J. Michael Matkin is an Episcopal priest, author, and lifelong explorer of the places where faith and imagination meet. He’s the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Gnostic Gospels and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Early Christianity, and previously founded The Brendan Center, a public institute devoted to nurturing an incarnational Christian presence in daily life. Michael has spent more than thirty years in ministry, moving from church planting to parish life, and he remains fascinated by how stories—ancient or modern—shape who we are and what we believe. When he’s not reading or writing about myth and the social imaginary, you’ll likely find him rolling dice around a tabletop game, immersed in a good fantasy novel, or sharing conversation and coffee in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he lives with his wife, Christine.

 

Stasha Cole is a PhD student in literature at The University of Tulsa studying 19th century environmentalism. Her dissertation will focus on the mountain motif as a central example of ecological kinship and the eco-spiritual by spotlighting authors such as Vernon Lee and Algernon Blackwood. Stasha is the editorial assistant for Nimrod International Journal. Her academic work has been published in Pascal Theatre Company’s Women for Women: 19th Century Women in Bloomsbury Online Project, the Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature,  and Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism. Her poetry and photography have been published in literary journals such as Anodyne, Poetry South, Susurrus, Pinch, The Rumen, Constellations, and elsewhere.

 

Carter Johansen is a current junior at the University of Tulsa majoring in English Literature and Philosophy with minors in Psychology and Historical Trauma and Transformation. Throughout his undergraduate career, Carter has been selected to be a participant in the Fulbright Summer Institute at the University of Bristol, a Humanities at Hertog Student Fellow, and a University Ambassador. All of these opportunities have inspired Carter to continue exploring various perspectives regarding English Literature and the power of storytelling. As a myth fellow, Carter looks forward to examining the origin and telos of myth with esteemed faculty, public thinkers, and peers.

 

 

 

Meagan Mulgrew is a theatre director, dramaturg, playwright, actor, and arts administrator based in Tulsa. She is the Executive Artistic Director of Riffraff Tulsa, a local theatre company that specializes in intimate, immersive productions in nontraditional spaces. She has worked professionally with arts organizations nationally and abroad, including American Song Archives, Tulsa Ballet, Portland Center Stage, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and London International Festival of Theatre. She holds a BFA in Performing Arts and Creative Writing from Savannah College of Art and Design, well as a MA in Theatre Criticism and Dramaturgy from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Dramaturgically, Meagan is interested in adaptation and translation development, ancient theatre, the representation of trauma and grief on stage, aesthetics of the audience, and community building within collaborative art forms. Riffraff Tulsa’s upcoming production of Antigone & Ismene, Meagan’s adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, is currently being developed in partnership with Oklahoma Center for the Humanities and will have its world premiere in April 2026 at 101 Archer. For more information on Riffraff Tulsa’s work, please visit riffrafftulsa.org.

 

Anjelica Lindsey is a classical composer, violinist, and recording artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her work is concerned with language revitalization, cultural reclamation, and the sonic expression of identity through immersive and emotionally resonant composition. She has premiered original works with her Oklahoma Woman Ensemble and produced projects through her production headquarters, Wild Mountain Studios. She has also developed compositions through private readings at Juilliard and guest engagements at institutions including the University of Tulsa.
In 2025, she became the first Cherokee woman to premiere a string quartet and was named a Public Fellow of the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities. Her compositions explore themes of romantic minimalism, cultural memory, and Native storytelling—blending contemporary classical music with voice, electronics, and lived experience. Lindsey studied music composition and scoring to picture through the Juilliard School and works under the mentorship of Dr. Daniel Felsenfeld. Additionally, her childhood studies with renowned Cherokee artist Shan Goshorn shaped her artistic voice. She is the 2024 recipient of the Artists Creative Fund grant and continues to develop new works for full orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice, and film, including REQUIEM—the first ever composed in the Cherokee language.

 

Robert Sheaff is an associate professor of Biochemistry at The University of Tulsa. His research focuses on identification and characterization of novel therapeutic drugs from natural products and synthetic libraries. More recently he has utilized Apis mellifera  (the honey bee)—in collaboration with Dr. Harrington Wells, Dept. of Biology, TU and Dr. Charles Abramson, Dept. of Psychology, Oklahoma State—as a model organism to investigate drug activity on bee behavior and biochemistry. In the distant past he received a B.A. in Philosophy, which accounts in part for his continued interest in the arts and humanities. He is exploring the idea that far from being anti-myth, scientists are in fact deeply immersed in myth generation to explain the natural world.

 

 

Alyx Swope-Bell is a 4^th year student at the University of Tulsa pursuing a BA in Classics, with a focus in Latin. Her degree coursework is complemented by minors in Contemporary English and Anthropology. Her current research project explores the politics of Greek tragedy, both in its original context and its modern adaptations

 

 

Bruce D. MacQueen, Ph.D., is applied associate professor of classics and comparative literature in The University of Tulsa’s School of Language & Literature. MacQueen works in ancient Greek and Latin language and literature (traditionally, “the classics”), and has also taught and done research in the field of neurolinguistics (how the brain controls language). From 1992 to 2012, he lived and worked in Poland, and still speaks fluent Polish (which had a major effect on how he teaches Latin and Greek). He also has more than 20 publications listed in PubMed.