Contributors' Notes Keith Alexander's (Norwalk, CA) last appearance was in Slipstream #30. Sherman Alexie's (Seattle, WA) latest collection, War Dances (Grove Press, 2009), includes 23 stories, poetry, and call-and-response sequences. He won our poetry chapbook competition with I Would Steal Horses, back in 1992. Check out his web site: www.fallsapart.com. Amy Ash's (Lawrence, KS) poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals, including Inkwell, Cimarron Review, Lake Effect: A Journal of the Literary Arts, and the Mid-American Review. She is a Ph.D. student at the University of Kansas. Christina Ayers (Arden, NC) was born in Buffalo, New York. She lived for many years in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia before wandering the entire country looking for a place to call home. Six years ago she and her husband traveled to Western North Carolina where their search for home ended. Currently she is a senior creative writing major at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. To paraphrase Mark Twain...she is neither refined nor unrefined; she is the type of woman who keeps a parrot. Julie Babcock's Ann Arbor, MI) manuscript, Astronaut Ohio, was a recent finalist in both the Bull City Press and Gerald Cable first book awards. Her poetry appears in Sou'wester, PANK, Hayden's Ferry Review and elsewhere. She is a lecturer at University of Michigan and a recipient of an upcoming Vermont Studio fellowship. Joan E. Bauer (Pittsburgh, PA) co-edited Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts, 2005) with Judith Robinson and Sankar Roy. Her poetry has appeared in 5 AM, The New Renaissance, Pearl, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, and other journals. Her first full-length book of poetry, The Almost Sound of Drowning, was published in 2008 by Main Street Rag. She divides her time between Laguna Beach, CA. and Pittsburgh, PA. Mark Belair (New York, NY) is a drummer and percussionist. His poems have appeared in Atlantic Review and Fulcrum, among others. Visit: www.markbelair.com Francesca Bell's (Novato, CA) poetry has appeared in Slipstream, North America Review, 5 AM, Nimod, Rattle, and others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Carol Berg (Groton, MA) has poems forthcoming or in Artifice, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Rhino, qarrtsiluni, blossombones, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Stonecoast and an MA in English literature and lives with her husband and son. Dana Bisignani's (West Lafayette, IN) poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Blue Collar, and Grasslands. Her poem "Bankruptcy Hearing" was featured in Ted Kooser's column, "American Life in Poetry," in March 2010. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. and teaching at Purdue University. Sarah Carson (Chicago, IL) was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. She is an editor at Rhino and a communications specialist at Switchback Books. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Barrow Street, Diagram, Limestone, and Epiphany, among others, and she is the author of two chapbooks: Before Onstar (Etched Press, 2010) and Twenty-Two (Finishing Line Press, 2011). David Chorlton (Phoenix, AZ) recently had a poem included in the anthology, Birds, from the British Museum, won the Ronald Wardall Poetry Prize for his chapbook The Lost River (Rain Mountain Press), and, in 2009, won the Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Competition for From the Age of Miracles. Clayton Adam Clark (Columbus, OH) hails from St. Louis, Missouri but currently resides in Columbus, Ohio where he spends much of his time reading, writing, teaching, and editing. When possible, though, he likes to see new places, eat strange foods, and drink strong beers with friends and family. Tobi Cogswell (Torrance, CA) has a full-length poetry collection entitled Poste Restante (Bellowing Ark Press) and is also co-editor of San Pedro River Review. Diana Cole, (Arlington, MA) as a professional singer and teacher, has translated many poems for concerts which led her to write her own poetry. She has published in Sahara, Blueline, the Tipton Poetry Journal, The Aurorean, The Christian Century, The Chaffin Journal, and others. Her poem "Though I Walk," set for double chorus by Thomas Stumpf, was selected by the Pharos Music Project and performed in New York City. Heather Cousins (Monroe, GA) is originally from Michigan. Her first poetry book, Something in the Potato Room (2010), was selected by Patricia Smith as the winner of the 2009 Kore Press Book Award. Sudasi J. Clement (Santa Fe, NM) has served as the poetry editor for the Santa Fe Literary Review since 2006. Ron D'Alena (Medford, OR) was born in San Francisco. He earned an MBA at the University of San Francisco, and now lives in Southern Oregon with his wife and son. His work has appeared and is forthcoming in numerous journals and magazines, most recently: Slipstream, Underground Voices, Lowestoft Chronicles, Blue Crow Magazine, Criminal Class Review and EDGE. He is a two-time Glimmer Train Finalist and nominee for the 2012 Pushcart Prize for fiction. You can see Ron read on YouTube. Jonathan Daly (Bliss, New York), our cover artist for Issue #31, was raised on an old farm in Arcade, NY. He was immersed in a creative environment since conception. As the son of two painters and the identical twin of a designer, he never considered another path. In 2004 he graduated from Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts with honors after studying with the accomplished narrative painter, Jerome Witkin. After graduation he returned to his rural roots to continue painting and reacquaint himself with the landscape. The influence of his father's landscape paintings and the still-life work of Bruce Kurland began shaping Daly's direction as a painter. In the fall of 2006 he made the journey back east to attend the MFA painting program at Boston University, headed by British painter John Walker. Since his thesis show, Jonathan's work has been featured in several exhibitions, including the 2008 "New Talent" show at Boston's Alpha Gallery, and most recently in the group show "Figuration & Its Disconnects" at UB Art Gallery. Currently Jonathan lives and paints at his creek-side cabin in Bliss, New York. This familiar environment is intimately reflected in his most recent paintings: "My recent work examines the disconnect that permeates our contemporary relationship with the land we inhabit. The images are honest narratives that describe the tenuous coexistence between our natural roots and the intrusive fabrications of our species. Straightforward observations of the peculiar juxtaposition of the synthetic and the real are at the heart of most of my imagery. The paintings are careful arrangements of fragmented memories and familiar items gleaned from my rural American life. Objects that are quite ordinary in that context often seem alien to generations that have evolved in a modern environment, insulated from their source. Confounded by this disparity daily, I simply make pictures of my observations, perhaps as an attempt at reconciliation." Hal J. Daniel III (Folkland, NC) is professor emeritus of biology at East Carolina University and recently had his seventh collection of poetry published, Animal Behavior (Chiron Review Press, 2009) Jim Daniels' (Pittsburgh, PA) recent collections include Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and From Milltown to Malltown (Marick Press)—a collaborative book with photographs. Forthcoming books include All of the Above (Adastra Press) and Birth Marks (BOA Editions). He recently wrote and produced the independent film, Mr. Pleasant. Carol V. Davis (Los Angeles, CA) won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. She was twice a Fulbright scholar in Russia and teaches at Santa Monica College, CA. Her poetry has been in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Hayden’s Ferry Review and is forthcoming in Natural Bridge. She recently read at the Library of Congress. Holly Day (Minneapolis, MN) is a travel writing instructor. Diane Shipley DeCillis (West Bloomfield, MI) owns an art gallery. Stephanie Coyne DeGhett (Potsdam, NY) is a poet and fiction writer whose work explores life as it plays out along a stretch of northern border. Recent fiction in Descant and The Potomac Review. Recent poetry in The Cape Rock, Dalhousie Review, South Dakota Review, CALYX and The Café Review. Her chapbook—No Longer Any Place But Here—was published by Finishing Line Press in 2007. Her poem “Anthracite Dreams” was a 2009 award winner in the Spoon River Review poetry contest. She is the poetry editor for Blueline and teaches in the English and communication department at SUNY-Potsdam. Doug Draime (Ashland, OR) emerged as a presence in the "underground" literary movement in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Books currently in print: For A Dream Ended (Kendra Steiner Editions), Los Angeles Terminal: Poems 1971-1980 (Covert Press), and Rock n' Roll Jizz (Propaganda Press). Awarded PEN grants in 1987 and 1991. He was nominated for five Pushcart Prizes over the last three years. He lives in the foothills of Oregon. Kurt Cole Eidsvig (Boston, MA) is a poet and painter. He maintains a website at KurtColeEidsvig.com. A. Kay Emmert (Milledgeville, GA) is a native Oklahoman currently working as a teaching fellow in the Georgia College and State University MFA program and reads for Arts & Letters. Alejandro Escudé (Santa Monica, CA) is the author of Where Else But Here and Unknown Physics, two collections published by March Street Press. His poems have appeared in RATTLE, Phoebe, and Poet Lore. He works as a high school English teacher and lives with his wife Jennifer and his son Aaron. Interested readers can visit alejandroescude.com. James Espinoza (Visalia, CA) received an M.F.A. in creative writing from California State University, Fresno. While completing his degree, he was a Graduate Equity Fellow. His writing has appeared in the anthology Windows into My World (Arte Publico Press, 2009), In the Grove: An Homage to Andres Montoya, Metroactive, Vulcan, Yellow Medicine Review, Turnrow, and Packinghouse Review, among others. James is currently an assistant professor of English at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. Ken Feltges (Williamsville, NY) was so small as a young boy, he nearly went airborne while attempting to launch a kite from the roof of a municipal building in downtown Buffalo. Hugh Fox (East Lansing, MI) is dying from what began as prostate cancer ten years ago and is now spreading everywhere. But he keeps going on as if he were normal. His novel, Depths and Dragons, just came out from Skylight Press in England (a novel written 20 years ago about a Jewish woman from Tel Aviv leaving Israel after her husband is killed by terrorists, goes to Paris, becomes Catholic, her two sons are killed in Notre Dame...), a novel he'd love to see made into a film. Also Grey Sparrow Press just published a book of poetry originally written in Portuguese in Brazil, both the original Portuguese and translations in the volume. Another couple of novels are forthcoming. Terry Godbey's (Orlando, FL) new collection, Flame (Finishing Line Press), will be out in 2011. She is also the author of the chapbook Behind Every Door (Slipstream) which won our Poetry Chapbook Competition for 2006. Quercus Press released her book of poems, Beauty Lessons, in 2010. Myles Gordon (Newton, MA) teaches humanities at Boston Latin Academy in the Boston Public Schools. Willard Greenwood (Hiram, OH) edits The Hiram Poetry Review, now in its 45th year of publication. Rasma Haidri (Bodoe, Norway) was raised in Tennessee and Wisconsin, and lived in France and Hawaii before settling on the arctic seacoast of Norway where she teaches English. She has received the Southern Women Writers Association award in creative non-fiction, the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Science & Letters poetry award, a residency at Vermont Studio Center and she was a finalist for the Barry Hannah prize for fiction. More about her writing can be found at www.rasma.org.> Carol Hamilton (Midwest City, OK) has recently published in South Carolina Review, Poet Lore, Tulane Review, Abbey, Chiron Review, and others. Carol's most recent books include Master of the Theater: Peter the Great (Finishing Line Press) and Naming Things For What We've Lost (March Street Press). Kathleen Hellen's (Baltimore, MD) work was published previously in Slipstream. Recent work has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Cimarron Review, The Dos Passos Review, Harpur Palate, Subtropics, Swink, Witness, among others and on WYPR’s The Signal. Awards include the Washington Square Review, James Still and Thomas Merton poetry prizes, as well as individual artist grants from the state of Maryland and Baltimore City. Her chapbook The Girl Who Loved Mothra was published in December 2010 by Finishing Line Press. Derek Henderson (Salt Lake City, UT) is finishing his Ph.D. studies in English at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he lives with his wife, kids and cats. At the moment, he is tremendously fond of Thoreau's injunction to "Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity." Jean Hollander (Hopewell, NJ) has published three collections of her poetry as prize winners in various Poetry Book Series. Hundreds of her poems have appeared in literary journals and other collections. She has won many prizes, grants, and fellowships. Her verse translation of Dante’s Commedia was published by Doubleday to enthusiastic reviews. She has taught literature at Princeton University, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and The College of New Jersey, where she has been Director of Writers Conferences for twenty-three years. Melissa Holmes (Kennewick, WA) teaches at Columbia Basin College. Her poems have been published in various literary journals including Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, and Puerto del Sol. Walt Hunter, (Salt Lake City, UT) a professional singer/actor for thirty years, now works as a gang-prevention specialist. His work has appeared in Poetry East, The New York Quarterly, and Gulf. Sabrina Ito (Honolulu, HI) is originally from Vancouver, BC. She lives with her husband, Victor and her dog, Truman. A beginning poet, Sabrina is compiling a portfolio for admission into an MFA Creative Writing Program. Her work has recently appeared in The Coachella Review. Michelle Ann Kratts (Niagara Falls, NY) doesn't need the check or the soft lighting. What is revealed in torn darkness fades like fleeting afterthoughts. She collects these moments in a hat which she wears like a nest on her head. Birds long for nothing more. Tom Lachman's (Tacoma Park, MD) poems have appeared in Pedestal, Euphony, Ghoti and elsewhere. He has been awarded a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Wayne Lee (Santa Fe, NM) was born in British Columbia and raised in Washington state. His collection, Vortex, is forthcoming from Red Mountain Press. Christopher Locke (New Lebanon, NY) was recently nominated for his second Pushcart Prize in poetry. Born in Laconia, NH in 1968, he received an MFA from Goddard College. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such magazines as Southwest Review, Adbusters, The Southeast Review, 32 Poems, Alimentum, West Branch, Exquisite Corpse, Atlanta Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Sun, Agenda, (U.K.), Descant, (Canada), The Stinging Fly, (Ireland), and as a prize winner in Flatmancrooked's Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetics. Chris has received several awards for his poetry, including a 2006 and 2007 Dorothy Sargent Memorial Poetry Prize, and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, New Hampshire Council on the Arts, and Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain). His four chapbooks of poetry are The Temple of Many Hands, (DeadDrunkDublin Press—2010) Possessed, (Main Street Rag, Editor’s Choice Award—2005), Slipping under Diamond Light, (Clamp Down Press—2002), and How To Burn (Adastra Press—1995). His first full length collection of poems, End of American Magic, is from Salmon Poetry (Ireland). Chris lives with his wife and two daughters and teaches literature and writing at The Darrow School. Gerald Locklin (Long Beach, CA) is still teaching the occasional class, post-retirement, at California State University, Long Beach. His latest book is The Vampires Saved Civilization: New and Selected Prose, 2000-2010 (World Parade Books). Kathayn Howd Machan (Ithaca, NY) is a professor of writing at Ithaca College and the author of 30 collections of poetry, most recently Belly Poems: Words of Dance (Split Oak Press, 2009). Melanie Maier (Belvedere, CA) has published two chapbooks, The Art of Everyday and The Land of Us and a poetry book, Sticking to Earth. Her work has appeared and will appear in many publications and anthologies, including, In Posse Review, Drash, The Fourth River, Phoebe, and The Southern Review. Internationally her work has been featured in Gazeta Wyborcza, (Warsaw, Poland). Sarah Marcus (Fairfax, VA) is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at George Mason University, where she is also an English faculty member. Her work has appeared in the Cimarron Review and So to Speak. She is originally from Cleveland, OH. Brad Mazur (Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a 27-year-old photographer whose work appears on the back cover of Slipstream #31. He says he looks to traditional painting to illuminate a story that he can portray in photos. His passion lies in finding new perspectives, whether in people, places or things and endeavors to illustrate a different side, while bending the rules of photography. Karla Linn Merrifield (Kent, NY) is recent “Best of the Net” nominee, five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and National Park Artist-in-Residence. Her poetry has appeared in dozens of publications as well as in many anthologies. She has six books to her credit, including Godwit: Poems of Canada, which received the 2009 Andrew Eiseman Writers Award for Poetry, and her new chapbook, The Urn, (Finishing Line Press). Forthcoming from Salmon Press is her full-length collection, Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems of the Far North. Currently in the works is a book of technologically themed poems, The Gizmo Girl’s Diary, as well as an application for a second National Park Artist Residency. She was founding poetry editor of Sea Stories, and is now book reviewer and assistant editor for The Centrifugal Eye and moderator of the poetry blog, "Smothered Air" (http://smotheredair.yuku.com ). She teaches at Writers & Books, Rochester, NY. You can read more about her and sample her poems and photographs at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. She resides in part-time in Kent, NY, and winters in North Fort Myers. Barry W. North (Hahnville, LA) is a sixty-six-year-old retired refrigeration mechanic. His poems and stories can be found in places like Art Times, Chiron Review, Timber Creek Review, and many others. Heidi Nye (Long Beach, CA) has published widely under her former, married name of Heidi Ziolkowski. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in more than 50 publications, including Chiron Review and Pearl. As a journalist, Nye has published articles on travel, politics, science, technology, personalities and other subjects in the Los Angeles Times, Long Beach Magazine, Fresno Bee, Long Beach Press-Telegram and more than a hundred trade publications. Barbara Osborne (Seattle, WA) has spent a career clearing spaces for artists, including herself, where they can feel safe and encouraged finding their voices and making art. She has had two plays produced: Referees, at The New City Theater, and The Sin Eater, at The Cabaret, both in Seattle, where she teaches and resides. William Palmer (Alma, MI) teaches English at Alma College in Central Michigan. His poetry has appeared recently in Ecotone, JAMA, and Salamander. Grace Cavalieri interviewed him for her public radio show, The Poet and the Poem, from the Library of Congress. His chapbook, A String of Blue Lights, was published by Pudding House. A new chapbook, Humble, will be published by Finishing Line Press. Robert Penick (Louisville, KY) edited Chance Magazine for several years. His poetry, prose, and artwork can be found in over 200 magazines. Robert Perchan's (Pusan, South Korea) most recent poetry chapbooks are Mythic Instinct Afternoon (2005 Poetry West Prize) and Overdressed to Kill (Backwaters Press). Connie Post (Livermore, CA) served is the Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Kalliope, Cold Mountain Review, Crab Creek Review, Comstock Review, Karamu, DMQ Review, Dogwood, The Great American Poetry Show, The Pedestal Magazine, and The Toronto Quarterly. She won the 2009 Caesura Poetry Award and her newest chapbook, Trip Wires (Finishing Line Press), was released in September 2010. Charles Rammelkamp's (Baltimore, MD) website is: www.charlesrammelkamp.com. He also edits an online literary journal called The Potomac (http://thepotomacjournal.com). Lee Rossi (San Carlos, CA) is a lighthouse towering over a misty coast on the edge of something ominous. The sky burns with salt. Beth Anne Royer (Milford, CT) is a lover of music, a great baker, and a loyal friend. She toils by day for an urban municipality. She lives carlessly and almost carelessly in the nutmeg state. Marty Silverthorne (Greenville, NC) is a licensed clinical addiction specialist. He holds degrees from St. Andrews Presbyterian College and East Carolina University. His first collection of poems, Dry-Skin Messiah, was chosen for the Bunn McClelland Chapbook Award. Pot Liquor Promises, Marty’s second chapbook, was selected by Maxine Kumin for the Persephone Press Award. No Welfare, No Pension Plan was published by Rank Stranger Press and Rewinding at 40, was published by Pudding House Press. He has received several North Carolina Regional Arts Grants and his poems have appeared in numerous journals. Karen Skolfield (Amherst, MA) is a freelance magazine writer and an adjunct professor in the journalism department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a contributing editor at the literary magazine Bateau and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine, Hollins Critic, PANK, Painted Bride Quarterly, RATTLE, West Branch, and others. Melissa Stein (San Francisco, CA) has poems in American Poetry Review, Southern Review, New England Review, and others. Alison Stone's (Nyack, NY) poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and a variety of other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award. Her first book, They Sing at Midnight, won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award and was published by Many Mountains Moving Press. From the Fool to the World, a chapbook, is forthcoming from Parallel Press. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. Jennifer Tappenden (St. Louis, MO) says a straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but she thinks that’s no way to travel—not if you really want to learn something, not if you want to be surprised—which is how she finds herself in St Louis, living in an old hospital and working in public health research. Ed Taylor (Buffalo, NY) is a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Idiogest (BlazeVox Books) and the chapbook Rubaiyat of Hazmat (BlazeVox). His writing has appeared in a variety of periodicals and anthologies, most recently in North American Review, Nth Position, Mississippi Review Online, Southwest Review, Anemone Sidecar, Pif, The 2ndHand, and Elimae. Tony Tracy (Urbandale, IA) is the author of two collections of poetry, The Christening (Center Press, 1997) and Without Notice (March Street Press, 2007). His work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in North American Review, Tar River Review, Rattle, Poetry East, Parting Gifts and numerous other journals and magazines. He lives with his wife, two boys and two dogs. James Valvis (Issaquah, WA) has poems and stories in 5 AM, Crab Creek Review, Hanging Loose, Nimrod, and others. His latest poetry collection is How to Say Goodbye (Aortic Books, 2011). Back to top |
