LaMoine MacLaughlin is the Wisconsin Writers Association appointee to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and co-founder/Executive Director of the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts and the Northern Lakes School of the Arts in Amery, Wisconsin. The Center has been included in the book, The 100 Best Small Arts Towns in America, and described by the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Arts Board as “ . . . One of Wisconsin’s most vibrant arts organizations.” An active writer, he is also coordinator of the Northern Lakes Writers’ Guild and editor of The Hometown Gazette, a newspaper serving the Clayton/Amery, Wisconsin area. His earliest memories of his own writing take him back to seventh grade, where several of his poems moved fellow students. The remainder of his formal education focused upon writing and resulted in undergraduate and graduate degrees. MacLaughlin taught English for nearly ten years following graduation. MacLaughlin has been very active in larger arts circles as President of the Wisconsin Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, as national co-chair of the rural and small community interest area of Americans for the Arts, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. In 1996, he and his wife, Mary Ellen, received the Wisconsin Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts, and in 1999, the Rural Genius Award from the Front Porch Institute. In 2003, MacLaughlin was appointed first Poet Laureate of Amery, Wisconsin. MacLaughlin is poetry editor of the regional cultural magazine, What’s Playing?, and the Wisconsin Regional Writers’ Association Journal. He was elected President of the Wisconsin Writers Association in September, 2009. In 2009 his poems were published in the collection, A Scent of Lilac and other poems, in 2011, Lyra, and in 2012, Secrets from the Wings.
