Contributors
Artisan baker by trade, Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi has been published in numerous literary journals. Winner of the Scribes Valley Short Story Writing Contest, he was a Pushcart Prize nominee, and twice nominated for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net. In addition to several short pieces, he is currently working on his debut novel.
Karineh Arutyunova has eight books of short stories published in Russia and Ukraine. Her writing has won many prizes, including the Andrei Bely Prize (St. Petersburg), Vladimir Korolenko Prize (Kiev), Ernest Hemingway Prize (Canada), and Mark Aldanov Prize (New York). Born in Kiev, she emigrated to Israel in the early nineties, where she lived until 2009. Currently, Karineh lives and works in Kiev. Her works have never before been translated into English.
Elizabeth Balise is long-time resident of Scranton Pennsylvania who grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. Most of her working life has been devoted to human services and to teaching secondary English in public schools. Poetry emerged as a teenager, but real love for it was fostered by her relationship with her Marywood College mentor, Barbara Hoffman. Poems, short stories, and articles have appeared in the ergo magazine of Prufrock’s Cafe and online in Mothers Always Write, and Ariel Chart, The Endless Mountain Review, and Thirteen Myna Birds. She was a featured poet for the United States and Canada in The Blue Nib, September 2019. In 2021, her first volume of poems, In the Mercy of Snow, was published by Kelsay Books.
Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Harvard Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He is the author of seven collections of poems and two works of fiction: Stonehaven (Turning Point, 2020) and its sequel, Edgewood (Turning Point, 2022). 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
Dr. Patricia Brawley’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Magnolia Quarterly, Junto, Page & Spine, and Steam Ticket, and she won first place in the Pike County Literary Contest for short story and poetry. A psychotherapist and university professor, Patricia has presented her research on the use of poetry in therapy at conferences in Perugia, Italy, and Tokyo, Japan. She has attended the San Francisco Writers Conference and the Mississippi Book Festival. Patricia holds a PhD in psychology and has maintained a private counseling practice for over 30 years. She writes using the pen name Patricia East Spring.
Beth Brown Preston is a poet and novelist with two collections of poetry from the Broadside Lotus Press and two chapbooks of poetry, recently OXYGEN II (Moonstone Press, 2022). She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the MFA Writing Program at Goddard College. She has been a CBS Fellow in Writing at the University of Pennsylvania; and, a Bread Loaf Scholar. Also, her work has been supported by the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, The Writers' Center, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Her work has appeared in numerous literary and scholarly journals.
Christopher Clauss (he/him) is an introvert, father, poet, ocean explorer, and middle school science teacher in rural New Hampshire. His mother believes his poetry is "just wonderful." Both of his children declare that he is the "best daddy they have," and his pre-teen science students rave that he is "Fine, I guess. Whatever." Christopher's first full-length book of poetry, Photosynthesis & Respiration is now available from Silver Bow Press.
Antoinette Constable has been published in Louisville Review, Sierra Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Willow Review, California Quarterly, El Portal, and anthologies. Two of her essays have won international awards. She studied with Linda Watanabe McFerrin, David St. John, and Ellery Akers. Raised in France during WWII, Antoinette has worked as a registered nurse in the UK and the United States. Now retired, she enjoys traveling, inventing recipes, collecting copper items, and learning Russian. She writes under the pen name Toinette.
Elizabeth DeAngelo writes about themes of marriage, mental health, and drinking. She currently lives in Atlanta, GA with her two kids, two cats, and two dogs.
Vilém Dubnička is a Czech theater actor, director and playwright. He´s studied acting in an Academy of performing arts in Prague. He lives in Pilsen, the city of beer and the Europian Capital of Culture 2015, in which he has been participating. In 2008 he founded there a summer theater festival „Divadelní léto pod plzeňským nebem“ and directed most of the shows.
Vilém is a freelancer mostly directing either musicals or drama, either his own plays or any other.
Robert Gass's short stories have been published in Lynx Eye magazine and the Tampa Tribune, and online in the 24-Hour short story contest (second place), and Frontier Tales. Two of his well-received novels were published by small POD publishers. He is happily retired (way more time for reading and writing) and enjoying life with his wife, Mary, in Wisconsin.
Dan Helpingstine is a freelance writer who has published seven non-fiction books. He is currently working jointly on two projects. One is a fantasy novel and the other is a historical book on the Chicago White Sox championship season of 2005. He has a BA in Political Science and lives with his wife, Delia, in Northwest Indiana.
Lynn Hoggard has published 8 books and won several awards for her
poetry, including nominations for Best of the Net and Pushcart. Her most
recent poetry collection, First Light (Lamar University Literary Press,
2022), won the Texas Press Women's Prize in Poetry.
James Croal Jackson works in film production. His most recent chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, SAND, and Vilas Avenue. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)
Marc Janssen has been writing poems since around 1980. Some people would say that was a long time but not a dinosaur. Early decrepitude has not slowed him down much; his verse can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg also in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry Project- a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry Festival, and was a nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate. For more information visit, marcjanssenpoet.com.
Jean Kane’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Ignatian Literary Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, American Short Fiction online, South Dakota Review, Cimarron Review, Indiana Review, 3:AM, Hotel Amerika, Euphony Journal, Fogged Clarity, The MacGuffin, Nonconformist Magazine, Posit Journal, Slab, Voices de la Luna, Word For/Word, and Doubly Mad. Her book of poems, Make Me, was published by Otis Nebula in 2014. She is a recipient of the Otis Nebula First Book Award, and she was nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize by Hole in the Head Review. Jean is a professor of English and women’s studies at Vassar College. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Art History from Indiana University, a master’s degree in English and creative writing from Stanford University, and a PhD in English from the University of Virginia. She has attended the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference and has been to the AWP on multiple occasions. Jean also enjoys drawing and frequent visits to her family back home in Indiana.
Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA, where he serves on the board of FutureCycle Press. 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), Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014), and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020). His personal website is www.robertsking.info.
Ellen Lager's work has been published in The MacGuffin, Neologism, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Litbreak, Haunted Waters Press, Sanskrit, Blue Heron Review, Encore, and other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart nominee and currently at work on her first full-length poetry collection. She has a Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degree from the University of Minnesota, and lives in a suburb of Minneapolis spending much of the year at a lake cabin with her husband, two rambunctious dogs and two unruffled cats.
Sean Lause is a professor of English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio. His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, The Alaska Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine and The Beloit Poetry Journal. His books of poetry include Bestiary of Souls (FutureCycle Press, 2013), Wakeful Fathers and Dreaming Sons (Orchard Street Press, 2017) and Samsara Town (Taj Mahal Review, 2023).
Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, non-fiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. He is currently working on two photography collections: 'Lying Down With The Dead' and 'There Is A Beauty In Broken Things'. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com
Laura Celise Lippman’s work has appeared in Avatar Review, Brief Wilderness, The Broken Plate, Chained Muse, Crack the Spine, Crosswinds, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Flights, Hey I’m Alive Magazine, La Presa, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Perceptions Magazine, Plainsongs, Pontoon Poetry, Poydras Review, Journal of Family Practice, The Meadow, Neologism Poetry Journal, New English Review, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, Spotlong Review, and Synkroniciti. She is a co-author of the book Writing While Masked Reflections of 2020 and Beyond. She attended Bryn Mawr College and received her M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She practiced medicine for thirty-seven years and raised two children in the Pacific Northwest. Since retirement, she continues to take poetry courses at Hugo House in Seattle. She enjoys the outdoors and sharing her wonder at the natural world.
Garvin Livingston has written three novels and numerous short stories. His most recent stories appear in the February 2023 issue of Bull Magazine, the summer 2023 issue of The Raven Review and the January, 2024 issue of Opiate Magazine. He holds an MA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Helene Macaulay is an actor, writer, filmmaker and award winning documentary and fine art photographer living in the American Rust Belt. Her writing has appeared in The Commonline Journal, Grattan Street Press, LEON Literary Review and other independent literary journals. Her films have been broadcast on PBS affiliates throughout the Northeastern United States and her photography has been featured internationally, including The National Portrait Gallery, London. Her acting credits include numerous films on the festival circuit as well as appearances on network and cable television and nationally syndicated Radio.
Lena Mandel (translator) holds an MA from The Jewish Theological Seminary, an MS from Columbia University (psychology), and a JD from Rutgers University. Now retired from a career as an attorney, she focuses on literary translation.
Patricia Meek holds a BA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University, an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University, and an MA in Counseling from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meek’s poem “Weather” published in Natural Bridge, Number 38, was a 2016 finalist for the International Literary Awards Rita Dove Award in Poetry and is included in the anthology, Level Land: Poems for and About the I35 Corridor by Crag Hill and Todd Fuller, Lamar University Press, 2022. Her short story “The Crucified Bird,” published in Puerto del Sol, won the AWP Intro Award for Fiction. Her novel NOAH: a supernatural eco-thriller was published by All Things That Matter Press in 2011.
Matt Morris is the author of Nearing Narcoma, selected by Joy Harjo as winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Award, and Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, published by Knut House Press. His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, for which he has received multiple award nominations, including the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He is editor-in-chief of Home Planet News. He previously appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of The Courtship of Winds.
Garrett Phelan is the author of the chapbook Outlaw Odes (Antrim House) and the micro-chapbooks Unfixed Marks and Standing where I am (Origami Poem Project). His poems have appeared in numerous publications including Harpy Hybrid, Slipstream, Potomac Review, Connecticut River Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Third Wednesday. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Recently, before the pandemic, he taught poetry in a maximum-security prison in Connecticut.
Sandro Francisco Piedrahita is an American Catholic author of Peruvian and Ecuadorian descent, with a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale College. His stories have been accepted for publication in The Acentos Review, Hive Avenue Literary Journal, The Write Launch and several other journals.
Hudson Plumb’s poems have been published previously in Kaleidoscope Magazine: Exploring the Experience of Disability Through Literature and the Fine Arts; The Webster Review; Image Magazine, and others. Most recently, his poem, “At the River, Remembering,” was published in the Winter/Spring issue of Kaleidoscope Magazine in January 2023 (see page 56 in the PDF here: https://www.udsakron.org/wp-content/uploads/K86-FINAL.pdf)
Frederick Pollack is author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and three collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, September 2023). Many other poems in print and online journals. Website: www.frederickpollack.com
Bill Ratner is a Best of the Net Poetry Nominee (Lascaux Review,) published in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) poetry chapbook: To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press,) poetry collection: Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press,) Missouri Review Audio, Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. Bill is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, a certified volunteer grief counsellor, and earns his living as a voice actor. https://billratner.com/author • twitter & instagram @billratner
Richard Risemberg was born to a mixed and mixed-up family in Argentina, and dragged to LA as a child to escape the fascist regime. He's spent the next few decades exploring the darker corners of the America Dream and writing stories, poems, and essays based on his experiences. He has published widely in the last few years, as you can see at http://crowtreebooks.com/richard-risemberg-publications/.
Stuart Rose writes personal essays, narrative though lyrically shaped, drawing largely on his experiences as a teacher of elementary and high school students in the New York City system. Mostly, he’s taught U.S. and global history as well as English, though he has pinch hit as a remedial algebra teacher. The essays explore the clash of ideals and obstacles, and the emotional and psychological forces that bind his students and him. He has studied with the writers Meghan O’Gieblyn and Richard Gilbert.
Avik Sarkhel is a 21-year-old lad from Kolkata, India, who is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Application. His hobbies are photography and cycling. He adores being able to capture wonderful sceneries with his mobile camera. Along with his education, photography serves as a key that unlocks doors and allows him to visit areas where he would otherwise have no reason to visit. It has altered his perspective on the world and his relationships with others. His lovely family and close circle of friends keep him determined to savour every moment of his life. He is fortunate enough to experience all of life's joys.
Bill Schillaci was born in New York City and attended New York University. He had day jobs as an engineering writer and freelance environmental journalist. His short stories have appeared in paper and online journals. He lives in Ridgewood NJ with his wife.
Jeanette Shelburne’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Perceptions Magazine, El Portal Literary Journal, Brief Wilderness-Shoe Music Press, Brushfire Journal, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Avotaynu Magazine, On the Bus 25, and Side-Eye on the Apocalypse (LA Poets & Writers Collective). Her scripts were produced for MGM Animation, Nelvana Enterprises, Inc. (children’s animated television shows), Fox New Media, NBCUniversal New Media, Tír na nÓg Designs, and The Brighter Child Series (educational interactive programs).
Edward Burke, under the pseudonym “strannikov”, has written flash fiction (absurdism, science satire, noir humor) and essays since 2011. His verse (since 2016) has appeared online at Fictionaut, Literati Magazine, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Oddball Magazine, and in print at Chiron Review.
Louise Turan’s fiction and creative nonfiction has appeared in Bluestem Magazine, The MacGuffin, Superstition Review, Forge Journal, and Carbon Culture Review and Existere, among others. She was recently a finalist for the FictionWeek Literary Review Fall 2023 issue. Louise lives and writes in Owls Head, Maine. Read more of her published works at www.louiseturan.com.
Anne Whitehouse’s new poetry collection, Steady, is just out from Dos Madres Press and is recommended by Small Press Distribution. She is also the author of poetry collections The Surveyor’s Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, and Outside from the Inside, as well as the chapbooks, Surrealist Muse, Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, Being Ruth Asawa, and a novel, Fall Love.
Nathan Whiting has performed Contemporary dance in New York and Bhutto in Japan, run races longer than 100 miles and meditates on going where one has not intended. His new Polytopic poetry appears in Otoliths, streetcake, South Dakota Review, North Dakota and BlazeVOX
