Wildhouse Publishing Staff

Wildhouse Publishing is building its in-house resources while it uses outside contractors to prepare publications. If you are interested in working with Wildhouse Publishing, please reach out to us using the Contact form.

Wesley J. Wildman
Publisher

Wesley is a professor at Boston University and Executive Director of the Center for Mind and Culture in Boston. An accomplished author with a strong desire to communicate to popular as well as academic audiences, he has great hopes for Wildhouse Publishing. For more information, see here.

Catherine Knepper
Senior Editor

Catherine is a veteran freelance writer and editor. She holds degrees in literature, religion, and theology, and an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has deep sympathy for WHP's publishing mission, and is dedicated to discovering new voices and supporting authors throughout their careers.

Suzanne Woolston Bossert
Developmental Editor
Crossings Editor

Suzanne has twin masters degrees in film/screenwriting and religion/spirituality, and has become expert in the rapidly changing landscape of 21st-century religious institutions. She regularly publishes essays, has founded two grant-funded digital start-ups exploring the intersection of social media and faith, and works with a therapy dog, Maestro. For more information, see here.

Mark S. Burrows
Poetry Editor

Mark is a veteran poet, retreat leader, scholar. and teacher. Author of numerous books of poetry, a winner of the Wytter Bynner Prize in Poetry, and recipient of numerous nominations for a Pushcart Prize, his poems express the spiritual profundity of nature and its manifold intersections with the existential intensities of human life. For more information, see here.

Rebecca Johns
Fiction Editor

Rebecca Johns grew up in the Illinois countryside wanting to see the world. Instead, she moved to Missouri for college, then to New York City, where she worked for a time as a magazine editor for Highlights for Children and Woman’s Day magazines and a copywriter for Penguin USA. Eventually she left publishing to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she wrote her first novel, Icebergs, a PEN/Hemingway Finalist. Her second novel, The Countess, has been to more countries than she has: ten, by last count. In her spare time, she is Associate Professor of English at DePaul University in Chicago. For more information, see here.

Kate Sheehan Roach
Acquisitions Editor

Kate is an interfaith, interspiritual, interdisciplinary writer, editor, and community builder. She began her editorial career in the academic press and now enjoys working with leading-edge spiritual writers from all traditions and non-traditions, especially those with mystical or contemplative depth. She serves on several boards, including the United Religions Initiative and Contemplative Outreach. For more information, see here

Melody Stanford Martin
Design & Production Editor

Melody is a visual designer with fifteen years of experience in graphic design, web design, and visual communications. She has designed and produced dozens of books and is herself an author (Brave Talk, 2020). Melody is a firm believer in the power of books to expand our souls and make the world a better place. For more information, see here.

Ava O'Malley
Publicity Manager

Ava was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois from 2018-2024 for both her Bachelor’s and Master’s of Fine Arts degrees. She has experience in print, audio, and video publications, and aims to bring a multimedia approach to her publicity campaigns at Wildhouse. With a background in journalism, Ava is eager to share the stories of our authors on a broad scale. She is looking forward to connecting with you, and letting the world know why your stories are unique, incredible, and adventurous.

David Rohr
Editor

Dave has a PhD in religious studies and a masters degree in philosophy and theology. He is a gifted writer and editor with a great way of working with people of all kinds. Dave is direct and constructive in his advice, and skillful in solving copyediting challenges. Everyone who works with him gets better. For more information, see here.

Editorial Advisory Board for Wildhouse Fiction and Nonfiction

The goals of Wildhouse Publishing are supported by a diverse, multi-generational editorial advisory board. Board members advise the press on strategic directions and potential publications. Each member of the board understands a part of the network of target audiences: post-religious people, spiritual but not religious people, spiritual atheists and agnostics and nones, mystical and marginal or unorthodox religious people, and others for whom traditional spiritual resources are too narrow or just don’t fit. Their perspectives on this complex audience are critically important for strategic planning at Wildhouse Publishing.

Benjamin Austin

Ben is a PhD candidate in Philosophy of Religion at Boston University. His research explores ritual and esotericism within online communities with the aim of developing popular and philosophical resources for understanding magical, religious, and mystical practices as constructive endogenous features (not bugs) of digital milieux. He works on and off as a writing instructor, freelance photographer, and copy editor and is an avid reader, birdwatcher, and metalhead in his spare time. For more information, see here.

Christopher Bennett

Chris is a philosopher and theologian currently at Oxford. He is particularly interested in how implications of Darwinian evolution alter religious and spiritual conceptions of reality and the human being, and he is keen to communicate potential interactions with a wider audience. For more information, email Chris here.

Raja Gopal Bhattar

Raja is a diversity, equity and belonging consultant, organization development facilitator, and transformative leadership coach. For more information, see here.

David Blair

David Blair has worked in New Hampshire as a teacher and museum director, and overseas in international development and conflict transformation. He has two Masters degrees in education and is completing a third in theology at Boston University. The intersection between culture and nature fascinates him. He looks forward to learning more about the many ways humans find and express their spiritual path. For more information, see here.

Jill Braithwaite

Jill has more than 25 years of experience as an editorial leader in book publishing. She currently works as a consultant with writers and publishers. Jill is pursuing an M.Div. in Unitarian Universalist studies at United Seminary in St. Paul, MN (graduation 2022). She holds an M.A. from United and wrote a thesis about the novel Infinite Jest as a source for theology. For more information, see here.

Geoff Boyce

Geoff is Chaplain at Large, based at Pilgrim Uniting Church in the City of Adelaide, South Australia. He was chaplain to Flinders University from August 1997 to January 2017, where he established Oasis at Flinders University as a support center for staff and students. He now works independently offering his experience, knowledge, and connections with others concerned for human flourishing. For more information, see here.

Kate Common

Kate is a Visiting Professor of Practical Theology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Louisville Institute scholar. Her work intersects feminist and queer theologies, biblical studies, design thinking, and theopoetics. Kate is also a graphic designer with over 15 years of experience, and she integrates design thinking into her research and teaching. She is currently working on two books: Undoing Conquest: How a New History of Ancient Israel can Reshape Christianity and Imagining Utopia: A Queer Feminist Vision of Church. For more information, see here.

Saikou Y. Diallo

Saikou is a scientist and educator in the domain of innovation and equal access to technology for people on all spectrums (autism, hearing, vision, etc.) and artificial beings. Dr. Diallo works with a multidisciplinary team of artists, scientists, humanities scholars, and engineers to develop platforms that promote the radically inclusive use of technology. For more information, see here.

Kathryn Dickel

Kathryn is the Founder of Pollinate Ritual which helps individuals, organizations and communities become soul centered through cross-pollinated spiritual modalities and applied ritual. She is also the Editor of Pollinate Magazine, which works with over 40 writers from across the globe to nurture dialog about the modern spiritual landscape. An entrepreneur for over 20 years, Kathryn is a graduate of Cornell College (Theology & Political Science) and the School for International Training (Peace and Conflict Studies). For more information, see here.

Ursula Goodenough

Ursula is Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University. Her publications include both straight science and works targeted for the general public, such as her well-known book, The Sacred Depths of Nature. She is also President of the Religious Naturalist Association. For more information, see here.

William David Hart

Bill is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College. He is the author of The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse; Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion; Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis; and Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture. His research interests include black studies, social theory, philosophy of race, American philosophy, and the intersections of religion, ethics, and politics. For more information, see here.

Shaunesse' Jacobs

Shaunesse' is a PhD Student at Boston University's School of Theology, studying constructive theology and bioethics. Her main research focuses on health inequities impacting black birthing people and the responsibilities of black religious institutions to these communities. Shaunesse' is deeply invested in conversations of health, equity, religion, and the public. For more information, see here.

Diane Clark Johnson

Diane’s unconventional career has taken her into hospitals, schools, kitchens, and museums, with a skillset emphasizing teamwork, organization, and communication. A nonreligious person, she is moved deeply by our web of connections with one another and with nature, expressed through long-time yoga, meditation, art, and gardening practices. With advanced degrees from the school of hard knocks, she cares deeply about the Wildhouse audience. She reads widely and is co-author of Temperament Tools.

Lucas F. Johnston

Information coming soon...

Christopher Lee

Christopher is a long-time Chef of top San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, including Chez Panisse and his own Italian trattoria, Eccolo. Since 2010, Christopher has consulted to restaurants in the U.S., London, and Dublin, Ireland. He is writing a book on the life and culture of professional kitchens, as well as a study of traditional dry-cured meats. Christopher is a life-long student of music. In another life, he studied philosophy but fled it in the night many years ago. For more information, see here.

Wade Mitchell

Wade is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. He teaches introductory classes on world religion alongside courses studying the complex intersections of religion & science as well as religion and popular culture. Wade was also an Associate Producer of an award-winning short film, RAG, which connects to his research interests in the legacies of white supremacy. For more information, see here.

Dan Ott

Daniel J. Ott is professor of theology and religion and dean of the School of Theology, Humanities and Performing Arts at Eastern Mennonite University. His articles and review articles have appeared in Theology Today, Political Theology, and the American Journal for Theology and Philosophy. He is co-author with Hannah Schell of Christian Thought in America: A Brief History (Fortress Press). For more information, see here.

Teri McDowell Ott

Teri is a Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor who serves Monmouth College as Dean of the Chapel. Her ministry has been shaped and inspired by the diverse campus community she serves and her experience volunteer teaching in a men’s prison. She is a frequent contributor to the Christian Century and is working on her first book, Ten Risks Privileged People Should Take. For more information, see here.

Anthony B. Pinn

Tony is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religion at Rice University. He is also Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa. He is the founding director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning, and the inaugural director of the Center for African and African American Studies both at Rice University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (2003) and the novel The New Disciples (2015). For more information, see here.

Emily Qureshi-Hurst

Emily is an Early Career Researcher currently based at the University of Oxford working on philosophical questions raised by religion, science, and their interaction. Emily has published on philosophical and religious issues in academic journals, blogs, and magazines, and is passionate about the 'big questions' raised and addressed by both science and spirituality. For more information, see here.

Philip Reed-Butler

Philip is Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems, Iliff School of Theology, and the author of Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality. He is also co-founder of The Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capacities, combining machine learning and psychotherapeutic systems. For more information, see hereA

Austin Roberts

Austin holds a PhD in theological and philosophical studies from Drew University's Graduate Division of Religion. His main research areas include process thought, political theology, ecstatic naturalism, and critical Anthropocene studies. He lives in Northern California where he teaches philosophy and manages the EcoCiv podcast. For more information see here.

F. LeRon Shults

LeRon is professor in the Institute for Global Development and Social Planning at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. He is Scientific Director of the Center for Modeling Social Systems and author of Theology after the Birth of God: Atheist Conceptions in Cognition and Culture. For more information, see here.

Jeffrey Speaks

Jeff is a Ph.D. student at Boston University School of Theology studying philosophy and theology. His research interests include religious and ecstatic naturalism, radical theologies, and Unitarian Universalism. For more information, see here.

Seth Villegas

Seth is a PhD student in constructive theology at Boston University. He specializes in issues related to the dialogue between religion and science. His research examines transhumanist ideas of digital immortality, asking questions about the future of religious life. He is also the host of the DigEthix podcast (digethix.org), a public communications project covering social problems involving technology. For more information, see here.

Carol Wayne White

Carol is a professor of philosophy of religion at Bucknell University, specializing in poststructuralist philosophies and religious naturalism. Her books include Poststructuralism, Feminism, and Religion: Triangulating Positions, and Black Lives and Sacred Humanity: Toward an African American Religious Naturalism, which won a Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Titles. For more information, see here.

Demian Wheeler

Demian is a professor of theology and religious studies at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and the author of Religion Within the Limits of History Alone: Pragmatic Historicism and the Future of Theology. A liberal theologian and a religious naturalist, Demian is interested in cultivating a spiritual life that is attuned to the sacred depths of nature. For more information, see here.

Xiaodi Wu

Xiaodi is a Master’s of Divinity student at Boston University School of Theology. Before joining BU, Xiaodi earned her two business degrees in Finance and Marketing, and has worked in three countries: China, South Korea and the United States. She is a global citizen, a cross cultural people person and a lifelong spiritual seeker. For more information, see here.

Editorial Advisory Board for Wildhouse Poetry

The Wildhouse Poetry imprint is supported by an editorial advisory board consisting of gifted and visionary poets and publishers of poetry. Board members advise the imprint on strategic directions and potential poetry publications. Each member of the board understands a part of the network of target audiences: post-religious people, spiritual but not religious people, spiritual atheists and agnostics and nones, mystical and marginal or unorthodox religious people, and others for whom traditional spiritual resources are too narrow or just don’t fit. Their perspectives on this complex audience are critically important for strategic planning within Wildhouse Poetry.

Robert Cording

“The work of writing helps me attend to a world I love but did not create. It is an act of soul-making that arises out of the need for the real work of our lives: the work we do not to acquire things but to be to belong. I believe great poems allow us to be more vividly, if only for moments.”

Robert Cording is professor emeritus at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, where he taught for 38 years where he held the Barrett Chair of English and Creative Writing. Since then, he worked for five years as a poetry mentor in the Seattle Pacific University low residency MFA program. He has published ten collections of poems. Without My Asking which, along with Walking with Ruskin, were finalists for the Connecticut Book Award. A book on “poetry, metaphor, and mystery” Finding the World’s Fullness, was recently published by Slant, and his most recent book of poetry, In the Unwalled City, was published in 2022. He has received two NEA grants in poetry, two poetry fellowships from the state of Connecticut, and has won two Pushcart Prizes in poetry. His poems have appeared in many publications, including Georgia Review, Image, The Sun, Southern Review, Poetry, Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Spiritus, The New Yorker, The Common, Agni, New Ohio Review, and Orion, and have been included in a variety of anthologies, among them: Best American Poetry, 2018; Best Spiritual Writing (1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010); Poetry Magazine Anthology; Godine: Poets of the New Century; Milkweed: Urban Nature. For more information, see here.

Laura Reece Hogan

“Poetry is the porous container of almost-unholdable things—the impossible, the paradox, the infinite, the infinitesimally small. Poetry is the bridge between what we see and don’t, between what we long for and the ordinary realities which surround us, between deepest human interiors and endlessly vibrant and complicated exteriors in the natural world. Poetry brings us into contact with the other, and with the One, in boundless ways.”

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry; Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize; the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press); and the nonfiction spiritual theology book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Sugar House Review, America Magazine, Scientific American, Spiritus, Verse Daily, RHINO, Sojourners, Connecticut River Review, EcoTheo Review, The Christian Century, Psaltery & Lyre, and elsewhere. For more information, see here.

Teri McDowell Ott

“I believe poets are today’s prophets, pointing us towards truths we wouldn’t know without their words. A good poem slows me down and helps me pay better attention to the world around me. It’s a grace I need and treasure.”

Teri is a Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor who serves Monmouth College as Dean of the Chapel. Her ministry has been shaped and inspired by the diverse campus community she serves and her experience volunteer teaching in a men’s prison. She is a frequent contributor to the Christian Century and is working on her first book, Ten Risks Privileged People Should Take. For more information, see here.

Jennifer Wallace

“I write poems in response to encounters—sometimes pleasing, sometimes troubling—with inner and outer phenomena. I ask more questions than I answer. Poetry, along with music and visual art, has an uncanny ability to tolerate, and even celebrate, unanswerable questions. Because poems are both literal and associative, both abstract and concrete, they are able to engage the whole person—our cerebral and psycho/emotional selves. Such engagement inspires me, calms me, enables me to be more fully in relation to myself and to the world.”

Recently retired from almost two decades of teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Jennifer taught creative writing & critical thinking, and co-taught an art history/ecology course. She has also taught at senior centers, prisons, and mental health facilities among other community settings. Her poems, essays and photographs have appeared in poetry collections, artists books, exhibition catalogs, galleries, museums, anthologies and literary journals. A past poetry editor for The Cortland Review, she has published six collections of poems, most recently Raising the Sparks (Paraclete Press, 2022). For more information, see here.