Chris Keller returns as SWG President for 2026. He has served two terms in the past as president (2020-2021).
He has served as Director at Large (2024) and Vice President (2018-2019). He also serves on the Between the Pages Writers’ Conference Board of Directors for a fifth consecutive year (2020-2023) as Master of Ceremonies.
Professionally, Chris is a Social Science instructor at Pleasant Hope High School where he has written and designed curriculum for eight classes. Chris earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Social Science Education at Southwest Baptist University. While working toward his degrees, he served as the sports and managing editor of the Omnibus, SBU’s student newspaper. He received multiple awards for his writing from the Missouri College Media Association and was an MCMA Journalist of the Year finalist in 1990. He also received the MCMA Advisor of the Year Award in 2007. Transitioning to a career in broadcasting after college, Chris became the news/sports director and station manager at Missouri radio stations KBFL, KHST, KRLK, and KYOO where he received the Missouri Broadcasters Association’s Excellence in Sports Broadcasting Award in 1993. In 2000, Chris returned to SBU where he served on staff in multiple departments.
Chris is currently working on two novels (science fiction and romance), a children’s book, and four songs he hopes to include in his books.
Chris Howald, Fantasy Author, serves on the SWG Board in his second term as Vice President and Farmers’ Market Coordinator.
Whether it’s recreating movie plots, roleplaying in battles, or coming up with hairbrained ideas among friends, Chris has always been a story creator.
The love of creating new things pushed him down a wandering path through construction and home design, into a Mechanical Engineering degree, landing him in systems and automation engineering. Along the way the love of reading and the desire to create stories of his own persisted, until he and Jared finally decided to put pen to paper and get serious about sharing the story they’d been toying with for almost twenty years with the rest of the world. Chris co-wrote a fantasy novel in 2024 along with Jared Lovelady, The Durodim Chronicles, Book I in the series.
Chris is the tenth child in a family of twenty-one (twelve girls, nine boys, no twins). Perhaps this being a middle-among-middles created a need for attention, or maybe he’s just always been weird. Whatever the cause, he does not shy away from sharing his weirdness with others, inviting those around him to come along for the ride.
Jan Bailey is serving her second term as SWG Secretary.
Jan Cole Bailey has acquired a vast array of experience, having called forty-two different houses across twenty-nine towns and five states home.
She served as an elementary teacher for thirty-five years, sharing the joy of literature with eager young minds. Now, she is using those decades of experience and her many life adventures to write stories that spark curiosity and inspire a love of learning in children. Jan published two children’s picture books, Gerald the Dust Bunny: The Wild Ride, and Gerald the Dust Bunny: The Rescue. Jan markets her books by scheduling reading sessions in elementary schools, where Gerald comes alive to the children as she reads. She looks forward to publishing many more books to stimulate the imagination of children.
Jan lives in Southwest Missouri, where she enjoys spending time
reading, writing, and creating memories with her family, especially during adventures with her grandsons.
David Reed joins the Springfield Writers Guild Board as Treasurer in 2026.
Reed is a veteran and a retired criminal investigator who channels real-world experience into taut, hard-edged storytelling that grips from the first line and cuts deeper with every page. His work is steeped in authenticity, grit, and the raw choices that reveal the best and the worst of us. He spent forty years in law enforcement, sixteen of them leading a major crimes unit.
If you went dead in his city, your ghost now haunts the pages of his novels. David writes criminal suspense novels. His recent books: Cold, Dark, and Silent and The Blockade Runners draw from actual police cases. His next release, The Elite Watch, arrives soon.
Jaime Cole (aka Ann Stang) is the Director at Large of the Guild and has been a member since 2017. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Studies from Evangel University. Cole writes Christian cozy mysteries and children’s stories. She has served two terms as SWG treasurer (2024-2025).
Since 2016, she has independently published 16 books: All I Want for Christmas is an Alibi; Murder Under Wraps: A Christmas Cozy Mystery, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder, Just a Cozy Murder in the Woods, Christmas on the Lam, Rewriting Christmas: A Hopeful Tale, Three Can Keep a Secret if Two of Them Are Dead, Oh What a Tangled Death We Weave, 25 Miles to Empty, My Crazy Blind Date Blog, Undercover Faux Fiancée, Bait 4 a Trap, Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, The Further (Mis) Adventures of Franky the Little Red Dachshund, The Great Cookie Caper and Other Stories, and Stories for the Beach, a collection of award-winning short stories-many inspired by the SWG contests.
Currently, she’s working on her cozy mysteries series and a third volume about the adventures of Franky, a little red dachshund inspired by the doxies who keep her company while she writes. Find her books here.
APPOINTED OFFICERS
The SWG President may appoint people for special offices in the Springfield Writers Guild.
**C.A. Simonson serves as Webmaster for springfieldwritersguild.org
**Kim Brixey creates the monthly SWG Newsletter.
**Nick Weyland has faithfully served as Mentor Hour Coordinator for almost twenty years.
**Lynn Combs creates the seasonal contest content and tallies votes. She also sends out the monthly Mentor Hour submissions to members.
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