Contributors
Steven Aliano is a northern New Jersey-based writer. He received his B.A. in Communications from Ramapo College of New Jersey, studying under the likes of Valerie Wilson Wesley, Benilde Little, and James Hoch. He is the former founder and editor-in-chief of Birch Gang Review and will challenge anyone to a game of basketball, Connect Four, or Burnout Revenge.
Gay Baines lives in East Aurora, New York, and is a member of the Roycroft Wordsmiths. She has a B.A. in English from Russell Sage College and has done graduate work at Syracuse University and SUNY - Buffalo. She won the National Writers Union Poetry Prize in 1991, Honorable Mention in the Ruth Cable Memorial Poetry Contest in 1996, and the 2008 Mary Roelofs Stott Award for poetry, as well as other prizes. Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in over 50 literary journals, including 13th Moon, Alabama Literary, Amarillo Bay, Anemone Sidecar, apt, Atlanta Review, The Baltimore Review, Bayou, Burningword Literary Journal, Caveat Lector, Cimarron Review, Cloudbank, Confluence, Confrontation, Controlled Burn, Crack the Spine, Crate Literary Magazine, Dislocate, East Jasmine Review, Eclectica, Eclipse, Edison Literary Review, The Evansville Review, Fifth Wednesday, Forge, Grey Sparrow, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Hypertext Magazine, Jabberwock Review, Louisiana Literature, Nimrod International Journal, Oregon East, Phoebe, The Pinch, poemmemoirstory, Poet Lore, Queen’s Quarterly, Quiddity Literary Journal, RE:AL, Rosebud, Serving House Journal, Slipstream, South Carolina Review, Talking River, The Tampa Review, The Texas Review, Tiger’s Eye, Verdad, Westview, Whiskey Island, Willow Review, Wisconsin Review, and Zone 3.
Donny Barilla, born in Dallas, Texas, weaves around common themes, such as: mythology, nature, human intimacy, and theology. Writing on a daily basis, he engages in the beautiful landscapes that surround him in his home of Pennsylvania. He currently works on his next book and has published in numerous journals and magazines.
Brittany Baum is a recent graduate of Spalding University's MFA program.
Carroll Beauvais' poetry and fiction has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, Wisconsin Review, Juked, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection, Dog River, has been a finalist for the Brittingham and Felix Pollack Poetry Prizes from the University of Wisconsin Press and a semi-finalist for the Beatrice Hawley Prize from Alice James Books. She holds her MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, where she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship and the Hayden Carruth Poetry Prize and also served as Interim Associate Director of the Creative Writing Program. Currently, she teaches writing at Boston University and tutors middle and high school students who need support with writing, reading, and executive function.
Michael Carrino holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College. He is a retired English lecturer at the State University College at Plattsburgh, New York, where he was co-founder and poetry editor of the Saranac Review. His publications include Some Rescues (New Poets Series, Inc.), Under This Combustible Sky (Mellen Poetry Press), Café Sonata (Brown Pepper Press), Autumn’s Return to the Maple Pavilion (Conestoga Press), By Available Light (Guernica Editions), and Always Close, Forever Careless (Kelsay Books), as well as individual poems in numerous journals and reviews.
James Christian is an aspiring professional artist from the Cayman Islands. He is a digital and a traditional artist. He freelances with his traditional and digital illustrations, taking online commissions or working with other personal projects. He has been engrafted into a more naturalistic artistic sense, so when it comes to landscape material work, this is truly his strongest area which he enthusiastically engage in.
Lilah Clay is a writer, poet, and survivor of chronic Lyme. Her poems have been published in World Literature Today, Splash of Red, Her Circle, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Marco Polo Arts Mag, and Ascent. Her current collection of poetry Bed, Window... Sky explores the imaginal realm of the last twenty months she has spent mostly in bed healing from a back injury.
Judith Cody’s poetry is published in over 135 journals, and has won many national awards, including second prize in the national Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. Her poem is in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection, in Spanish and English. Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts selected her poem from a competitive group from around the world for exhibition in a featured art gallery installation. Her poetry chapbook was a finalist in Bright Hills Press’s national competition. She has won Atlantic Monthly and Amelia awards; her poems were quarter-finalists in the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry and were cited for honorable mentions by the National League of American Pen Women. She edited the PEN Oakland anthology Fightin’ Words and wrote the internationally notable biography of composer Vivian Fine: A Bio-Bibliography and Eight Frames Eight. Her work is seen in many anthologies and poems appear in journals such as: Carbon Culture Review, Nimrod International Journal, New York Quarterly, Stand, South Carolina Review, Texas Review, Fugue, Clare, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Montreal Review, Fox Cry Review, Louisville Review, The Offbeat, Madison Review, Phoebe, Quiddity, Primavera, Poet Lore, Poem, Xavier Review, Hiram Poetry Review, The Cape Rock, Citron Review, Ignatian, The Brooklyn Review, Penmen Review, Splash of Red, Soundings East, Vox Poetica, Westview, Caduceus, Chaffin Journal, Arabesques Review, Laurel Review, Androgyne, Chaparral, Forge, Abstract: Contemporary Expression, Qwerty, Tiger’s Eye Journal, The Tower Journal, Lyrical Passion Poetry E-zine, Cloudbank, Vending Machine Press, Willard & Maple, Third Wednesday, and others.
J.E. Crum is a fantasy artist who creates vivid works, often inspired by mythological stories. Working intuitively, Crum creates personal narratives related to personal views and thoughts about fate, destiny and the meaning of dreams. The artist shows her work in a variety of exhibitions and some of her artwork has been published in over twenty online journals. J.E. has also donated her art for charity events such as to help the homeless; she enjoys making others happy through the power of art. Crum also enjoys working as an elementary art teacher where she teaches nearly 1,000 children a week in Pennsylvania where she resides.
Steve Denehan lives in Kildare, Ireland with his wife Eimear and daughter Robin. He has been published in The First Literary Review, Better Than Starbucks, Fowl Feathered Review, as a "microchapbook" as part of the Origami Poems Project, Dual Coast, The Opiate, Sky Island Journal, Poetry Quarterly and many others. His poems are to be published in upcoming issues of Evening Street Review, The Folded Word, Ink In Thirds and Third Wednesday. One of his poems was recently shortlisted for the Ireland Poetry Day Competition.
Kevin Drzakowski is the chair of the English and Philosophy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where he teaches creative writing and composition. His plays have been performed in the Midwest and in New York City, and his poetry and prose have appeared in magazines such as Spectrum, Five2One, Adelaide, and The Wisconsin Review. While in graduate school, he served as the Drama Editor for Third Coast literary magazine, and he is currently one of the editors of the online journal HitchLit.
Charles Elin worked with the late writer/editor Larry Fagin, from January 2012 until his recent death. Larry published a chapbook of his poems and stories, Itself, in 2014. Then added two other stories to his 2016 magazine, The Delineator. Flash fiction pieces have been published by Columbia Journal, Corium Magazine and Midway Journal.
Laine Feicht is a writer, traveler, and linguist who finds inspiration in the oddballs and hidden crannies along the road. She has a BA and MA in Linguistics, has seen much of the world, but is eager for more, and spends static time in the Sierras of California and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Other stories have been published in Blue Lake Review, Torrid Literature, Pilcrow and Dagger, Scarlet Leaf, and Literary Nest.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Harpur Palate, the Hawaii Review and Visions International.
Sally Payson Hays has an extensive background as a professional writer—of successful grant proposals, of academic papers, as a copywriter for WildBrain, Inc., and for John Hays Studios (known most recently for work on the James Franco film Howl). She has many graduate degrees (MA in Creative Writing and Literature from CU Boulder; MS. Ed. in Educational Psychology from USC; PhD in Cognitive Development from UC Berkeley). She has worked in public and private schools; in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF helping to design an online education program for returning veterans and as a researcher in the family therapy program; and is currently the Lead Psychologist/Program Specialist/Clinical Supervisor at Jefferson Union High School District where she trains pre- and post-doctoral candidates for licensure as psychologists. When not writing, teaching, or working in her private practice, she’s also the busy mother of two sons, ages 18 and 20.
Geoffrey Heptonstall is the author of a novel, Heaven's Invention [Black Wolf 2017]. Recent fiction includes Something French [Scarlet Leaf Review]. An essay, "A Book of Marvels," is scheduled for publication in Front Porch Review. Recent poetry appeared in The Drunken Llama.
Dwight R. Hilson is a onetime businessperson now writing through the midlife crisis, an effort that has allowed him to rediscover the joy of creativity he first enjoyed at Boston University (B.S. in Public Communication, 1981), and also to accept the terms of time and fate. For 25 years he built and managed companies, a journey that began with a marketing internship at a telecommunications company that led to a private equity firm, where he managed a short-line railroad in New Hampshire, received an MBA from Northwestern University (1984), operated a Chicago restaurant, and went on to manage deals in real estate, grain transportation, and video marketing before founding a video and DVD publishing and distribution company, Goldhil Home Media, in 1991. These experiences led him on a somewhat nomadic existence—Boston, New Hampshire, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and New York City. But for most of the past 30 years he’s lived with his wife in Greenwich, Connecticut (his daughter now not far away in NYC). Selling his company provided an opportunity to reevaluate priorities, and in a moment of kismet he entered the Masters of Arts in Writing program at Manhattanville College (MAW, 2009), and more recently, completed an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2015. Thus far, writing has helped guide him through midlife, enhanced a wonderful marriage (his wife is a fabulous editor!), and has also resulted in his short fiction and poetry being published or forthcoming in The Alembic, Chaffin Journal, Coe Review, Colere, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Moon City Review, riverSedge, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Summerset Review, and Valparaiso Fiction Review. He remains committed to the literary life and in addition to new short stories he’s also nearing completion of two novels.
James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Columbia Journal, Hobart, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle, a poetry journal, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Find more at jimjakk.com.
Donna James’ writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Cape Rock, Carbon Culture Review, Kyoto Journal, and Grief Dialogues: The Book, vol. 2. She participated in the Salish Sea Writers Group classes with Brenda Peterson for five years. She also attended the Centrum Writers Workshops with Kim Addonizio and Gary Copeland Lilley, and the Poets on the Coast Writing Retreats with Susan Rich and Kelli Russell Agodon. She has a PhD in clinical psychology from The Fielding Graduate Institute, and an MA in English literature from the University of Washington. She has been in private practice as a psychotherapist for thirty-five years. Her free time she spends with friends, visiting art museums and galleries, learning about different cultures, cooking, and reading—she’s often in the middle of five books at once.
F. X. James is an oddball British expat writing from the flatlands of middle America. When he’s not dissolving in the midst of a savage summer or fattening up for the next brutal winter, he’s writing poems and stories on the backs of unpaid utility bills and drinking too much dark ale. He has had words printed in many a magazine, and on a sober day can tell a bison from a handsaw.
Gwen Namainga Jones grew up in Zambia, attended boarding schools in central Zambia and England, and moved to the United States, where she has lived since 1999. Before immigrating to the United States, she was the co-founder of the Zimbabwe Convention Bureau. Recently, she formed Baobridge Social Investment Consultancy, which connects impact investors to BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) entrepreneurs in Zambia, Africa. In her spare time, she enjoys cycling, swimming, and yoga.
In 2018, Rosalind Kaliden published her first full-length book, Trysting with the Divine, a collection of ekphrastic poems. Her poetry appeared in Obsidian in 2018. Her poetry appeared in Caterpillar in Ireland in 2017 and in Gemini Magazine, Jelly Bucket, The MacGuffin, Valparaiso Review, Moon City Review, The Hollins Critic, and Quiet Lunch. In 2016, she published her first chapbook, Arriving Sideways, with John Gosslee Books. In 2015, Dappled Things and others featured her poetry and essay. In 2014, her poetry and essay appeared in the anthology The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). She is currently working on a memoir, Five Point Storm.
After receiving her master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Amy Kite worked as the managing editor of a regional travel magazine, and has had numerous magazine articles published. She has also published a book of poetry entitled Love, Lust and Lunacy: A Poet’s Inner Dialogue. She received a Mom’s Choice Award for my children’s book, Cancer, Cancer Go Away. Her poetry has appeared in Carbon Culture Review, Mused – theBellaOnline Literary Review, The Paragon Press, and Umbrella Factory Magazine. In addition to being a mom to three children and three rescue dogs, she is also a private tutor, public speaker, and freelance writer.
Myron S. Lubell was born in Chicago and moved to Miami Beach, Florida as a child. He received a BBA and MBA from the University of Miami and a PhD in Accounting from the University of Maryland. He was a professor at Florida International University for 32 years, and was also a weekly columnist for the Miami Herald. He published over 70 Tax and Accounting articles in academic and professional journals and was a contributing author in 12 textbooks. In 2013 he published his first novel, THE SIXTH BOROUGH, about life in Miami Beach, Florida in the 1950s. He is presently working on his second novel – THE KESSLER CROSSING – a social satire/thriller.
DS Maolalai is a poet from Ireland who has been writing and publishing poetry for almost 10 years. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press, and he has a second collection forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019. He has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
Ewa Mazierska is historian of film and popular music, who writes short stories in her spare time. Several of them were published in literary magazines: The Longshot Island, The Adelaide Magazine, The Fiction Pool, Literally Stories, Ragazine, Shark Reef and Terror House Magazine. Ewa lives in Lancashire, UK.
Sam Moore has been writing for several years, working in music journalism, essays, short stories, poetry, and comics. He plays in a punk band from the Flint area called Copneconic and slings coffee as a barista when he’s not writing.
Alexander Payne Morgan has been published in The MacGuffin, Crack The Spine, Peninsula Poets, Sequestrum, and Dunes Review, among others. He was awarded the 2016 Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry by Bayou Magazine as well as first prize for poetry in the Springfed Arts writing contest in 2015. His chapbook Loneliness Among Primates was published in 2018 by Kelsay Books. Alexander has participated in workshops with the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. He’s a member of the Detroit Writers’ Guild, Michigan Writers, and the Poetry Society of Michigan.
Suzanne O’Connell is a poet living in Los Angeles. Her recently published work can be found in North American Review, Poet Lore, The Menacing Hedge, North American Review, Steam Ticket, Rubbertop Review, Door is a Jar, Paperplates Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, American Chordata, Alembic, and Forge. O’Connell was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her first poetry collection, A Prayer For Torn Stockings, was published by Garden Oak Press in 2016.
Simon Perchik’s poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.
Stella Santamaria’s poetry has been published in The Stray Branch. She attended the Hedgebrook Writing Workshop and the Zelda Glazer Writing Institute. She performed spoken word in New York City (2009) for the Ultimate Latina Festival at the Nuyorican Poets Café. That same year she was interviewed for the CNN documentary Latino in America to talk about her experience as a Latina artist. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California, studying with Brenda Hillman, past Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She works as a freelance writer and developmental copy editor as well.
Mary Schmitt is a widow, mother, and grandmother, a midwestern poet who has lived in both urban and rural areas of Michigan. Since graduating from Wayne State University in Detroit with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, she has written poetry, short short stories and flash fiction. She has been published several times in The MacGuffin, most recently in their Winter 2018 issue, and has been recognized as first place winner in their annual Poet Hunt Contest (2010). In addition, she is a member of Springfed Arts, a southeastern Michigan writing organization, and won first place in their 2014 Poetry Contest. For over 30 years, she worked as an English and English as a Second Language tutor at corporate, university, community college, and adult education levels, often incorporating American and English poetry into her lessons as a way of building appreciation for western culture and the rhythms of American speech. Now retired, she is an active member of a sanctuary group at her church, assisting with the legal, housing, and language difficulties of central American immigrants. Reading and writing poetry has, for years, provided her with a sense of resilience, perspective, inclusiveness and, at times, solace.
Mark Trechock writes from western North Dakota, where he is retired from a career in rural community organizing. he published his first poem in 1974, took a 20-year hiatus from poetry, then started writing and publishing again three years ago. Recently his poems have appeared in Visitant, Evening Street Review and Monday night and other publications.
David Weinholtz writes “It's as simple as this, I have to create. Whether it be creation via drawing or painting, it is in my marrow, and has been ever since I was a child. Truthfully, I have no clue why or where the impulse began, but I have followed it and tried my best to stay true to it throughout my life. Everything from Logical Thoughts, Observations, Spirituality and Mysticism, Diverse Muses, Messy Complicated Emotions, and Gonzo Curiosities act as impetuses in my creative process, and have resulted in me pursuing several different drawing and painting genres. Each drawing and painting I create does have a personal story, and if asked I'm sure I could unfurl a flowery digression on the psychology of each piece, but underneath it all, it is very simple: a pure unquenchable desire to create. I have exhibited and sold work throughout America, in private and juried shows. Additionally, I am frequently commissioned by patrons to create anything from abstract pieces, to portraits and landscapes.”
Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016). She has also written a novel, Fall Love, which is now available in Spanish translation as Amigos y amantes by Compton Press. Recent honors include 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com
Bill Wolak has just published his fifteenth book of poetry entitled The Nakedness Defense with Ekstasis Editions. His collages have appeared recently in Naked in New Hope 2017, The 2017 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, Poetic Illusion, The Riverside Gallery, Hackensack, NJ, the 2018 Dirty Show in Detroit, 2018 The Rochester Erotic Arts Festival, and The 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival.
Lorna Wood is a violinist and writer in Auburn, Alabama, with a Ph.D. in English from Yale. She was a finalist in the 2017 Jerry Jazz Musician contest, the 2016 Neoverse Short Story Competition, and the SHARKPACK Poetry Review’s Valus’ Sigil competition. Wood’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Spectacle, formercactus, Jerry Jazz Musician, Every Day Fiction, Mysterical-E, Deadman’s Tome, Between Worlds Zine, Dark Magic (Owl Hollow Press anthology), No Extra Words, Wild Violet, and Blue Monday Review, among others. She is Associate Editor of Gemini Magazine and has also published creative nonfiction, poetry, and scholarly essays.
