Contributors

August 2013

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. You can view more about her here.

Richard Baldasty's collages have appeared in Third Wednesday, Fickle Muses, Ray's Road Review, Burrow Press Review and, unaccountably, as the work of Ricahrd Baltasy in the excellent current issue of Big Bridge. His—Baldasty's not Baltasy's—poetry and short fiction also can be accessed online at Cafe Irreal, Dark Fire, Marco Polo Literary Arts, Shuf Poetry, and the Raving Dovearchive. He lives in Spokane.

Shannon Barber is an author from Seattle where she lives with her partner and a small collection of oddities. She likes to crochet, drink hot beverages and harass her partner with nerdtastic rants . To see more of her work please visit her here.

Ute Carson’s first story was published in 1977. Her story “The Fall” won the Grand Prize for Prose and was published in the short story and poetry anthology, A Walk Through My Garden, Outrider Press, Chicago 2007. Her first novel, Colt Tailing, was published in September 2004 and was a finalist for the Peter Taylor Book Award Prize for the Novel. Her second novel, In Transit, was published in 2008. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines here and abroad. Carson’s poetry was featured on the televised Spoken Word Showcase 2009 and 2010, 2011 Channel Austin, TX. Her poetry collection, Just a Few Feathers, was published in 2011. Her poem “A Tangled Nest of Moments” won second place in the Eleventh International Poetry Competition 2012. An Advanced Certified Clinical Hypnotist, Ute Carson resides in Austin, TX with her husband. They have three daughters, five grandchildren, two horses and a number of cats. Visit her website here.

Ha Kiet Chau is a poet and freelance writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems and stories have appeared in many literary journals in the US, UK, and Asia. Her chapbook, Woman, Come Undone, is forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press. You can find out more about her here.

Chelsey Clammer received her MA in Women's Studies from Loyola University Chicago. She has been published in The Rumpus, Atticus ReviewThe Coachella Review and Make/shift among many others. She received the Nonfiction Editor's Pick Award 2012 from both Revolution House and Cobalt, as well as Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Clammer is a columnist for The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, as well as the Managing Editor and Nonfiction Editor for the journal. She is also the Nonfiction Editor for The Dying Goose. You can read more of her writing here.

Alyssa Cooper is a poet and novelist born in Ontario, Canada. Her work has been included in a wide range of literary magazines and anthologies, both in print and on the web. Her first novel, Salvation, was released in October 2012, and her first poetry collection is schedule for publication late 2013. She is currently working as a graphic designer in Belleville, where she lives with her typewriter and her personal library.

Will Cordeiro is currently a Ph.D. candidate completing his dissertation on 18th century British literature at Cornell Univerity. His work appears or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Crab Orchard Review, CutBank online, Drunken Boat, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. He is grateful for recent residencies from Ora Lerman Trust, ART 342, Blue Mountain Center, and Petrified Forest National Park. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Thomas Cowell is a native of the San Juan Islands in Washington State. Some of his fiction has recently appeared in Torrid Literature Journal and Storychord, and two more pieces are planned to appear this fall, one for The Milo Review and the other for C4: The Chamber Four Lit Mag.

Meeah Cross-Williams is a freelance writer and graphic artist. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming from The Milo Review, Blank Media Collective, The Subterranean Quarterly, Innsmouth Magazine, Noir Nation, Wilde, and Per Contra. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Matthew Dexter lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Like the nomadic Pericú natives before him, he survives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet of shrimp tacos, smoked marlin, cold beer, and warm sunshine. He is the author of the novel THE RITALIN ORGY.

Rebecca Elliott received her MFA in Writing from SAIC and currently lives in Chicago, IL Her work experiments with fragmented forms and the line between poetry and prose, frequently using the artist’s book as a way of physically exploring poetic and narrative form in writing. Her short prose and poetry has appeared in Diagram, the Portland Review, and in other places.

Merlin Flower is an independent artist with no sense of belonging.

Brad Garber has published poetry/essays in Cream City Review, Alchemy, Fireweed, Uphook Press, Front Range Review, theNewerYork, Ray’s Road Review, Flowers & Vortexes, Emerge Literary Journal, Generation Press, Penduline Press, Dead Flowers, New Verse News, The Whirlwind Review, Gambling the Aisle, Dark Matter Journal, Sundog Lit, Diversion Press, Unshod Quills, Meat for Tea, Mercury, The Meadow, Shuf Poetry, Post Poetry Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Temenos, Hoot & Hare, The Ilanot Review, Third Wednesday ,Sugar Mule, Embodied Effigies, Sugar Mule, and/or Poetry Journal and Great Weather For Media. Nominee: 2013 Pushcart Prize for poem, “Where We May Be Found.”

Allen Hope’s fiction and poetry has appeared in Fried Chicken and Coffee, Ghost Town, Sleet Magazine, Snow Monkey, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of Sonoma State University and currently lives in Gallipolis, Ohio with his wife and two daughters.

Sarah Imbody received her M. A. in English from Indiana University (Fort Wayne) in 2011. She currently teaches high school English and dual-credit writing courses in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She has three children, and in her spare time she manages to carve out, her writing endeavors include poems and creative nonfiction shorts.

Mark Jackley is the author of several chapbooks and two full-length collections, most recently Hello Hello Hello (Blurb Press). His work has appeared in Tampa Review, anderbo.com, Sugar House Review, Body and other journals. He lives in Sterling, Virginia.

Abriana Jette is a poet, essayist, and educator from Brooklyn, New York. She earned her M.F.A. from Boston University, where she was a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow, and an M.A. from Hofstra University, where she was nominated for the Associated Writing Program's Intro Journal Project. She currently teaches Creative Writing at St. John's University, and courses for the City University of New York. Her work has appeared in the American Literary Review, PoetsArtists, Every Day Poets, and many other places.

Laura Story Johnson is an attorney working in human rights research and advocacy. Born and raised in Iowa, she has lived in New York City, bush Alaska, Mongolia, Boston, west of the Zambezi River in Zambia, and in Austria. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has most recently appeared in Great Lakes Review and NORTHWIND Magazine. She currently resides in Chicago with her husband and two children. See more here.

Desirée Jung has a background in film, creative writing and comparative literature. She is originally from Brazil but a citizen of Canada. She has published translations and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, among others. She has also participated in several artist residencies including the Banff Centre, in Canada. She worked with the Canadian poet George McWhirter on her M.F.A in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Moreover, her research and Ph.D. thesis in Comparative Literature was based in the works of Canadian poet P. K. Page, which she defended in at the same university.

Matt Kolbet teaches and writes near Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in Prompt Literary Magazine, Four and Twenty, Defenestration, and Clockwise Cat among other places.

Lauren Krouse is a recent graduate of the College of Charleston in South Carolina. She writes in her free time and works in Poland as an English teacher.

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cat, Charlie Chaplin.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens has poems published in Superstition Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Red Savina Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine,Burningwood Literary Journal, The Apeiron Review, Dead Flowers: A Poetry Rag, Star 82 Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Rufous City Review, and Iowa City’s 2013 Poetry in Public Project. She has poems forthcoming in Eunoia Review, The New Poet, Scapegoat Review, The Squalor Review, and Untitled with Passengers.

Maria Maddox was born in the Lake District in Chile and came to the U. S. to complete an MA in Spanish Literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She's currently a PhD student, a collage artist and a poet in the Denver Metro Area.

John McCaffrey recieved a MA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York. His stories have appeared in nearly 30 literary journals and anthologies. He also teaches creative writing to LGBTQ students, and is the Interviews Editor for KGBBAR.LIT in New York City. His debut novel will be released this Fall by Boxfire Press.

Lucas McMillan graduated from Drake University with a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism and is currently work as a copywriter. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Drake Magazine, Forge, The Oklahoma Review, and Urban Plains Magazine. Additionally, he received an honorable mention for his first-person story “Me, Myself, and I Don’t Know” in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Student Magazine Contest. In his free time, he is an avid reader of fiction and constantly honing his craft.

Cynthia Milionis earned an MFA in printmaking at San Francisco State University. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions nationwide and internationally and is held in private and public collections. Cynthia resides in San Francisco and prints at historical Fort Mason. Cynthia’s works have been described as “visual playgrounds.” Her prints begin on the printing press and, after multiple runs, take final form as collages and mixed-media monoprints.

Emily Mullin is the co-founder and managing editor of TOSKA, an online literary journal of creative nonfiction. Her creative writing has appeared in Cobalt, Silent Things, The Minutiae and Line Zero. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she work as a science journalist.

Alex Nodopaka was conceived in Ukraine. He exhibited his finger paintings in Russia in 1940 & has doodled since. Studied tongue-in-cheek at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco. He now lives in the USA where he self-appointed himself as an art pundit. His interest in literature and the visual arts is exhaustively multi-cultural though he wouldn't mind some cameo appearance in IFC & Sundance movies if only for the duration of an eye blink. Well, OK, maybe two!

Anne Britting Oleson has been published widely in North America, Europe and Asia. She earned her MFA at the Stonecoast program of USM. She has published two chapbooks, The Church of St. Materiana (2007) and The Beauty of It (2010). Another book, Counting the Days, is scheduled for release next year.

Kamie Pamulapati is an underemployed English major from Wake Forest University and currently lives in Arizona, though she hates the heat and misses green grass terribly. She likes to write in her free time, but, more often than not, you can find her obsessing over television shows and spending way too much time browsing cooking blogs.

Mark Payne is a first year Master of Arts English student at Northern Kentucky University. He has published journalistic work in Fort Knox’s The Gold Standard, and has written extensively about homelessness and poverty for numerous alternative publications in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Kenneth Pobo's collection of micro-fiction, Tiny Torn Maps, was published by Deadly Chaps in 2011. Forthcoming is a poetry chapbook from Eastern Point Press called Placemats.

Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both published by Story Line Press. Other poems and essays in print and online. He is an adjunct professor of creative writing at George Washington University. Poetics: neither navelgazing mainstream nor academic pseudo-avant-garde.

Deborah Purdy lives in the Philadelphia area where she writes poetry and creates fiber art. She is originally from Virginia and holds BA and MA degrees from Hollins University, and a MSLS from Clarion University. She has been a research scientist and a reference librarian.

Rena Rossner is a graduate of the Writing Seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University, Trinity College Dublin and McGill University. She has written extensively for The Jerusalem Report and The Jerusalem Post. Her poetry and short fiction has been published or is forthcoming from Poetica Magazine, MiPoesias, Ascent Aspirations, The 22 Magazine, Fade Poetry Journal, Exterminating Angel Press, Full of Crow and The Prague Revue, among others. Her cookbook "Eating the Bible" is forthcoming from Skyhorse Publishing, September 2013.

Charlotte San Juan has temporarily exiled herself from the United States and moved to Shanghai, where she hopes to find everything she needs with the song of the cicadas and the street fruit vendors outside of her apartment window.

V.A. Smith is a writer and photographer masquerading as a corporate drone during banking hours. She feels lucky to live and work in Portsmouth, NH. Her work has appeared in galleries in town.

J.R. Solonche is a four-time Pushcart Prize, as well as Best of the Net nominee. He has been publishing poems in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He lives and teaches in New York's Hudson Valley.

Shelby Stephenson's book, Family Matters: Homage to July, the Slave Girl, won the 2008 Bellday Poetry Prize.

Brett Stout is a 33-year-old writer and artist. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and Paramedic. He writes while mainly hung-over on white lined paper in a small cramped apartment in Myrtle Beach, SC. He published his first novel of prose and poetry entitled Lab Rat Manifesto in 2007.

Mark Sutz writes stories with hunks of charcoal on large slabs of pavement in Arizona. He resides on the first floor and drinks Arnold Palmers to stay cool.

Gina Thorwick is originally from St. Paul, Minnesota. She has a degree in Actuarial Science from the University of St. Catherine, where she played soccer for four years. Shortly after graduation she moved to Italy, her most favorite place in the world. Though Gina has since returned to the States and currently resides in Los Angeles, she always loves to visit home and windsurf with her family.

Haly Van Heukelom is a graduate of The University of Northern Colorado with a bachelor's degree in English. She is the 2013 winner of UNC's Rosenberry Prize, an award for exceptional student writing, as well as the first place winner for creative non-fiction in Northern Colorado's student literary awards. She has published several poems and stories in UNC's Crucible, as well as poems in The Four Ties Lit Review and Lingerpost magazine. She currently lives and writes in Bend, Oregon.

Michael K. White - As one half of the semi-legendary playwriting team Broken Gopher Ink, he spent his youth tricking and fooling producers into investing their dirty money in his lurching, lumbering plays. Incredibly this led to forty play productions, including fifteen off-Broadway runs that cloaked the author with a bogus literary credibility he misuses to this day. His low cholesterol mega monologue play, "My Heart And the Real World" ran for almost two years in New York City, enabling the authors to eat at John's Pizzeria. In 2007 his story “13 Halloweens” was chosen as one of the ten best stories published in 2006 by the super cool folks at Story South. In 2010 "My Apartment" a "micro-novel" was published by Blueprint Press.

Louis Wittig is an ad-type guy in New York and, at home in New Jersey, a writer type guy.