Meet Our Board
& other volunteers
We are grateful for our hard-working volunteers and board members who generously give of themselves to serve our guild
Alice Landrum
president
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Bethany Spitzmiller
vice president
Bethany Spitzmiller is an editor, writing coach, and communication professional based in Columbia, Missouri. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and communication with an emphasis in Journalism from Truman State University and a master’s degree in communication from the University of Central Missouri.
Her editorial experience spans newspapers, magazines, and digital media, as well as ghostwriting for a marketing agency. Her work has appeared in high-tier publications such as Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Inc. She is also the founder of Spitzfire Editorial, where she provides freelance editing and writing coaching services.
She joined the Guild to focus on developing work under her own byline after years of supporting others’ writing. In addition to her editorial work, Bethany is an academic advisor at the University of Missouri. She is also a volunteer adult literacy tutor with the library’s ‘Read to Succeed’ program.
Cortney Daniels
treasurer
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Eilene Toppin Ording
secretary
Eilene is a fiction writer and a poet. Her work has appeared in Well Versed, and in the Columbia Art League’s show Interpretations VII.
She has degrees in chemical engineering and education and tutors college students in math and chemistry part-time.
A native of Minnesota, Eilene has lived in Missouri for nearly twenty years. She lives in the country with her husband and cat, close to her three grandchildren.
Among her volunteer experiences, she can list Scouting, the United Methodist Church and the Food Bank.
Victor Pedrao Padella
Membership chair
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Sharon SingingMoon Feltman
Marketing Chair
Sharon SingingMoon is a poet, an award-winning visual artist and founding host of the monthly reading series SPOKEN at Café Berlin.
Sharon lives on the ancestral lands of the Kickapoo, Shawnee, Ioway, Otoe, Delaware & Osage, in now-mid-Missouri. She recognizes the power of art to influence and provoke as she draws inspiration from the natural world and our human struggle to balance mind/body/spirit in the face of our own hubris.
Sharon has a Master’s in Public Administration and worked as a lobbyist for progressive advancements in Missouri. She is co-editor of Well Versed 2024 and 2025 and Rough-Cut Elegies, An Anthology of Missouri Poets (Spartan Press). She is the founding editor of the Watermelon Seeds Anthology Project and publisher of Soul of Our Soul – Palestine in Poetry and Prose, 2025, a collection to benefit the children of Palestine.
Sharon’s work is widely published in the US and Europe, appearing in several anthologies. It has been nominated for such awards as Pushcart Prize (2024, -25, -26) and Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her collections are available at independent bookshops across the mid-West and on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Anne Gifford
Flash Fiction Coordinator
Anne has been a writer for years in academic research and curriculum as well as sharing her experiences as an ICU nurse and interfaith hospital chaplain. She’s published in Physician magazine, Fort Worth Star Telegram, and Thanks for the Memories – an Anthology. Her doctoral dissertation on “Family Reunification and Reentry” is the basis of her current work and writing under a US Dept. of Justice grant in the TX prison system.
Now semi-retired, Anne is working on two novels; often deciding which one to tackle depending on the mood or character she is in when she sits down.
Deb Sutton
Quarterly newsletter Coordinator
Deb is a self-published author of over thirty novels. Her screenplay of Broken Sidewalks won Honorable Mention in the 80th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.
A veteran of the Air Force, she has a degree in psychology from Truman University and an MSW from the University of Missouri. She used to be a social worker for the Children’s Division and is now a full-time author. She is also involved in her local United Methodist Church.
Writer Wisdom
“I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.”
― Françoise Sagan