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Contributors

Joy Wright Abbott is a writer and land use planner based in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry on-line, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Carlow University’s Voices from the Attic Anthology and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Geoffrey Aitken [he/him] writes on Adelaide’s unceded Kaurna land, an awarded minimalist poet communicating his ‘lived experience disability’ for publishers [AUS] and [UK, US, HR, CAN, FR & CN]. Recently,Verge Anthology’ – [Monash Uni AUS] & ‘Underbelly Press’ [UK], soon at, ‘Social Alternatives’ [AUS]. Nominated Best of the Net in 2022.

Daisy Bassen is a poet and community child psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Salamander, McSweeney’s, Smartish Pace, Plume, New York Quarterly, and [PANK] among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, and the 2022 Erskine J Poetry Prize. She was nominated for the 2019, 2021, and 2022 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019, 2020, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. She is a reader for The Maine Review and The Ocean State Review. Born and raised in New York, she lives in Rhode Island with her family. Her fiction is represented by Jennifer Lyons of Jennifer Lyons Agency.

 

Oreste Belletto is 53, and living in San Francisco. He has a master's in poetry from UC Davis. He has had poems published in Byline Magazine, Exquisite Corpse, The Lilliput Review, and nycbigcitylit.com, and has work pending publication from Zoetic Press, Eclectica Magazine, and Midway Journal.

Gabriella Brand's poetry, short stories, and non-fiction have found homes in such diverse publications as Room Magazine (Canada), Shiuli Magazine (India), The Blue Line, The Mom Egg Review, 3 Element Review, and The Globe and Mail. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Gabriella is currently teaching a course called Poetry for Difficult Times in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut.

Calista Elise Brigham is an imaginative, curious, and dedicated—though previously unpublished—author. She enjoys writing short stories and novels in the fantasy, science-fiction, and historical-fiction genres. She lives in Maryland with her large family and hopes that her writing glorifies Jesus Christ.

 

Before retirement, Tony Brinkley taught literature at the University of Maine, where he was also the Senior Faculty Associate at the
 University’s Franco-American Centre. His poetry and translations have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cerise Press, Drunken Boat, Four Centuries, Hinchas de Poesie, Hungarian Review, MayDay, New Review of Literature, Puckerbrush Press, Poetry Salzburg Review, Otoliths, Shofar, Metamorphosis, OPEN, and World Literature Today. Recent translations include poetry by Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Valery, Rainer Maria Rilke, Osip Mandelshtam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris
 Pasternak, and Anna Akhmatova.

Ken Cathers has been published in numerous periodicals, anthologies and has just released his eighth book of poetry, entitled Home Town with Impspired Press of England. He has also recently published a chapbook entitled “Kiefer” with broke press and another chapbook, entitled “Legoland Noir” from Block Party Press in Toronto.  His work has appeared in publications in Canada, the United States, Australia, England, Hong Kong, Ireland and Africa. Most recently it has
appeared in numerous periodicals including Zoetic Press, Wool Gathering
Review, The MacGuffin, The Orchard, Blue Unicorn, The Thimble
and
thewildword.

Jaina Cipriano is an experiential designer, filmmaker and photographer exploring the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment. Her worlds communicate with our neglected inner child and are informed by explosive colors, elements of elevated play and the push/pull of light and dark.  Jaina writes and directs award winning short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. Her second short film, ‘Trauma Bond’ is a dreamy, coming of age thriller that explores healing deep wounds with quick fixes, it took home the grand prize at the Lonely Seal International Film Festival.  Jaina’s photographic works forgoes digital manipulation, everything is created for the camera. She takes an immersive approach to working with models, approaching a shoot like a documentary photographer as her subject is let loose in a strange designed space. Working with Jaina is often described as cathartic and playful. Her photographic work has been shown internationally.  Jaina is the executive director of the Arlington International Film Festival and the founder of Finding Bright Studios - an experiential design company in Lowell, MA. She has collaborated with GRRL HAUS, Boston Art Review, and was a Boston Fellow for the Mass Art Creative Business Incubator and a finalist in EforAll Merrimack Valley.

Breanna Claire, who does not use a last name, is a transgender art historian living in Little Rock, Arkansas. Having published only staid scholarly writing under her deadname, her gender transition has brought with it a transition to creative writing. Her work has been published in Ekphrastic Review, The Literatus, and x/y: a Junk Drawer of Trans Voices.

Scott Carter Cooper is a Chicago-based playwright whose work is tailored to small professional  companies with diverse ensembles looking for economical plays to produce. His short-form pieces have  been successful with several local companies including American Blues, The Artistic Home, Chicago  Dramatists, and The Lightbulb Factory as well as nationally and beyond. Cooper holds a BFA – Theatre  from Drake University and an MA – Writing from DePaul University.  scottcartercooper.com

Ben D’Andrea is an essayist and short story writer living in British Columbia. His published essays address a wide range of topics, including dream interpretation, retributive violence, the literary novel, and the end of the world.

Peter J. Dellolio Born 1956 New York City.  Went to Nazareth High School and New York University.  Graduated 1978: BA Cinema Studies; BFA Film Production.  Poetry, prose-poems, fiction, short plays, art work, and critical essays published in over 80 literary magazines, journals, and anthologies.  Poetry collections “A Box Of Crazy Toys” published 2018 by Xenos Books/Chelsea Editions; “Bloodstream Is An Illusion Of Rubies Counting Fireplaces” published February 2023 and “Roller Coasters Made Of Dream Space” published November 2023 by Cyberwit/Rochak Publishing.  Chapters from his critical study of Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s Cinematic World: Shocks of Perception and the Collapse of the Rational) published in The Midwest Quarterly Literature/Film Quarterly, Kinema, Flickhead, and North Dakota Quarterly since 2006.  Dramatika Press published a volume of his one-act plays in 1983.  From this collection, The Seeker appeared in an issue of Collages & Bricolages and Stopping On One’s Way was recently published in Synchronized Chaos Journal.  Contributing editor for NYArts Magazine, writing art and film reviews;  also wrote monographs on several new artists. Co-Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Artscape2000, a prestigious, award-winning, art e-zine.  Taught poetry and art for LEAP.  He is an artist himself: https://www.saatchiart.com/peterdellolio.com. His paintings and 3D works offer abstract images of famous people in all walks of life who have died tragically at a young age.  He lives in Brooklyn.

 

Joan Gerstein has been penning poetry since elementary school. A retired educator and therapist, Joan has taught poetry to incarcerated veterans for 7 years. Her first book of poetry, Theories of Relativity, was published in 2021. She has written over 80 poems deploring Trump and has no plans to stop.

Susan Hansell‘s plays have been presented at The American Blues Theater (Chicago), The Gaslight Theater/St. Louis Actors’ Studio, The Harold Clurman (42nd Street), The Inge Festival (Independence KS), The MOMA (San Francisco), The Ohio (NYC), The Shattered Glass Project (Seattle), The Tank (NYC), and The Tempe Center for the Performing Arts (Phoenix), among other venues, and include, among other plays, Affair on the Air, American Rose (a Jane Chambers Award finalist), An Ocean of Bees, Every Concentrated Fragment, Letters to Jeff Bezos, My Medea (a Best American Short Plays series selection), Who Will Witness for the Witness, and 14 Ladies in Hats (from which two selections appear in Heinemann’s More Monologues for Women by Women). A History was presented via numerous platforms during the pandemic and in 2022 for Chicago Blues Theater’s RIPPED Festival. Susan Hansell has also published poetry, translations from the Spanish in multiple genres, worked as an editor and a teacher, and she is a voting member of the Dramatists Guild. Her complete biography and resume can be found both on her own website and on the Dramatists Guild website, and her complete plays are available through the New Play Exchange (NPX).

Patricia Joslin is a poet and essayist living in Charlotte, NC. A former educator, she now volunteers in the community working to address issues of food insecurity. She loves live jazz, solo travel, bold red wine, and her four lively grandsons. Connect with her at https://www.patriciajoslin.com/ to read more of her work.

Pete Madzelan resides with his wife in Las Cruces, New Mexico. His writings and photography have appeared in New Mexico Poetry Anthology, Humana Obscura, Camelback Gallery, Praxis Photo Arts Center, Burningword Literary Journal, Fleas on The Dog, The Courtship of Winds, Sky Island Journal, Bellingham Review, Cargo Literary Journal, New Mexico Magazine, Photography Center of Cape Cod, San Pedro River Review and others.

Jennifer Maloney writes poetry and fiction; find her work in The Rome Review,  Flash Boulevard, Synkroniciti Magazine and many other publications. She is the author of two hybrid books, Evidence of Fire (Clare Songbirds Publishing, 2023) and Don't Let God Know You are Singing (Before Your Quiet Eyes Publishing, 2024). Jennifer is a parent, a partner, and a very lucky friend, and she is grateful, for all of it, every day.

Ricky J. Martinez is the first Hispanic to receive the Sewanee Writers Conference Tennessee Williams Fellowship, the coveted National MARGO JONES AWARD, and April 30th has been proclaimed as “Ricky J. Martinez Day” in City of Miami-Dade County. He’s an award-winning director, actor, playwright, screenplay writer, dancer, choreographer, singer/song writer, musician, photographer, community leader and theatre activist who’s work spans short of five decades internationally. If you are interested in performing FOIL please contact him directly.

Alexander Payne Morgan was born in Savannah, Georgia. His chapbooks Loneliness Among Primates and H.G. Wells Investigates the Tragedy of Colour in America were published by Kelsay Books. He has attended workshops at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. He’s a member of the Detroit Writers’ Guild and the Poetry Society of Michigan.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet.  Her poems have appeared in several recent anthologies, and in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and The Pine Cone Review.   Her website can be found at:  www.suzannepagemorris.com.

James B. Nicola's nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award. The latest of his eight full-length poetry collections are Natural Tendencies, Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, and Turns & Twists. His poetry and prose have received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller's People's Choice award, a Best of Net and a Rhysling Award nomination, and eleven Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful. A graduate of Yale, he hosts the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Round Table at his library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins welcome.

Dan Perry is an LA-based writer who works across multiple content platforms. His long list of TV credits includes shows for Netflix, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Disney+, MTV, and AMC. Dan’s plays include THE GATEKEEPERS, BEHIND THE SIX, FOLLOWERS, and IF IT GOES THERE, which was awarded a special citation from the City of Los Angeles for “… further adding to the diversity, creativity, and artistic value of the Hollywood neighborhood and City of Los Angeles.”

Anthony R. Pezzula is a writer of plays and short stories. His short stories have been published in various print and on line magazines. His plays have been performed around the New York State Capital Region, New York City, Connecticut, New Jersey, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa. In 2011 he received a Meritorious Achievement in Playwriting award from the Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS) for his one-act play Home Again. He lives in Colonie, NY with his wife Valerie.

 

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana. 

Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] L. J. Carber, 77, became a published poet in his 8th decade in some 220 literary journals in 17 countries and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and thrice for Best of the Net. Cyberwit.net has published 3 collections in paperback: The Enormity of Existence; Of Ether and Earth; and Soul Songs. 

In the past year, Susan Shea made the full-time transition from school psychologist to poet. In that time, her poems have been accepted by publications that include:  Invisible City, Ekstasis, MacQueen's Quinterly, Green Silk Journal, The Write Launch, The Gentian, Across the Margin, October Hill, Litbreak Magazine, Beltway Poetry, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Foreshadow, New English Review and others. Her work was recently nominated for Best of the Net. Susan was raised in New York City, and now lives with her husband in a forest in Pennsylvania.

Katherine Shehadeh is an artist/poet & mom of 2, who resides with her family in Miami, Florida. Her recent poems appear/are forthcoming in DMQ Review, Maudlin House, Laurel Review & others. Find her on Instagram @katherinesarts or on the www @ katherinesarts.com.

Joanna Sit is the author of My Last Century (2012), In Thailand with the Apostles (2014), and most recently, Track Works (2017). Her poem "Timescape: The Age of Oz" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016. She is working on an ethnographic narrative called The Reincarnation of Red and another book of poems called Fantastic Voyage.

Miles Whitney is a queer, trans, Jewish attorney living in Sacramento, California. Miles began to write creatively after the unexpected death of his daughter, Isabel, in 2022.

Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Kansas. His short story collection,Night Train, Cold Beer, won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Six more books since. A Best of the Net and 5-time Pushcart nominee, his fiction, essays and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. (Covid changed some of the circumstances) Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com

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