Elizabeth Hendricks & Alison Thumel

media release: Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts will welcome nine writers in residence at the start of 2026. Marking the fifteenth year of the Winter Writers Reading Series, this upcoming year will feature award-winning Wisconsin writers reading from their work on select Thursday evenings. Shake Rag Alley is excited to partner with Republic of Letters Books, Mineral Point’s independent bookstore, for our 2026 reading series, with additional programming at the Mineral Point Public Library, and Rountree Gallery in Platteville, Wisconsin. Unless noted, readings will be held at Republic of Letters Books, 151 High St., Mineral Point, at 6 p.m. 

Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley has partnered with a number of Wisconsin writing organizations to provide residencies to their annual writing contest winners. For 2026, these organizations include Wisconsin People & Ideas, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission through the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Arts + Literature Laboratory. and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

From January to March, writers stay in Shake Rag Alley’s inspiring lodging facilities surrounded by the nurturing environment of historic Mineral Point’s artistic community. Visiting writers participate in community outreach activities, including readings, workshops, and school visits. See the full schedule to enjoy the chance to meet award-winning authors during the upcoming free Winter Writers Reading Series. More information available at www.ShakeRagAlley.org/writers-reading-series/ 

Thursday, Jan. 15: Elizabeth Hendricks & Alison Thumel

Elizabeth Hendricks was awarded the Wisconsin People & Ideas Fiction Award. Elizabeth Hendricks is from New Berlin and currently a junior at the University of Iowa. An aspiring fantasy author, she works as the web editor for Earthwords Undergraduate Literary Review, the oldest literary magazine on campus. When she isn’t writing, she loves reading, drawing, and spending time in nature. 

Alison Thumel was awarded the Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Award. Alison Thumel’s debut poetry collection, Architect, won the 2024 Miller Williams Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2025 Kate Tufts Poetry Award. She is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in poetry at Stanford University, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the Martha Meier Renk Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she completed her MFA. Her poems have appeared widely, including in Poetry, Ploughshares, and the New England Review. She lives and writes in Wisconsin.