Casa's Keepers

| Mission & Name |Casa's Keepers |
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Photo by: Sarah Dalby

Kristen E. Nelson
Founder/ Executive Director
casakeepers[@]casalibre.org
Kristen was born and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York 20 minutes north of Manhattan. She earned a B.A. in English with a minor in Marine Science/Biology from the University of Tampa in 2000. Kristen worked for The Village Voice in NYC, The Weekly Planet in Tampa, and for two years as a full-time staff reporter for the Rivertowns Enterprise in Hastings, New York. She was also a freelance reporter for other newspapers and magazines for four years until relocating to Tucson in April 2003. In July 2003 Kristen co-founded Casa Libre. She worked as an editor of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at The University of Arizona from 2003–2009. She is currently earning her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. Kristen writes hybrid prose and poetry. She is an editor for Taurpaulin Sky Press and Trickhouse. She has published writing in Drunken Boat, Taurpaulin Sky, Trickhouse, Cranky Literary Journal, Quarter After Eight, In Posse Review, and you are here.

TC Tolbert
Assistant Director
tctolbert74[@]gmail.com
TC Tolbert is a genderqueer, feminist poet and teacher committed to social justice. TC earned his MFA in Poetry from UA in 2005 and currently teaches Composition at The University of Arizona and Pima Community College. S/he spends his summers leading wilderness trips for Outward Bound. TC’s chapbook, territories of folding, was recently published by Kore Press. His work won the Arizona Statewide Poetry Competition in 2010, chosen by Linda Russo. TC’s manuscript, Gephyromania, was a finalist for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize in 2009 and 2010. His poems can be found in Volt, The Pinch, Drunken Boat, Shampoo, A Trunk of Delirium, jubilat, and EOAGH. S/he is the creator of Made for Flight, a youth empowerment project that utilizes creative writing and kite building to commemorate murdered transgender people and dismantle homophobia and transphobia. www.tctolbert.com

Board of Directors

President Elizabeth Frankie Rollins
elizabeth[@]madamekaramazov.com

Elizabeth Frankie Rollins has published work in Conjunctions, Green Mountains Review, Trickhouse, Fact-Simile Press, Tarpaulin Sky, The New England Review, and The Bellevue Literary Review.  She is the author of The Sin Eater, Corvid Press, 2004.  She is the recipient of a NJ Prose Fellowship, and the 2007 Governor's Award Teaching Artist of the year. She traveled the schools of NJ for eight years teaching creative writing for NJ Writer's Project, and currently teaches writing at Pima Community College.

Photo by: Melissa Buckheit

Vice President Rebecca Seiferle
seiferle[@]gmail.com

Rebecca Seiferle was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship in 2004. Her fourth poetry collection, Wild Tongue, (Copper Canyon, 2007) won the Grub Street Poetry Prize for Best Poetry Collection of 2007. Her previous poetry collection, Bitters ( Copper Canyon, 2000) won the Western States Book Award and a Pushcart prize. Her first two collections, The Ripped-Out Seam (Sheep Meadow Press, 1993) and The Music We Dance To (Sheep Meadow, 1998) won the Hemley and Bogin Awards, the Writer's Exchange Award, and the National Writers' Union Prize. She has translated two booklength collections of the Spanish of Cesar Vallejo, most recently The Black Heralds (Copper Canyon, 2003). Her translations have been included in several anthologies, including The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry ( University of California Press, 2009) and Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry ( Copper Canyon, 2002). Seiferle is the Founding Editor/ Publisher of the online international poetry journal, The Drunken Boat, http://www.thedrunkenboat.com. Her text/image "Other" poems have been published in Pirene's Fountain, fieralingue ( Italy), and shown at Raices Taller and Dinnerware galleries. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and teaches at The Art Center Design College.

Secretary Julia Gordon
juliargordon[@]gmail.com

Julia Gordon is a fiction writer and essayist with a professional background completely unsuited - or entirely well-suited - to that particular task. She has over ten years of experience in the non- profit sector as well as a background in government and political media, fundraising, and message development. Since 1998 she has worked as a writing consultant, providing one-on-one tutoring in writing skills, public speaking, and resume development as well as editing services for academic papers, research projects, and creative writing endeavors. She currently works at the University of Arizona and Raise the Bar LLC, and serves on the Board of Directors for Casa Libre en la Solana. Prior to relocating to Tucson, where she makes her home, Julia worked for such organizations as The Center for Literacy Enrichment at Pace University, Cornell University Medical College, the New York City District Council of Carpenters, Alliance for Quality Education and East River Media. During her career she has also held positions with several city- and statewide campaigns throughout the country. Julia has a BS in Educational Psychology from Cornell University.

Treasurer Jill Brammer
jill00[@]cox.net
Bio and photo coming soon...

Ben Johnson
info[@]benjohnsonart.com

Originally from New Jersey, Ben Johnson spent his youth exploring the Pine Barrens and other strange and wonderful places that characterize the southernmost reaches of his native Garden State. Ever drawn to the arts, Ben studied painting, printmaking, and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the oldest art school in the country. He began showing his paintings in Philadelphia soon after graduation, and now exhibits regularly on a national level. Ben is most interested in exploring the delicate balance between the exquisite details and mystery of the natural world in his work. Passionate about the arts in all forms, Ben is proud to be the Assistant Exhibits Curator at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, where he organizes exhibitions that echo the park’s mission of connecting the art, nature, and culture of the region.

Lisa O'Neill
lisa.oneill[@]gmail.com

A native of New Orleans and current resident of Tucson, Lisa writes and teaches creative writing and composition at The University of Arizona and Pima Community College. She has also developed curricula for and taught creative writing workshops with incarcerated students at juvenile and adult detention centers through the Tucson-based program Inside/Out. Lisa graduated with her MFA in nonfiction writing from The University of Arizona, where she co-ran the student Works in Progress Reading Series hosted at Casa Libre. Her work has been published in drunken boat, Diagram, Back Room Live, The Tucson Weekly, and in the textbook A Student’s Guide to First-Year Writing (UA Press). In her previous lives, she has been a news reporter, freelance writer, adult literacy advocate, activist, retail clerk, intern, camp counselor, musician, and the communications director for a large San Francisco nonprofit serving the homeless and low-income. At her blog The Dictionary Project, an ongoing manuscript, she writes posts inspired by one dictionary word, selected at random, each week. She has many favorite words—her favorite one at the moment: grace.

Noah Saterstrom
noahsaterstrom[@]gmail.com

Raised in Mississippi and educated at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, Noah Saterstrom works as a visual artist and independent curator. His paintings, drawings, and print installations have been shown nationally and internationally, most recently in Brooklyn, NY, New Orleans, LA and Glasgow, Scotland. He works with writers on text/image collaborations, and is the founder and curator of the cross-genre online arts quarterly, Trickhouse. He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.