Brief bio and writing background

Bio Statement:

Helen Raica-Klotz is the winner of the 2025 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press Chapbook contest for Superior Stories, a collection of short fiction, which was a Upper Peninsula (UPPA) Publishers and Authors 2025 Notable Book. Her creative writing has appeared in over 30 publications, including The MacGuffin, The Great Lakes Review, and The Midwest Review; two of her nonfiction essays were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Helen teaches composition and general education courses at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan. She’s also taught writing at a regional prison, a homeless shelter, an alternative high school, and other places where she finds people with stories to tell.   

Writing Classes, Workshops, and Residencies 

• Arrowmont Writers Residency, (forthcoming) April/May 2026. 
• Writeability Writer's Group with Katey Schultz, August 2025 - present.
• Interlochen College of Creative Arts Writers’ Retreat (with Patricia Ann McNair), June 2024
• Interlochen Writing Lyric Essays Workshop (with Randon Billings Noble), November 2024.
• Writing Creative Non-Fiction Workshop (with Megan Baxter), October 2024.
• Monthly Mentorship Two: Katey Schultz’s Six-Month Writing Intensive (with Desiree Cooper), September 2024 - April 2025.
• Writing Fiction Workshop (with John Mauk), July 2024. 
• Interlochen College of Creative Arts Writers’ Retreat (with Patricia Ann McNair), June 2024. 
• “Write Here, Right Now” Writer-in-Residence, Door County, Wisconsin, February 2024.
• Monthly Mentorship One: Katey Schultz’s Six-Month Writing Intensive (with Desiree Cooper), September 2023 - April 2024. 
• University of Michigan Bear River Writers’ Retreat (with Jerry Dennis), June 2018. 
• Interlochen College of Creative Arts Writers’ Retreat (with Desiree Cooper), June 2017. 
• University of Michigan Bear River Writers’ Retreat (with Sue William Silverman), June 2016. 
• Interlochen College of Creative Arts Writers’ Retreat (with Anne Marie Oomen), June 2015. 
• University of Michigan Bear River Writers’ Retreat (with Thomas Lynch), June 2014.