The Lyceum Series Teaching Artist Panel

Join us to hear more about the Lyceum Series, our free monthly workshop on a variety of craft topics, taught by some of the incredible local writers and professors of creative writing in the North Texas region.

Moderator: Lauren Brazeal Garza

Lauren Brazeal Garza is the author of five books of poetry and fiction including her memoir-in-verse, Gutter (YesYes Books, 2018), which chronicles her homelessness as a teenager. She earned her M.F.A in creative writing from Bennington College, and her Ph.D. in Literature from The University of Texas at Dallas, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Lauren is also the co-creator and curator of the Lyceum Workshop Series through the Writer’s Garret, which pairs publishing authors and creators with the Dallas community to offer FREE, university-quality writing workshops.

Callynth Photography

Maya Golden Bethany:

Maya Golden Bethany is an Associated Press winning and Emmy-nominated freelance journalist in Tyler, Texas where her foundation, 1 in 3 Foundation, serves survivors of sexual trauma with little to no income. Her memoir, The Return Trip, will re-release in hardcover edition on March 4, 2025 from Rising Action Publishing. Her first novel, a political thriller, The Senator, will release April 15, 2025, also through RAPC. Maya has written for Newsweek, Salon, Insider and BlackGirlNerds.com. Maya recently received the Parent Writer Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

James Davis:

James Davis teaches at the University of North Texas, where he received his Ph.D. in English in 2024. His debut poetry collection, Club Q, won the Anthony Hecht Prize. His poems have been featured on NBC News and CBC Radio and anthologized in two installments of Best New Poets (2011 and 2019). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, The Sewanee Review, Palette Poetry, Salamander, and Gulf Coast online. He serves as Senior Poetry Editor for Narrative Magazine and has served as Editor-in-Chief for American Literary Review. His website is jamesdavispoet.com.

Lisa Huffaker:

Lisa Huffaker integrates poetry, visual art, and performance in hybrid forms. Her writing appears in The Georgia Review, Pleiades, Cincinnati Review, Sixth Finch, Diagram, and elsewhere. Pegasus Contemporary Ballet recently premiered Words For a Resonant Space, a new dance work built on her poetry, and Pierce Planetarium recently featured her hybrid of poetry, full-dome art projections, and music. Excerpts of her ongoing book project, a collage/erasure transformation of a 1963 “self-improvement” book for wives, have been exhibited internationally as part of TU Delft and Cornell Tech’s 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation, and widely published in journals. Watch for forthcoming excerpts of the project in Massachusetts Review and The Iowa Review.

Alex Temblador:

Alex Temblador is the award-winning author of Writing An Identity Not Your Own, Half Outlaw, and Secrets of the Casa Rosada. Her creative writing has appeared in anthologies like Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, as well as literary journals like Colorado Review, PALABRITAS, D Magazine, and more. Alex is also an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Travel + Leisure, The Daily Beast, Architectural Digest, National Geographic, Outside, and more.

April Sojourner Truth Walker:

April Sojourner Truth Walker is a Dallas native, who studied at Emory University in Atlanta and Hollins University in Virginia. Before starting her writing coaching company – A Little More Truth, LLC – in April of 2020, she worked for seven years as a Senior Project Manager at AT&T. April also served as an Adjunct Professor at Oklahoma City Community College teaching a myriad of classes in the Humanities from 2016-2022. A perfect day for April is one spent in nature with a good book, a cup of tea and nowhere to be.