Creative Support for Organizations-Round 2

Dhana-Marie Branton: Branton is an award winning playwright, screenwriter, and writer of creative nonfiction. She is the artistic director of Brainboat Literary and Film, a writing collective working to create stories for a changing world. Brainboat's first cable pilot, Postal, was a semifinalist for the Sundance Institute 2016 Episodic Story Lab. A recipient of a 2007 Artist Initiative grant, she has a BA in English from Loyola University of Chicago and an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota.; Sonja Gidlow: Gidlow owns Sandhill Communications, providing writing, editing, and presentation support services to individuals and organizations. She has held executive positions in the business, education, and nonprofit sectors. Her education includes degrees in interior design, community counseling, and higher education administration. Giglow's community engagement currently includes service on governing boards of the Central Minnesota Women's Fund, Greater Saint Cloud Public Safety Foundation, Anna Marie's Alliance, and the planning team for the annual TEDx Saint Cloud event. As an artist, Gidlow's preferred medium is encaustic painting; she has exhibited her work in the Saint Cloud Art Crawl.; Carla-Elaine Johnson: Johnson is a faculty member in the English department at Saint Paul College. She holds a PhD in literature from The Ohio State University, an MA in literature from the State University of New York (Albany, NY), and an MFA in English and creative writing from the University of Minnesota. Her publications are in the areas of memoir, essay, and poetry. Johnson has accounting experience and holds certification as an enrolled agent, which permits representation of individuals before the Internal Revenue Service.; Maichue Khang: Khang Graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a BS in human development and family studies, and attended graduate courses in the nonprofit management program at Hamline University. Khang continues to support educational opportunities that promote access to higher education. One of her biggest achievement is being able to serve underrepresented students and increase resource awareness at Hamline University. Khang is currently working in the nonprofit sector as the operations manager at Mongabay.Org, a nonprofit environmental news site, and volunteers for the Hmong American Education Fund.; Jessica Levanduski: Jessica Levanduski is an emerging artist residing in Saint Cloud and worked as the director of the gallery vault at Saint Cloud State University. In addition, she worked with the Soo Visual Arts Center as an intern and has experience volunteering and working in various arts organizations. Levanduski has most recently taught painting in informal and recreational settings.; James Rocco: Rocco is the cofounder of Thirty Saints Productions, which creates and produces The Broadway Songbook Series and participated in the current Broadway production of Come From Away. For twelve years, he was vice president of programming and producing artistic director at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. His work as a director, writer, producer, and artistic consultant has taken him around the world. Rocco's career began when he was three, as the youngest member of the (Art) Linkletter Totten Tots. He produced his first show in New York at age sixteen, played Rum Tum Tugger in Cats on Broadway, and appeared in Sidney Lumet's film Child's Play. In 2013, he was honored for 25 years of dedication, craft, and contribution to American theater by The Broadway League and the Coalition of Theatrical Unions and Guilds at their annual Broadway Salutes gala.; Serenity Schoonover: A staff writer for Split Rock Review, Schoonover's writing has aired on NPR, and appeared in NewPages, Women's Independent Press, and The Bookends Review, among others. As a juried metalsmith, her work was featured on the front page of Etsy. She is also the recipient of multiple Arrowhead Regional Art Coucil (ARAC) grants, and served on four ARAC grant panels in the last year. Schoonover has a BA and MA in history.; Christopher Tassava: Tassava is the director of the grants office at Carleton College in Northfield, where he has worked since 2005. An experienced fundraiser, Tassava has a background in academe, having taught college history after earning a PhD in U. S. history at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). He completed his bachelor's degree at Macalester College. He has been a member of several nonprofit organizations' boards, most recently that of the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, and has also served several regional and national organizations related to higher education philanthropy.