Martha Garner, Executive Director, is a happily retired early childhood teacher, who is now free to pursue her passion for nature through the Acadiana Master Naturalists and her enjoyment of art through the creation of collages. Her main focus, of course, is leading Festival of Words into an ever brighter future."

Bruce Snow, Treasurer, grew up in Boston but has lived in Lafayette for most his life. Studied liberal arts in college and engineering in graduate school. Married with one grown daughter. Came to Louisiana as a petroleum geologist and then later became a database administrator, now (mostly) retired. In retirement, stays busy maintaining websites (pro bono), teaching ESL, studying linguistics and flamenco guitar and enjoys international travel. Serves on the board for several organizations: Shining Light Foundation, VITA, Unitarian Universalist of Lafayette and Food Net, mainly as a webmaster and/or treasurer.

Dr. H. Michelle Kreamer is an Assistant Professor of Educational Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a former high school English Language Arts teacher. Kreamer says that participating in the National Writing Project of Acadiana's (NWP-A) Summer Institute in 2013 was the best professional development experience she has ever had, and this has continued to shape her as a writer and educator. Today, she serves as Co-director for NWP-A and has opportunities to work with students, teachers, and community members through various writing events and initiatives. Though most of her writing is academic in nature at the moment, she is continually inspired by the written word and believes everyone is a writer!

Dr. James McDonald retired in 2022 after 35 years as Professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Before UL, he spent a decade teaching composition as a graduate assistant at the University of Texas at Austin (where he earned a PhD in English with a concentration in rhetoric way back in 1987) and Saint Louis University and as an adjunct instructor at Winthrop University and Northern Illinois University. At UL, he served as Head of the English Department, Director of First-Year Composition, Writing Center Director, and president of the Faculty Senate. He is the author of "The Reader," a composition textbook, and editor of "The Allyn & Bacon Sourcebook for College Writing Teachers" and (with co-editor Marcia Gaudet) "Mardi Gras, Gumbo, and Zydeco: Readings in South Louisiana Culture," and he has authored a number of articles on the teaching of writing and the history of rhetoric and composition. He continues to write in retirement, for pleasure and to non-academic audiences, often about baseball history.

Alice Marie Wilson is a Master's candidate majoring in English Rhetoric and Composition. Having minored in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry during their undergrad, Alice has worked to incorporate the various principles and devices of poetry writing in their research, creating an unconventional voice in their writing which is not often found in academic scholarship. Alice has written several poems, and they have performed their work with Lyrically Inclined in Lafayette Parish, Festival of Words in St. Landry Parish, and Thursday Night Reading Series sponsored by UL Lafayette’s Creative Writing Program.

Edward G. Gauthier writes novels, short stories, flash fiction, magical realism, poetry, and essays. His work has been accepted by Literary Orphans, Punchnels, Dual Coast Magazine, Gyroscope Review, J.J. Outre Review, Story Shack, The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and others. Ed tends to explore psychic dreams and the infinite space of the mind. Themes like "the best laid plans of mice and men often goes awry" or other themes demonstrating mankind's arrogance, are attractive to this writer. For more information, check out EdwardGauthier.com

Stephanie Pitre-Kirk is an award-winning author and poet, with several published works. She co-authored "Running on Empty," in 2014, with her husband, Bennie Kirk. Her latest is a book of poetry entitled "Fill My Cup." Published in 2021, It won an International Impact Book Award. As a member of the Cenla Writer's Guild, Stephanie's poems have been featured in a couple of their anthologies. She is also a member of the Acadian Writers Guild, where she has participated in several public readings. Stephanie holds a Master's Degree in television production from Regent University and a bachelor's from Southern University in Mass Communications, with further studies at Missouri University Department of Journalism and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.