Member Bios

Nancy Thatcher Cerny was raised in Illinois where she attended school, was a Patricia Stevens model and concert violinist, wife and mother of four. Always reading, writing and studying, Nancy’s education resulting in a CAC, BA and MS while holding jobs from Park Secretary and director of a halfway house to Marketing Coordinator. As a health services liaison with business, Nancy was a public speaker, organizing seminars and developing conferences. She designed research projects, writing results and educational brochures as well as co-producing videotaped PSAs.

Moving to Arkansas, Nancy taught business and personal development courses at the local college. Retired, she writes biographies and short stories based on life experience and family history for publication while developing more comprehensive works of fiction and non-fiction. Nancy is currently president of TwinLakesWriters.

J. Wiley Russell

(wileyrussell.com)

Prior to returning to the United States in 1995, Wiley Russell lived and worked in Noordwijk, Holland. For two years he was employed as an instructor with the Halliburton Europe/Africa Learning Center; a service organization to the petroleum industry. He was responsible for creating and presenting specialized training courses to a wide variety of nationalities.

Before transferring to Holland, Wiley worked for Otis Engineering in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. During his four and a half years there, he often worked in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and North Yemen. While residing in Dubai, he would periodically travel to India and serve as a supervisor to the offshore industry.

During the early 1980’s Mr. Russell worked in the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma, occasionally working in Alaska, Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Mexico on specialized jobs.

Upon leaving the petroleum industry and arriving back in the United States, Wiley took an extended vacation, then began work on his first book, titled: Sandscript: Strange Memoirs From the Middle East. While seeking representation for the manuscript he wrote two screenplays.

His first novel Izard County Badlands was self-published in the spring of 2006.

Emmit D. Acklin

Emmit is a native of Baxter County, and the seventh generation of his family to live in the White River Country.

He started to work in the Oil Fields of New Mexico in 1952; later spent ten years with Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, then went into Heavy Construction building Navigational Locks and Dams. He hired on as a common labor using a pick and shovel, worked his way up through several positions of responsibility to that foreman, General Foreman, then on to Labor Superintendent. He finished up his construction career running the entire night shift on his last two jobs. His work took him from Alaska to Florida and many states in between.

Since retiring he wrote his autobiography for his daughters. Having developed an interest in writing he decided to write some articles on history. He wrote two small books on the history of this area; Two Novels set here in the hills and dozens of little short stories, some of which were published in THE WHITE RIVER CURRENT, published in Calico Rock, Arkansas.