Iris Literary Journal Contributors
Volume I, Issue 3, Fall 2020
Leah Oates
Cover art and Photography contributor
Leah Oates has a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a Fulbright Fellow for graduate study at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Oates has been in group shows in Toronto at The Gladstone Hotel, Gallery 1313, Propeller Gallery, Papermill Gallery, Arta Gallery, Neilson Park Creative Centre, Gerrard Art Space, Connections Gallery, and Wychwood Barns Community Gallery. Oates has had press in Art Toronto, Junto Magazine, Magazine 43, Underexposed Magazine, Ruminate Journal, Mud Season Review, dArt Magazine, The Tulane Review, The Six Hundred JournalBlue Mesa Review, Friends of the Artist, GASHER Journal, Flumes Literary Journal, and the 805 Lit + Art Journal. Oates has had solo shows at Black Cat Artspace, Susan Eley Fine Art, The MTA Lightbox Project at 42nd Street, The Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, The Center for Book Arts, Henry Street Settlement and A Taste of Art Gallery and Tomasulo Gallery in New Jersey, Real Art Ways in Connecticut, Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill, Long Island and the Sol Mednick Gallery at the Philadelphia University of the Arts. Oates has had solo shows nationally at Anchor Graphics, Artemisia Gallery, and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago and internationally at Galerie Joella in Turku, Finland.
Alan Bern
VISUAL ART CONTRIBUTOR
Alan Bern is a recently retired Children’s Librarian from the Berkeley Public Library after working in public libraries in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 25 years. He is a poet, story writer, and photographer and has two books of poetry published by Fithian Press: No no the saddest (2004) and Waterwalking in Berkeley (2007). A third book of poetry, greater distance (2015), was published by his press, Lines & Faces, a press/publisher specializing in illustrated poetry broadsides, collaborating with artist/printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com. Alan was a runner up for The Raw Art Review's The John H. Kim Memorial Short Fiction Prize for his story "The alleyway near the downtown library"; he won a medal from SouthWest Writers for his World War II story; and his poem “Boxae” was first runner-up for Raw Art Review’s Mirabai Prize for Poetry, 2020. He also won the Littoral Press Poetry Prize in 2015. Alan has poems, stories, and photos published in a wide variety of online and print publications, from which his work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Recent photos published include unearthedesf.com/alan-bern, wanderlust-journal.com/2020/07/01/around-the-few-blocks-nearby, and pleaseseeme.com/issue-4. Alan is also a performer working with the dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES and with musicians from Composing Together, http://composingtogether.org/index.php/programs/
Laura Bonazzoli
Poetry contributor
Laura Bonazzoli is a freelance editor and writer. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in anthologies and dozens of literary magazines, including Connecticut River Review, Northern New England Review, and SLANT. She lives in Rockport, Maine.
Lawrence Bridges
Visual Art contributor
Lawrence Bridges is best known for his work in the world of film and literary. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums, Flip Days, and Brownwood. As a filmmaker, he created a series of literary documentaries for the NEA’s “Big Read” initiative, including Ray Bradbury, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Cynthia Ozick.
Suzy Eynon
Fiction contributor
Suzy Eynon was raised in the desert and lives in Seattle, where she works in higher education. Her fiction has appeared in The Nonconformist, Airplane Reading, and WORK Literary Magazine.
Anton Dudley
Drama Contributor
Anton Dudley is a playwright, director, solo performer, and librettist for opera and musical theatre. His Off-Broadway productions include City Of (Playwrights Realm/Peter Jay Sharp Theater), Substitution (Playwrights Realm/Soho Playhouse), 17 Orchard Point (co-written with Stephanie DiMaggio, Beckett Theater featuring TONY-winner Michele Pawk), Getting Home (Second Stage Theater), Honor and the River (Theater Row) and Slag Heap (Cherry Lane Theater featuring Vincent Kartheiser). His play “Letters to the End of the World” was a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Drama and received its premiere at Theater Row. He has had a new play, musical, and opera commissions from Houston Grand Opera, Manhattan Theater Club, Williamstown Theater Festival, and many more. He has works published by Sam French, Playscripts, Applause, Heuer, Heinemann Press, and many more. He has directed premieres and classics across the country, including the D.C. regional premieres of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus, Miguel Pinero’s Short Eyes, and Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe, and the North American premiere of Jim Cartwright’s “I Licked a Slag’s Deodorant”. He was co-director for the 30th Anniversary revival of Hair, which won Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Resident Musical and Direction. He recently received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for the fiscal year 2020 for his play, Song of the Wind.
Marcus Fields
Visual Art contributor
Marcus Fields was born in Michigan. He attended Michigan State University’s Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. He received a bachelor’s degree with other interests, including social justice, language and culture, community engagement, history, and the arts. He experiments in a range of artistic expression, including theater, video production, photography, graphic design, and 3D modeling/printing. His interest lies in finding intersections between these various mediums and allowing them to inform one another.
Matt Gold
Visual Art contributor
Matt Gold is in Brooklyn, New York, where he divides his time between music and photography. As evidence of the democratizing nature of his approach to photography, he has no formal training in the visual arts. His first image, a picture of his cat on a Sony Ericsson Z310A flip phone, was taken in 2008, and he has continued to explore the aesthetic possibilities of that instrument.
Sheryl Guterl
Poetry contributor
Sheryl Guterl writes from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Francestown, New Hampshire. Whether she is in the desert or beside a mountain lake, nature inspires and feeds her soul. Now retired from elementary school from teaching and counseling, Sheryl volunteers as a docent for the Albuquerque Museum, a tutor for adults learning ESL, and an alto in the Unitarian choir. Sheryl's poetry is in The Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, The Teacher's Voice, Months to Years, Workers Write!, Songs of Eretz, The Raven's Perch, and several New Mexico anthologies.
Gloria Heffernan
Poetry contributor
Gloria Heffernan is the author of the poetry collection, What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, (New York Quarterly Books). She has written two chapbooks: Hail to the Symptom (Moonstone Press) and Some of Our Parts, (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in over fifty journals including Anchor, Chautauqua, Magma (UK), Stone Canoe, Columbia Review, and The Healing Muse. She teaches at Le Moyne College and the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center.
Leah Sackett
Fiction contributor
Leah Holbrook Sackett is a short story writer. Her debut book, Swimming Middle River, was published with REaD Lips Press in 2020. It is available on Amazon and in select bookstores. Additionally, her short story, The Family Blend, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize with Crack the Spine. Leah's work has won various awards, such as the Gold Award in Art Ascent, Two Sisters Publishing Contest, and the recipient of the Institute for Women and Gender Studies: Creative Writing Award. Leah has over 50 stories that appeared in literary journals. She is an adjunct lecturer in the English department and the Communication & Media department at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. It is where she earned her M.F.A. Leah's short stories explore journeys toward autonomy and the boundaries placed on the individual by society, family, and self.
Inka Juslin
Visual Art contributor
Inka Juslin was born in Finland. She is based in New York. Juslin works with painting and has a multidisciplinary background in the arts: performing arts and photography. Her interest in philosophy gained her a Ph.D., and the discipline gives continuous inspiration to her work. She is concerned about climate change and creates pieces that reflect rhizomatic processes in nature.
Karen Koretsky
Creative Nonfiction Contributor
Karen Koretsky is a writer, visual artist, and arts advocate living in Massachusetts. In 2019, she moved from the suburbs of Boston to beautiful Cape Ann to live and create by the sea. Her writing has been featured in The Boston Globe, Spirit of Change Magazine, Health Magazine, Solstice Magazine, Alternating Current, Writer's Rock, Patuxent River Review, and anthologies. Her visual art has been featured in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Phoebe, and Lesley University. She received her MFA in creative writing from the Solstice Program of Pine Manor College and is currently crafting a memoir. In July of 2020, she celebrated eighteen years in remission from breast cancer.
Jonathan Koven
Fiction contributor
Jonathan Koven grew up on Long Island, NY, embraced by tree-speak, tide’s rush, and the love and support of his family. He holds a BA in English, Creative Writing from American University, works as a technical writer and is Toho Journal’s head fiction editor and workshop coordinator. He lives in Philadelphia with his best friend and future wife Delana, and cats Peanut Butter and Keebler. Read more at Cathexis Northwest, Lindenwood Review, Night Picnic, and more. His debut poetry chapbook Palm Lines is available from Toho Publishing.
instagram / twitter: @jonathankoven
James Latimer
Visual Art contributor
James Latimer writes and draws for children and young adults. He has tutored an immigrant child for more than a decade and made and repaired books by hand for as long. He has recent work at Las Laguna Gallery, Poster House NYC, Heirlock, Toho Journal, Showbear Family Circus, Burningword, Forbidden Peak, Poster House NYC, and The Closed Eye Open.
Morgan Lawrence
Creative Nonfiction Contributor
Morgan Lawrence is originally from Hamilton, Montana. She resides in Salt Lake City with her partner and their rambunctious cat, Genie. Morgan is an Environmental Humanities MS student at the University of Utah. She completed her undergraduate degree in English at the University of Montana, fought wildland fire throughout the American West, and worked as a naturalist in Rocky Mountain and Denali National Park, both for three years. Her master's thesis work focuses on the plight and flight ways of the American white pelican in a changing Great Salt Lake ecosystem.
Ann Howells
Poetry contributor
Ann Howells edited “Illya's Honey” for eighteen years, both in print and online. Her most recent books are: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Press, 2019) and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). She served as editor for Cattlemen & Cadillacs, an anthology of D/FW Poets (Dallas Poets Community Press, 2017). Her work appears widely in small press and university journals, including Spillway, San Pedro River Review, and Little Patuxent Review in this country and Magma in England and Crannog in Ireland.
Katharyn Howd Machan
Poetry Contributor
Katharyn Howd Machan grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and Pleasantville, New York. She and her husband, fellow poet Eric Machan Howd, live joyfully with two cats, Footnote. She earned a B.A. in English from the College of Saint Rose, an M. A. in English Literature from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Interpretation (Performance Studies) from Northwestern University. Since 1975, she has lived in Ithaca, New York. As a full professor, she has been teaching Writing at Ithaca College since 1977. In 2002, she was named the ‘first Poet Laureate’ of Tompkins County, New York. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines (Nimrod, Yankee, The MacGuffin Reader, Snake Nation Review, Hanging Loose, Dogwood, Runes, Slipstream, The Beloit Poetry Journal, South Coast Poetry Journal, The Hollins Critic, The Salmon, West Branch, Seneca Review, Louisiana Literature) and anthologies/textbooks (The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Poetry: An Introduction, Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now, Sound and Sense, Writing Poems, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience), and in 39 collections, most recently “A Slow Bottle of Wine” (winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Competition), “What the Piper Promised” (Alexandria Quarterly Press–national contest winner), “Secret Music: Voices from Redwing,” “1888” (Cayuga Lake Books, 2018) and “Katharyn Howd Machan: Selected Poems” (FutureCycle Press, 2018).
Ramsey Matthews
Visual Art contributor
Ramsey Mathews was born in Fitzgerald, Georgia. He earned his Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University. He currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida. In Hollywood, he performed stand-in and stunt work for Patrick Swayze and Ron Perlman.
M.B. McLatchey
Poetry contributor
M.B. McLatchey is a Professor of Humanities at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She is the author of two books of poems, The Lame God, for which she won the 2013 May Swenson Award (Utah State Univ. Press) and Advantages of Believing (Finishing Line Press). She is also the author of a recently-completed educational memoir, Beginner’s Mind, forthcoming from Regal House Publishing (2021). A recipient of several literary awards, including the American Poet Prize from the American Poetry Journal and the Annie Finch Prize from the National Poetry Review, she currently serves as Florida’s Poet Laureate for Volusia County and as an Ambassador for the Arts & Wellness program with the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Ed Meek
Poetry contributor
Ed Meek is the author of four books of poetry and a collection of short stories. His new book of poems, “High Tide”, is currently available. His works are published in The Paris Review, The Sun, and Plume.
Susan Cummins Miller
Poetry contributor
Tucson writer Susan Cummins Miller holds degrees in history, anthropology, and geology. Miller, a former field geologist and college instructor, compiled and edited A Sweet, Separate Intimacy: Women Writers of the American Frontier, 1800-1922, and pens the Frankie MacFarlane, Geologist, mysteries (Texas Tech University Press). Her award-winning poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in, or are forthcoming in, numerous journals and anthologies, including the 2020s What We Talk About When We Talk About It: Variations on the Theme of Love I, II. Deciphering the Desert, her first poetry book, is a finalist for the 2020 Red Mountain Press Discovery Award.
https://www.susancumminsmiller.com
Joy Morgenstern
Fiction contributor
Joy Morgenstern dabbles in different aspects of the arts and loves a good story. She lives in a small house that is knee-deep in unfinished projects and longs for the days when there were more bookstores.
Tanya Morris
Creative NonFiction contributor
Tanya Morris is an English major focusing on writing and publication at the University of North Georgia. Through creative writing, she highlights the unique qualities of marginalized individuals, whose virtues are often overlooked. Currently, she is working on a novel that she hopes to finish by the time she graduates.
Theresa Nicolay
fiction contributor
Theresa Nicolay is an award-winning educator who has published books on American women writers as well as J.R.R. Tolkien. She holds a BA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She also has a MA and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. She teaches writing and literature in upstate New York.
Amanda Rabaduex
Poetry contributor
Amanda Rabaduex is an Ohio native and Air Force veteran who currently lives on a small egg and honey farm in Pennsylvania. When she isn't exploring nature, poetry, or etymology, she teaches college writing courses and volunteers as part of The Penmen Review’s editorial board.
David Radavich
Poetry contributor
David Radavich’s latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.
Esther Sadoff
Poetry contributor
Esther Sadoff currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she teaches English to gifted and talented middle school students. She has a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied literature, and a Master of Education from Ohio State University. Her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in The 2River View, River River, SWIMM, Marathon Literary Review, Sunspot Literary Journal, West Trade Review, River Mouth Review, and other publications.
Federica Santini
Poetry contributor
Federica Santini lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a Professor of Italian and Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University, where she coordinates the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. She holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Siena, Italy, and a Ph.D. in Italian literature from UCLA, where she studied poetry with Luigi Ballerini and literary translation with Michael Heim. A literary critic, poet, and translator, her work has been published in over forty journals and volumes in North America and Europe. Her recent poetry has appeared in The Ocotillo Review, Ember Chasm, Plath Profiles, and Snapdragon among others. She is a 2021 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Fellow.
Caleb Scott
Poetry contributor
Caleb Scott is a writer and actor who currently lives in Miami, Florida. His plays and performance pieces have been produced and presented at venues in New York City and around the U.S. His writing has appeared in many journals, including The Bellevue Literary Review, Nashville Review, and others. PowerHouse Books published his first book, U.F.O. (2006). He has been a finalist for work in film with the Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship. He is a recipient of both the Silver Palm and Carbonell Award for his work in South Florida theater, a nominee for Best Actor and Best Writer by the Kinsale Shark Awards in the UK. His plays have been selected as finalists for the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O’Neill Theater’s National Playwrights Conference. Caleb is a 2020 Recipient of the ENGAGE Artist Award from GableStage in Miami and is currently writing and producing a storytelling podcast, Worst Place On Earth, inspired by the infamous “Florida-Man” headlines.
Steven Simoncic
Drama contributor
Steven Simoncic’s fiction and nonfiction work have appeared in CRAFT, Fractured Literary, Arts & Letters, Drift Magazine, Under the Gum Tree, New Millennium, Conclave, Ampersand, Hippocampus, and Beyond Words Magazine, among others. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was a finalist for the Susan Atefat Fiction Prize, and his creative nonfiction piece, “I Like You,” was included in The Best American Essays 2016, guest-edited by Jonathan Franzen. As a playwright, Steven has had productions in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and London. He has been a semi-finalist at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and a finalist for the Woodward/Newman Drama Award. Steven’s play, Toxic Donut won the NAAA International Playwright Festival in London, and his play “Broken Fences” won an NAACP Theatre Award, eight Los Angeles SCENIE Awards, and was cited as one of The Chicago Tribune’s “Best of the Year” productions. Steven’s play “Ghost Gardens” won the 2018 Detroit Repertory Theatre Subscribers Award. His play, “The Space Behind Your Heart,” was a finalist for the 2018 Heideman Award from Louisville’s Actors Theatre. Steven holds a BBA from the University of Michigan, an MFA from Warren Wilson, and an MLA from the University of Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife, two kids, and two dogs. When he is not writing, Steven fronts the rock band, Trickshooter Social Club.
Herman Sutter
Poetry contributor
Herman Sutter (poet, librarian & volunteer hospital chaplain) is the author of the chapbook “The World Before Grace” (Wings Press) and blog “World Before Grace” (and after). He is also a long-time reviewer for Library Journal. His poems and stories have appeared in: Touchstone, i.e., The English Review, blonde on blonde, Saint Anthony Messenger, The Ekphrastic Review, Benedict XVI Institute, Texas Poetry Calendar (2021), The Shadwell Sampler, Laurels, tejascovido, The Langdon Review, and the anthology, By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). He was a founding member of the literary comedy group: The Writer Guys and has been a footnote on the Houston Poetry scene for almost 40 years. His narrative poem, "Constance" received the Innisfree prize for Poetry, his one-man show “The Boy, the Girl and the Car” was recorded for public radio (KPFT), and his quartet for voices “The World Before Grace” (a story of the Bataan Death March) was honored by the Texas Playwrights Festival in 1991.
Joe Volpe
Poetry contributor
Joe Volpe is a middle school English teacher in the Greater Boston area. Originally from Upstate New York, he attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he studied English with a concentration in Creative Writing and Poetry. His work has been selected for publication in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, The Finger, Border Crossing, Thirty West Publishing’s Tilde, and Cathexis Northwest Press.
Phoebe Whittington
Fiction contributor
Phoebe Whittington writes fiction, creative nonfiction and illustrates her own comics. Recently, she completed her BA in Creative Writing at Pacific University. She is the current managing editor for The Silk Road Review: A Literary Crossroads and a prose/art editor for 3Elements Literary Review. Phoebe’s creative work is significantly influenced by the pressure of the climate crisis and her home environment of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Her short stories and essays have previously been selected for presentation at the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention and the Northwest Undergraduate Conference in the Humanities. This is her first publication outside of her alma mater. She is currently working on a graphic novel.
Roddy Williams
Poetry contributor
Originally from Wrexham, North Wales, Roddy Williams now lives in London. His poetry has appeared in Obsessed with Pipework, Magma, The Rialto, Envoi, Stand,The North, Poetry Wales' and other magazines and anthologies around the globe. He holds a BA (Hon) degree in illustration and is a keen surrealist photographer, printmaker, and painter.
Warren Woods
Fiction Contributor
Warren Woods is the pseudonym of an emerging writer from the Midwest. His first novel, of which injustice, race, and undue judgment are underlying themes, is slated for release under his legal name in the winter of 2020.
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