Who We Are

Our Founder

Nan Snow, Founder, is a retired partner in Stuck & Snow Resultants, a management and publications consulting firm in Little Rock. She is co-author, with Dorothy Stuck, of the award-winning biography, Roberta: A Most Remarkable Fulbright. She is also the author of a World War II memoir, Letters Home. Both books reached the best-seller list in Arkansas. She received her BA degree from the University of Central Arkansas and her MLA and MPA degrees from Southern Methodist University. She is a former board member of the UCA Foundation and the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame.

Board of Directors

Eliza Borné is the editor of the Oxford American, a national magazine dedicated to featuring the best in Southern writing and art, while documenting the complexity and vitality of the region. Best known for its annual Southern Music issue, the OA has won four National Magazine Awards and other high honors since it began publication in 1992. The magazine has published the original work of such acclaimed writers as Charles Portis, John T. Edge, Ron Rash, Jill McCorkle, Lauren Groff, and many others, while also discovering and launching the most promising writers in the region. The Oxford American also hosts concerts, panels, and readings in Little Rock, Arkansas, and throughout the South. The OA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and the magazine’s headquarters are located in Little Rock’s South Main neighborhood. Eliza was born and raised in Little Rock and received a B.A. in English from Wellesley College. In 2013, she joined the staff of the Oxford American, working as associate editor, managing editor, and interim editor before being named editor-in-chief in October of 2015. Since then, the magazine has received a literature grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and won a National Magazine Award in General Excellence. Eliza is the OA's third editor, and its first female editor. In 2016, the American Society of Magazine Editors awarded her a scholarship to attend the Yale Publishing Course. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors for the C. D. Wright Women Writers Conference, Eliza serves on the talent committee of the Arkansas Literary Festival and volunteers with AR Kids Read.

Jenny Davis is a career educator with experience in middle and high school English classrooms. With a passion for literature and the difference that education makes in students’ lives, she believes that education empowers students by giving them the critical thinking skills to accomplish their goals. A native of Mississippi, Davis received her Bachelor of Arts of English and Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Memphis. Additionally, she earned a Master of Arts in English from Austin Peay State University with a focus on early American literature, and her thesis won the department’s Dogwood Award for Literary Criticism. In the past, Jenny has served as the president of her children’s elementary school PTO, a leader of two Girl Scout troops, and a Sunday School teacher. She currently serves an organizer of the Women’s Leadership Network, a member of the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater Event Planning Committee, and as a board member of the Conway Symphony Orchestra and C.D. Wright Women’s Writers Conference. In her free time, she enjoys running, reading, planning vacations, and walking her two basset hounds, Elvis and Winston. Jenny Davis lives in Conway, Arkansas, with her husband, Houston, who serves as president of the University of Central Arkansas. Jenny and Houston have three children, Polly (22), Whitney (19), and Josh (16).

Rebecca Farris Mills, PhD, is a native Arkansan who earned bachelor and master degrees in English from the University of Central Arkansas. Following ten years of teaching in Jacksonville, she earned a doctorate in secondary education at the University of Arkansas. She served as a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. While at UNLV, she also served as Senior Advisor to the President with responsibility for institutional planning, assessment, and research and as Vice President for Student Life. Dr. Mills’ publications and presentations focused mainly on creating effective classroom contexts, middle level education, and organizational change. Following her retirement from UNLV, Dr. Mills served five years as Dean of Students at Touro University Nevada. Dr. Mills and her husband, Judge, retired and moved to Arkansas in 2013. A lifetime member of the UCA Alumni Association, she also is an active member of Greenbrier First United Methodist Church, an officer in Delta Kappa Gamma International Society for Key Women Educators, and a member of PEO.

Shelley Russell, MD, is an avid reader and enthusiastic supporter of all things literary. She strongly subscribes to Steinbeck’s sentiment: “There are never enough books.” After growing up in Nashville, Arkansas, she graduated from Hendrix College, then pursued medical school and residency training at UAMS before returning to Conway. She has been in practice as a board-certified dermatologist for 16 years alongside her husband, Brian Russell, MD. They enjoy passing their love of reading to their children, Zoe and Sam. Even though she chose a career path in the sciences, she takes pride in the lending library in their clinic waiting room, and the nurses know if a patient wants to discuss a good book they’ve read, then the morning schedule is pretty well shot. Shelley is thrilled to be part of a community that not only values the art of good writing, but also nurtures aspiring young writers like her daughter, and she thanks UCA Bearswrite Camp for fanning that ember.

Donna Lampkin Stephens, PhD, associate professor of journalism at the University of Central Arkansas, was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Gazette from 1984 until the newspaper’s death on October 18, 1991. She covered golf, high school sports, the Rollin’ Razorback national championship wheelchair basketball team, the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference and the Arkansas Razorbacks. During the 1991 football season, she became the first female reporter allowed in the Razorback locker room. After the Gazette closed, she taught in public schools — West Fork, Pulaski Oak Grove, Arkansas School for the Blind and Mayflower — until arriving at UCA in 1999. She produced the documentary films The Old Gray Lady: Arkansas’s First Newspaper (2006) and The Crisis Mr. Faubus Made: The Role of the Arkansas Gazette in the Central High Crisis (2010) and has presented the films to students and teachers all over Arkansas. She holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Journalism and English from the University of Arkansas, an M.Ed. in special education (Teaching Visually Impaired Children) from UALR, and she earned her Ph.D. in Mass Communication (History and Law) from the University of Southern Mississippi in December 2012. Her dissertation, titled “If It Ain’t Broke, Break It’: How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette”, earned an honorable mention in the American Journalism Historians Association’s Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Award for 2013 and was published by the University of Arkansas Press in March 2015.

Executive Committee

Prof. Jennifer Davis, Instructor of English, [email protected]
Syd Hayman, Writer/Editor
Dr. Erin Hoover, Poet/Professor
Prof. Sandy Longhorn, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, [email protected]
Dr. Paige Reynolds, Associate Professor of English, [email protected]
Dr. Gayle Seymour, Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication, [email protected]

Interns

Mel Ruth, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning, Fall 2020
Savanna Bader, Hendrix College, BA in English candidate, Social Media, Fall 2020
Jacie Andrews, Hendrix College BA in English, Social Media, Fall 2019 - Fall 2020
Zoë Russell, Conway High School creative writer, Social Media Summer 2019
Kc Gateley, UCA BA in Creative Writing candidate, Social Media and Conference Planning Spring 2019
Victoria Mays, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning Fall 2018
Gabrielle Lawrence-Cormier, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning Fall 2018
Mikayla Davis, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning Spring 2018
Sophia Ordaz, UCA English major, Social Media, Fall 2017–Spring 2018
Madeline Shamburger, UCA Professional Writing major, Conference Planning, Fall 2017
Morgan Sweere, UCA Biology major, Social Media, Fall 2017
Callie Smith, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning, Summer 2017
Briget Laskowski, UCA MFA in Creative Writing candidate, Conference Planning Spring 2017

Founding Members

Cinelle Barnes
Birds & Muses, Ltd.
Nicole Beer
Brenda Black
Lee Ann Brown
Laynie Browne
Mr. and Mrs. Willis T. Callaway
Meg Day
Carol Danehower
Jennifer K. Daniels
Jennifer Deering
Wade Derden
Molly Fisk
Anne Marie Fowler
Celeste Gainey
Brecht Gander
Forrest Gander
Sara Gipson
Mike & Kathy Gunter

Nancy Hart
Nancy HendricksRosemary Henenberg
Hendrix-Murphy Programs in Literature and Language
Alice Hines
Kay Hinkle
Bob Holman
Jessica Jacobs
Jasmine Jobe
Janet Kaplan
Janis F. Kearney
Anna Leahy
Mara Leveritt
Sandy Longhorn
Angie Macri
Amelia Martens
Jo McDougall
Shauna C. Meador
James & Rebecca Mills

Chris Motto
Tina Murdock
Stacy M. Pendergrast
Bob Razer in memory of C.D. Wright
Bob Reising
Megan E. Riley in honor of Carolyn Hembree
Mary Gay Shipley
Molly Spencer
L. Lee Spindler in memory of Margaret C Laughlin; in honor of Nan Snow
Nan Snow in memory of Meg Laughlin;
in honor of Sandy Longhorn
Ronald & Gayle Seymour
Dorothy Stuck
Stephanie & John Vanderslice
Dr. Angela Webster
Erin Wood in honor of Sandy Longhorn
Cindy & Terry Wright