a self-employed recording artist from Ypsilanti, MI whose main medium is music creation. He currently hosts a podcast titled "TheShantiSho," where he interviews artists from all over. In said podcast, he talks about mental health, the life of the centered artist, and their music career in general.