Dawn Burns

Writer. Connector. Creative Community Builder.

Events and Appearances

In recent years I’ve grown to embrace my talents as a creative community builder.

I love bringing people together, whether I’m working with collaborators to run community open mics, or joining forces with writers and artists for engaged readings and conversations.

In spaces such as these, I burn brightest!

With Ben Curl, Elise Jajuga, and Mike Copperman at the Conference on Community Writing in Detroit, October 2025.

Our roundtable “Intentional Design: Inclusively Linking Creativity and Community” sparked good conversation, and included the voices of Cheryl Caesar and Sally Burns who were unable to join us.

Andy Oler, Ross Tangedal, Olga L. Herrera, Leah Milne, and me talked about Literary Landscapes of the Midwest at Proof: A Midwest Lit Fest.

Many thanks to Andy Oler for bringing us together both in person and in print in Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest and through New Territories’ Literary Landscapes.

TWO Cornerstone Press authors events at A Novel Concept as part of Lansing LIT, and what a lineup we have! Colleen Alles, Heidi Bell, Tim Conrad, Mary Catherine Harper, Bob Johnson, and me!
A special Lansing LIT open mic featuring fiction writer Elizabeth Trueblood!

A special Many Voices, featuring Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (SSML) creative writers in town for the annual SSML Writing the Midwest symposium!

At the Popular Culture Association conference April 16-19th in New Orleans, reading “Go to Hell” from A Green Glow on the Horizon.

Special thanks to featured readers Kathleen McGookey, Colleen Alles, and Sarah Carson! And to collaborators and MSU colleagues Mike Copperman and Margaret Morris. And a very special thanks to Everybody Reads Books and Stuff proprietor Scott Harris for the space!
GVSU Event link
Facebook event link
Facebook event link
Special thanks to featured readers Shlagha Borah and Dennis Hinrichsen, collaborator Mike Copperman and Everybody Reads Books and Stuff owner Scott Harris for the space!
Delivered the keynote at the 2024Michigan College English Association conference
At the first ever Lansing Lit festival, A Novel Concept featured a reading and conversation between Cait West, Sara Moslener, Sarah Carson, and me!
For these events, we were joined by Winona Lake artist Zee the Goblin!
When the opportunity to go Hell, Michigan’s Hell-O Summer Fest presents itself, you find all the creatives you can to join you and band together as the LightBug Collective, and you go! I didn’t do a good job of getting pictures of people, but did get some pictures of our displays!

Thankful to Cait West, Sarah Moslener, Sarah Carson, Jessica Jernigan, Zee the Goblin and members of their creative tribe, and Bex Miller representing Beasties and Bungalows for joining me for the day. Thankful, too, for Hell’s founder and mayor John Colone and wedding officiant Reverend Vonn for having us!

Thanks to Kristin Saner at Fables Books in Goshen, Indiana for hosting us!
“Good Old Fashioned Religious Trauma” sessions at The Annual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, May 29-30 at Michigan State University. At the invitation of SSML president Rachael Price, I organized two sessions around creative responses to religious trauma, all in the company of good friends including Bree Straayer (not pictured), Bex Miller, Sara Moslener, Sarah Carson, Rachael Price, and me.
Any event with Mary Catherine Harper is an absolute joy! Being surrounded by art at the Nelson Gallery made it all the better. Thanks to gallery manager Bobby Earls for working with us!
Popular Culture Association Conference 2024 with Bex Miller, Cait West, and Bree Strayer
AWP 2024 in Kansas City with Colleen Alles at the Cornerstone Press booth!