Contributors
Pat Anthony writes from the rural midwest, gathering from the furrows in the land as well as those on the faces of the men and women working it. A recently retired educator, she continues to be inspired by hidden stories derived from observation and some of the characters she's met. She has work published or forthcoming in Open Minds Quarterly, Cholla Needles, Third Wednesday, The Tipton Review, Heron Tree and Nature Writing among others.
Judith Askew's 2016 collection On The Loose was selected by Tony Hoagland to be the first book published by Bass River Press on Cape Cod. She has won several other poetry awards, including being a featured poet in Masspoetry.org Spotlight Archives. She won the Annual Joe Gouveia Outer Most Poetry Contest judged by Marge Piercy and appeared in World of Water, World of Sand: A Cape Cod Collection of Poetry, Fiction and Memoir. Her work has appeared in many journals including Slant, Rattle, Naugatuck River Review, HCE Review, Furious Gazelle, Louisville Review, Cape Cod Poetry Review and others. She has worked as a writer and editor in several corporate settings and founded a bimonthly women's health newsletter. She is a founding member of Steeple Street poets.
Mark Belair's poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, The Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East, and The South Carolina Review. His latest collection is Watching Ourselves (Unsolicited Press, 2017). Previous collections include Breathing Room (Aldrich Press, 2015); Night Watch (Finishing Line Press, 2013); While We're Waiting (Aldrich Press, 2013); and Walk With Me (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times. Please visit www.markbelair.com
Recipient of the Theodore Hoepfner Fiction Award and past writer-in-residence at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Art Colony in Jerusalem, Perle Besserman was praised by Isaac Bashevis Singer for the “clarity and feeling for mystic lore” of her writing and by Publisher’s Weekly for its “wisdom [that] points to a universal practice of the heart.” Her autobiographical novel, Pilgrimage, was published by Houghton Mifflin, and her Pushcart Prize-nominated short fiction has appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, The Nebraska Review, Briarcliff Review, Transatlantic Review, 13th Moon, Bamboo Ridge, Lilith, Hurricane Alice, Crab Creek Review, Other Voices, Agni, Southerly, North American Review, Page Seventeen, Midstream, and in numerous literary journals online. Her most recent books include a linked story collection Yeshiva Girl (Homebound Publications) and two novels, Kabuki Boy (Aqueous Books) and Widow Zion (Pinyon Publishing).
Besserman’s creative non-fiction includes Oriental Mystics and Magicians, The Way of Witches, Monsters: Their Histories, Homes, and Habits (Doubleday); The Private Labyrinth of Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano and the Cabbala (Holt); Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic (Doubleday/Random House/Barnes and Noble); The Way of the Jewish Mystics (Shambhala/Random House); Crazy Clouds: Zen Radicals, Rebels and Reformers (with Manfred Steger, Shambhala/Random House); Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life (Kodansha); The Shambhala Guide to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism (Shambhala/Random House); Teachings of the Jewish Mystics (Shambhala/Random House); Grassroots Zen (with Manfred Steger, Tuttle), A New Kabbalah for Women (Palgrave Macmillan), and A New Zen for Women (Palgrave Macmillan). Her books have been translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Czech, Italian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Hungarian, and Thai. She has written for publications as varied as Mademoiselle, Manoa (Honolulu), The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, A Different Drummer, Canadian Literature, and East West. Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic has been recorded as a “book on tape” (Sounds True Audio Editions).
Based in Hawai’i and spending part of the year in Melbourne, Australia, the author travels frequently throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East, and has appeared on national and international radio and television and in two documentary films in connection with her work.
Visit Perle on the Web at: www.perlebesserman.net.
Annie Blake is an Australian writer, thinker and researcher. She is a wife and mother of five children. Her main interests include psychoanalysis, metaphysics and metacognition. She is currently interested in arthouse writing which explores the surreal nature and symbolic meanings of unconscious material through nocturnal and diurnal dreams and fantasies. Her writing is a dialogue between unconscious material and conscious thoughts and synchronicity. You can visit her on annieblakethegatherer.blogspot.com.au and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009445206990.
Michelle Cacho-Negrete has 50 published pieces including 4 in the 100 most notable, 1 winner of Best of The Net, a runner-up in Brooklyn Literary Arts, the first winner of the Hope Award, 6 Pushcart nominations, and she is in 5 anthologies including Norton's. My first book, Stealing, was published this October.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers' Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.) will be out mid-2018.
Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Former People, The Main Street Rag, Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and Danse Macabre.
Vern Fein is a retired teacher, who has published over fifty poems and short pieces on a variety of sites, a few being: *82 Review, The Literary Nest, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, VietNam War Poetry, Ibis Head Review, Spindrift, Former People, 500 Miles, and The Write Launch, and has non-fiction pieces in Quail Bell, The Write Place at the Write Time, and Adelaide, plus a short story in the the online magazine Duende from Goddard College.
Zachary Gaskill is a poet from Binghamton NY, and still resides there. He studies under the American poet Joe Weil. He will have a BA in Creative Writing from Binghamton University in May 2018, and an associates degree in Business Marketing. Along with being a cutting edge poet he is a loving father and husband who gives back to the art scene that helped shape him, as he now helps shape it.
Thomas Griffin’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recognized with an Academy of American Poets Prize, and continues to be published widely in journals, magazines, reviews, and anthologies. His most recent poetry collection is All That Once Was You (Finishing Line Press).
Katherine L. Holmes' poetry, short stories, and one-act plays have appeared in more than seventy journals, most recently in ArLiJo, The Manhattanville Review, Review Americana, Cider Press Review, Thin Air Magazine, Mused Literary Review, Red Booth Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Blood Lotus, and The Adirondack Review. New Poetry from the Midwest 2016, a recent anthology, contains one of my poems. In 2012, my short story collection, Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories, was released by Hollywood Books International. More information is at my web site: https://sites.google.com/site/katherinelholmesauthorprofile/
Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA, where he serves on the board of FutureCycle Press and edits Good Works Review. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Diary of the Last Person on Earth (Sybaritic Press 2014) and Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014). His personal website is www.robertsking.info.
Denise Kline’s writing credits include publication in Origami Journal, Dime Show Review, a handful of stones, OneTitle (now known as OneTitle Reviews) and Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction competition.
Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music, (Word Press) appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The New Republic, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the new Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.
Tom Laichas' recent work appears or is forthcoming in Underfoot, Panoply, Convergence, Eclectica, and Lotus-eater among others. His brief essays can be found at Left, Write and Centaur (https://leftwritecentaur.com).
Véronique Latimer is an artist, illustrator and educator living in the Boston area. She received a BA from Vassar College in 1997 and an MFA from Parsons School of Design in 2004. She has also studied at the Art Students League, SVA, SMFA and Lesley University. Véronique has been teaching high school art since 2006 and is currently a member of the Fine Arts Department Faculty at Wayland High School. She is an Associate Member of 6 Bridges Gallery in Maynard, MA. To see more of her work please visit her website at veroniquelatimer.com
Mary Leonard lives in an old school house overlooking The Rondout Creek. Away from her own personal blackboard, she teaches through the Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT program at Bard College. She has published four chapbooks of poetry and was a finalist in last year's NY State Di Biase contest. Some of her latest publications appear in the Vietnam poetry publication from Perfume River, Rats Ass Review, Figroot, Sweet Tree, Eunoia, New Verse News, Open, A Journal of Arts&Letters and this spring in Chiron, Three Elements and That. A new chapbook will be released this summer from Finishing Line Press
Chad MacDonald is a graduate from Longwood University, and currently enrolled in West Virginia Wesleyan. He is also a contributor for Richmond, Virginia's Writing For Peace branch. He has previously been published in 5 to 1 Magazine, Quail Bell, and Word Gatherings.
Carla McGill earned her doctorate in English from the University of California, Riverside. Her work has been published in A Clean Well-Lighted Place, The Atlanta Review, Shark Reef, Crack the Spine, Westview, Common Ground Review, Caveat Lector, Inland Empire Magazine, Vending Machine Press, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Streetlight Magazine, The Penmen Review, Cloudbank, Burningword, The Alembic and Broad River Review. Her story, "Thirteen Memories," received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train's MAR/APR 2016 Very Short Fiction Contest. She writes poetry and fiction.
S. B. Merrow lives in Baltimore, where she writes poems and repairs concert flutes for professional musicians. Recently, her work has been accepted by Nimrod International Journal, Gyroscope Review, Naugatuck River Review, and other journals. Her chapbook, 'Unpacking the China,' was selected and published by QuillsEdge Press in 2016.
Anne Mikusinski has been writing poetry and short stories since she was seven years old, and most probably making them up long before she could hold a pen or pencil in her hand. She finds inspiration in music and art, and sometimes, even little things that happen every day. Her influences range from Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas to David Byrne and Nick Cave, and she hopes one day, her writing will inspire others in the same way these writers have inspired her.
Jack Millea, after two years' active Naval duty, worked as a reporter for the New Haven Register 1969-78, and as New Haven Director of Legislative Services, 1978-82. He then started a historic restoration business combining state-of-the-art mechanical and electronic elements with authentic design and execution to renovate schools, churches, streetscapes and fine homes. After 35 years, it's a challenge that remains a blast. He also served as an adjunct philosophy professor at Quinnipiac University from 1999-2013.
JWM Morgan’s stories have appeared in Azure, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Montreal Review, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, War, Literature & the Arts, and other magazines. He lives in Oakland, California, where he teaches and mentors people who are developing basic skills.
Keith Moul is a poet of place, a photographer of the distinction light adds to place. Both his poems and photos are published widely. His photos are digital, striving for high contrast and saturation, which makes his vision colorful.
Jennifer Page is a poet by calling, a writer and editor by trade, and by life a wanderer. She graduated from the University of California with an honors degree in literature and now pays her bills as a freelance business writer. She currently lives on the top of a mountain in Tijeras, New Mexico, and practices teaching poetry workshops to the local ravens. Her work has previously appeared in the anthology Pay Attention: A River of Stones.
A frequent contributor to The Courtship of Winds, Simon Perchik's poetry has also appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.
Konstantin Rega writes "Every word in a poem is at the poet's expense: this is my philosophy." Born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, he studies British & American Literature and Creative Writing at The University of Kent in Canterbury, England. I has been published by The Claremont Review, Four Ties Lit Review, AOM, and has won the ZO Magazine Silver Prize for Poetry, and is currently a Review Assistant for Newfound. His poems are neo-modernist, which is a revival of the Modernist innovations of subverting traditional gender authority and narrative and making the personal universal.
Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her poems have appeared in Blueline, Weber – The Contemporary West, and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Sarah has published two collections of image poems – most recently From the Quiet Edges of the Forest in 2018. It can be purchased through her photography web pages at: www.pbase.com/candanceski
Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State's MFA program in fiction. His short stories have been published in various literary journals such as Monkeybicycle and Crack The Spine.
David Schimmelpfennig is a writer and Fulbright Scholar with over 100 publications. His work has appeared in Science and National Geographic. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, and the Des Moines Register, and appeared on talk radio in South Africa.
Patti Swartz, currently retired, taught creative writing, literature, and composition at Kent State, Youngstown State, and Morehead State. Her writing has won first place with Kentucky Writers, and she has placed in contests and received Honorable Mentions from both Writer’s Digest and the Denny Plattner Awards for her poetry and nonfiction. She was twice nominated for the Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts. She attended the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop (2004-2009) and the Midwest Writers Conference (1983; 1984). She has written, received grants from the Ohio Arts Council for, and produced plays based on the oral histories of local residents.
Ayşe Tekşen lives in Ankara, Turkey where she works as a research assistant at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University. Her work has been included in Gravel, After the Pause, The Write Launch, Uut Poetry, The Fiction Pool, What Rough Beast, Scarlet Leaf Review, Seshat, Neologism Poetry Journal, Anapest, Red Weather, Ohio Edit, SWWIM Every Day, The Paragon Journal, Arcturus, Constellations, the Same, The Mystic Blue Review, Jaffat El Aqlam, Brickplight, and Willow. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Slink Chunk Press, Straylight, Fearsome Critters, and Susan.
Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com.
Ken Tomaro is an artist and writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. His work has been published in The Light Ekphrastic, Tipton Poetry Journal and Sincerely Magazine. He has published two collections of poetry and most of his work is the result of living with depression.
