Our Team
Bess O'Brien
PRODUCING DIRECTOR
Bess O’Brien is the director/producer of the documentary films The Hungry Heart, about prescription drug abuse in Vermont, All of Me, about body image and eating disorders, and Ask Us Who We Are, a powerful documentary about foster care in Vermont. She is also the director/producer of the highly acclaimed feature film Shout it Out based on the lives of Vermont teens and the original Voices Project live musical. O’Brien has also produced and directed a number of award-winning documentary films including Journey into Courage about women in the Northern part of Vermont who survived domestic violence and sexual abuse, Where is Stephanie? about the murder of a young girl in Rutland, VT, and Here Today about Vermont families struggling with heroin in their lives. Bess O’Brien co-founded Kingdom County Productions with her husband Jay Craven in 1990. O’Brien co-produced the feature films Where the Rivers Flow North starring Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal and Michael J. Fox, and A Stranger in the Kingdom starring Ernie Hudson and Martin Sheen. O’Brien has also been the producer/director of KCP’s Fledgling Films and The Vermont Arts Institute, a three week intensive camp for teens from across the country to learn about film and theatre.
Gary Miller
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Creative Director Gary Miller learned to tell stories in his tiny home town of Eldred, Pennsylvania and at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he earned his MFA. His short story collection Museum of the Americas was a finalist for the 2015 Vermont Book Award. Gary has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction, and has been named a finalist in the James Jones Novel Fellowship Contest. His nonfiction writing includes music journalism for Seven Days and State of Mind. Gary has co-produced two documentary films, and been nominated for two New England Emmy Awards for documentary scriptwriting. He also won a Best Educational Product Award from the Massachusetts Interactive Multimedia Council. Gary's background also includes years of work in human services, where he worked as a developmental specialist and a crisis counselor in residential treatment. When he’s not writing, you can find Gary fly fishing on the rivers of Vermont or playing his guitar. Gary is a certified recovery coach.
Matt Stinchfield, Workshop Leader
Matt first began attending Writers for Recovery workshops for all the usual reasons. If the regular host wasn’t available, he took on the role, because, as he says, “It is the most important hour in my week.” He is an expert in manufacturing safety and recently wrote Brewery Safety: Principles, Processes and People (Brewers Publications). When he’s not being ironic, he pens creative pieces under the alter ego Matty Adams. His short work creative pieces have appeared in ZigZig Lit Mag, NYCMidnight, Shut Up and Write, among others. He has performed at Valley Voices and Field Notes story slams in Western Massachusetts. Matt is a juried poet for Writing the Land project. His work describing preserved lands of the Nulhegan Basin and Cayman Brac is due out in 2024.
KATE SENECAL, Workshop Leader
Kate Senecal received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the co-director of Words Are Power: An Empowerment Writing Workshop for Girls. She is also the director of Evolve Tutoring in Western Massachusetts. Kat’s fiction has been published in The Laurel Review, The Foundling Review, and in Storychord.com, where she is the fiction editor.
DEB FLEISCHMAN, Workshop Leader, Web Designer
Deb Fleischman is a writer, teacher, and aspiring stand-up comic. She is the co-founder of Write Mondays, an after-school writing program for high school students in Montpelier, VT. She worked in newspaper, magazine, and book publishing, including Time-Life Books, Create Arts Books, Family Money, Health, and Narrative Magazine. Deb holds a B.S. in political science from M.I.T. and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her latest work appears in Little Fiction/Big Truths, 1966 Journal, Newfound Journal, and Green Mountain Review.
BEN HEWITT, Workshop Leader
Ben was born and raised in rural northern Vermont, where he currently lives with his family. He's the author of six books, writes for numerous national periodicals, and has worked with writers of all ages and experience levels in a variety of settings. As someone with little formal education, he believes that writing can and should be accessible to all, and that good writing is mostly a matter of paying attention and then telling the truth about it
GINA TRON, Intern
Gina Tron is the author of three books, included "You're Fine," an addiction memoir that The Strand called 'Best of the Best.' She has written for publications including the Washington Post, Daily Beast, Seven Days. She reported on the opiate crisis for VICE, Politico and National Public Radio. Gina is currently contributing to an anthology on the subject.
Susannah Blachly, Workshop Leader
Susannah Blachly recently retired from her psychotherapy practice in Montpelier and is currently enrolled in an MFA program in fiction at Southern New Hampshire University. While she has been writing in various modalities since her twenties, she is mostly known for her songwriting and has produced four CDs of original songs and fiddle tunes. As a songwriter and forever journal writer, she has long believed in the power of writing and telling our stories as a tool for healing and self-discovery and is excited to join the staff at Writers For Recovery.
Carol Adinolfi, Workshop Leader
Carol Adinolfi is a writer, teacher, producer, and dramaturg. In 2000, Carol founded Threshold Collaborative’s Beyond Testimony: Tragic Spectatorship and Victims of Trauma as Agents of Change, with the St. Joseph’s Orphanage Restorative Inquiry, facilitating creative writing workshops and producing theatrical presentations with survivors of childhood traumatic abuse. Carol received her MFA from the Warren Wilson Graduate Program for Writers. Her work has been published in various literary journals. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Carol is a certified recovery coach. https://www.dovetailarts.org/about
Carolyn Coman, Workshop Leader
Carolyn Coman is the author of books for children and young adults including What Jamie Saw (Newbery Honor Book and National Book Award Finalist ) and Many Stones (Printz Award Finalist and National Book Award Finalist) and co-creator, with Rob Shepperson, of the graphic story, THE MEMORY BANK. Her most recent book, for adults, is For Sad Girls: Meeting Etty Hillesum. She taught writing for many years to people of all ages, and was on the faculty at Vermont College’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, as well as MFA programs at Hamline University and Pacific University. She lives in South Hampton, New Hampshire where she has become a flower-grower and workshop leader for Writers for Recovery.
Bianca Amira Zanella, Workshop Leader
Bianca Amira Zanella (she/they) is a queer Vermont-based performance poet, artist, and healer living on unseated Abenaki land. Bianca serves the community using poetry as a path to wholeness.
As the founder of The Paper Poet, Zanella offers healing poetic, and often artistic, experiences uniquely designed to decrease hardship while increasing heartship.
With support from the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Community Foundation, Bianca mentored under John Fox, the founder of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, and is trained in WisdomVerse, Body Language, Healing Poetry: Working with Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse, and Poetry as a Tool for Wellness.
She served as President of the Poetry Society of Vermont from 2022-2023. Bianca continues to be the Poet-in-Residence at independent bookstore Phoenix Books, hosting a monthly open mic.
Her poems have most recently appeared in The Artful Mind, The Rutland Herald, The Mountain Troubadour, and The Reverie. She has received the Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award (2018) and Arthur Wallace Peach Memorial Award (2023). Their poem films, sculptural poems, and poem paintings have also been on exhibit with PoemCity Montpelier, Merwin Gallery, Stone Valley Arts, SPACE: A Pop Up Art Gallery, and Surdam Gallery.
Stay connected with Bianca by subscribing to The Paper Poet's free newsletter and events at thepaperpoet.com and/or on Instagram @thepoetbianca
Gavin Wynkoop-Fischer, Workshop Leader
Gavin's journey to recovery began with the written word. Journaling and poetry were an unexpected side effect of art therapy but they eventually led him to spoken word and various stages and writers’ groups across several states. He found his voice and a higher degree of honesty through his writing practice and eventually his writing revealed to him the truth of his own addiction. Gavin has been sober and an active member of AA since September of 2019. He considers his work with Writers for Recovery to be the greatest privilege of his new life. He is consistently amazed by the incredible vulnerability, unfettered joy and high quality of writing produced by his group.