Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Board of Directors

Donald G. Evans

Founding Executive Director

Donald G. Evans founded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2010 as a project of the Chicago Writers Association, where he had been a board member. The CLHOF branched out and became its own nonprofit organization in 2013. As executive director of CLHOF, he conceives and enacts the diverse endeavors of the organization—providing educational programming, mounting literary exhibits and events, collaborating with other literary and arts groups, and most notably, leading the planning and production of CLHOF’s annual induction and Fuller Award ceremonies.

Don serves on the American Writers Museum’s programming committee and the Near South Planning Board's committee to select ts annual Harold Washington Literary Award winner. He recently served on the City of Chicago's committee to select our first Poet Laureate. Don cultivates CLHOF’s many partners through his active membership in an array of organizations, including Chicago Writers Association, Society of Midland Authors, Cliff Dwellers, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, and Associated Writers Programs. Don is the author of the novel Good Money After Bad and the short story collection An Off-White Christmas, as well as editor of Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year and Wherever I'm At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry. He was named to the Newcity Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago Hall of Fame. 

Amy Danzer

President of the Board of Directors

Amy Danzer works at Northwestern University where she manages several master’s programs, including the MFA in Prose and Poetry and MA in Writing programs. She directs the Northwestern University Summer Writers’ Conference and Chicago Printers Row Literary Festival. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for Graduate Liberal Studies Programs, and as President for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors. She is also on One Book One Northwestern’s steering committee. She has interviewed authors at bookstores and literary festivals, and for Los Angeles Review of Books, Newcity and The Rumpus. When Danzer isn’t working, reading, or writing, she’s at live lit events around Chicago, and occasionally shares a story of her own.

Rebecca Borowicz

Vice President

Rebecca completed an MFA in Painting and Drawing at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2011. In 2019, she completed a JD at DePaul College of Law, and in 2021 she was admitted to the IL State Bar. Rebecca has over fifteen years experience working in various capacities within higher education, and currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a Senior Administrative Director of Academic Operations. She paints, reads, and enjoys spending time with her dogs.

David Stern

Treasurer

David Stern is the co-founder and publisher of Eckhartz Press, and the author of The Balding Handbook. He previously worked more than twenty years in sales and marketing, and ten years as a principal in a Chicago advertising agency. Stern is also one of the officers of Eckhartz Press’ parent company Just One Bad Century, Inc, and proud to call himself a lifelong (“City Boy”) Chicagoan.

Heidi Bloom

Heidi Bloom has twenty-five years of not-for-profit experience with a variety of organizations in Chicago and Washington, DC, as well as eight years of corporate experience with Wolverine World Wide in Rockford, Michigan and London, UK. Prior to joining National Louis University in 2022 as Director of Foundation Relations, she held similar positions managing foundation relations and donor communications for Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center and The Cradle adoption agency in Evanston. Early in her career, she served in development roles with organizations including The Three Arts Club of Chicago, Field Museum of Natural History, and Northwestern University. Heidi earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and French from Williams College, Phi Beta Kappa, participated in the Hamilton College Junior Year in Paris program, and completed graduate coursework in Literature at Northwestern University.

In her non-working life, Heidi has completed three marathons (including one in Alaska), traveled to every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and read a lot of fiction (her preferred literary genre). Her volunteer experience includes serving on the Evanston Arts Council for six years, two years as co-chair.   

Terry Cottrell

Terry Cottrell is Vice President for Information Technology and Planning at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. In addition to 25 years of practitioner expertise in various levels of IT management and academic governance, his career includes 15+ years of teaching work, numerous publications, and presentations about cybersecurity, research trends, budgeting, the effects of media on cognition, hands-free AR tools, copyright, library management, diversity in the workplace, and IT leadership. He has served on numerous non-profit boards and provided angel investments to four successful startups. He has designed and taught a variety of courses at Colorado State University-Global Campus, the University of St. Francis, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, and serves as an associate in the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. Terry spends as much time outside and with family as he can, travels, writes, and is never far from very good coffee.

Carlos Cumpián

Carlos Cumpián a Chicagoan originally from Texas. Human Cicada (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2022) marks his fifth poetry collection: Coyote Sun (March Abrazo Press, 1990), Latino Rainbow (Children’s Press/Scholastic Books, 1994) Armadillo Charm (Tia Chucha Press, 1996), and 14 Abriles: Poems (March Abrazo Press, 2010). In 2000, he was recognized with a Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poet Award. He is a member of Macondo Literary Group and co-founder and publisher of March/Abrazo Press, the first Indigenous, Chicana and Latino small press in Illinois. Cumpián has been included in more than thirty poetry anthologies, including the Norton Anthology Telling Stories. Before becoming a teacher, he worked with various social service organizations such as ASPIRA and public relations for the Chicago Public Library. Cumpián has taught creative writing and poetry through community arts organizations including the National Museum of Mexican Art, Urban Gateways and as a writer-in residence funded by the Illinois Arts Council. Cumpián taught in the English Department of Columbia College Chicago and in the Chicago Public School and Charter school system. In addition, he has hosted live readings with Galeria Qui Que & La Palabra Series. His most recent essays were for The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame on Chicago poets Ana Castillo and Sandra Cisneros and for Poetry Magazine on the photographer Diana Solis as well as his educational essay, “Learned to Read at My Momma’s Knee,” in the anthology With a Book in Their Hands: Chicano/a Readers and Readerships Across the Centuries (University of New Mexico Press, 2014). His first in a series of true supernatural accounts, “A Chicago Premonition” was published in Hombre Lobo #2, True Xicanax Spooky Stories, (Ponte Las Pilas Press, Los Angles, Ca. 2021) Cumpián recently coedited with David Ranney; Coyote’s Song: Collected Poems & Selected Art of Carlos Cortez Koyokuikatl (March Abrazo Press, 2023). 

Barbara Egel

Barbara Egel is a teacher, writer, editor, and communication consultant. She has degrees in literature from the University of Illinois and Northwestern with concentrations in performance studies, poetics, early modern literature, and modernism. She has published a number of children’s books as well as creative work in various journals including Northeast Corridor, Lavender Review, and Katherine Mansfield Studies. Barbara reviews books for Light, an online journal of light verse, and for Booklist, and she teaches at Harold Washington College and Northwestern University. In her previous career as a qualitative consumer research consultant, Barbara specialized in sensitive topics and worked globally for Fortune 100 clients. Her non-profit affiliations include being named to the Newcity Players 50 for her work with High Concept Labs and a long stretch of volunteer work with Inspiration Corporation as a breakfast server and writing tutor.

Richard Guzman

Dr. Richard R. Guzman is professor emeritus at North Central College where he taught writing, literature, race/ethnicity, and social change, and led in establishing programs that shaped virtually every aspect of college life. He twice won awards for outstanding teaching and leadership. He has published music, poetry and essays. His first book, Voices and Freedoms: A History of Jazz, was made into a nationally syndicated radio series, while a more recent one, Black Writing from Chicago, was hailed as a "work of great importance and a sheer delight." He has volunteered in homeless shelters for decades, currently leading his church's homeless program, and led in bringing a diversity plan to one of Illinois' most prominent school districts, a project for which he was honored by the state. He is consultant on racial justice and equity initiatives for the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church and headed the committee that produced the Becoming the Beloved Community anti-racism workshop. He is active in his family's foundation Emmanuel House. Founded by his eldest son Rick and his wife Desiree in memory of Dr. Guzman's youngest son Bryan Emmanuel, it was named one of the Top 100 Most Innovative social change organizations in the world in 2016. Now The Neighbor Project, it leads families, many of which are families of color, towards financial stability and onto the path of home ownership. Lack of equitable home ownership opportunities is the single greatest factor in our country's immense racial wealth gap. He has been involved with the CLHOF nearly from its beginning, being on the first panel of nominators and giving several of the Hall's induction speeches.

Jane Hseu

Jane Hseu is Professor of English at Dominican University. Her areas of specialization include racial minority US literatures, creative writing–especially creative nonfiction, and public speaking. She has published academic essays, and personal essays on funky Chinese American names, growing up in her mother’s Shiseido cosmetics store, and mental health, literature, and community. She is currently working on a memoir about being an academic who has bipolar disorder. Jane enjoys being in creative community and is a core organizer for Chicago-based Banyan: Asian American Writers Collective. She has told stories many times for Ada Cheng’s storytelling series, NAMI Metro Suburban, and the Gift Theatre. She regularly organizes literary events to bring diverse audiences together at colleges/universities, libraries, and community organizations.

Michele Morano

Michele Morano is the author of the essay collections Like Love and Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Best American Essays, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Brevity, Ninth Letter, and WaveForm: Twenty-First-Century Essays by Women. She has received honors and awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the American Association of University Women, among others. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing and a PhD in English from the University of Iowa. She is currently Professor and Chair of the English Department at DePaul University in Chicago, where she is also a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books.