Board of Directors

Tweed Scott

Tweed Scott
President

Tweed Scott is a retired broadcaster of 31 years. Although he wrote thousands of commercials and promotional announcements, he never really thought of himself as a writer. In 2001 he began writing for Countryline Magazine and the Austin Business Journal. In 2004 he opened Tejas Communications, a writing & professional speaking company.

Tweed has written the three-time national award-winning book, Texas In Her Own Words—a peek into the Texas psyche explaining why Texans are the way they are…where all that attitude comes from. The book achieved a second printing in three months and is sold at the Alamo and the Bob Bullock Museum. His passion is writing about Texas. He enjoys the company of other writers and anyone connected with publishing and the writing business.

Jo Virgil

Jo Virgil
Vice-President

Jo Virgil is a Community Relations Manager for Barnes & Noble, where she plans events and works with local schools, libraries, and non-profit organizations. Jo has worked as a feature writer, reporter, and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and loves to dabble in any kind of writing, fiction and nonfiction. She has a master of journalism degree with a minor in environmental science, reflecting her love of writing as well as her deep appreciation of and respect for nature.

Jo is an avid and eclectic reader. She serves as Vice President of the Board of the Writers' League of Texas and also serves on the Board of the Central Texas Storytelling Guild.

Karen Trikilis

Karen Trikilis

Secretary

Karen Trikilis graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Liberal Arts degree in English and History. Later, she was accepted to the Political Science Department of Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos where she graduated with highest honors.

For 35 years, Karen has worked for a criminal and civil law firm where she works with clients with unique legal problems. These experiences taught her to be a quick and thorough problem solver.

Karen is an avid reader and a long-time book club member.

Rick Guzman

Rick Guzman
Treasurer

Rick Guzman is a former Army officer with a solo general law practice in Williamson County. Rick's practice is diverse and includes entertainment, regulatory, administrative, and criminal defense as well as other matters. A variety of clients include small presses, publishers, record companies, writers, consumers, cities, homeowner's associations, and small businesses.

Rick is a current Board member of the City of Round Rock Community Development Commission and the Double Creek Office Condominium Property Owner's Association, Inc., and a former board member of the Round Rock Ranch Homeowner's Association.

Rick is a longtime member of the Writers' League of Texas and has published ten books with his co-author and wife, Lila Guzman, and many
articles, including one for the League's Scribe.

Directors

Kathi Appelt

Kathi Appelt

Louis T. Brusatti

Lou Brusatti

Louis T. Brusatti is the current Dean of the School of Humanities at St. Edward's University. He has been in this position for six years. The School of Humanities is dedicated to collaborative effort between faculty and students to enhance the quality of a well-rounded liberal arts education. His English faculty promotes the award-winning journals Arete, a student forum for academic writing; and the Sorin Oak Review, featuring students’ creative composition; as well as the Visiting Writers Series.

Louis obtained his doctorate from The Catholic University of America with a concentration in Pastoral Theology and has published articles, book chapters, book reviews, audio cassettes, and video tapes for nationwide Catholic presses, colleges, and universities.

Louis formerly served on the Seton Ethics Committee and as President of the Brookside Villas Condominium Association. He has been appointed to serve on the WLT Board until December 2008 and is looking forward to further collaboration between St. Edward's University and the Writers' League of Texas.

Eric Behrens

Eric Behrens is an Austin attorney with Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody. Eric obtained his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was the Managing Editor of the Texas Law Review, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas, where he was the Editor for the campus yearbook (the Jayhawker).

Eric is currently also serving on the Board for the Austin Public Library Foundation, just coming off a term as its President, and Ballet Austin.

Louis T. Brusatti

Lou Brusatti

Louis T. Brusatti is the current Dean of the School of Humanities at St. Edward's University. He has been in this position for six years. The School of Humanities is dedicated to collaborative effort between faculty and students to enhance the quality of a well-rounded liberal arts education. His English faculty promotes the award-winning journals Arete, a student forum for academic writing; and the Sorin Oak Review, featuring students’ creative composition; as well as the Visiting Writers Series.

Louis obtained his doctorate from The Catholic University of America with a concentration in Pastoral Theology and has published articles, book chapters, book reviews, audio cassettes, and video tapes for nationwide Catholic presses, colleges, and universities.

Louis formerly served on the Seton Ethics Committee and as President of the Brookside Villas Condominium Association. He has been appointed to serve on the WLT Board until December 2008 and is looking forward to further collaboration between St. Edward's University and the Writers' League of Texas.

Laura Castro

Laura Castro is a writer and media relations expert with more than 25 years of professional experience in journalism, strategic communications and public relations. She currently works for The University of Texas at Austin as director of media relations for the School of Law and as an adjunct professor in the School of Journalism.

A native of Austin, Castro worked across the country as a journalist at national news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, New York Newsday and CNN for more than a decade before earning a law degree from The University of Texas in 1997. She is a founding and current member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Since 2004, Castro has also been an independent media consultant and literary publicist advising and promoting various authors including Pulitzer-prize winner David Oshinsky, historian H.W. Brands, and former national journalist William Cope Moyers.

Harrison Cheung

Harrison Cheung

Harrison Cheung is an award-winning writer and Web marketer. He currently works for IBM as a Web editor. Prior to relocating to Austin, Harrison lived in Los Angeles, pioneering online marketing campaigns for the movie industry, including cult hits American Psycho, Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain.

Harrison has been published in Farfelu, Wired, Rock & Soul, and Zap2it.com. His first novel, Idol Worship, was a finalist in The Writer’s Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition. He is currently working on a series of Young Adult novels. In addition to the Writers’ League of Texas, he is a member of the American Library Association and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

This year, IBM recognized Harrison for volunteering over 100 hours in the Central Texas area.

Irma Flores-Manges

Irma Flores-Manges has worked for the Austin Public Library for the past 25 years as a reference librarian, youth services manager, and a branch manager. Irma has always been involved in programming and working with authors. She served on the committee to select the first Mayor's Book Club selection and helped to get Rudolfo Anaya to come to Austin for the Finale.

Irma is a member of the Texas Library Association, American Library Association, the American Indian Library Association, Austin Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and Reforma, as well as the Writers' League.

Rita Mills

Rita Mills

Rita Mills' passions are the First Amendment, books, and literacy so it is understandable that her career would take its charted path. Her career started at The Odessa American, in far West Texas. In the early '70s she moved to Houston and started a 20-year stint at The Houston Post. She left there in the early 1990s to become the managing editor of Arte Publico Press at the University of Houston, where she helped with the start-up of a new children's picture book imprint, Pinata Books.

Rita left the University of Houston in 1997 to start her own company, The Book Connection, where she consults with small and independent presses in proper book-publishing-industry standards and protocol. TBC works with a roster of 35+ freelance individuals with book-specific experience in all areas of writing, editing, design, illustration, marketing and public relations. She guides her clients through the publishing maze to produce and sell bookstore-quality books.

She also started a small publishing house called Bluebonnets, Boots & Books Press, and has published 10 titles since 1997. She also has a children's picture book imprint, The ABC's Press, under which she publishes the winners of the ABC's Children's Picture Book Competition.

Her other endeavors include Texas Authors Group, a Web site hub where independent Texas publishers showcase their books and highlight their availability as speakers.

Evelyn Palfrey

Evelyn Palfrey writes romantic suspense for the marvelously mature and has published four novels (Three Perfect Men, The Price of Passion, Dangerous Dilemmas, and Everything In Its Place) and stories in two of the Chicken Soup series. She credits WLT with advancing her writing career by helping her meet an agent at the Agents & Editors conference resulting in sales of her books to Simon and Schuster.

Evelyn's accomplishments include establishing the League's online group and serving as its moderator since 2005; being active with the Austin Romance Writers of America; and formerly serving on the boards of Austin Community Radio, Austin Public Library Foundation, Texas Municipal Courts Education Center, State Bar of Texas, and WLT.

Evelyn re-joined the WLT board in 2006 and will serve until 2008.

Laura Seaborn

Laura Seaborn

Laura Seaborn is the president and one of the founding members of the Writers' Guild of Texas. This 100-plus member organization seeks to promote and encourage the writing community and presents monthly programs of interest to writers and authors.

She is a member of the following critique groups: Lesser North Texas Writers, North Texas Speculative Fiction Writers' Group, and Future Classics.

Laura Seaborn is employed by J. W. Operating Company as a CPA in the corporate tax department. She obtained her B.S. in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington. She later obtained an M.A. in History, her first love, from the University of West Florida but instead of teaching, she joined the Air Force to see the places she studied. Now she writes of those places and other historical worlds in her time travel Young Adult novel.

Michael W. Stockham

Michael W. Stockham is an attorney in Dallas who specializes in complex business litigation. As part of his practice, he writes about and counsels on First Amendment issues. His legal writing has appeared in such journals as the Cornell Law Review and in publications sponsored by the American Bar Association's Media, Privacy, and Defamation Committee.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Michael received his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico and his Master of Arts in English, with a concentration in Creative Writing, from Texas A&M University. His fiction has appeared in such journals as The Writer's Forum, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Short Story Review, Outerbridge, Art Times, Collages and Bricolages, and Flipside. His poetry has appeared in such journals as The Allegheny Review and Conceptions Southwest. He is a recipient of the Frank Waters Southwest Writing Award.

G. Allen Whitley