Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. He writes poetry and fiction. He considers the sacred an important element of his personal poetics. He advocates animal rights and living comforts. He has three beloved dogs.
Pearl Abraham is the author of, most recently, American Taliban (Random House) and The Seventh Beggar (Riverhead, semi-finalist, Koret Intl). Animal Voices, Mineral Hum, a collection of stories in progress, was shortlisted for the 2018 McCarthy Prize in.short fiction.
J.S. Absher (www.js-absher-poetry.com ) is a poet and independent scholar. His fourth book of poetry, Skating Rough Ground, was published by Kelsay Books in 2022. His work has won awards from the NC Poetry Society, BYU Studies Quarterly, and the journal Dialogue, and has been nominated for three Pushcart prizes.
Shanta Acharya’s latest poetry collections are What Survives Is The Singing (2020), Imagine: New and Selected Poems (2017), Dreams That Spell The Light (2010). Her doctoral study, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published in 2001 and her novel, A World Elsewhere, in 2015. www.shanta-acharya.com
Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work is forthcoming or has previously appeared in various literary journals, including Bowery Gothic, FERAL, Cosmic Daffodil, Gold Man Review and Crab Creek Review.
Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry, stories and articles published in a variety of webzines and magazines and BBC Radio. He sometimes posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.
Chris Anderson is a Catholic deacon in Corvallis, Oregon, and everything he writes comes out of his experiences as a deacon and out of his experiences of faith, and doubt. He is also an emeritus professor of English at Oregon State University. He has published a number of books, poetry and prose. Love Calls Us Here is forthcoming from Wildhouse Press.
Something Else I Didn’t Understand
Valerie Maria Anthony is a London and Hampshire-based poet who has published In Oremus Magazine and Amethyst Review. She believes poetry can be an instrument of grace and takes joy seriously enough to look for it everywhere. She has many years of experience facilitating creative writing workshops in social care settings and is a trained visual artist.
Nadia Arioli is the co-founder and editor in chief of Thimble Literary Magazine and a multi-disciplinary artist. Arioli’s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net three times and can be found in Cider Press Review, Rust + Moth, San Pedro Review, McNeese Review, Whale Road Review, West Trestle Review, As It Ought To Be, Voicemail Poems, Bombay Literary Magazine, and other publications. Essays have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart and can be found in Hunger Mountain, Heavy Feather Review, Angel Rust, and elsewhere. Collages and scribblings have been featured as the cover of Permafrost, as artist of the month for Kissing Dynamite, and in Poetry Northwest. Arioli has chapbooks with Dancing Girl and Spartan and full-lengths with Luchador Press and Kelsay Books (forthcoming).
Grendel’s Mother Considers the Surinam Toad
Catherine Arra is the author of four full-length collections and three chapbooks. Her newest work Solitude, Tarot & the Corona Blues is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2023. Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com
Leo Aylen: Born KwaZulu, South Africa, 9 poetry collections (latest The Day The Grass Came “a triumph” Melvyn Bragg; “Stupendous” Simon Callow); 5 international prizes; 100 poems in anthologies, 50 in U.S.A. poetry journals, 100 broadcast. Recently published in Century; 100 Major Modern Poets; Agenda; Able Muse; Amethyst Review; Grand Little Things; Westward Quarterly; The Road Not Taken; Better Than Starbucks; Orchards Poetry Journal; Scarlet Leaf Review; Blue Unicorn; Sparks of Calliope; The Hypertexts.
Paradiso: The Empowered Vision
Valerie Bacharach’s writing has appeared or will appear in:Vox Populi, Blue Mountain Review, EcoTheo Review, Ilanot Review, Minyon Magazine, and One Art, among others. Her chapbook Fireweed was published by Main Street Rag. Her chapbook Ghost-Mother was published by Finishing Line Press. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize.
Alka Balain has been an educator with a short stint in the corporate world. An autoimmune warrior, she resides in Singapore. Alka enjoys going on long walks in nature and loves to paint. Alka’s writings have appeared/are forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review, Kitaab, AlSphere, Dreich Review, Poetry India, The Hooghly Review, Visual Verse, Live Wire, among others. She is one of the shortlisted winners of the Poetry Festival of Singapore Catharsis 2021 and a featured shortlisted writer in the Wordweavers Poetry Contest 2022. She chairs the Writing Enthusiasts’ Club of the Indian Women’s Association and is also the Chapter head, Singapore of the Asian Literary Society.
Cheryl Baldi is the author of The Shapelessness of Water and a former Bucks County, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate. A finalist for the Robert Frasier Poetry Competition and the Francis Locke Memorial Award, her work is forthcoming in ONE ART: a journal of poetry and Philadelphia Stories. She lives along the coast in New Jersey and in Bucks County where she volunteers for the Poet Laureate Program and the Arts and Cultural Council.
David Banach teaches philosophy in New Hampshire, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and looks for lessons in the sky. He has published poems most recently in Flora Fiction, Right Hand Pointing, the Liminal Review, Prometheus Dreaming, and the Poet’s Touchstone. He also does the Poetrycast podcast for Passengers Journal.
Elodie Barnes is a writer and editor living in the UK. Her short fiction and poetry has been widely published online, and is included in the Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology published by Sonder Press. She is Books & Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform, where she is also co-facilitating What the Water Gave Us, an Arts Council England-funded anthology of emerging women and non-binary writers from migrant backgrounds. She is currently working on a collection of short stories. Find her online at elodierosebarnes.weebly.com, or on Instagram @elodierosebarnes.
Mildred Kiconco Barya is a writer from Uganda and assistant professor at UNC-Asheville. She has published three poetry books and her fourth poetry collection, The Animals of My Earth-School Institute, is forthcoming from Terrapin Books, 2023. Her prose, hybrids, and poems are published in Joyland, Shenandoah, The Cincinnati Review, andelsewhere.www.mildredbarya.com
E.J. Batiste (she/her/they) is a writer, screenwriter, and artist originally from Raeford, North Carolina. E.J. holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Her creative work has appeared in various literary publications in North America and Europe. Find more of her work at ericajasmin.com or on Twitter and Instagram: @TheEricaJasmin.
Deborah A. Bennett is an American poet who was long-listed for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for 2023. Her work is spiritual in nature and inspired by her lifelong love of long walks through the city and in the wild.
On The Block Where God Does Not Exist
Susan Bennett is a poet, activist and ritualist, leading women’s spirit circles in Northern Virginia for two decades. Her poems have been published in Ekphrastic Review, 50 Haikus, Amethyst Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Rise Up Review, Artemis Journal, Cauldron Anthology and upcoming in the Arachne Press Menopause Anthology.
The Blessing of an Unfamiliar Place
Mark D. Bennion‘s poems have appeared in Christianity & Literature, Dappled Things, Spiritus, U.S. Catholic Magazine, Windhover, and other journals. His most recent book is Beneath the Falls: poems (Resource Publications, 2020). Currently, he teaches writing and literature courses at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, is an educator, poet, writer, shaman, and sage. An adoptee and former Franciscan seminarian, his adoption search led to the discovery and embrace of his Jewishness. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person, and former college chaplain. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His latest books of poetry include the full-length Art of Enlightenment and a chapbook Little Ghosts on Castle Floors, poems informed by the Potterverse, both with Kelsay Books. He is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry (www.soul-lit.com). Wayne-Daniel lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.
Renwick Berchild is half literary critic, half poet. She is lead editor of Green Lion Journal and writes at Nothing in Particular Book Review. Her poems have appeared in Porridge Magazine, AIOTB, Headline Press, Whimperbang, Free Verse Revolution, Vita Brevis, Streetcake, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. She was born and raised on the angry shores of Lake Superior, and now lives in a micro-apartment in Seattle, WA. Find more of her work at www.renwickberchild.com
Siddhattha Rewrites “O Store Gud”
Zackary Sholem Berger is a poet and translator who works in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew. He lives in Baltimore where by day he is a primary care doctor (zackaryberger.com).
Time – a poem by Leah Goldberg, translated by Zackary Sholem Berger
Retired librarian Alan Bern is an award-winning author with three books of poetry and has a hybrid memoir forthcoming from UNCOLLECTED PRESS. He is an exhibited/published photographer and performs with dancer/choreograhper Lucinda Weaver and with musicians from Composing Together. Lines & Faces, his press with artist/printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com.
Descent into Orta San Giulio from the Sacro Monte di Orta
Joan Bernard’s poetry has been published in The Main Street Rag, the Aurorean, Connecticut River Review, The North American Review, and others. She lives in Boston, MA and Thompson, CT.
Timothy Berrigan works in adult and community literacy at the Brooklyn Public Library. His work has appeared in Columbia Journal, The Maine Review, The Perch, SPECTRA, The Scores, SPAM Zine, and elsewhere. He lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
A former journalist and book editor, Neall Calvert has had poetry published in books, journals and online in the United States, Canada and abroad, most recently in Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees (Caitlin: 2022), Laugh Lines (Repartee: 2023) and the journal Sea & Cedar (three poems, Summer 2022). A student of trauma recovery and healing, Neall is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and writes from the quiet and wildness of northern Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.
Irene Cantizano Bescós is a writer and immigrant from Spain lost between two languages. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Black Hare Press, Moria, Five Minutes, (mac)ro(mic), and Tales to Terrify, among others. She is also a freelance journalist, and her reporting has appeared in leading Spanish and UK titles such as Huffington Post, El País, Telva, and Positive News. Irene lives in England with her husband, two toddlers, and two warring cats. You can find her on Twitter as @IreneCantizano.
Jean Biegun’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and art exhibits. In 2022, her chapbook Hitchhikers to Eden was published, she received a Pushcart Prize nomination and the Christine Award for Best Prose Poem of 2021 (Easter Iowa Review). Work has been in Amethyst Review, Soul-Lit, As Above So Below, Time of Singing and other spiritual poetry journals.
Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia (USA). Her work has recently appeared in Allegro, Light, Pulsebeat, and Snakeskin. Her collections include Never Enough Already (2021) and Sooner or Later (2022).
Elijah Perseus Blumov is a poet, playwright, and creator of the poetry analysis podcast Versecraft (ohiopoetryassn.org/versecraft).
Michele Bombardier is the author of What We Do, a Washington Book Award finalist. Her work has appeared in JAMA, Atlanta Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Crab Creek Review and many others. She is a Hedgebrook fellow, the founder of Fishplate Poetry, and the inaugural poet laureate of her town.
Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker living quietly outside Seattle writing poems. His latest book of poems is Paper Birds (Unsolicited Press 2021).
Susan Brice lives in Belper, Derbyshire with her husband and small dog, Sunny. She has meandered through life and has learned to be glad for Light and Joy. She also understands the blessings of Darkness and Sorrow. In 2022, Susan collaborated with two friends to produce an anthology of their poems, Daughters of Thyme (dotipress.com). They are currently working on a second anthology.
Jason Brightwell lives in a tiny coastal village tucked along the Chesapeake Bay where he finds himself routinely haunted by one thing or another. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including: Gravel Magazine, East Coast Literary Review, Phantom Kangaroo, and The Tower, among others.
Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. She lives in Dorset. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in 2022. She has work published by Fly On The Wall, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Cerasus, Black Bough Press and some others.
Jeff Burt lives in California with his wife. He has work in Williwaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, Heartwood, and Rabid Oak.
David Cameron catches poems half-formed from an off-hand comment or a twist of phrase that makes him see things in a new light. He spent a long time as a Presbyterian pastor and then ended his paying career directing a Meals on Wheels program in western NC. He is now on loan to the trails and waterfalls of the area.
Dan Campion‘s poems have appeared previously in Amethyst Review and in Light, Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism (Bucknell University Press) and coeditor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (Holy Cow! Press). A selection of his poems was issued by the Ice Cube Press in July 2022: https://icecubepress.com/2021/10/01/a-playbill-for-sunset/
Dorothy Cantwell has worked as an educator, actress, and playwright, Her work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Brownstone Poets Anthology, Constellate Literary Journal, Flash Boulevard, Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters, River and South Review, Poetrybay, and Angel City Review, among other print and online journals. She has been featured at various venues in NYC where she lives and works. She studies poetry with Sister Fran McManus in the St Francis of Assisi Poetry Workshop.
Garrett Carroll is a poet and writer whose work has previously been in Star*Line and Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher who loves to write about nature, mindfulness, and ways to heal. Her articles and poems have appeared in Braided Way, Energy, Odyssey, Grateful Living, Reiki News Magazine, and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Facebook, on Instagram @mindfulpoet_, or in her first collection of poems titled Our Shared Breath.
Martin Caseley has published two collections of poetry with Stride publications, most recently A Sunday Map of the World (2000). More recently, his poetry has appeared on the Agenda website, and he regularly contributes essays and book reviews to PN Review, Agenda, The Countryman and the review 31 and International Times websites. He lives in Norfolk, not far from Norwich.
Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun. She was born in the United States and lived there until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England, where she now resides. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other venues, both online and print.
Ruth Chad is a psychologist who lives and works in the Boston area. Her poems have appeared in the Aurorean, Bagels with the Bards, Connection, Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Institute of New England, Constellations, Ibbetson Street, Montreal Poems, Muddy River Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review, Amethyst Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice and Poetry Super-Highway. Most recently, a poem has been published in Voices of the Earth: The Future of the Planet III. Her chapbook, The Sound of Angels, was published by Cervena Barva Press in 2017. Her forthcoming book, In the Absence of Birds will be published by Cervena Barva Press in 2024. Ruth was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2021.
Jonathan Chan is a writer and editor. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore and educated at Cambridge and Yale Universities. He is the author of the poetry collection going home (Landmark, 2022) and Managing Editor of poetry.sg. He has recently been moved by the work of Ada Limón, Rowan Williams, and Mervin Mirapuri. More of his writing can be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.
Eve Chancellor is an English Teacher in Manchester. Her poems have been published online and in multiple literary magazines, including: Acropolis Journal, Dream Catcher, Hyacinth Review and Seaside Gothic. Her poem ‘Two Girls on a Greyhound’ was the Ink, Sweat and Tears pick off the month, March 2023. Her short stories are featured on East of the Weband in journals, such as The Ghastling. Twitter: @eve_madelaine
David Chorlton has lived in Arizona long enough to see beyond the surface of the desert and to appreciate its wildlife and ability to endure the heat. He has a new book featuring watercolors of birds together with poems, The Flying Desert, from Cholla Needles Arts and Literary Library in Joshua Tree, California.
Moonmoon Chowdhury is a poet and writer. Her works have appeared in Borderless journal, Tell Me Your Story, A second cup of tea by The Hive Publishers, Sylvia magazine, The Pine Cone Review, Sonic Boom Journal, and more. She is currently based in Amsterdam.
Rachel Matters Clark received a BA in Drama from Bennington College, and an MDiv from San Francisco Theological Seminary. While raising her children, she directed educational programs in several churches and worked as an actor and acting teacher. She and her husband live in Falls Church, Virginia, where she teaches ESOL students and leads a small poetry salon on Zoom.
Stephen R. Clark is a writer who lives in Lansdale, PA with his wife, BethAnn, and their two rescue cats, Watson and Sherlock. His website is http://www.StephenRayClark.com. He is a member of the Evangelical Press Association and a regular contributor to the Christian Freelance Writers Network blog (tinyurl.com/cfwriters).
Jonathan Cohen lives on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound with his wife, daughters, and a hound dog. He hails from Buffalo, New York, which informs his writing and where he has deep roots. He studied history and philosophy at Kenyon College and now studies poetry with Jon Davis.
Lynn Glicklich Cohen has been published in Amelia, Brushfire Literature
and Arts Journal, Cantos, El Portal, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Peregrine,
The Phoenix, SLAB, Spotlong Review, St. Katherine’s Review, Swamp Ape
Review, Thin Air Magazine, and Trampoline. Her novel, A Terrible Case of
Beauty, was published by Trebol Press in 2013.
Sage Cohen is the author of five books including the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World and the poetry guides Writing the Life Poetic and Write a Poem a Day. She offers information and inspiration for poets and writers at sagecohen.com.
Michael Cooney has published poetry in Badlands, Second Chance Lit, Bitter Oleander, Big Windows Review and other journals. His short stories have appeared recently in Sundial Magazine, Bandit Fiction and Cerasus and his novella The Witch Girl & The Wobbly was published by Running Wild Press in 2021. A second novella, A Good Catholic Girl, is scheduled for publication in 2023. Cooney has taught in public high schools and community colleges and currently facilitates a writing workshop with the New York Writers Coalition.
Melinda Coppola writes from a messy desk in small town Massachusetts, where her four cats often monitor her progress. She delights in mothering her complicated, enchanting daughter who defies easy description. Melinda’s work has appeared in many fine books and publications, most recently Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Willows Wept Review, Thimble Literary Magazine and One Art: A Journal of Poetry.
Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. Her poems appear in publications including Spillway 29, Gyroscope Review, Redivider, and Anti-Heroin Chic. This year Susan won the First Poem Contest sponsored by the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. In 2021 one of her poems was runner-up for the Beacon Street Poetry Prize, and another was a finalist in the Millennium Writing Awards. She has received two Pushcart nominations. Her first full-length poetry manuscript was a finalist for Harbor Editions’ 2021 Laureate Prize.
i turn into myself & i am Mary
Daniel Cowper is a poet from a small island off the west coast of Canada. His poems and criticism have appeared in reviews in Canada, the United States, Ireland, and the UK. He is the author of a book of poems entitled Grotesque Tenderness (MQUP), and The God of Doors, which was published as winner of Frog Hollow Press’ chapbook contest.
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. In the past he was a contributing editor of the Maryland Poetry Review and an editor for Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. He has had a book of poetry published, Handprint on the Window, in 2003. Most recently he has had poems published in the End of 83, Broadkill Review, Welter, the Twisted Vine Literary Journal, the Pangolin Review, Madness Muse Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rats’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review and, Gargoyle, and the LA Cultural Daily.
Tonka Dobreva is a writer and Christian life coach. Her work has previously appeared in Ekstasis Magazine. Tonka is currently working on her second chapbook, Undoing.
Robin Dake is a mother, daughter, friend, writer, and photographer. She has spent her career working as a journalist or non-profit manager while writing essays and poems on the side. Her work has appeared in This I Believe radio program and in Trailway News magazine She lives in N.E. Georgia with two hoodlum cats and one patient dog.
Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. He is the author of Meatless (Plan B Press) and other short poetry collections. His poems have been curated in many journals including Across The Margin, The New Verse News, anti-heroin chic, Right Hand Pointing, The Broadkill Review, Otoliths, and Gargoyle.
From a Window by the Schuylkill
Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books),The Last Time I Saw You, (Finishing Line Press) and The Wild Parrots of Marigny. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.
Thad DeVassie is a writer and artist/painter who creates from the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of Splendid Irrationalities, which was awarded the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2020 (SurVision Books), and Year of Static (Ghost City Press, 2021), a micro-chap containing 11 original paintings and micro prose that evolved into the art exhibition, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. Find more of his written and painted works at www.thaddevassie.com.
Annie Diamond is an Ashkenazi Jewish poet living and working in Chicago. She has been awarded fellowships by MacDowell, Luminarts Cultural Foundation, The Lighthouse Works, and Boston University, where she earned her MFA in 2017. Her poems appear and are forthcoming in No Tokens, Yemassee, Modern Language Studies, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere.
Barbara Diggs’ fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including FlashBack Fiction, Reflex Fiction, (mac)ro(mic), and Ellipsis Zine. Her work was Highly Commended in the 2022 Bridport Prize, and has been longlisted and shortlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards. Barbara lives in Paris, France with her family.
Anthony DiMatteo’s third poetry collection Secret Offices is just out. Why secret? One can’t take credit for an office dedicated to the pursuit of beauty and fairness as a poet must be. No one knows what one is doing in such a search, a prerequisite for it. Recent poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, The MacGuffin, North Dakota Quarterly and The Galway Review. A full professor of English, he has defended the mysteries of literature and art at the New York Institute of Technology for over 30 years. He lives on the Outer Banks with his wife Kathleen O’Sullivan, pianist, designer and fellow empty nester. Please feel free to leave a trace at his e-tent: https://anthonydimatteo.wordpress.com
McKinley Dirks grew up in Castle Rock, Colorado and now resides in Northwest Arkansas with her one-year-old corgi, Bentley. She received her Bachelor’s of English from John Brown University and spent much of her time there as editor-in-chief of the student-run publication Shards of Light. In addition to poetry, she enjoys art, flower bouquets, and mysteries.
Danita Dodson is a poet, educator, and literary scholar. She is the author of two books of poetry, Trailing the Azimuth (2021) and The Medicine Woods (2022). Her poems have also appeared in Salvation South and the Tennessee Voices Anthology. Dodson is a native of Sneedville, Tennessee (USA), where she hikes in the hills of her ancestors and explores local history connected to the wilderness. Read more at www.danitadodson.com.
S. C. Donnelly is a writing tutor in Boston. She has been a creative writing workshop leader, a book review editor for the Colorado Review, and a Tupelo Press’ 30/30 poet in 2022. She has published two poems in The Charles River Review and several online book reviews.
Robert Donohue‘s poetry has appeared in Better Than Starbucks, Freeze Ray Poetry, Pulsebeat, among others. He lives on Long Island, NY.
Terry Donohue is a poet, a short story writer, an artist, curator, a real estate broker, and the mother of a grown son. Terry currently lives and works in Bolinas, CA, an enclave of many artists. Passionate about the arts, Terry enjoys photography, writing, poetry, and origami art in her free time. She comes from a strong creative background, having spent time working in the Chicago theater scene after graduating with honors from SUNY Oneonta and was an Arts Columnist for the Point Reyes Light.
Moonshining in the Outdoor Clawfoot Tub
M F Drummy is the author of numerous articles, essays, reviews, haiku, poetry, and a monograph (Being and Earth). His work has appeared or will appear in 3 Sisters, Mayfly, The Mainichi Daily Express, Worldviews, Connecticut Review, Shamrock, Sciences Religieuses, Eunoia Review, Sacred Heart University Review, Frogpond, and Allium. He and his wife of nearly 20 years enjoy splitting their time between the Colorado Rockies and the rest of the planet.
Diana Durham is the author of four poetry collections: Sea of Glass, To the End of the Night, Between Two Worlds and Labyrinth; the novel The Curve of the Land and two nonfiction books: The Return of King Arthurand Coherent Self, Coherent World: a new synthesis of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm’s Implicate Order.
Mary Durocher is a poet from Schenectady, New York. She also writes fiction, non-fiction, and cultural criticism. She’s a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, where she studied English & World Literature and Creative Writing. Her work has recently appeared in The Carson Review, Laid Off NYC, and KGB Bar Lit. She lives in Queens, New York.
Lisken Van Pelt Dus teaches languages, writing, and martial arts in western Massachusetts. Her poetry can be found in many journals, including most recently Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Book of Matches, Split Rock Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and the Ekphrastic Review, and in anthologies such as the Crafty Poet Anthology Series, as well as in her book What We’re Made Of (2016). A new chapbook, Letters to my Dead, was released in 2022.
Alicia Elkort‘s first book of poetry, A Map of Every Undoing was published in 2022 by Stillhouse Press with George Mason University, after winning their book contest. Alicia’s poetry has been nominated several times for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and the Orison Anthology, and her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. She reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal and works as a Life Coach in Santa Fe, NM. For more info or to watch her two video poems: http://aliciaelkort.mystrikingly.com/
A leaf in the shape of a faerie
Amanda Emilio is fascinated with and often writes about the strong ties between everyday life and spirituality. Her work has been published in The Janus Journal and The America Library of Poetry: Impressions of Youth. You can connect with her on her instagram: @sun_spotsss.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, America Magazine, U.S. Catholic, Pensive, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
Marion Evalee (they/she), formerly Justin Burnett, has appeared in Montage, Survivor Lit, The Boston Compass, Neologism, and Willows Wept Review. A selection of their poetry was featured in the anthology 14 International Younger Poets, edited by Philip Nikolayev.
Helen Evans facilitates Inner Room, a pioneer lay ministry that creates space for people to be creative, and is piloting a new project, Poems for the Path Ahead. Her debut pamphlet, Only by Flying, was published by HappenStance Press. Her poems have appeared in The Rialto, The North, Magma, Wild Court, The Friday Poem and Ink, Sweat & Tears. One was a joint winner of the Manchester Cathedral 600 Poetry Competition. She has a master’s degree with distinction in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews. www.helenevans.co.uk
Lesley-Anne Evans, an Irish-Canadian poet, writes from Feeny Wood, a contemplative woodland retreat in Kelowna, B.C., on the traditional unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Antigonish Review, Letters Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Contemporary Verse 2, The Catholic Poetry Room, Soul Lit, and other periodicals. Lesley-Anne’s debut poetry collection, Mute Swan, Poems for Maria Queen of the World, was published by The St. Thomas Poetry Series (Toronto) in 2021.
Now, and at The Hour of Our Death
Author of the poetry book Apocryphal (San Francisco Press), Anna Evas has appeared in literary journals such as Amethyst Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Irises (The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize), Long Poem Magazine (UK), The Ekphrastic Review, Euphony, and Anglican Theological Review. A recording artist, she is an award-winning composer of concert level contemporary classical music.
Jonathan Evens is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. Previously Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields, he was involved in developing HeartEdge as an international and ecumenical network of churches engaging congregations with culture, compassion and commerce. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief, and writes regularly on the visual arts for national arts and church media including Artlyst, ArtWay and Church Times. He blogs at joninbetween.blogspot.com.
Mara Fein‘s poetry has most recently appeared in Poetry Quarterly. Other work has appeared in Jonah Magazine, Poor Yorick, Tahoma Literary Review, and Wilderness House Review. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Southern California.
Jenna Wysong Filbrun’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Blue Heron Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, The Dewdrop, Snapdragon Journal, and Wild Roof Journal. Her first full length collection of poems, Away, will release with Finishing Line Press in 2023. She is married to Mike, and they have two dogs, Oliver and Lewis. Find her on Twitter @Jenna_W_Filbrun.
Alfred Fournier is an entomologist, writer and community volunteer from Phoenix, Arizona. He coordinates poetry workshops for Connect and Heal, a local non-profit organization. His poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Third Wednesday, American Journal of Poetry, The Indianapolis Review, The Main Street Rag and elsewhere. On Twitter: @AlfredFournier4.
Reflections on Dad’s 100th Birthday
For Ten Seconds I Consider Dancing
George Freek‘s poetry has appeared in numerous Journals and Reviews. His poem ‘Written At Blue Lake’ was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Helen Freeman started writing poetry whilst recovering from an accident in Oman and got hooked. She now lives in Durham, England and has poems published on sites like Visual Verse, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Clear Poetry, Ground Poetry, Open Mouse, Algebra of Owls, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon, Poems for Ephesians and Ekphrastic Review. Instagram @chemchemi.hf
Quiet Psalm of a Ditched Snail
With a medical degree behind her, writer and poet Patricia Furstenberg authored 18 books imbued with history, folklore, legends. The recurrent motives in her writing are unconditional love and war. Her essays and poetry appeared in various online literary magazines. Romanian born, she resides with her family in South Africa.
Writing and the Sacred – a reflection
Marylou Fusco‘s writing has appeared in Carve, Swink, Five on the Fifth,and Mutha magazine. Her short stories have won the Philadelphia City Paper and literary journal, So to Speak fiction contests. Past jobs have included general assignment reporter, GED instructor, and ghost tour guide. She lives with her family in Baltimore where she is finishing a novel about reluctant saints and resurrections.
Jason Gabbert participates with words (those things that stir and explore the vast range of what it is to “be”) with simple sentences.
Daniel Galef‘s first book, Imaginary Sonnets (2023), is a collection of seventy persona poems, each a verse monologue exploring the point of view of a different historical figure, literary character, or inanimate object. Subjects include Saint Augustine, the moral philosopher John Taurek, and the woman who painted the fresco of Christ in Borja, Spain. The book is available now from Word Galaxy/Able Muse Press.
Fred Gallagher is Editor-in-Chief at Good Will Publishers, Inc., the parent company of TAN Books and Saint Benedict Press. He is the author of three memorial volumes on bereavement and three children’s books on character development. He has also authored a novel entitled The Light Hiding in Spindle. Fred has published poetry in Agora, Sanskrit, Cold Mountain Review, and is the 2023 winner of the Prime Number Magazine Annual Poetry Award. He resides with his wife, Kim, in Charlotte, N.C.
Jeff Gallagher’s poems feature in Rialto, Acumen, The High Window and The Journal among others. He has had numerous plays published and performed nationwide. He was the winner of the Carr Webber Prize 2021. For many years he taught English and Latin. He also appeared (briefly) in an Oscar-winning movie.
Bill Garvey‘s poetry has been published in Nixes Mate Review, New Verse News, Margie, The Worcester Review, 5AM, Slant, Diner, Concho River Review, New York Quarterly, Cloud Lake Literary, and Rattle in Spring, 2023.
Michael Gessner has authored 14 books of poetry and prose. His most recent is Nightshades, (2022). His poems have been included in, or are forthcoming from, Arlington Literary Journal, The French Literary Review, La Citta Immaginaria, North American Review, (finalist for the James Hearst Poetry Award,) and The Wallace Stevens Journal. A voting member of the National Book Critics Circle, his reviews may be found in NAR, Jacket2, The Edgar Allan Poe Review, and The Kenyon Review. For additional information: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-gessner
Elder Gideon is the author of two poetry collections Gnostic Triptych and Aegis of Waves (Atmosphere Press) and co-author with Tau Malachi of Gnosis of Guadalupe (EPS Press, 2017). His poems and sculptures have appeared in dozens of journals.
Paige Gilchrist lives in Asheville, NC, where she writes poetry and teaches yoga. Her poems have appeared in Kakalak, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and The Great Smokies Review.
Ruth Gilchrist Home | Ruth Gilchrist (ruth-gilchrist.com) is a Scottish Book Trust live Author. She facilitates the Poetry Library Writing Mothers Group. Her award-winning Poems and Flash fiction have appeared in Federation of writers Scotland anthology as well as many others. Bird Brained is published by Publications (blackagnespress.co.uk)
Michael S. Glaser served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004-2009. He is a Professor Emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. A recipient of the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching and Loyola College’s Andrew White Medal for contributions to the intellectual and artistic life in Maryland, Glaser has edited four collections of poetry including, with Kevin Young, the Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, (BOA editions, 2012). He has published eight volumes of his own poems, most recently The Threshold of Light (2019) and Elemental Things (2023). Glaser also served on The Board of the Maryland Humanities Council. He writes book reviews for The Friends Journal and now lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with his wife Kathleen who facilitates retreats for Parker Palmer’s Courage and Renewal network. More at http://www.michaelglaser.com
Leah Goldberg (1911-1970) was a prolific Hebrew-language poet, translator, playwright, novelist, literary critic, and philologist. The translation and publication of ‘Time’ appears with the consent of her estate.
Time – a poem by Leah Goldberg, translated by Zackary Sholem Berger
Angela Graham is from Northern Ireland. In Wales she has had a long career as a film maker. She now divides the year between both places. Her collection of poetry, Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere was published by Seren Books in 2022 and her collection of short stories, A City Burning in 2020.
What the Stars Want To Tell Us
Neile Graham is Canadian by birth and inclination but currently lives in Seattle, Washington. Her publications include: four full-length collections, most recently The Walk She Takes (2019) and a spoken word CD, She Says: Poems Selected & New. She has also published poems in various physical and online magazines, including Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Mad Swirl, and Polar Starlight.
James Green is a retired university professor and administrator. He has published five chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. His collection, Stations of the Cross, was nominated for the MLA’s Conference on Christianity and Literature Book of the Year. His website can be found at http://www.jamesgreenpoetry.net.
Melanie Green‘s most recent poetry collection, A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm was published by The Poetry Box of Beaverton, Oregon. The titles of her earlier collections are: Continuing Bridge and Determining Sky. She is a resident of Portland, Oregon.
Ray Greenblatt is an editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and teaches a ‘Joy of Poetry’ course at Temple University. He has written book reviews for the Dylan Thomas Society, John Updike Society, and Joseph Conrad Today. His latest book of poetry is From an Old Hotel on the Irish Coast (Parnils Media, 2023).
Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and lives in New England, where she works with multilingual learners at a public elementary school. Her work has appeared in such places as Eunoia Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Amethyst Review and Dodging the Rain, among others.
Mia Schilling Grogan is an Associate Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. She is a medievalist, who publishes in the areas of hagiography and women’s spiritual writing. Her poems have appeared in America, Presence, First Things, The Windhover, and Ekstasis among other journals.
Gerry Grubbs has a book forthcoming from Dos Madres Press, Learning A New Way To Listen.
On The Spiritual Practice of Clouds
Bruce Gunther is a former journalist and writer who lives in Bay City, Michigan. He’s a graduate of Central Michigan University. His poems have appeared in Arc Magazine, the Comstock Review, the Dunes Review, Modern Haiku, and others.
Charles Haddox lives in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and has family roots in both countries. His work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. charleshaddox.wordpress.com
Cordelia Hanemann, writer and artist, currently co-hosts Summer Poets, a poetry critique group in Raleigh, NC. Professor emerita retired English professor, she conducts occasional poetry workshops and is active with youth poetry in the North Carolina Poetry Society. She is also a botanical illustrator and lover of all things botanical. She has published in numerous journals including, Atlanta Review, Laurel Review, and California Review; in several anthologies including best-selling Poems for the Ukraine and her chapbook. Her poems have been performed by the Strand Project, featured in select journals, won awards and been nominated for Pushcarts. She is now working on a novel about her Cajun roots.
David Hanlon is a Welsh poet living in Cardiff. He is a Best of the Net nominee. You can find his work online in over 50 magazines, including Rust & Moth, Icefloe Press & Amethyst Review His first chapbook Spectrum of Flight is available for purchase now at Animal Heart Press. You can follow him on twitter @davidhanlon13 and Instagram @welshpoetd
Maryanne Hannan has published poetry in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Curator and elsewhere. She is the author of Rocking like It’s All Intermezzo: 21st Century Psalm Responsorials (Resource Publications, 2019).
An Accurate Account of the Ineffable
Maura H. Harrison is a poetry student in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. She lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Kevin Hart‘s most recent collections of poetry are Wild Track: New and Selected Poems (Notre Dame UP, 2015) and Barefoot (Notre Dame UP, 2018). His Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation, will appear with Chicago UP in 2023. He is currently completing two new collections of poetry, Lone Pilgrim and So Dark Over the River. He lives in central Virginia.
Taylor McKay Hathorn is a Mississippian by birth and a Jacksonian by choice, even though she can’t always drink the tap-water.
Peggy Heitmann has published poems and forthcoming in Remington Review, Last Leaves, The Impostor, and Deep Overstock among others. She considers herself both word & visual artist. Peggy lives in Raleigh, NC area with her husband and two cats.
Ryan Helvoigt is a poet living in Durango, CO with her husband and two children. She holds an MDiv in missions from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her work has appeared in Fathom Magazine.
Lory Widmer Hess is an American currently living with her family in Switzerland. She works with adults with developmental disabilities and is in training as spiritual director. Her writing has been published in Parabola, Heart of Flesh, Solum Journal, Ekstasis, Time of Singing, and other print and online publications. She blogs at enterenchanted.com.
Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. is a former teacher and librarian whose writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. She is the author of three collections, most recently ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press). Her poems can be found in a variety of publications, including The Atticus Review, The Rise Up Review, The Night Heron Barks, SWWIM, The Penn Review, Typishly, and elsewhere. Find her at: www.aliciamariehoffman.com
Angela Hoffman’s poetry collections include Resurrection Lily and Olly Olly Oxen Free (Kelsay Books). She placed third in the WFOP Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet in 2022. Her poems have been published internationally. She has written a poem a day since the start of the pandemic. Angela lives in rural Wisconsin.
Karen Paul Holmes has two poetry books, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Her poems have appeared on The Writer’s Almanac, The Slowdown, and Verse Daily. Publications include Diode, Plume, and Valparaiso Review. She has twice been a finalist for the Lascaux Review’s Poetry Prize. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and spends time in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Driving in a Storm, She Practices
Doug Van Hooser splits his time between suburban Chicago where he uses pseudonyms with baristas, and southern Wisconsin where he enjoys sculling and cycling. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology. He has also published short fiction and had readings of his plays in Chicago. Links to his work can be found at dougvanhooser.com
John Hopkins has been an English teacher for forty-two years. He was the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) poet of the year in 2008. John’s poetry has appeared in Commonweal, Saint Anthony Messenger, The National Catholic Reporter, The Leaflet, Sr. Melannie Svoboda’s blog, “Sunflower Seeds,” and Father Timothy Joyce’s book Celtic Quest. For the past six years, John has been a Benedictine Oblate affiliated with Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts. He loves to read, write letters, tramp the Blue Hills, and play pickleball with Kerry, his amazing wife, and mother of their wonderful children: Kate, Danny, and Brian. In February of 2021, John’s first book of poems, Celtic Nan, was published, and in February of 2023, his second book, Make My Heart a Pomegranate was published. You can reach John at brotherjohnnyhop@gmail.com.
Charles Hughes has published two books of poems, The Evening Sky (2020) and Cave Art (2014), both from Wiseblood Books. His poems have appeared in the Alabama Literary Review, America, The Christian Century, the Iron Horse Literary Review, Literary Matters, the Saint Katherine Review, and elsewhere. He worked for over 30 years as a lawyer and lives in the Chicago area with his wife.
Erich von Hungen is a writer from San Francisco, California. His writing has appeared in The Colorado Quarterly, The Write Launch, Versification, Green Ink Press, The Hyacinth Review and others. He has launched four collections of poems. The most recent is Bleeding Through: 72 Poems Of Man In Nature.
Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 53, living her writing dream in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. She writes about teenagers, witches, the very old, bats, cats, priests/nuns, cleaning ladies, runaways, struggling teachers, and neighborhood ghosts, among many other things. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com.
John Claiborne Isbell taught French and German for many years in Indiana and Texas after his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. In 1996, he appeared in Who’s Who in the World. He has a new monograph, An Outline of Romanticism in the West, with Open Book Publishers, where it is available to download for free online. His first book of poetry, Allegro, came out in 2018.
M.J. Iuppa’s fifth full length poetry collection The Weight of Air from Kelsay Books was released in September 2022; and, a chapbook of 24 100-word stories, Rock. Paper. Scissors., from Foothills Publishing in 2022. For the past 33 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.
Bethany Jarmul’s work has appeared in more than 50 literary magazines and been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature. Her chapbook This Strange and Wonderful Existence is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press. Her chapbook Take Me Home is forthcoming from Belle Point Press. She earned first place in Women on Writing’s Q2 2022 & Q2 2023 essay contests. She lives near Pittsburgh. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on Twitter:@BethanyJarmul.
Paul Jaskunas is the author of the novel Hidden (Free Press) and a novella forthcoming in 2024 from Stillhouse Press. His fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in numerous periodicals, including the New York Times, America, Tab, the Windhover, the Amethyst Review, and the Comstock Review. He teaches literature and writing at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he edits the art journal Full Bleed.
Nancy K. Jentsch’s poetry has appeared recently in The Pine Cone Review, Scissortail Quarterly, and Verse-Virtual. Her chapbook, Authorized Visitors, was published in 2017 (Cherry Grove Collections) and Between the Rows, her first poetry collection, con be purchased from Shanti Arts. More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site.
Do You Hear the More Distant Flute?
Deborah Jiang-Stein is a cross-genre writer, public speaker, collaborator, and founder of the unPrison Project, a nonprofit working to empower and inspire people in prison with hope, mentoring, and tools for life after prison. She is author of the memoir, Prison Baby, and has adapted her memoir for stage. Some of her publications credits include: Sun Dog: The Southeast Review Honorable Mention, World’s Best Short-Short Story; Two Worlds Walking, New Rivers Press; Paragraph Magazine; Printed Matter.
DB Jonas is an orchardist living in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico. Born in California in 1951, he was raised in Japan and Mexico. His work has recently appeared in Tar River, Blue Unicorn, Whistling Shade, Neologism, Consilience Journal, Poetica Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, The Decadent Review, The Amphibian, Willows Wept, Sequoia Speaks; Revue {R}évolution (https://www.revuerevolution.com/en/db-jonas) and others.
This Material World: A Benediction
K.L. Johnston is an author, poet, and photographer whose work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, anthologies, and travel journals as well as a photo illustrated book of meditations. She holds a degree in English and Communications from the University of South Carolina and her wide-ranging interests contribute to her writing and art. Her work explores the connections of humanity with the physical, spiritual, and liminal places she has stumbled into in her travels and in her own back yard. She devotes her unscheduled time to writing and satisfying her curiosity about people and this planet. You can find out more by visiting her Facebook page “A Written World”.
Tonya Patrice Jordan is a poet, writer, and retired surgeon from New Jersey. She is the author of Knowing Sunshine, a collection of poems and one short story. Some of her poems can be read in The Halcyone Literary Review, Linden Avenue Literary Magazine, and Peace Poems, an anthology compiled for NJ Peace Action. One of her stories was a semifinalist in Ruminate Magazine’s 2015 short story contest. She recently completed her first science fiction novel. The first short screenplay she wrote is currently in post-production.
Artifacts Rattle in the Closet of Academia
Kitty Jospé, retired French Teacher has been moderating weekly poetry appreciation sessions since 2008 after receiving her MFA. She is known for her teaching enthusiasm, joyful presentations, inspiring collaborations demonstrating the uplifting power of art and word. A popular reader, her work appears in numerous journals, and seven books.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including Amethyst Review, The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. Visit www.jacquelinejules.com
Katie Kalisz is a Professor in the English Department at Grand Rapids Community College, where she teaches composition and creative writing. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Loyola University of Chicago, and Queens University of Charlotte. Quiet Woman, her first book, was a finalist for the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. She is the recipient of a 2023 Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She lives in Michigan with her husband and their three children.
What Rises – a poem by Katie Kalisz
Jane Keenan has been writing poems from the age of six. On retiring, she enrolled for an MA in Creative Writing with the Open University, since when she joined with two of her colleagues/friends to publish Daughters of Thyme in aid of Médicins sans Frontières (www.dotipress.com).
You cannot see Him but He’s here
J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis. He lives in a brick house with his wife and five children, his two parents, and a dog.
Candice Kelsey [she/her] is a poet, educator, and activist currently living in Augusta, Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America’s Prison & Justice Writing Program; her work appears in Grub Street, Poet Lore, Lumiere Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and Slant among other journals. Recently, Candice was chosen as a finalist in Iowa Review’s Poetry Contest and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her third book titled A Poet just released with Alien Buddha Press. Find her @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.
Daniel Kemper is an unaccomplished man. He has walked The Bridge of No Return across the Sachong, and returned. He’s carried an acolyte’s cross at dawn and heard poetry at The Gates of Hell at midnight (Rodin Gardens). He’s touched the bones of Dinkenesh (“Lucy”) and climbed Masada at Dawn. He’s been How Berkeley Can You Be and walked the Pamlico Sound barefoot. He’s brought two children into the world and taken his father out of it. He’s written when there was no one he could tell and he writes now to bring out things of value and to engage and embrace all those who are doing the same.
Caroline Kerjean is a Quebec City-based author, artist and designer. She fell in love with art and culture at a young age and, after a life-changing experience restoring two medieval castles in France’s beautiful Alsace region, enrolled in art history at the University of Paris. After returning to Canada, she worked in the museum sector and published a first book. Kerjean now devotes herself full-time to her artistic and literary journey, aiming to pursue a rich and meaningful dialogue between past and present, one which evokes the weaving of a tapestry, an art form the author holds dear.
a a khaliq is a poet and medical student from the midwest. she writes, in the tradition of kafka, to close her eyes.
Nora Kirkham is a writer from Maine currently based in Scotland. She was raised in Japan, Australia, and Eastern Europe. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork, Ireland. Her writing has been featured in Rock & Sling, Clayjar Review, Ruminate Magazine, Tokyo Poetry Journal, and St Katherine Review.
Chris Klassen lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. After graduating from the University of Toronto and living for a year in France and England, he returned home and worked the majority of his career in print media. He is now living a semi-retired life. His stories have been published in Short Circuit, Unlikely Stories, Across the Margin, Fleas on the Dog, Vagabond City, Dark Winter, Literally Stories, Ghost City Review, The Raven Review and Close to the Bone.
Joseph Kleponis lives north of Boston, Massachusetts. His poetry has been appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Eucalypt, First Literary Review -East, Penmen Review of Southern New Hampshire University, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Wilderness House Literary Review. Truth’s Truth, his first book, was released in 2021 by Kelsay Books.
Julia Caroline Knowlton PhD MFA is a poet and Professor of French at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. As a young poet, she won an Academy of American Poets Prize. In 2018 she was named a Georgia Author of the Year and in 2022, her work was publicly installed as part of the Georgia Poetry in the Parks project. The author of five books, her poems have been published in journals such as ONE ART, Trouvaille Review, Roanoke Review and Rust & Moth.
Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus) and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published over 40 books, including twelve collections of poetry and chapbooks. Among his most recent titles are Emmett Till in Different States (Third World Press, 2015), Reaching Forever (Poiema Series, Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears (Main Street Rag, 2020), Wholly God’s: Poems (Wind and Water Press, 2021), and Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
Janet Krauss, who has two books of poetry published, Borrowed Scenery, Yuganta Press, and Through the Trees of Autumn, Spartina Press, has recently retired from teaching English at Fairfield University. Her mission is to help and guide Bridgeport’s young children through her teaching creative writing, leading book clubs and reading to and engaging a kindergarten class. As a poet, she co-directs the poetry program of the Black Rock Art Guild.
The Connection Between Writing and the Sacred
Carlene Kucharczyk is an American poet and essayist, who lives in Vermont. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Mid-American Review, Conduit, Green Mountains Review Online, and Tupelo Quarterly, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA from North Carolina State University.
Elizabeth Kuelbs writes at the edge of a Los Angeles canyon. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Scientific American, Lily Poetry Review, Rust & Moth, and other publications. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her chapbooks include Little Victory and How to Clean Your Eyes. Visit her online at https://elizabethkuelbs.com/.
Laurie Kuntz is a two time Pushcart nominee and a Best of Net nominee. Her fifth poetry collection: Talking Me off the Roof is available from Kelsay Books. Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/
Chelsea Lynn LaBate is an award winning poet, songwriter, painter, book binder, runner, surfer and yogi. She has played thousands of shows for the global community, including performances for children and elders. She has released several albums, animated music videos, and a podcast for songwriters called Songcrafter, which aired on the radio as an hourly Saturday morning special. She has a collection of short love poems, Sugah, which she handbound into miniature wearable books. She also has a collection of long format poems called Free Roses, inspired by the pandemic, which is set to be printed in winter of 2023. She lives a simple life by the sea, helping others with her words and making her art.
Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry.
Jennifer Lagier lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She serves two rescue dogs, dabbles in photography, taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: jlagier.net
Sara Letourneau is a poet as well as the book coach, editor, and writing workshop instructor at Heart of the Story Editorial & Coaching Services. Her poetry has received first place in the Blue Institute’s Words on Water contest and has appeared in Full Mood Mag, Living Crue, Arlington Literary Journal, Mass Poetry’s Poem of the Moment and Hard Work of Hope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Soul-Lit, Amethyst Review, and Constellations, among others. Her manuscript for her first full-length poetry collection is on submission. You can learn more about working with Sara and read more of her work at https://heartofthestoryeditorial.com/.
Morning Yoga in the Tuscan Countryside
Barry Lewis was previously published in Hot Poet Equinox Spring 2023. He has published two fiction novels; The Wyoming Adventure and What’s Dragon You Down?
Charles Lewis writes poetry as a way of knowing and unknowing, as prayer and meditation, to share language and feeling, for fun, and because it’s necessary.
Caroline Liberatore is a poet, editor, and librarian from Cleveland, Ohio. Her vocations are indicative of what she cares most deeply for: the written word, artistic and intellectual excellence, embodied presence in local communities, commonplace beauty, and redemption as articulated in the tangible, reconciling work of Christ. Caroline serves as Editor at The Clayjar Review and writes regularly on her Substack, Dog-Eared Inquiries.
Sue Fagalde Lick has published two chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano: Poems by a Distracted Catholic. Her poems have appeared in many journals, as well as the anthologies From Pandemic to Protest and Opening the Gate. She and her Zoom poetry dog Annie live on the Oregon coast, where she is a Catholic music minister.
Geri Lipschultz has published in The New York Times, The Toast, Black Warrior Review, College English, Terrain and Ms,among others. Her work appears in Pearson’s Literature: Introduction to Reading and Writing and in Spuyten Duyvil’s The Wreckage of Reason II. She teaches writing at Hunter College and Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her stories have received nominations for the Pushcart, and she was awarded a Creative Artists in Public Service grant from New York State. Her one-woman show Once Upon the Present Time was produced in NYC by Woodie King, Jr.
Viv Longley has been writing for her own pleasure since she was a child. Later in life she undertook an MA in Creative Writing at The Open University, specialising in poetry. As well as having one collection (Tally Sheet, Currock Press, 2021) she is undertaking a number of collaborative publications, notably, Daughters of Thyme. She is also preparing a second collection of her own and a number of essays – the latter to be called I am in a Hurry. ‘Now nearing my 80’s, you just never know how much time you have left!’
Barbara Loots resides in a historic neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. Her poems have appeared in magazines, textbooks, and anthologies for more than 50 years. Her three collections can be found on Amazon. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Writers Place.
Rupert M Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything (Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010)
The Secret Life of a Winter Angel
Tony Lucas is retired from parish ministry but continues work of editing and spiritual direction. His poetry has appeared widely, on both sides of the Atlantic, and past collections Rufus At Ocean Beach (Stride/Carmelyon) and Unsettled Accounts (Stairwell Books) remain available.
Ted Mc Carthy is a poet, translator and playwright living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, ‘November Wedding’, and ‘Beverly Downs’. His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com
Mark McDonnell had a long career in industry, living and working in Barcelona, Miami and Cambridge, England. He then trained as a psychotherapist and began to devote more time to writing. His work has been published in Rialto, Ink Sweat and Tears, Morphrog and The London Grip.
English and creative writing professor at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 14 collections of poetry—most recently Begin with a Question (Paraclete, International Book + Illumination Book Award winner and CMA Award, 3rd) and the ekphrastic collections Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with Karen Elias) and In the Museum of Her Daughter’s Mind, a collaboration with her artist daughter (www.hafer.work). She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 . In addition, she has published the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite) and 4 children’s and YA books. She has poems included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America since 1940 (Paraclete Press), edited by Michael Mattix and Sally Thomas, and in Taking Root in the Heart, edited by Jill Baumgaertner. Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com
Simon Maddrell is a queer Manx man, thriving with HIV. He’s published in fifteen anthologies and publications including AMBIT, Butcher’s Dog, The Moth, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Stand and Under the Radar. In 2020, Simon’s debut, Throatbone, was published (UnCollected Press) and Queerfella jointly-won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition.
Helena Marie is drawn to loss, place and the beauty of the everyday. She is of part-Cornish descent and lives in Berkshire, UK. Currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing, her work as found homes in several anthologies and online.
Blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 175 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. For more: http://www.carolynmartinpoet.com.
Eight Things the Buddha Said While Reading My Poetry
D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College. Angelicus (2021) is now available from Wipf & Stock― a poetry collection written from the point of view of angels. Visit his blog Kingdom Poets and his website.
Aiyana Masla is the author of the chapbook Stone Fruit (Bottlecap Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Cordella Press, the West Trestle Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, Vagabond City Poetry, Rogue Agent Journal, and as a part of the collection So Many Ways to Draw a Ghost. Based in Brooklyn, New York, she is an interdisciplinary artist and an anti bias educator. More of her work can be found at www.AiyanaMasla.com
Jessica Mattox is a PhD student in English at Old Dominion University and an adjunct English professor. In addition to writing poetry, she is passionate about the teaching and learning of technical/professional communication and first-year composition. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Last Leaves Magazine, The Album at Hollins University, Exit 109 at Radford University, and others. In addition, her academic scholarship has been published in the Virginia English Journal.
Joan Mazza is a retired medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops focused on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, The Nation, and other publications. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.
Between the Knowable and the Unknowable
Deepak Chopra Speaks Word Salad
Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. Recently his work has appeared in CROW NAME, WORDPEACE and Duck Duck Mongoose. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum – The Chroma Museum (weebly.com)
Lorna Meehan lives in Birmingham and has been on the national performance poetry scene for many years. She has headlined various acclaimed nights such as Hit the Ode and Jawdance, toured with Apples and Snakes and performed at festivals like Glastonbury, Ledbury, Shambala and Moseley Folk. She starred in performance poetry theatre show News of the Word directed by Giovanni ‘Spoz’ Esposito, who she later collaborated with on Ten Letters, an intergenerational poetry show about Birmingham and was part of the Decadent Diva’s and the New October Poets collectives. She has autobiographical spoken word solo shows under her belt and her debut collection Caterpillar Soup is coming out in March with Verve Poetry Press.
Lauren Meir is a writer and communications professional who works out of Detroit. She has lived in both Europe and the Middle East, writing her way through countries and cultures. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post and the Detroit Jewish News, and she is currently submitting poetry and creative nonfiction to lit magazines while working on her book. You can find her at laurenmeir.com or on twitter at @LaurenMeir.
Keith Melton holds a Master’s Degree in City Planning from Georgia Tech and a BA in Economics and International Studies from the American University. He previously has served as Director of Planning and Program Development for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Region IV Office; as well as VP of Development for both the Atlanta Economic Development Corp. and the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce (Metro Atlanta). His poems have been published in numerous periodicals.
Rowan Middleton teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. His pamphlet The Stolen Herd is published by Yew Tree Press.
Tim Miller‘s books include the poetry collection Bone Antler Stone (High Window Press), and the long narrative poem, To the House of the Sun (S4N Books). He is online at wordandsilence.com, and can be heard on the poetry and mythology podcast Human Voices Wake Us.
Alex Missall studied creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. His work has appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, Hole In The Head Review, The Basilisk Tree, and Superpresent, as well as other publications. He lives in the rural Midwest, where he enjoys the trails with his Husky, Betts.
Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses.He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years.An award-winning poet, he is the author of five full-length poetry collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife, activist and documentarian Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he makes his marginal living pointing out pretty things. He can be found reading his poetry here: https://www.youtube.com/@markj.mitchell4351A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/A primitive web site now exists: https://www.mark-j-mitchell.square.site/ He sometimes tweets @Mark J Mitchell_Writer
Rita Moe’s poetry has appeared in Water~Stone, Poet Lore, Slipstream, and other literary journals. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Sins & Disciplines and Findley Place; A Street, a Ballpark, a Neighborhood. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Roseville, Minnesota.
Sharon Lopez Mooney, poet, is a retired Interfaith Chaplain from the End of Life field, living in Mexico. Mooney was given a CAC Grant to establish a rural poetry series; nominated for “Best of the Web Award”; co-published a regional anthology; co-owned an alternative literature service; produced poetry readings, continues facilitating poetry feedback workshops.
Mooney’s poems are in publications nationally and internationally, like: The Blotter, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Kennings Literary Galway Review, California Quarterly, Ginosko, Door is a Jar, The Ricochet Review, Glassworks, Tipton Literary Journal, Sybil, Revue {R}Évolution”…, anthologies: “CALYX; Cold Lake; Strong Words; Smoke & Myrrors” (UK), amongst others.
Marjorie Moorhead writes from the New England river valley border of NH/VT. She is the author of Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020), and has poems in many anthologies and literary journals. Marjorie’s first full collection, Every Small Breeze, is forthcoming, as well as a third chapbook, In My Locket.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in Cimarron Review, Cobalt Review, English Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Poem, and other literary magazines.
Colin Jeffrey Morris lives and writes in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Delmarva Review, Lily Poetry Review and descant.
What Every Rose-Grower Should Know
Erica Jane Morris was shortlisted for the Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry 2021 and was a finalist in the Mslexia Poetry Competition 2021. She has an MA in Writing Poetry (University of Newcastle and The Poetry School). Her work is published in Channel, Lunate, Mslexia and The High Window, and is forthcoming in the Live Cannon Anthology 2022.
Karen McAferty Morris writes about nature and ordinary people. Her poetry, recognized for its “appeal to the senses, the intellect, and the imagination,” has appeared in Persimmon Tree, Sisyphus, The Louisville Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Black Fox Literary Journal, and Lyric Magazine. Her collections Elemental (2018), Confluence (2020), and Significance (2022) are national prize winners. She is lucky enough to live on Perdido Bay in the Florida panhandle.
Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. His poems have appeared in many magazines, most recently in Ibbetson Street, Sheila-Na-Gig, ONE ART, London Grip, and Ink Sweat & Tears. He was formerly dean at the Montana State University library.
Daniel Mountain (@danmtn) is a writer and teacher based in Cheltenham Spa.
Perhaps the hedgerows have it after all
Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Best of the Net award, John Muro is a resident of Connecticut, a graduate of Trinity College and a lover of all things chocolate. He has published two volumes of poems – In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite – in 2020 and 2022, respectively, and both volumes were published by Antrim House. John’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, Moria, New Square, Sky Island and the Valparaiso Review. Instagram: @johntmuro.
Abigail Myers lives on the South Shore of Long Island with her husband, daughter, and two cats. She has published essays in the Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture series and offers poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on spirituality and art at abigailmyers.com.
Kaye Nash is a teacher, poet and closet novelist living on Vancouver Island. She can be best reached on Twitter @knashingmyteeth.
Linley Valley on the First Warm Day in April
Meryl Natchez’ fourth book, CATWALK, received an Indie Best Book 2020 Award from Kirkus Reviews. Natchez’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, LA Review of Books, Hudson Review, Poetry Northwest, Literary Matters, Tupelo Quarterly, ZYZZYVA, and others. More at www.merylnatchez.com
Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. His work has appeared in Buddhist Poetry Review, Evergreen Review, Midwest Zen, Vox Populi and elsewhere.
Erin Olson is a licensed professional counselor living in southeastern Wisconsin. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Neologism Poetry Journal, Last Leaves Magazine, and Sky Island Journal.
Ellen Orr is a teacher and writer currently based in Texas.
Susan R. Page lives in Concord, MA. She began writing poetry in a Lesley University workshop with Elizabeth McKim and Judith Steinbergh, and in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry Writing Seminar at Harvard. She is currently a member of Not the Rodeo Poets writing group. Her poetry has been published in The Cumberland Review and Amelia.
Brian Palmer is intrigued with and often writes about the vital and undeniable intersections of our physical, mental, and spiritual lives. His poetry has appeared in various journals including Expansive Poetry Online, Bristlecone, The Society of Classical Poets, and The Lyric.
Maggie Palmer has recently graduated from the University of Dallas with a B.A. in English and Classical Philology and currently lives with her family in Fort Cavazos, Texas. Her work has appeared in such magazines as Blue Unicorn, The Lyric, Grand Little Things, and Mezzo Cammin.
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Talking River Review, and The Westchester Review. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
Junwoo (William) Park is a 14-year-old high school sophomore currently attending International School Manila in the Philippines. His work has been recognized by journals such as One Art Poetry, Cathartic Literary Magazine,etc. Aside from creative writing, he frequently enjoys playing football with his friends, watching Netflix, and likes to read.
A former Pastor’s Assistant, David W. Parsley is an engineer/manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he works during the day (okay, and some nights and weekends) on interplanetary probes and rovers. His poems appear in London Grip, Poetry LA, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Autumn Sky Poetry, and other journals and anthologies. “Kyoto: A Cycle” was a semi-finalist for the Able Muse Award.
Kimberly Phinney is an award-winning AP English instructor and professional photographer. She’s been published inRuminate, Ekstasis Magazine, Calla Press, The Write Launch, Heart of Flesh, The Dewdrop, and Harness, among others. She is also a poetry editor at The Agape Review. She has her M.Ed. in English and studied at Goddard’s MFA program in Creative Writing. After almost dying from severe illness in 2021, she’s earning her doctorate in counseling to help the marginalized and suffering. Please drop by to visit her at www.TheWayBack2Ourselves.com and on Instagram @thewayback2ourselves.
Sylvia Byrne Pollack’s poems appear in Floating Bridge Review, Crab Creek Review, The Stillwater Review and many others. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee, 2013 Mason’s Road Literary Awardee, 2019 Jack Straw Writer, 2021 Mineral School Resident. Her debut collection is Risking It (Red Mountain Press 2021.) www.sylviabyrnepollack.com
Christine Potter lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Sweet, Mobius, Eclectica, Kestrel, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Fugue, and been featured on ABC Radio News. She has poetry forthcoming in The Midwest Quarterly. Her time-traveling young adult novels, The Bean Books, are published by Evernight Teen.
All Our Houses are the Same House
Ann Power is a retired faculty member from the University of Alabama. She enjoys writing historical sketches as well as poems based in the kingdoms of magical realism. Her work has appeared in: Spillway, Gargoyle Magazine, The Birmingham Poetry Review, The American Poetry Journal, Dappled Things, Caveat Lector, The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Loch Raven Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals. In addition, Ann’s poem, “Ice Palace” (The Copperfield Review) was nominated for Best of the Net in Poetry for 2021.
David B. Prather is the author of We Were Birds (Main Street Rag Publishing). His second collection will be published by Fernwood Press. His work has appeared in many print and online journals, including Prairie Schooner, Psaltery & Lyre, The Meadow, Cutleaf, Sheila-Na-Gig, etc. He studied acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory, and he studied writing at Warren Wilson College.
Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, ParisLitUp, Meniscus, Agenda, Gradivaand other journals. Her most recent book of poetry is EDGES.
Jessamyn Rains is a homeschooling mom who writes and makes music. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in various publications, including Reformation Journal, Awake Our Hearts, Trampoline, and Kosmeo Magazine, which she helps to edit. She lives with her family in Tennessee.
The Artist and the Businessman
Patrick T. Reardon is the author of twelve books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David, Darkness on the Face of the Deep and The Lost Tribes. His memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby was published by Third World Press with an introduction by Haki Madhubuti. It has been described by Mindbender Review of Books as “the most improbable and intriguing personal account by a writer published in 2022, but quite possibly the most ingeniously imagined memoir by any writer in any given year.” He has two new poetry collections: Salt of the Earth: Doubts and Faith from Kelsay Books and Let the Baby Sleep from the Australian publisher In Case of Emergency.
Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer. Her poems have appeared in Blueline; Appalachia; Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction; and Weber – The Contemporary West. She finds inspiration in the close-up world of macro nature photography. Favorite subjects include her garden; the forest; cloudscapes; and the ever-plentiful raindrops of western Washington. You can view her photography web pages at: www.pbase.com/candanceski
Bethany Reid’s stories, essays, and poems have recently appeared in One Art, Poetry East, Quartet, Passengers, Adelaide, Kithe, Descant, Peregrine, and Catamaran. Her fourth full-length collection of poems, The Pear Tree, won the 2023 Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press and is due out this winter. She lives in Edmonds, Washington, and blogs about writing and life at http://www.bethanyareid.com.
Are Wings Really What You Want
Isaac James Richards is a poet, essayist, and graduate student in the BYU English Department. He has won four poetry contest awards and five essay contests. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Irreantum, BYU Studies Quarterly, Y-Magazine, and Literature and Belief. He is also a contributing editor at Wayfare Magazine. He can be reached via his personal website: https://www.isaacrichards.com/
Spun Glass, Harp Strings, and Theology
Royal Rhodes taught the history of Christianity for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals, including: Ekstasis Poetry, Amethyst Magazine, Foreshadow Magazine, The Cafe Review, New Verse News, and STAR 82 Review, among others. Art and poetry collaborations have been published by The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
Estan Rodriguez is a young poet living in the United States. His work is published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Beaver Mag., and elsewhere. You can try to find him birdwatching on Saturday mornings, but he walks quietly and doesn’t leave a trace.
Beyond the Body: Evidence for the Soul
Tyler Rogness is learning to live on purpose. He loves deep words, old books, good stories, and his wonderful family who put up with his nonsense. His poems have appeared in the Agape Review, The Habit Portfolio, and the Amethyst Review; and more of his work can be found at awakingdragons.com.
When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and crochet. She volunteers in animal rescue tending to cat colonies. She walks with a birding group on Sundays through the neighborhood trails. Her work has appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Amethyst Review, Spillwords and other wonderful places.Her latest collection is This water paint life, published by Origami Poems Project. She can be reached at veganflower00@gmail.com
Seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.
A poet, professor, and editor, Richard Ryal has worked in marketing and higher education. He stops for every poem he hasn’t read before, and no one can talk him out of doing that. His recent publications include Notre Dame Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, The South Florida Poetry Journal, and Survision.
Maha Salih teaches and researches medieval English literature at King’s College London and has published several critical studies of The Book of Margery Kempe.
Julie Sampson’s poetry is widely published. She edited Mary Lady Chudleigh; Selected Poems, 2009 (Shearsman Books); her collectionsare Tessitura (Shearsman Books, 2014) and It Was When It Was When It Was (Dempsey & Windle, 2018 ). She received an ‘honourable mention’ in the Survision James Tate Memorial Prize, in 2021. Her main website is at JulieSampson.
Elli Samuels is a poet whose work has been anthologized and published in numerous literary journals such as Maudlin House, Pif Magazine, and Tulsa Review. A cookbook author and yogi, Samuels lives in Texas.
Nikki Santer‘s poems have appeared in various publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Heavy Feather Review, Slab, Slipstream, [PANK], Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Hotel Amerika and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including six Pushcart and three Ohioana and Ohio Poet book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her twelfth poetry collection, Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me, is a sequence in tribute to the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington and was recently published by the arts press, Cereal Box Studio.
Born in Cincinnati, Bobbie Saunders is a graduate of Emory University, B.A. in Psychology and Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, B.F.A. in Painting & Drawing. Her interests include running, baseball, swimming, playing with dogs. Her poems have appeared in Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Talking River Review, Westward Quarterly and others. Illusions is her collection of poems.
Kerstin Schulz is a German-American writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be found in River Heron Review, HerStry, The Bookends Review, Raft, Relief, Montana Mouthful, and Cathexis Northwest Press, among other publications. She is also the winner of the PDXToday 2023 Poetry Contest.
John Seacome is a retired Town Planner and has spent his retirement years training to be a Licensed Lay Minister and working in his local Benefice south west of Wakefield. He also researches local and family history and enjoys being with his granddaughters nearby.He is more familiar with prose writing but is attempting to create a poetic style at present
Steven Searcy lives with his wife and three sons in Atlanta, GA, where he works as an engineer in fiber optic telecommunications. His poetry has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Reformed Journal, Fathom Magazine, The Clayjar Review, and Foreshadow Magazine. You can find him on Twitter @ithinkiamsteven
Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He has been published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the recipient of the Ethos Literary Award 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune, in the “family members category.” He was recently bestowed the 2023Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.
X/ Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 || Instagram sanjeevsethipoems
Lucy Seward is in her third year at Hamilton College, where she majors in Literature and double minors in Women and Gender Studies and Spanish. She loves to read novels, write poetry, go for walks in the woods, and listen to music. She spends time at school as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the campus’ main literary magazine, Red Weather (https://www.redweather.org/#home-section), and as the Music Director for the campus’ radio station.
Mary Ellen Shaughan is a native Iowan who now lives in Western Massachusetts with her beagle, Zeke. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and magazines and in her first collection of poetry, Home Grown, which is available on Amazon.
Laura Sheahen has published poems in Four Way Review, Posse Review, and other journals in the US and UK. Her poetry book The Genie Smileswas printed in India. She lives in Tunisia.
Katy Shedlock is a Methodist pastor and church planter in Spokane, WA. Her work has been featured online by Pontoon Poetry, Earth & Altar, and Line Rider Press.
Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and crazy bulldog. Poems and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. A full-length collection of formal poetry, A Kiss to Betray the Universe, is available from White Violet Press. He also has two chapbooks: Looting Versailles (Alabaster Leaves Publishing) and The Rites of Tires (SurVision).
The Seagull’s Ninetieth, Ninety-Fifth and Ninety-Sixth Seguidilla
John Short lives near Liverpool again after a previous life in southern Europe. He’s appeared most recently in Pennine Platform, Flights e-Journal, Foxglove Journal, Culture Matters and The Bosporus Review. His fourth collection In Search of a Subject is due from Cerasus Press in 2023.
Kathryn Simmonds’ third collection of poems, Scenes from Life on Earth, was published by Salt in 2022. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Poetry, the Guardian, the New Statesman, Poetry Review and The Irish Times, and, along with her short stories, have been broadcast on BBC radio. She lives in Norwich with her family and tutors for The Poetry School and other organisations.
When Kashiana Singh is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills by Yavanika Press is a journey through 10 cities. Her newest full-length collection, Woman by the Door was released in Feb 2022 with Apprentice House Press.
How to be kind to yourself, like an 8-month-old
David Leo Sirois is a Canadian-American poet published 137 times, in 21 countries, in 12 languages (such as Hindi, German, & Spanish). He hosts the Zoom continuation of SpokenWord Paris. First collection: Humbledoves (poems to pigeons & plants). He won Third Prize in Winning Writers’ Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, & his poetry has appeared in journals such as The Bombay Review, Paris Lit Up, & One Hand Clapping.
Annabelle Smith studies creative writing at Barbara Ingram School For the Arts. Her work can be read on Every Day Fiction and in a forthcoming publication by TRNSFR.
Thomas R. Smith lives in western Wisconsin and teaches at the Loft literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His most recent books are Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications) and Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press). He posts poems and blogs at www.thomasrsmithpoet.com.
Cynthia Sowers was a Senior Lecturer at the Residential College of the University of Michigan. Until her retirement in 2019, she developed and taught interdisciplinary courses for the Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program. Her past teaching and current creative activity are centered on the engagement of literature and the visual arts. She has published poetry, drawings and paintings in The Solum Journal (2020; 2021) and poetry in Amethyst Review (2021). She has published a short story, “A Trap to Catch the Earth,” in The Carolina Quarterly (Spring/Summer 2021).
Mary Magdalen Seated Before a Mirror
Katherine Spadaro was born in Scotland but has spent most of her life in Australia. She is married with two adult children. Her poems are typically short and focus on some everyday event or feeling; sometimes they have narrowly survived having all the life edited out of them. She is interested in the symbolism and impact of regular experience and how it is connected with spiritual truth.
From an Attic Window in Tuscany
Alice Stainer is a lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing on a visiting student programme in Oxford, UK, and is also a musician and dancer. You can read her work in Black Nore Review, Atrium, Feral Poetry, After…, The Storms, and The Dawntreader, amongst other places. Recently nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize and the Forward Prize, she is in the process of submitting her debut pamphlet. She tweets poetically @AliceStainer.
Laura Stamps is the author of over 50 novels and poetry collections. Most recently: “The Good Dog” (Prolific Pulse Press 2023) and “Addicted to Dog Magazines” (Impspired, 2023). Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Lover of feral cats, Chihuahuas, and Yorkies. www.laurastamps.wordpress.com
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Helen Steenhuis has been living near Aix-en-Provence since 1989 working as an English language teacher. Her poems have appeared in The French Literary Review, Equinox: A Poetry Journal,The Poetry Library: Southbank Centre, London, and Cumberland River Review.
Kenneth Steven is widely published as a poet, a writer of fiction and as a translator (from Norwegian). The lion’s share of his work is inspired by Iona and the Celtic Christian story. His volume of selected poems Iona was published a couple of years back by Paraclete Press in the States.
Bud Sturguess was born in 1986 in the small cotton-and-oil town of Seminole, Texas. He has self-published several books, his latest being the novel Sick Things. Sturguess’s work appears online at New Pop Lit and Erato, as well as in the print anthologies Mid/Southfrom Belle Point Press, and The Daily Drunk’s From Parts Unknown. He lives on disability benefits and collects neckties.
Heather Swan‘s poems have appeared in such journals as Terrain, Minding Nature, Poet Lore, Phoebe, The Raleigh Review, Midwestern Gothic and Cold Mountain. She is the author of the poetry collection A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books), a finalist for the ASLE Book Award, and the chapbook The Edge of Damage ( Parallel Press), which won the Wisconsin Chapbook Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in Aeon, Belt, Catapult, Edge Effects, Emergence, ISLE, Minding Nature, and The Learned Pig. Her book Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. She teaches environmental literature and writing in Madison at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems. He is a Presbyterian pastor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he shares life with his spouse, also an ordained minister, their three young children, and dog named Ramona after their favorite literary heroine.
Felicity Teague is a poet from Pittville, a suburb of Cheltenham, UK. She has had inflammatory arthritis since she was 12 yet is able to work from home as a copywriter and copyeditor, with her foremost interests including health and social care. Her poetry features regularly in the Spotlight of The HyperTexts; she has also been published by The Mighty, Snakeskin, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dirigible Balloon, Pulsebeat, Lighten Up Online and a local Morris dancing group. In December 2022, she published a small collection of poems, From Pittville to Paradise. Other interests include art, film, and photography.
Colette Tennant is an English professor. She has two books of poems: Commotion of Wings and Eden and After. Her poems have won various awards and have been included in many journals, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Fish Anthology, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, and others. In 2019, upon the request of a national press, she wrote Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide to coincide with Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. She has also taught art in Great Britain, Germany, and Italy.
Mark Thalman is the author of Stronger Than the Current, The Peasant Dance, and Catching the Limit. His poems have appeared in the Paterson Review, The MacGuffin, Pedestal Magazine, and Valparaiso Review, among many others. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. Thalman retired from the public schools after teaching English and Creative Writing for 35 years. Besides writing, he enjoys painting landscapes and wildlife art. Please visit markthalman.com.
Daniel Thomas’s second collection of poetry, Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn, was published in 2022. His first collection, Deep Pockets, won a 2018 Catholic Press Award. He has published poems in many journals, including Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Poetry Ireland Review, The Bitter Oleander, Atlanta Review, and others. More info at danielthomaspoetry.com.
Larry D. Thomas served as the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. He has published several collections of poetry, including As If Light Actually Matters: New & Selected Poems (Texas A&M University Press 2015). Journals in which his poetry has been published include The Windhover, Christian Science Monitor, Southwest Review, Poet Lore, and Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith.
Dila Toplusoy is an emerging writer and poet from Istanbul who writes in English, her second language. She holds a First Class Honours degree from University of the Arts London. Her work has been published by La Piccioletta Barca, Sky Island Journal, Sidekick Books and The Pandemic Post, among others. You can find her on Instagram as @dilaquis.
Ahrend Torrey is the author of Bird City, American Eye (Pinyon Publishing, 2022) and Small Blue Harbor (Poetry Box Select, 2019). His work has appeared in storySouth, The Greensboro Review, and The Perch (a journal of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, a program of the Yale School of Medicine), among others. He earned his MA/MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and is a recipient of the Etruscan Prize awarded by Etruscan Press. He lives in Chicago with his husband Jonathan, their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova, and Purl their cat.
Martin Towers is a support worker in Aberystwyth, Wales. His poems have been published in Crannog, Banshee and The Galway Review.
Fruit of the Forgotten Hedgerow – The Crab Apple
People of the Holloways -The Seer
Story is the soul of Angela Townsend’s calling. As Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary, she has the privilege of bearing witness to mercy for all beings. This was not the vocation Angela expected when she got her Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, but love is a wry author of lives. Angela also has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Vassar College. She has had Type 1 diabetes for 32 years and lives in Bucks County, PA with two shaggy comets disguised as cats. This is Angela’s debut creative nonfiction publication.
Robin Turner has recent work in The Fourth River, Bracken Magazine, One Art, and Ethel, and in the Haunted anthology (Porkbelly Press). A longtime community teaching artist in Dallas, she is now living in the Pineywoods of rural East Texas for a spell. She works with teen writers online.
Victoria Twomey is a poet and an artist. She has appeared as a featured poet at venues around NY, including the Hecksher Museum of Art, The Poetry Barn, Barnes & Noble, and Borders Books. Her poems have been published in several anthologies, in newspapers and on the web, including Sanctuary Magazine, BigCityLit, PoetryBay, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Tipton Poetry Journal and the Agape Review. Her poem “Pieta” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Barbara Tyler is a visual artist currently trying her hand at poetry. She uses words for the same reason as visual media—to express emotional reactions to aging, relationships, and faith as well as history, culture, and nature. Her art and writing can be sampled at btylerfineart.com.
Barbara Usher practises animal theology on her 4 acre animal sanctuary, Noah’s Arcs. Her poetry has been published in Borderlands: an Anthology,Dreich, Last Leaves, and in Liennekjournal. Her work appears on the Resilience soundscape for Live Borders, and she has contributed to a local project with Historic Environment Scotland.
Sheep Watching St Cuthbert’s Procession
A Morning Theophany at Noah’s Arcs 2022
John Valentine has recently retired from 45 years of teaching philosophy courses at various colleges.
Alicia Viguer-Espert was born and raised in Mediterranean Spain. She combines old and new traditions to elicit hope in her poetry. Her work has been published national and internationally. Winner of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Contest with “Holding a Hummingbird,” her second chapbook “Out of the Blue Womb of the Sea,” was published by Four Feathers Press. She’s a twice Pushcart nominee.
Heather Walker is a London-based writer of poetry and short fiction. She often writes about the human connection with earth. Her work has appeared in several anthologies as well as Ink Sweat & Tears, Visual Verse, Seaborneand Popshop.
Alan Walowitz, from Great Neck, NY, is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook, Exactly Like Love, comes from Osedax Press. The full-length, The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems, is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night, written trans-continentally with poet Betsy Mars.
Kresha Richman Warnock and her husband, an Episcopal priest, retired to the Pacific Northwest right before the pandemic hit. Since then she has filled her life writing a memoir and various essays. She has been published in The Brevity Blog, Persimmon Tree, Moss Piglet, Jewish Women of Words, Fahmiddan, Instant Noodles, and the anthologies Pure Slush and American Writer’s Review 2022. For a complete list of her works, please visit her website, http://www. https://kresharwarnock.com/.
Rhett Watts is a member of the 4×4 poet and artist collaborative in Worcester and facilitates writing workshops in CT and MA. Her books are: Willing Suspension (Antrim House Books) and The Braiding (Kelsay Books). She won the Rane Arroyo chapbook contest for No Innocent Eye. Her work appears in Best Spiritual Writing 2000 and she has poems in journals including Canary, SWIMM, Spoon River Poetry, The Worcester Review, Sojourners Magazine, The Windhover, and many others.
Dylan Webster lives and writes in the sweltering heat of Phoenix, AZ. He is the author of the poetry collection Dislocated (Quillkeepers Press, 2022), and his poetry and fiction have appeared in anthologies by Quillkeepers Press and Neon Sunrise Publishing; as well as the journals The Dillydoun Review, Last Leaves, and The Cannons Mouth by Cannon Poets Quarterly. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Kathryn Weld’s full-length debut Afterimage, is forthcoming from Pine Row Press (Fall 23). Her poetry and prose appear in American Book Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The Cortlandt Review; Midwest Quarterly, The Southeast Review, Stone Canoe, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook is Waking Light (Kattywompus Press 2019). She is Professor of Mathematics at Manhattan College.
When Oak Leaves Shimmy in The Heath
Gail White is a contributing editor of Light Poetry Magazine and a frequent contributor to formalist poetry journals and anthologies. She is a 2-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Prize. Her most recent books, Asperity Street and Catechism, may be found on Amazon. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana with her husband and cats.
Eve Discusses Adam’s First Wife
Lauren H. White teaches, writes and gives her daughter piggy-back rides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has been published in the The Mighty, Fathom magazine, The Fallow House, and ELLA library’s Reflections on Generosity and Thanks. You can connect with her on Instagram @healbipolarandbeyond and at laurenhwhite.com.
Rachel White (she/her) is an American-born poet and artist who lives and works on Kaurna land in South Australia. Her poetry has been featured in Kissing Dynamite and placed highly commended in the 2022 Woorilla Poetry Prize. Her work also appears in Third Wednesday Magazine and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections. Meteor Shower (2016) is her second collection from Dos Madres Press, following The Refrain in 2012. She is the author of a novel, Fall Love, as well as short stories, essays, features, and reviews. She was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and lives in New York City. You can listen to her lecture, “Longfellow, Poe, and the Little Longfellow War” here.
Kristie L. Williams started her writing journey to impress boys and found her true voice as a poet during her time at Saint Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg NC where she earned a B.A. in English/Creative Writing. She went on to East Carolina University and received an MAEd in Adult Education. She describes her work as disability adjacent, because although it shapes the context of her work cerebral palsy does not overshadow the arc of her story. She has been previously published by Main Street Rag, Dan River Review, Cairn, Maximum Tilt Solstice Anthology, Madness Muse Press, Hermit Feathers Review Heron Clan 8, Big City Lit, Nostos: Journal of Poetry, Fiction, andSnapdragon: A Journal Of Art And Healing. Her collection Finding Her was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. kristielwilliams.com
I Wanna Dance Like God Has Moved In Me Before
Donald Mace Williams is a retired newspaper writer and editor with a Ph.D. in Beowulfian prosody. At ninety-three, he lives alone and independently in the Texas Panhandle. His latest book, Wolfe and Being Ninety, is a hybrid of narrative poem and prose memoir.
Renee Williams is a retired English professor, who has written for Of Rust and Glass, Alien Buddha Press and the New Verse News.
Tina Williams lives in Austin, TX. Her poems have appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, the New Verse News and Concho River Review.
Paul Willis has published seven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Somewhere to Follow (Slant Books, 2021). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Christian Century, and Christianity and Literature. He lives with his wife, Sharon, near the old mission in Santa Barbara, California.
Fresco Behind a Wooden Statue of St Andrew
Diana Woodcock is the author of seven chapbooks and five poetry collections, most recently Holy Sparks (2020 Paraclete Press Poetry Award finalist) and Facing Aridity (2020 Prism Prize for Climate Literature finalist). A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net nominee, she is the recipient of the 2022 Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Poetry Award (for her sixth full-length manuscript, Heaven Underfoot), the 2011 Vernice Quebodeaux Pathways Poetry Prize for Women (for her debut collection, Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders), and the 2007 Creekwalker Poetry Prize. Currently teaching at VCUarts Qatar, she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, where she researched poetry’s role in the search for an environmental ethic.
Allison Xu is a young writer from Rockville, Maryland. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Unbroken, Paper Lanterns, The Daphne Review, Bourgeon Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently serving as a senior editor for Polyphony Lit. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, baking, and playing with her beagle.
John Ziegler is a poet and painter, a gardener, a traveler, originally from Pennsylvania, recently migrated to a mountain village in Northern Arizona.
Amethyst Review 