Iris Literary Journal Contributors
Volume I, Issue 2, Summer 2020
Karen Starrett
COVER ARTIST AND VISUAL ART CONTRIBUTOR
Karen Starrett has an honors B.A. from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and she continued her studies at the School of Visual Arts. In addition to being a painter, Starrett is a teaching artist for people with dementia. Her organization, Creative Aging Arts LLC, facilitates art workshops in adult care communities. Her curriculum’s foundation is a continuation of her life as an artist, her love of personal imagery, and the use of paint, paper, and mixed media. She describes painting as “a body-centered action” that continues to be “an expression of [her] life.” After working in collage for many years, she came to painting in 2005 in response to a life-threatening ovarian cancer diagnosis, the focus of her early paintings. Karen Starrett's paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions. She has won awards, received a grant from The Puffin Foundation, and, in 2019, curated Art & Healing: expressions of trauma and gratitude at The Monmouth Museum.
Anthony Afairo Nze
Visual Art contributor
Anthony Afairo Nze is a 21-year-old graphic design student from Indiana. He spends most of his free time drawing art pieces, comic strips and practicing graphic design.
instagram.com/Afairosgallery instagram.com/Recklesspeoplecomics
J V Birch
Poetry contributor
J V Birch lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, including Balancing Act and Other Poems (named after her poem), Sentinel Champions, Australian Love Poems, The Emma Press Anthology of Aunts, Australian Poetry Member’s Anthology, and The Hunter Writers Centre Grieve Anthology. Her work has also featured in journals and magazines, including Ink, Sweat and Tears, Coffin Bell, Australian Poetry Journal, Plumwood Mountain, The Poetry Shed, Not Very Quiet, Zoomorphic, Magma, Cordite, and Mslexia. She has been a three-time winner in a poetry category of mindshare’s Creative Writing Awards and a prize winner in The Molotov Cocktail Shadow Award. Ginninderra Press has published three of her chapbooks – Smashed glass at midnight in their Picaro Poets series, and What the water & moon gave me and A bellyful of roses in their Pocket Poets series – and her first full-length collection, more than here.
Stephanie Blanch-Byer
Poetry contributor
Stephanie Blanch-Byer is a New York City Public High School Special Education Teacher with more than 15 years of experience. Born and raised on Chicago’s Westside, poetry has been her way of "sorting out her stuff" since the third grade. She is the founder of the Black Gyrl Collective (BGC). Besides curating their own weekly writing space, community write-ins, and monthly BGC poetry events, Stephanie has also facilitated writing and wellness workshops as a tool for healing for the Catalyst: Ed Network’s Black Woman’s Journey to Reclamation Series. Her multimedia poetry and prose can be found at the exhibition, Blacktivism: The New Generation in Washington, DC (since 2016). Some of her works have also been shared at BlackOut (2020); La Mama Poetry Electric: Tribute to Toni Morrison(2019), Harlem Pride: Speak Your Myne(2019), Downbraiding: A Reading in Three Voices(2019), Still BOLD (2019) Poets on the Verge(2018), La Mama: Women Writers/Resist (2017) NYC Black Pride(2016), Womyn & Words at the Lesbian HerStory Archives (2015), Latinos NYC: Nuyorican Cafe (2015), and Women of the African Diaspora (2014).
Gavin Bourke
Poetry Contributor
Gavin Bourke grew up in the suburb of Tallaght in West Dublin. He holds a B.A. in Humanities from Dublin City University, an M.A, in Modern Drama Studies, and a Higher Diploma in Information Studies from University College Dublin. His poetry appears in a number of publications, including Crossways Literary Magazine, Qutub Minar Review International Literary Magazine, and A New Ulster. In 2016, his work was shortlisted for The Redline Book Festival Poetry Award. In 2019, he read at the Siarsceál Literary Festival; his poem, Louisburgh, County Memory, was highly commended in the Johnathon Swift Creative Writing Awards, his poem Ag Iarraidh, a Churam Mo Intinn Bhun Os Cionn, was shortlisted for The Manchester Irish Language Group International Poetry Competition, and his first book of poetry, sixty pages, was shortlisted for the International Hedgehog Poetry Press (UK) Full Fat Collection Poetry Competition. His book Toward Human (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2020) is the winner of the international Nicely Folded Paper Trois International Poetry Collection Competition. Gavin continues to write and work County Meath with his spouse, Annemarie.
S. T. Brant
Drama contributor
S. T. Brant is a teacher from Las Vegas. He has publications in/coming from EcoTheo, Door is a Jar, Santa Clara Review, Rain Taxi, New South, Green Mountains Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Ekstasis, 8 Poems, a few others.
Jill Bronfman
Poetry contributor
Jill Bronfman is a professor, lawyer, non-profit worker, and parent. Her work has been accepted for publication in Rougarou, Ruminate Magazine, The Write Launch, The Decadent Review, The Halcyone, 82 Review, The Passed Note, Storgy, Verbal, Kallisto Gaia, Main Street Rag, High Desert, Flying Ketchup, Carcosa, Genre: Urban Arts, Ripples in Space, Mothers Always Write, Talking Writing, Coffin Bell Journal, Flock, Wanderlust Journal, Quiet Lightning, and law and technical books and periodicals. She has performed her work in Poets in the Parks, The Basement Series, and LitQuake, and had her story about a middle-aged robot produced as a podcast.
Photo by Krista Ockenden
Ann-Marie Brown
Visual Art contributor
Ann-Marie Brown is a Canadian painter currently working out of a studio tucked between the forest & the Pacific Ocean. Her oil and encaustic paintings have been exhibited across Canada & the United States and found their way into public, private & corporate collections.
Lin Marshall Brummels
Poetry contributor
Lin Marshall Brummels, a native Nebraskan and life-long resident grew up on a farm at the edge of the Nebraska Sandhills. Brummels earned a Psychology BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, an MS in Rehabilitation Counseling from Syracuse University, and is a licensed mental health counselor in private practice. She was Director of Counseling at Wayne State College for 39 years, where she provided mental health counseling to students and supervised beginning counselors. She is an environmentalist who often finds mental health solutions in the garden. Her poetry has appeared in Concho River Review, Iris Literary Journal, Oakwood, Paddlefish, Pinyon Review, Plainsongs, Poet Lore, San Pedro River Review, The Sea Letter, Nebraska Life Magazine, and several anthologies. Her poetry chapbooks are “Cottonwood Strong” and “Hard Times,” winner of a 2016 Nebraska Book Award. Brummels’ first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Scurfpea Publishing in 2021.
Anna Citrino
Poetry contributor
Anna Citrino grew up in San Diego County and taught abroad in international schools in Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the United Kingdom. Her current home is Soquel, California, where she enjoys raising her own food and learning to draw. Anna's work has appeared in various literary journals, including Bellowing Ark, Canary, Earth’s Daughters, Evening Street Review, Paterson Literary Review, Porter Gulch Review, phren-z, La Piccioletta Barca, Rockvale Review, and Spillway, among other publications. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019, Citrino is the author of A Space Between, and two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River.
Jane Costain
Poetry contributor
Jane Costain is a freelance writer and poet. Although she has been writing poetry for many years, she has only recently begun to publish some of her poems in various journals. Her chapbook, Small Windows, was published by Main Street Rag in 2018.
Krista Marie DeBehnke
Drama contributor
Krista Marie DeBehnke is a poet and playwright originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin but currently lives, writes, and teaches in Augusta, Georgia. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Masque & Spectacle, Saranac Review, What Are Birds? Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Apeiron Review, Rock & Sling, Portland Review, Bateau Ivre, and Railtown Almanac, among others. She writes and produces two horror podcasts, Dr. Scarelove and Haunting Season, with her husband, Drew Attana.
RC deWinter
Poetry contributor
RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in Uno: A Poetry Anthology (Xlibris, 4/2002), New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), Cowboys & Cocktails (Brick Street, 4/2019), Nature In The Now (Tiny Seed Press, 8/2019), Coffin Bell Two (March 2020), Other Worldly Women Press 2020 Summer Anthology: a Headrest for Your Soul (June 2020), in print in 2River, Adelaide, Door Is A Jar, Event, Genre Urban Arts, Gravitas, Kansas City Voices, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, The Minnesota Review, Night Picnic Journal, Prairie Schooner, Reality Break Press, Southword among others and appears in numerous online literary journals.
donnarkevic
Poetry Contributor
donnarkevic lives in Buckhannon, WV, and has an MFA from National University. Recent poetry has appeared in Triggerfish, Nassau Review, and About Place Journal. donnarkevic is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee whose plays have received readings in Chicago, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia. Poetry Collections include Laundry, (Main Street Rag, 2005). Admissions, a book of poems (FutureCycle Press, 2013), Many Sparrows (The Poetry Box, 2018).
Ken Farrell
Poetry contributor
Ken Farrell’s work is forthcoming or published in anthologies and journals such as Ripples in Space, Pilgrimage, Sport Literate, Watershed Review, Coffin Bell Journal, The Piltdown Review, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Texas State University and an MA from Salisbury University, and he has earned as an adjunct, cage fighter, pizzaiolo, and warehouseman. Ken is currently revising and shopping his work and responding to his daughter’s challenge, who participated in NaNoWriMo. He recently began his first novel, a tale about a world where ghosts serve on juries, the sky is off-limits, and shards of souls are commodities.
William Ivor Fowkes
Drama contributor
William Ivor Fowkes is a playwright and author based in New York and a member of the Dramatists Guild. His plays have been presented in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Many have been published (Dramatists Play Service, The Best 10-Minute Plays—Smith & Kraus, The Best Women’s Stage Monologues and Scenes—Smith & Kraus, Clockhouse Review, The Distillery, The Paragon Journal, Statement Magazine, The Eddy, Fleas on the Dog, and elsewhere). His fiction has been published in many journals (Eureka Literary Magazine, The Dirty Goat, The Nassau Review, The Chariton Review, Lullwater Review, Wisconsin Review, RiverSedge, Limestone, Argestes, Soundings East, Buffalo Carp: Quad Cities Arts’ Journal, and elsewhere). He is also the author of A Hegelian Account of Contemporary Art (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press). A graduate of Yale University (B.A., magna cum laude) and Northwestern University (M.A., Ph.D.), he was formerly a philosophy professor (Hobart & William Smith Colleges and Northwestern University) and a media & television executive (Showtime, HBO, CBS Records, and Time Magazine). He currently runs a playwrights’ group at the Dramatists Guild in New York. He is married to music conductor Stephen Michael Smith.
Ramona Gabar
Fiction contributor
“Miracle” is part of Ramona Gabar’s first volume of short stories, called “Stations.” The volume is built around stories of migration, of forced relocation, of cut and run. In “Stations,” destinies remain suspended for a brief moment while we witness (and weigh in on) their options. Ramona writes in Romanian, English, and French. She is currently working with her 10-year old daughter on a children’s book in French.
https://twitter.com/RamonaGabar https://www.instagram.com/bufnita/
Olga Gonzalez Latapi
Poetry contributor
Olga Gonzalez Latapi (she/her/hers) is a queer poet with an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Although her writing journey started in journalism, she is now pursuing her true passion: exploring the world of poetry with a mighty pen in hand. She got her BS in Journalism at Northwestern University. Her work has been published in Teen Voices Magazine, Sonder Midwest literary arts magazine, BARNHOUSE Literary Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Impossible Task, Genre: Urban Arts, Biscuitroot Drive, iaam.com, and The Nasiona Magazine, among others. Originally from Mexico City, she currently lives in Toronto.
letolgatellyouastory.tumblr.com/ https://twitter.com/Olga_G_L
Cleo Griffith
Poetry Contributor
Cleo Griffith was Chair of the Editorial Board of Song of the San Joaquin for its first twelve years and currently sits on the Board in its 17th year. A member of the Modesto branch of the National League of American Pen Women and widely published, she lives in Salida, CA, with her cats, Amber and Neil.
Jack Halliday
Fiction contributor
Jack Halliday is an author, award-winning screenwriter and producer whose work has appeared in numerous digital and print publications. Wildside Press published his first fiction collection, Kawanga/Swan and Other Mystery Stories, as their 12th "Mystery Double." His noir mystery novel, The Big Bluff, debuted from Solstice Publishing in 2018. His new detective fiction collection, Finding Phyllis and Other Howard Millar Capers, are currently available from Bold Venture Press. He lives with his wife and son in the Midwest.
Patrick Cabello Hansel
Poetry contributor
Patrick Cabello Hansel is the author of the poetry collections The Devouring Land (Main Street Rag Publishing) and Quitting Time (Atmosphere Press). He has published poems and prose in over 65 journals, including Crannog, Ilanot Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Ash & Bones, RiverSedge, and Lunch Ticket, and won awards from The Loft Literary Center and MN State Arts Board. His novella Searching was serialized in 33 issues of The Alley News. He is the editor of The Phoenix of Phillips, a literary journal by and for Minneapolis’s most diverse community.
Tracy Harris
Creative Nonfiction contributor
Tracy Harris writes, volunteers, and studies French in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her essays have appeared in Wraparound South, Midwestern Gothic, Lunch Ticket, the Tahoma Literary Review, and Mason's Road, among others. She is a former board member of Water-Stone Review and participant in Cracked Walnut, a series of literary readings in the Twin Cities.
Patricia Joynes
Visual Art contributor
Patricia Joynes frequents the Blue Ridge Parkway, shooting nature photography. Her photos are on book covers, in annual Blue Ridge Parkway calendars, a National Geographic online story, and in literary journals including County Lines (2015-2019), Evening Paper (cover) Oracle Fine Arts Review, Sunlight Press, DASH, RiverSedge, San Pedro River Review, THE SUN, Blue Mesa Review, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Camas, and The Closed Eye Open.
Jeanne Julian
Visual art and Poetry contributor
The Poetry Box published Jeanne Julian’s full-length collection, Like the O in Hope (2019). Her prior publications include two chapbooks, Blossom and Loss (Longleaf Press) and Relic and Myth (Prolific Press). She grew up in Ohio, graduated from Allegheny College, and earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After retiring from a higher education administration career in Massachusetts, Jeanne moved with her husband to New Bern, North Carolina. There, she helped coordinate Nexus Poets’ monthly open mic and Carteret Writers’ speaker series. Now living in Maine, Jeanne joined the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. She is a co-winner of Reed Magazine’s Edwin Markham Prize for Poetry (2019-20); her poems also have won awards from The Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, and the North Carolina Poetry Society. You can find her work in Prairie Wolf Press Review, Poetry Quarterly, High Desert Journal, Lascaux Prize 2016 Anthology, pacificREVIEW, The RavensPerch, Snapdragon, and other journals. She also regularly writes poetry book reviews for The Main Street Rag.
Hari Bhajan Khalsa
Poetry contributor
Hari Bhajan Khalsa grew up in a small town in Central Oregon, has lived with her husband in Los Angeles for the past forty years, and is looking to return to her rural roots in the near future. Her poems have recently been published or forthcoming in Sand Hills Literary Journal, Birdcoat Quarterly, Potomac Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Transcend, among others, in The Halcyone, The Blue Earth, Gasher, and Zone 3. She is the author of a chapbook, Life in Two Parts (Main Street Rag, 2010) and a book of poems, Talk of Snow (Walrus, 2015).
Kim Kolarich
Drama contributor
Kim Kolarich is an actress, playwright, and fiction writer from Chicago. A graduate from Columbia College, she received her acting training from the Steven Ivcich Professional Studio and studied playwriting at the Chicago Dramatists. Among her theater, television, and film credits are the Henry Jaglom films: Festival in Cannes, Going Shopping, Hollywood Dreams, and Ovation. Her plays have been produced at Circle Theatre’s New Works Festival III, the Et Cetera Festival, the Experimental Theatre, The Dandelion Theatre in Chicago, and the Estrogenius Festival New York. Her play Far Rockaway received honorable mention and a staged reading at the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. Her full-length play, Three Chords, was a semifinalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and Screencraft’s Stageplay contest. Kim is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her stories have appeared in The Bridport Prize Anthology, FreeFall, Julien’s Journal, 3711 Atlantic, 34th Parallel, Karamu, Rollick Magazine, After Hours, The Gap Tooth Madness, Streetwrite, Intrinsick Magazine, Paragraph Planet, The Furious Gazelle, Two Hawks Quarterly, Third Coast Magazine, Crossways Magazine, and Burningword Literary Journal. She is also the recipient of the John Wood Community College Literary Award. She placed second in the University of Chicago’s Writer’s Studio Fiction Contest. Her short stories have received honorable mentions for the Women in the Arts Fiction Contest, the Page Edwards Short Fiction Contest, and the CNW/Florida State Writing Competition. She was a fiction finalist for the Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture Prize and a semifinalist for the Dana Awards and the H.E. Francis Literary Competition.
Paul Kurzeja
Poetry Contributor
Paul Kurzeja is obtaining his M.A. in Creative Writing at UNC Charlotte. His is a winner of the UNCC James McGavran Award and the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story Award. He was also a finalist for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize. Paul has most recently been published in Atlantis Magazine, Boston Accent Literary Magazine and Terrain. Paul and his writing have also been featured on Charlotte Readers Podcast.
Richard Leist
Fiction contributor
Richard Leist has a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College and an M.A. in Magazine Writing from S.I. Newhouse School, Syracuse University. He is a news reporter for Booth Newspapers and an editor for the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet monthly tabloid as well as the Editor/Publisher of the monthly tabloid for Great Lakes sailors. Richard’s work has an honorable mention in Writers Digest Short Story Contest, and he is currently completing two full-length thrillers.
ky li
Poetry contributor
ky li has a MA in poetry and creative writing and is an avid hiker, cyclist & yogi in Louisville, Kentucky. His whose work has appeared in Brittle Star, Dime Show Review, High Shelf Press, Nine Muses Poetry, The Bangalore Review, The Ibis Head Review, The Oddville Press, West Trade Review, Word Fountain, Timberline Review, Sheepshead Review, and the books Six Voices and Six Voices Two, published in 2017 and 2019 by BlackThorn Press.
SM Lindberg
Creative Nonfiction contributor
SM Lindberg lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and furry critters. After earning her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, she now teaches writing at two local community colleges.
Laura Lucas
Poetry contributor
Laura Lucas is a Canadian poet and singer-songwriter. Laura is passionate about music, yoga, and traveling with a purpose. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Press 53, Burnt Pine Magazine, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, From Whispers to Roars, and elsewhere.
BellaBianca Lynn
Creative Nonfiction contributor
BellaBianca Lynn is a yogini-belly dancer from Massachusetts. Lynn's work has appeared/ is forthcoming in Adelaide Magazine, Belly Dance New England Magazine, East by Northeast, Eunoia Review, and Soul-Lit.
Austin Manchester
fiction contributor
Austin Manchester is an aspiring author and experienced bookseller living in New York City. His work has been featured by The Literary Yard, Finding the Birds, From Whispers to Roars, and Please See Me.
Don McLellan
fiction contributor
Vancouver, B.C. writer Don McLellan has worked as a journalist in Canada, South Korea, and Hong Kong. He’s had two story collections published, In the Quiet After Slaughter (Libros Libertad, 2008, a ReLit Award finalist), and Brunch with the Jackals (Thistledown Press, 2015). He’s been short and longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. His third story collection, Ouch: 20 stories, is forthcoming.
Linda Miller
Creative Nonfiction contributor
Linda Miller has worked in newspapers, magazines, and educational public relations. For the last four years, she has devoted her writing life to memoir. Her work has appeared in The Furious Gazelle, Dead Housekeeping, Under the Gum Tree, and Coffee & Crumbs, a blog devoted to motherhood.
Carol Louise Munn
Poetry contributor
Carol Louise Munn is a Texan who lives and writes in Houston. She earned her MFA at the University of Michigan, where she won an American Poet’s prize plus a full fellowship. Her poems are published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Poetry and Untameable City. She teaches creative writing in several universities and most recently at The Woman’s Institute of Houston.
Martha Nance
Visual Art contributor
Martha Nance is a physician in Minnesota whose iPhone is happiest when she is not at work. Work is hard. Looking around when she is outside is a pleasure. Her nature photographs have previously been published in The Tiny Seed Journal, The Esthetic Apostle, and Wanderlust, among other journals.
Robert Nisbet
Poetry contributor
Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet who has been published widely in Britain and the USA. In Britain, he was the winner of the 2017 Prole Pamphlet Competition with Robeson, Fitzgerald, and Other Heroes. In the USA, Robert is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee for Cultivation. He is also a creative writing tutor at Trinity College, Carmarthen.
Sarah Passinhas-Bergman
Drama contributor
Sarah Passinhas-Bergman cannot find her copy of Fornes’ Enter the Night anywhere, but she thinks you should read it when you have time. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2019. She published one short story, Anthropologists, (Byzantium, 2019), and won a playwriting contest for her one-act, Rinse Cycle, which premiered in the Spring 2018 One-Act Festival. Passinhas-Bergman by day is a library assistant and an intern with Arlekin Players Theatre. Iris Literary Journal is her first non-campus-affiliated published work. She currently lives in Massachusetts.
Ernst Perdriel
Visual Art contributor
Ernst Perdriel was born in Quebec, Canada. He lives in the Eastern Townships region, Quebec, Canada. As a multi-field artist, designer, and horticulturist, he has participated in solo and group exhibitions in visual arts since 1995. He has contributed to numerous publications since 1992 as a writer, illustrator, artist, and photographer.
Samantha Pilecki
Fiction contributor
Samantha Pilecki is the winner of the Haunted Waters Press Short Shorts Competition, the Writing District's monthly contest, and was a finalist in both the Writer's Digest Short Story contest and New Millennium Writings contest. Her work has appeared in Kansas City Voices, New Lit Salon Press, Timberline Review, and Yemassee. She works as a librarian.
Shana Ross
Poetry Contributor
Shana Ross is a poet and playwright with a BA and MBA from Yale University. She bought her first computer working the graveyard shift in a wind chime factory and now pays her bills as a consultant and leadership expert. Since resuming her writing career in 2018, she has accumulated over 40 publication credits, including Anapest Journal, Chautauqua Journal, Ghost City Review, Mad Scientist Journal, The Sunlight Press, and Writers Resist. She is the recipient of a 2019 Parent-Writer Fellowship to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly.
Mary Kay Rummel
Poetry contributor
Mary Kay Rummel was poet laureate of Ventura County, CA, from 2014-2017. Blue Light Press of San Francisco published Cypher Garden and her ninth book of poetry, Nocturnes: Between Flesh and Stone. The Lifeline Trembles won the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Prize. Her other books include The Illuminations (Cherry Grove Editions), This Body She’s Entered (New Rivers Press, Minnesota Voices award), Love in the End (Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award), Green Journey, Red Bird (Loonfeather press), and The Long Journey into North published (Juniper Press). She co-edited Psalms of Cinder & Silt, community poems by survivors of recent California fires published by Solo Press. She divides her time between Minneapolis, MN, and Ventura, CA.
Joel Savishinsky
Poetry contributor
Joel Savishinsky is an anthropologist and gerontologist. His books include The Trail of the Hare: Environment and Stress in a Sub-Arctic Community, The Ends of Time: Life and Work in A Nursing Home, and Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America. The latter two both won the Gerontological Society of America’s Kalish Award for Innovative Publishing. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, The Avocet, Awake in The World, The Berkshire Review, Blood and Thunder, Cirque, Crosscurrents, Down in the Dirt, Evening Street Review, From Whispers to Roars, Muddy River Poetry Review, The New York Times, PageBoy, Passager, The Pharos, Raw Art Review, The Third Eye, Windfall, and Xanadu. He lives in Seattle, helping to raise five grandchildren and as much political trouble as he can. He considers himself a recovering academic and an unrepentant activist for social justice.
Robin Schlaht
Drama contributor
Robin Schlaht is a writer and filmmaker based in Regina, Canada. Born and raised in a small prairie town, Robin has traveled the world to make and present his films, including at such prestigious festivals as Toronto International Film Festival and South-by-Southwest. His works include documentary and fiction films and interactive new media, and scripts for live theatre.
d. n. simmers
Poetry Contributor
d. n. simmers is an online editor of Fine Lines. His first of his three published books was a finalist in the Fred Cogswell Award. His U.S. publications include California Quarterly, The Common Ground Review, Poets Touchstone, and his international publications include Tears in the Fence (UK) Salzburg Poetry Review, and Van Gogh's Ear (France). His fourth book comes out in 2021.
William R. Stoddart
Poetry contributor
William R. Stoddart is a poet and story writer who lives in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in Maryland Literary Review, Adirondack Review, Ruminate Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Nine Muses Poetry.
Tim Suermondt
Poetry contributor
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems, A Doughnut and The Great Beauty Of The World, is with MadHat Press (2021). His work also appears in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, December magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge, MA, with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Elizabeth Templeman
Creative Nonfiction contributor
Elizabeth Templeman lives, writes, and works in the Central Interior of British Columbia. A collection of her essays, Notes from the Interior, was published in 2003 by Oolichan Books; individual essays and book reviews have appeared in The Globe & Mail (“Facts & Arguments”). She also has work in anthologies and in journals, which include Room Magazine and Eastern Iowa Review.
Denise Thompson-Slaughter
Poetry contributor
Denise Thompson-Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C., worked her way through college at the University of Maryland and Rutgers University, where she received a B.A. in English. She spent several decades after that as an academic editor, mother, and writer. She lives with her history-professor husband in western New York. Her published work includes two books of poetry, Elemental (PlainView Press, 2010), and Sixty-ish: Full Circle (Spirited Muse Press, 2017), a mystery novella set in Nova Scotia, Mystery Gifts (Spirited Muse Press, 2018), two short stories, and a handful of brief memoir pieces. Her other publications include poems in Nine Cloud Journal and Tipton Poetry Journal.
Morrie Warshawski
Visual Art contributor
Morrie Warshawski grew up in Kansas City, received BA/MA in English from Univ. of So. Calif., and attended the Graduate Writers Workshop in Poetry at the Univ. of Iowa. Morrie Recently retired from freelance consulting with nonprofits and independent filmmakers and is currently writing, drawing, painting, collaging, and growing tomatoes.
Alan Weltzien
Poetry contributor
Alan Weltzien, a newly retired English professor from Montana, has published lots of articles, two chapbooks, and ten books. These include three poetry collections, the most recent, Rembrandt in the Stairwell (2016). His biography of Montana novelist Thomas Savage, Savage West: The Life and Fiction of Thomas Savage, is with the University of Nevada Press (2020). Weltzien has had several poems published in sundry journals and is working on a fourth collection. He still loves to ski in winter and hike in summer, and travel internationally with his wife.
Sharon Whitehill
Poetry Contributor
Sharon Whitehill is a retired English professor from Michigan who now lives in Florida. Publications include two biographies, two memoirs, two poetry chapbooks (Cosmographia Books, 2018 and Finishing Line Press, 2019), and A Dream of Wide Water, a full collection of poems from Atmosphere Press (2020).
Cynthia Yatchman
Visual Art Contributor
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based painter/printmaker and art instructor teaching art to adults, children, and families. Her work is housed in numerous public and private collections and has been shown in California, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon, and Wyoming. She exhibits extensively in the Northwest.
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