Meet the Board

Konnie LeMay – Chair

Currently editor of Lake Superior Magazine, Konnie has worked for weekly and daily newspapers, including Indian Country Today, a national Native publication, when it was based in Rapid City, S.D. She has freelanced for a variety of publications, most recently for Minnesota Medicine, a Minnesota Medical Association publication; The Bark, a national dog-culture magazine; and The Wagazine, a pet magazine based in Rochester, Minn. She also spent a year observing publications in France as part of a Rotary Journalism Scholarship. Konnie believes she has some fiction in her and intends to let it out sometime soon.

Rain Newcomb

Rain Newcomb is an English faculty member at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College (FDLTCC) and the publisher of the college’s Animikii Mazina’iganan: Thunderbird Press. Previously, Rain spent more than decade publishing, including stints with New Moon Magazine and in the children’s division at Lark Books where she specialized in nonfiction for readers aged 8 to 14. Her research interests include comics/graphic novels, visual rhetoric, and Indigenous literature. A lifelong Duluthian (except for those two decades in the Blue Ridge Mountains), Rain’s editorial approach is shaped by place, purpose, and a passion for authorial voice. She is honored to help facilitate connections between readers and writers as part of the LSW board.

Bick Smith

Originally from Chicago and spending most of his youth on the East Coast, Bick Smith is edging closer to becoming a true Minnesotan, having lived in the Twin Cities now for over 30 years.  Bick owns CyBick Productions, a video and filmmaking company.  He is also co-owner of CynCity Tours which specializes in historic tours in Saint Paul.  Bick’s writing includes script work and promotional copy, following many years of writing TV/radio news.  

Amy Jo Swing

Amy Jo Swing has been writing since she could hold a crayon. She has an M.F.A. in poetry and a couple of English degrees and has been teaching writing at Lake Superior College since 1996 in her adopted home, Duluth. She is the recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Writers and has published poems in many literary journals and anthologies. She’s also dabbles in middle and YA fiction. She lives nearish the big lake with her wife, two kids, dogs, and hedgehogs. 

Bekky Vrabel – Administrator

Bekky is an academic librarian who returned to the north after working in a variety of positions in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. She graduated from Northland College in 2010 with a BA in writing and English and is excited to participate in the writing community again. She enjoys knitting and crocheting with friends, reading and writing on the shores of Lake Superior, and cuddling her two cats, Fitz and Bing.