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Our Team
Rosamond Welchman
President
Ros is a retired author and professor of Mathematics Education. She has lived in Halcottsville, Delaware County, for over 20 years. In retirement she has taken up ceramics, watercolor painting, learning Mandarin, and traveling. She discovered WIM through taking some excellent writing courses.
William Duke
Vice-President
William lives in Andes, New York. He's a poet, painter, songwriter, yoga instructor and volunteer EMT. He hosts Spiritual Solutions, a bi-weekly radio show on WIOX Community Radio. He holds a real estate broker's license and loves the towns, trails and hollows in Delaware County. Before moving North, he sold real estate in Brooklyn and worked in the magazine business.
Joan Kemp
Treasurer
Joan has lived in Halcottsville, Delaware County, full time for 32 years and spent 30 years as an elementary teacher at Roxbury Central School. She began taking journal classes at Writers in the Mountains before it was officially Writers in the Mountains back in 1992. She has followed the organization as it has evolved and has taken classes on and off over the years. She is now excited to be involved in a new capacity as a member of the Board of Directors.
Rebecca Rego Barry
Secretary
Rebecca is the author of Rare Books Uncovered and the editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine. Her writing has also appeared in Atlas Obscura, Literary Hub, CrimeReads, Slate, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere.
Sharon Israel Cucinotta
Director
Sharon hosts the bi-weekly radio show, Planet Poet-Words in Space, on WIOX Community Radio in the Catskills and on podcast. Her debut chapbook, Voice Lesson, was published in 2017 by Post Traumatic Press. Sharon was an early recipient of Brooklyn College’s Leonard B. Hecht Poetry Explication Award, was a “Best of the Net 2016” nominee and a 2020 “quarterly challenge” winner in four lines Poetry and Art Magazine.
Leslie T. Sharpe
Director
Leslie is an author, editor, and educator. She began her editing career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She has taught writing and editing at Columbia University, New York University and the City College of New York. Her book, The Quarry Fox and Other Tales of the Wild Catskills, a lyric narrative look at the wild animals of the Catskill Mountains, was published by The Overlook Press in 2017. The Quarry Fox is an Independent Book Publisher Gold Medal Award Winner for Excellence. The Quarry Fox audiobook, which Leslie narrates, was published by Silver Hollow Audio.
Anique Sara Taylor
Director
Anique’s writing has appeared in Rattle, Common Ground Review, Adanna, Earth’s Daughters, St. Marks Poetry Project’s The World, and many anthologies. She has co-authored works for: HBO, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, a three-act play performed by Playwrights Horizons and Williamstown Theatre Festival. A Pushcart nominee, her poetry book Where Space Bends was published in May 2020 by Finishing Line Press. Anique holds an MFA in Poetry (Drew), MFA & BFA (Painting/Drawing - Pratt), a Diplôme from the Sorbonne, and a Masters in Divinity. An award-winning artist, her paintings have been featured in numerous museums and galleries in the tri-state area.
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright
Director
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright is a #1 New York Times bestselling author; Publishing Director of the Chicago Review of Books; and Associate Editor of A Public Space.
Sharon Suess
Director
Sharon (Sherry) has been involved with Writers In The Mountains from the very beginning when there was just one journal class given by Shelly Barry, before it was WIM. She has taken many classes over the years and decided to get more involved. Sharon is an artist, graphic designer and writer. She has lived in Halcottsville, Delaware County, since 1979 and loves the area and the community.
Ren Van Meenen
Director
Ren Van Meenen, PhD., teaches Writing, Literature and Media Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology. She is the longtime Editor of Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts & Cultural Criticism and the Book Review Editor for the Journal of Poetry Therapy. Ren has edited several collections of poetry and has contributed writing to Art Papers, Art New England, Source: Ireland’s Photographic Review, Afterimage, (Rochester) City Newspaper, Film Festival Reporter, National Association of Artists’ Organizations Newsletter, Western New York Artist Residency Exchange Catalogs, the Pyramid Arts Center Newsletter, the Journal of Applied Arts and Health and exhibition catalogs including Maternal Metaphors: Artists/Mothers/Artwork.
Simona David
Consultant
Simona is a media consultant with over a decade of experience in the publishing and marketing industry. She has worked with lobbyists, award-winning advertising executives, travel and tourism professionals, artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and non-profit organizations. For seven years she served as President of the Board of Directors. Her website is simonadavid.com.
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