About the Organizers

Penny Guisinger, Co-Director

Penny Guisinger had an idea for a conference a few years back, and believes it’s possibly the best idea she ever had. Annually, she welcomes writers to her part of the world and sees to it that they learn a lot, laugh a lot, and yearn to come back. Also an accomplished writer, she is the author of the book Postcards from Here, published by Vine Leaves Press in 2016.

Three-time notable in Best American Essays and Pushcart nominated, she is the 2016 winner of the Maine Literary Award for short nonfiction. Other work has appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Guernica, the Brevity blog, Solstice Literary Magazine, multiple anthologies, and other places. She is a former Assistant Editor at Brevity and a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.

Suzanne Strempek Shea, Co-Director

Western Massachusetts writer, journalist and writing instructor Suzanne Strempek Shea is helping with the restart of Iota. She is delighted to wear the t-shirt reading “Penny Guisinger’s Thought Partner.” Suzanne was a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program in creative writing for 18 years and was writer-in-residence and director of the creative writing program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Mass., for 12. Her enthusiasm for creating and running literary events and programs over the past 20 years has resulted in countless readings, lectures, book club celebrations, visiting writers series, nighttime writing workshops, creative writing undergraduate classes, and lecture days. At Bay Path, she created the university’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction, the annual Summer Writing Seminar in Dingle, Ireland, and, with MFA Director Leanna James Blackwell, created the university’s Certificate Program in Narrative Medicine. She has taught in the MFA program at Emerson College and in the creative writing program at the University of South Florida. She’s also taught in Ireland at Annie Deppe and Ted Deppe’s Curlew Writers Conferences in Howth and Dingle, and in Dingle via the Stonecoast Ireland residency.

Beana Hopkins, Registration & Hospitality

Beana (pronounced BE-nuh) joined the Iota Family in 2022 as a programs coordinator for Cobscook Institute. Beana oversees web content, makes early coffee at the Conference and can help you register for any of our online courses. Beana studied communications design at Pratt Institute. They grew up on Pine Street, north of the Harraseeket River in Abenaki Territory and identify as genderqueer. Beana attended Soule School in Freeport, Maine, where they embraced independence and community song. They believe life long (un)learning is vital to their journey. At their heart Beana is an artist, and you can learn more about them on their personal website.

Daphne Loring, Planning & Hospitality

Daphne studied Human Ecology at the College of the Atlantic with a self-designed concentration in globalization and community resilience. Daphne’s work over the last ten years has been to support communities in developing the connections, social infrastructure, and public policy to facilitate and support economic, social, and environmental well-being. Much of her work has focused on supporting projects visioning new models for economy and sustainability.

Daphne has worked as a community organizer, a grassroots legislative director, cooperative development consultant, popular educator, farm manager and assistant teacher. She has worked with a number of organizations in Maine and beyond including the Maine Fair Trade Campaign, United for a Fair Economy, Food AND Medicine, JED Collective, Cooperative Development Institute, and the Data Commons Cooperative. She is a founding Board member of Land In Common Community Land Trust.