Millie Copper, President

Millie Copper writes bestselling thrillers that bring a bold, unexpected take to the end-of-the-world genre, where survival is never simple and nothing unfolds as expected.

Mom to five, Millie lives with her husband and teenage son on a small Wyoming homestead where they raise chickens and work toward building a food forest. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, trail running, camping, and spoiling her seven grandkids. 

Since 2009, Millie has authored articles on traditional foods, alternative health, homesteading, and preparedness—many times all within the same piece. Millie has penned nine nonfiction, traditional food focused books.

In 2019, Millie published her bestselling Christian Post-Apocalyptic series Havoc in Wyoming. She’s since written five more series, drawing from her off-grid, preparedness lifestyle. She publishes under her own imprint, CU Publishing, and also writes for Raventhorne Books in their popular October Fall and As The Light Dies worlds. She’s currently contracted with Aethon Books for a three-book series. 

Heather Pristash, Vice President

Dr. Heather Pristash is in her second writing-related life: being an English professor. She is entering her sixteenth year of teaching composition, literature, and creative writing at Western Wyoming Community College. Before her turn to academia, she was a writer and editor in the corporate and freelance worlds, working on a number of licensed products and ghostwritten projects. In the time away from her full-time work and her own writing, her major pastime is community theatre.

Rebecca Fuentes has a degree in education from the University of Wyoming and has taught 7th-grade English in both Wyoming and Texas. She can still spot a prepositional phrase at ten paces and knows where to put the commas. Over the past four years, she has had ten short fantasy romance stories published in two indie anthologies. She is a hobby artist and volunteers in her community. Her husband, six children, old dog, and spoiled cats live with her in southeastern Wyoming.

Sarah Reichert, Awards and Scholarships

Sarah Reichert (S.E. Reichert) is an award-winning novelist, poet, mentor and blogger. She is the author of the award nominated “No Words After I Love You”, and the Sweet Valley Series (Colorado Book Awards, Pencraft Book Award, Literary Titan Award). She is currently contracted with 5 Prince Publishing for two more series. Her work has been featured in The Fort Collins Coloradoan, Haunted Waters Press, “Sunrise Summits: A Poetry Anthology”, “Rise: An Anthology of Change”, Poetry Ireland Review, and “We Are The West: A Colorado Anthology” among other journals across the country. Her novella, “Saturn Rising” was produced as a five-part audiocast from Ngano Press Studios

Reichert is the Director for Writing Heights Writers Association. Her organization is committed to helping authors through education and connection, while building a happy and healthy writing community. Reichert lives in Fort Collins with her family. In her non-writing hours, she is a mother to two teenage girls, loves being outdoors, and is a 2nd degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate JuJitsu.

Roger Carpenter, Publicity

Roger Carpenter is a seasoned marketing specialist with extensive experience in branding, advertising, and corporate communications. Building a strong referral-based design business in Los Angeles, he developed a team of creative thinkers who successfully competed against larger agencies — and won. Roger is responsible for the look of many classic films including “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Citizen Kane.”

Roger designed for the home entertainment divisions of Warner Bros, Universal Studios, Twentieth Century Fox and Disney. His corporate clients include Infinity Audio, THX, JBL Professional Speakers, Eldon/Rubbermaid Office Products, Sheshunoff Banking Services, First Interstate Bank, PacifiCare and Xerox Business Research Center to name a few.

Heidi Herman, Treasurer

Heidi Herman is an indie-published author of eleven books across four genres, including Women’s Fiction, Non-fiction, YA, and Children’s books, whose path to writing was paved by a lifelong love of reading and a career as rich as her storytelling.

After thirty years as a top-tier telecommunications cost management consultant, Heidi channeled her broad business expertise into entrepreneurship, running a successful restaurant before co-founding Hekla Publishing with her mother, a fellow author, to promote and distribute their combined titles celebrating their Icelandic heritage, later adding the imprint Pink Viking Press, dedicated to women’s fiction.

Her work has earned notable recognition, including 2017 and 2025 US Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, a 2026 IPPY Silver in Cookbooks, a 2018 Foreword INDIES Gold in Romance, a B.R.A.G. Medallion for her motivational non-fiction, On With the Butter!, and was named a 2018 American Fiction Award Finalist in Chick Lit/Women’s Lit.

A South Dakota resident and part-time Arizona snowbird, in addition to the Wyoming Writers, Heidi is a member of the Arizona Authors Association, the Non-Fiction Authors Association, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Western Writers of America, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. These days, Heidi balances nonprofit work with writing women's fiction, supporting fellow indie authors on their publishing journeys, public speaking, travel, and always making time for new recipe experiments in the kitchen.

Reatha Thomas Oakley, Member At Large

Reatha, looking in a mirror and seeing her mother, says her writing is influenced by birth and childhood in St. Augustine, Florida, and adulthood in the West. 

While a non-profit executive for organizations such as Rocky Mountain College, Billings Symphony, Florida Audubon, and Big Brothers Big Sisters in Montana and Florida, her writing included grant proposals, newsletters, solicitations, and presentations at regional and national conferences. 

In 2015, Reatha returned to creative writing. Embracing Pat Schneider’s definition of writing as memory plus imagination has resulted in multiple awards, including two from Wyoming Arts Council, three from Writers’ Digest, several from WyoPoets, and twenty-nine from Wyoming Writers. A play was recently published, and her debut novel is finished, finally.

Reatha lives in Gillette, with husband Don, an award-winning and published poet. They are active members of Prairie Pens’ writers’ group. Her sons, Ken Thorpe, Sheridan, and Matthew Thorpe, Sao Paulo, Brazil, are involved with the arts as avocation and vocation.