Contributors

Chrystal Berche dabbles lots, and sometimes in those dabbles blooms ideas that take shape into images. Many of her current pieces of artwork started out as simple line drawings and were merged in Photoshop with flames, smoke, ice, raging rivers, and other backgrounds. She loves neon, digging in dirt, dancing in rain, and chasing storms all in the hope of inspiration.

Brandon Courtney was born and raised in Iowa, served four years in the United States Navy (Operation Enduring Freedom), and is a graduate of the MFA program at Hollins University. His poetry is forthcoming or appears in Best New Poets (’09), The Journal, 32 Poems, and Boston Review, among many others. His book, The Grief Muscles, is forthcoming from The Sheep Meadow Press. Thrush Press published his chapbook, Improvised Devices. He is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

Jim Daniels is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, four collections of fiction, and three produced screenplays. He has received the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, the Tillie Olsen Prize, the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies, and his poem “Factory Love” is displayed on the roof of a racecar. At Carnegie Mellon University, he is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English. A native of Detroit, Daniels lives with his family, in Pittsburgh, near the boyhood homes of Andy Warhol and Dan Marino. His latest collection of poetry, Birth Marks, was released by BOA Editions this year.

Neil de la Flor is a writer, teacher, photographer and Executive Director of Reading Queer. His publications include An Elephant’s Memory of Blizzards (Marsh Hawk Press, 2013); Sinead O’Connor and her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds (Firewheel Editions, 2011), co-authored with Maureen Seaton and winner of the Sentence Book Award; Almost Dorothy(Marsh Hawk Press, 2010), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize; Two Thieves and a Liar (Jackleg Press, 2013) and the chapbook Facial Geometry (NeoPepper Press, 2006), both co-authored with Maureen Seaton and Kristine Snodgrass. He is also the performance arts journalist for KnightArts, an organizational blog maintained by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and contributes to Miami-based arts bureau, Art Burst Miami. He earned an MFA at the University of Miami and was a Michener Fellow. Neil can be reached at www.neildelaflor.com.

Maggie Gerrity received her M.A. from Florida State University and her Ph.D from Binghamton University. She has been a finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and Narrative’s 30 Below Prize. Her work is forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review. She lives in Middletown, Pennsylvania, where she teaches at Penn State Harrisburg. She is at work on a memoir.

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Dean Julius is a second year MFA student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Poetry Editor at The Greensboro Review. He received his BA in English from the University of Mississippi and a Masters of Education from Delta State University. His poems and other work have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, storySouth, Confidante, and Gently Read Literature.

Leonard Kress has published poetry and fiction in Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, Crab Orchard Review, American Poetry Review, Atticus Review, Harvard Review, etc. His recent collections are The Orpheus Complex, Living in the Candy Store, and Braids & Other Sestinas. He teaches philosophy, religion, and creative writing at Owens College in Ohio and serves as the fiction editor for Artful Dodge.

Roger Leege (Venice, FL) started out as a painter, printmaker and analog photographer, and earned BA and MA degrees in Visual Arts from Vermont’s Goddard College.  Following postgrad study in assorted small computer technologies, his art is now fully-digital, photo-based, and he works primarily in multi-layered montage making “creative re-visions of reality.”  With gallery, print, and online publishing credits in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, he maintains his portfolio project site at www.vianovaphoto.net and uses www.rogerleege.net for custom framing, printing, and online sales.

Telisha Moore Leigg teaches English and Japanese. She has an M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College, has published in the anthology, Long Story Short: Flash Fiction by Sixty-Five of North Carolina’s Finest Writers and in Stickman Review. She received honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s July 2012 Very Short Fiction contest, and she writes flash fiction stories for Evince Magazine. Currently, she is working on a collection of interconnected short stories set in the South that deal with death, loss, secrets, and spirituality.

Poet and folklorist Sarah McCartt-Jackson has been published by and received honors from The Academy of American Poets, Copper Nickel, Indiana Review, Journal of American Folklore, NANO Fiction, STILL, and others. She was selected as Tidal Basin Review’s inaugural Poetry Series Center Feature poet, which featured her series poem “Calf Canyon” and an interview. Her chapbook, Vein of Stone, is forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. She lives and writes in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jill Lavetsky works in the media of drawing, painting, printmaking, and performance. She is interested in the nature of memory, and explores the language of movement and gesture as a form of communication between body and place. Jill received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Florida Atlantic University. She is Museum Education Coordinator at FAU, an instructor at Palm Beach State College, and teaches art to incarcerated women. To view more work or for contact information, visit www.JillLavetsky.com

Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers is a poet and newspaper correspondent. She earned a B.A. in English from Penn State and both an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Old Dominion University. In 2013, she won third place in the Gemini Magazine Poetry Open and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in Flash Fiction. Her work has been published in Gemini, The Missing Slate, and The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss, edited by Tanya Chernov. A native of Pennsylvania, she currently resides in Buckingham, Virginia.

Nicole Oquendo is a writer, teacher, and visual artist from South Florida. Her most recently published essays and poetry have appeared in DIAGRAM, fillingStation, Storm Cellar, and Truck. She also serves as an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications.

Madison Poulter is a sophomore at Bryn Mawr College. When she is not immersed in her studies, she enjoys exploring and photographing the various nooks and crannies of wherever she finds herself.   Most recently her photo,“Oxford” was featured as the cover photograph for the Winter 2013 issue of Josephine Quarterly, and her photos “Summer Quarrel” and “The Wall” were published in Sliver of Stone Magazine. Not long ago, Madison took an online quiz that informed her that Don Draper is her TV father. She has yet to decide if this means she should undergo therapy.

Nicholas Reali is an MFA candidate at the University of Akron. This is his first publication.

Damien Roos lives in Savannah, Georgia, with his wife and two pets. He trains as an amateur boxer and is at work on his first novel.

DG Rose is a creative nonfiction, fiction and comedy writer. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, Shenandoah, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review and Green Mountains Review. She is currently at work on a memoir.

F. Daniel Rzicznek is the author of two poetry collections, Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2009) and Neck of the World (Utah State University Press, 2007), as well as three chapbooks, Nag Champa in the Rain (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2014), Vine River Hermitage (Cooper Dillon Books, 2011), and Cloud Tablets (Kent State University Press, 2006). Also co-editor (with Gary L. McDowell) of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010), Rzicznek teaches writing at Bowling Green State University.

Fabio Sassi makes photos and acrylics using tiny objects and what is considered to have no worth by the mainstream. Fabio lives and works in Bologna, Italy. His work can be viewed at http://www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com

William Walsh’s books include Speak So I Shall Know Thee: Interviews with Southern Writers, The Ordinary Life of a Sculptor, The Conscience of My Other Being, Under the Rock Umbrella: Contemporary American Poets from 1951-1977, and David Bottoms: Critical Essays and Interviews. His work has appeared in AWP Chronicle, Calliope, Cimarron Review, Five Points, Flannery O’Connor Review, The Georgia Review, James Dickey Review, The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, Poetry Daily, Poets & Writers, Rattle, Shenandoah, Slant, and Valparaiso Review.

Bryan Shawn Wang lives with his wife and two children in Pennsylvania. His fiction has recently appeared and is forthcoming in journals such as Valparaiso Fiction Review, Washington Square, Potamac Review, Revolution House, and Kenyon Review Online.

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher, and photographer who lives in Texas. His books include a novel, The Dream Patch, a prose collection, Under a Riverbedsky, and a book of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. More of his photographs can be seen in his gallery: christopherwoods.zenfolio.com

Randolyn Zinn’s fiction and poetry have been published in several literary journals, and one story was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She earned an MFA from The New School and won its Fiction Prize with opening chapters of her novel. The Jerome Foundation awarded her a travel grant to Spain, and for her (unfinished) story collection, she has received two grants. Also a playwright and director, she is co-founder of the site-specific Living Room Theatre. She teaches fiction writing at Pace University, and her essays on dance, theatre and literature can be found online at 3QuarksDaily.com.