Wireside Chat is proud to welcome Online MFA instructor Nicole Melleby! Nicole is an award-winning author with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. If you have wondered how publishers draw the line between MG and YA fiction, here is your chance to learn from an expert! As a writer whose books feature LGBTQ+ characters, Nicole has also been on the front lines of book bans and challenges. We talk with her about her writer's journey, upcoming projects, and how writers can fight back against censorship.

Word for Word honors five recent graduates of SNHU's online BA, MA, and MFA creative writing programs. Recommended by instructors and selected by Associate Deans Jacob Powers and Paul Witcover for their high literary achievement, these five outstanding writers read from their work, representing all the graduates of their respective programs.

Word for Word welcomes two of the top literary agents in the business, Joshua Bilmes and Lucienne Diver, for a discussion of the role agents play in the publishing world and what the career of a literary agent requires in an age of seismic changes to the literary landscape.

Word for Word proudly welcomes award-winning author Tananarive Due! A leading voice in Black speculative fiction, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award and a British Fantasy Award. Join us as she reads from and discusses her latest novel, The Reformatory, a searing work of history, resilience, and the supernatural.

Wireside Chat proudly welcomes instructor Tracy Crow Weidemaier! Author. Literary Agent. Editor. Publisher. Veteran. Tracy wears many hats! Listen in as we talk about career multitasking, her work with the MilSpeak Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting creative writing in the military community, and her fiction, nonfiction and work-for-hire projects!

In this History Speaker Series event, public historian Karen Sieber discusses her career as a public historian and historical consultant, focusing on her recent research on Moses Dickson and the Underground Railroad in Minnesota. Karen received her master's degree in public history from Loyola University Chicago. She is best known as the creator of Visualizing the Red Summer, which is part of the AP African American Studies curriculum nationwide. Her work has been featured by the Library of Congress, National Archives, American Historical Association, Smithsonian and others. She also appears as an expert on Black history in documentaries like the CBS, Smithsonian, and BET collaboration, Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy. Last year she led the scholarly team for the NEH award winning series, “Examining Military History from the Margins.” In 2025 she will be developing a series of documentary shorts funded by PBS related to America’s 250th anniversary. She will also be leading preservation, exhibit design, and outreach efforts for a project in St. Paul, Minnesota, related to Pullman Porter history. She also teaches public history courses in Southern New Hampshire's graduate History program.

Word for Word is proud to welcome award-winning author Jeffrey Ford! Ford’s fiction has garnered World Fantasy, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Nebula awards. Join us as Jeff reads a new story, "Plunged in the Years," discusses his writing apprenticeship with John Gardner, and shares his wisdom about workshopping, the writer's subconscious, and more!

In this special edition of Wireside Chat, Associate Deans Paul Witcover and Jacob Powers answer questions about SNHU's online MFA and MA creative writing programs. If you are a creative writer looking to take your passion for words to the graduate level, this is a great place to start!