Contributors
Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and Southern Poetry Review. He is the author of eight collections of poems and two works of fiction: Stonehaven (Turning Point, 2020) and its sequel, Edgewood (Turning Point, 2022). His most recent collection of poems is Settling In (Kelsay Books, 2024). He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times, as well as for a Best of the Net Award. Please visit www.markbelair.com
Trevor Conway, from Sligo, Ireland, writes poetry, fiction and songs. He has published three collections of poetry: Evidence of Freewheeling, Breeding Monsters and No Small Thing. Also available from Amazon is his guide to writing poetry, aimed at child/young adult poets, Nurturing the creative Child: A Guide to Writing Poetry. He is currently revising a poetry collection titled A Banquet of Sorts, centred on the themes of science and nature. Interested? Website: trevorconway.weebly.com.
Ben D’Andrea is an essayist and short story writer living in British Columbia. This is his second essay to appear in The Courtship of Winds. The first was “Trump and the Nefarious Gods.”
John A. deSouza is the author of Hidden (Bottlecap Press, 2025, 23 pp.) and the upcoming This Rough Magic (Rockwood Press, 2026, 52 pp.). He has recently been featured in Poetry Salzburg Review #43, with a five poem sequence of ‘Epodes’ from his unpublished collection, Concord Ave.
Georgics (which also includes 'Songs of Orpheus - Curse' published here). His poem ‘Prodigal’ has been nominated for a 2026 ‘Pushcart Prize’ by ‘Apricity Press’. John has recently been published in 'Willows Wept Review', 'The Dalhousie Review (Spring)', 'Neologism Poetry Journal', and others. He lives with his wife, Oksana, and their terrier Mr. Darcy, in Jersey City, NJ.
Richard Dinges, Jr. works on his homestead beside a drying pond, surrounded by trees and grassland, with his wife, two dogs, two cats, and eleven chickens. Literary Heist, Atlanta Review, Alembic, October Hill, and Stickman Review most recently accepted his words for their publications.
Jon Fain’s publications include short stories in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Feign, and King Ludd’s Rag; flash fictions in Shooter, The Airgonaut and Hawkeye; micro fictions in Blink-Ink and Molecule; and essays in Lit Mag News, Atlantic Northeast and Sport Literate. He lives in Massachusetts.
Mike Ford used to fix computers. Now he types for a living.
E. Laura Golberg’s work has appeared in Rattle, Poet Lore, Barrow Street, RHINO, and the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, among other venues. She won first place in the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts Larry Neal Poetry Competition. Her chapbook ‘The Terrible Man on the Plane” is available from Bottlecap Press.
Emma Goldman-Sherman is the author of the chapbook, Dear Palestine (Moonstone Press), the micro-chapbook, Possible Paths for the Minotaur, (Ghost City Press), winner of the 13th Annual Gigantic Sequins Poetry Award, with work appearing in the Bellingham Review, One Art, North Dakota Quarterly, Best Microfictions 2025 & 26, The Nature of Our Times and others. They support writers at https://www.bravespace.online/
Barry Green is retired and lives in Ashland, Virginia, where he writes poems and short fiction and tends to a large garden and the trees that surround it.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Spotlong Review and Trampoline.
Based in South Florida, Soidenet Gue’s most recent work has appeared in Unlikely Stories, Twenty-two Twenty-eight, confetti, In Parentheses, Literally Stories, Whistling Shade, and elsewhere. Currently, he’s working on short stories based on families. Find him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soide.fred/
Tammy Higgins was born in northern NY and is living in Southern NH, Peterborough, and has been published in various lit mags since middle 90s, like Barbaric Yawp, Noble House, Anti Heroin Chic, Carolina Muse.
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, Bear Review, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Laurel Review. His book “Fragmentation and Volta” was published in 2025 by Gnashing Teeth Publishing. He reads for Marrow Magazine.
Craig Inanen is a musician living in the Midwest USA. His work has been most recently published in Yellow Mama magazine. It will also be featured in the March 2026 issue of Close to the Bone and the June 2026 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine. He is a contributor to The Yard: Crime Blog.
A former Peace Corps volunteer and U.S. foreign service officer, Mark Jacobs has published 230 stories in magazines including The Hudson Review, The Atlantic, Playboy, The Baffler, The Iowa Review, and The Kenyon Review. Memory Falls is his seventh book. He speaks Spanish, Turkish, and Guaraní.
Arya F. Jenkins is a poet and writer whose poetry has appeared in journals such as Hawaii Pacific Review, The Indianapolis Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, The Mackinaw, OyeDrum Magazine and Sinister Wisdom. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and other prizes. She is the author of four poetry chapbooks, a collection of short stories, Blue Songs in An Open Key (Fomite), and a novel, Punk Disco Bohemian (NineStar Press).
Tiffany Jolowicz is a part time resident of Madeline Island Wisconsin and Switzerland. She has self-published: “Ironwomen” an insight into why and how women take on the long-distance triathlon challenge. Last summer her 60th birthday present to herself was completing Ironman Hamburg. Her first historical fiction novel, Red Earth, White Lands, a dual-time line, multigenerational story of identity and resilience, set on Madeline Island, Wisconsin, will be published in Spring 2027. She is an amateur photographer who never leaves home without her Leica Q3 especially around dawn and dusk.
Victor McConnell grew up in a small town in Texas and graduated from Dartmouth's creative writing program in 2004. After a year in a wheelchair in 2005 and a long, mostly dormant period from 2010-2019, he resumed writing fiction and poetry in 2020. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in a variety of literary journals, such as the Los Angeles Review, New Ohio Review, Dogwood, and Driftwood Press, among others. His first book, a collection of short stories titled WHEN EVEN THE BONES HAVE THINNED, will be published by Hidden River Press out of Philadelphia in 2026. A chapbook of his poetry titled IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS is available for purchase from Bottlecap Press. He lives in Golden, Colorado.
Gregory McGillivary lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is the managing partner of a law firm in Washington, D.C. that represents workers exploited by governments or corporations. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the Bethesda Writer’s Center.
Resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/ ,Stephen Mead has intermittently been submitting work for publication going on four decades. He remains grateful to all of the editors who have given his work a good home as now, retired from his day job, he is busy trying to sell his 40-year backlog of art, https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/stephen-mead
Bob Meszaros taught English at Hamden High School in Hamden, Connecticut, for thirty-two years. He retired from high school teaching in June of 1999. During the 70s and 80s his poems appeared in a number of literary journals such as En Passant and Voices International. In the year 2000 he began teaching part time at Quinnipiac University, and he once again began to submit his work for publication. His poems have appeared in The Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, Tar River Poetry, Concho River Review, Eunoia Review, The Hungry Chimera, Naugatuck River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and other literary journals. He has fully retired from teaching and is now preoccupied with his poetry and his three grandchildren.
Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London, England. He has had five books published, including A Brave Light (Stride) and Worlds of Pain / Shades of Grace (Poetry Salzburg). He has been in several anthologies, including Paging Doctor Jazz (Shoestring), From Hepworth’s Garden Out (Shearsman, 2010), & Yesterday’s Music Today (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2015). For several years he was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry, and The Tenormen Press. He has been in many magazines worldwide. He is currently working on projects (prose and poetry) relating to jazz, blues, politics, outsider (folk) art, mountain environments, and long-term illness.
Noam Mor read Madame Bovary when he was 8 years old and was required to explain it to his father. This led him to handwrite a science fiction novel of at least three or four scribbled notebooks, which was unfortunately lost in a fire. He began writing poetry, easy to replicate and leave at multiple locations, until he became an adult and lost his fear that his work might burn. His recent work tends to be a philosophical, poetic and metaphysically failed yearning body of prose, concerned with understanding others through radical empathy. His short stories have been published in Exquisite Corpse Annual, Keyhole, Brooklyn Rail, First Intensity Magazine, The Notre Dame Review, Prairie Winds, Downtown Brooklyn, 11211 and The Williamsburg Observer. Arc: Cleavage of Ghosts, his first novel, was published by Spuyten Duyvil Press. His video, based on his story I could Be a Star was part of the New York International Film Festival in about 2002. His short story, Birds, will be appearing in Down in the Dirt Magazine in 2026. He has presented new works at the &Now Literary Festival in 2004 and in 2006 and 2009.
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, Detroit Working Writers, and the Poetry Society of Michigan. He’s on the poetry staff of The MacGuffin.
Stephania Muro was born with a curious spirit. Growing up with a talented family prompted her to look for something she was good at. She wondered if she had been born with a special kind of talent she could nurture. At 7, she enrolled in guitar lessons, but with fingers too small to reach chords, she joined the art class instead. Even as the youngest in the class, her piece won first place. She realized she probably had discovered what she was good at. Now, looking for an artistic voice drew her into one of her most special memories, forget-me-nots. This tiny flower began as a symbol of potential, but it became her self-portrait. She started capturing more flowers out of pure aesthetic and experimentation, but she discovered more powerful concepts, so she began letting her artwork speak to her. One morning, she went to her studio to find some of her most precious pieces had been stolen. She was devastated. But after some time realized now her flowers were buried, new ones could emerge. What she didn’t realize was that their emergence would take longer than she hoped. Stephania discovered the power of growth. During this difficult time, she named one of her pieces, “my world in a watering can.” She held onto hope, and her means to achieve it is creativity. For her, creativity is being courageous. Her journey towards her artistic voice has taught her being creative is not a skill but part of her personality she now treasures more than ever and wants others to find it as well.
Passionate in her love for Los Angeles, Martina Reisz Newberry currently lives there with her husband, Brian, a Media Creative. Her city often is a “player” in her poems.
Rebecca Pyle lives in a house in the foothills of northern New Mexico. Most recently her creative writing and visual artwork appear, or will soon appear, in Hiram Poetry Review and Bangalore Review and Raleigh Review (poetry), in Courtship of Winds and Vassar Review (artwork), in Chicago Review (fiction), and in Los Angeles Review (creative nonfiction, fiction). See rebeccapyleartist.com.
Stephanie Ross writes from a place where inner inquiry meets the living world. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction, draw inspiration from her experiences as a sailor, pilot, home educator, and practice as a Ren Xue Yuan Qigong teacher. She explores how both internal and external navigation can shape our understanding of healing and growth. Her writing carries quiet invitations for readers to connect more deeply with their heart and True Self. Her work is published or forthcoming in the League of Canadian Poets (Fresh Voices), White Wall Review, RXA Qiblog, Spank the Carp, Tiger Moth Review, Braided Way Magazine, and Wild Umbrella among others. You can often find her on forest trails with her 67-pound lap dog, Pepper. Connect with her: Website: https://www.stephanierossauthor.com https://www.stephanierossauthor.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieRossAuthor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephanie.ross.author/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stephanierossQi
Jason Ryberg is the author of twenty-two books of
poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full
of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could
one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and countless
love letters (never sent). He is currently an artist-in-
residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted
P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an
editor and designer at Spartan Books. His work has
appeared in As it Ought to Be, Up the Staircase Quarterly,
Thimble Literary Magazine, I-70 Review, Main Street Rag,
The Arkansas Review and various other journals and
anthologies. His latest collection of poems is “Bullet Holes
in the Mailbox (Cigarette Burns in the Sheets) Back of the
Class Press, 2024)).” He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO
with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named
Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks,
near the Gasconade River, where there are also many
strange and wonderful woodland critters.
Christianna Soumakis, MFA, is an artist, writer, art instructor,
pilgrim, and most recently a newly-minted PhD candidate at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee and has walked the Camino de Santiago three times for a total of over 1,380 miles on foot. Her first chapbook, Othershore, which explores pilgrimage,
transformation, and becoming, is forthcoming with Kelsay Books.
Scott Taylor hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a writer and a musician, and an avid world traveler. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online publications; his novels 'Chasing Your Tail' and 'Screwed' have been released with Silver Bow Publishing, and a pair of novellas have been included in anthologies with Running Wild Press. He graduated from Cornell University and was a computer programmer in a past life.
Canadian researcher Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, subTerrain, paperplates, Dalhousie Review, untethered, Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, American Mathematical Monthly, M58, CV2, Brittle Star, Lascaux Review, Carmina,, Progenitor, Muleskinner, Sulphur, Northridge Review, Ex-Puritan, Perceptions, Granfalloon, Literary Hatchet, Calliope, New Note, Confetti, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and more. He is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for grant funding during the polycrisis.
Mark Wagstaff’s work has appeared in Sunspot Literary Journal, Novus Literary Arts Journal, Bryant Literary Review and The Ana. He is a two-time winner of the 3-Day Novel Contest. The 39th with off-kilter romcom Attack of the Lonely Hearts and the 46th with sci-fi AI-loving roadtrip caper So We Blush Less When the Phone Rings both published by Anvil Press. Mark’s raucous teen thriller On the Level was published in 2022 through Leaf by Leaf, an imprint of Cinnamon Press. And Cinnamon Press published Mark’s latest novel Mascara a post-modern tale of politics and mayhem in 2025. www.markwagstaff.com
