F. J. Bergmann has manifested in Analog, Asimov’s, Apex and elsewhere in the alphabet, and functions, so to speak, as editor of Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, until August 2017, poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change and other literary roles. A Catalogue of the Further Suns (dystopian first-contact poems) won the 2017 Gold Line Press chapbook contest. Order a signed or inscribed copy at fibitz.com/sales.html
In the past few months, Bergmann manually sifted approximately a million tons of former gravel-and-clay parking lot to put in raised garden beds in the front of her new aparment. Fortunately, Fred does full-body massages.
<—
Allen Braden is the author of A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood and Elegy in the Passive Voice. He has received fellowships from the NEA and Artist Trust. His poems recently appeared in The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is the assistant poetry editor of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments.
—>
Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Reno, Nevada, but received her MA in English from Penn State. She currently lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and son. Her poetry has received Rhysling and Pushcart nominations and has appeared in over twenty journals; her short fiction has appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show, Compelling Science Fiction, Altered Europa, Silver Blade, and The Fantasist. Her well-received Edda-Earth series is available through Amazon. For more about her work, please see edda-earth.com.
When all else fails, strive for clarity–of writing, of ideas, of understanding.
<—
Troy Farah is a journalist and photographer from Phoenix, Arizona. His work has appeared in VICE, LA Weekly, Spillers #3, Every Day Fiction, LitReactor and others. His website is troyfarah.com
Troy is fascinated by insects and microcosms, an avid medical marijuana enthusiast and still shoots film photography for some reason.
—>
John Guzlowski’s poetry, essays, and fiction appears in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, North American Review, Salon.Com, Rattle, Nimrod, and many other print and online journals here and abroad. His writing about his parents’ experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany and refugees in America appears in his memoir in prose and poetry, Echoes of Tattered Tongues (Aquila Polonica Press). The book received the 2017 Ben Franklin Award for Poetry and the Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal for most thought provoking book. Of Guzlowski’s writing, Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz said, “He has an astonishing ability for grasping reality.”
Reading Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
When I first read it I was
Young, eighteen, a student
Too young to know what
Really feeds us, I laughed
And said to my friend Mike
Rychlewski, “And they call
This oatmeal poetry? They
Should feed it to the cows.”
Guzlowski’s “The Love Song of T. S. Eliot: A Sonnet” first appeared in Mayday (Fall 2013)
<—
Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, adornments and peace whenever possible. She has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Ragdale, and The National Endowment for The Arts, among other awards. She is a Cave Canem fellow. She won the 2015 Science Fiction Poetry Association’s short poem award. She has published 115 crochet designs. A paraplegic, she’s started a paratransit nonprofit so that she can get around her country town. akualezlihope.com
Akua Lezli Hope’s fiber love ranges from planting to end product. She makes paper from scratch creating figured paper and vessels. An avid crochet designer (over 150 designs), she also digs weaving with sticks, which finds its expression in masks. She sings a lot, owns a tenor and alto sax, piano, guitar and over 2500 records.
—>
Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in The Lyric, VerseWisconsin, The Alabama Literary Review, Autumn Sky Poetry, Consequence Journal, Able Muse, Mandragora (Scarlet Imprint), Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press) and many other places. Her work has been nominated for “The Best of the Net” and The Pushcart Prize (twice on the Pushcart so far). Her latest book is Remind Me (Ancient Cypress Press). A post-modern drop out, she now lives on a farm, nestled besides a dark forest, in Deep Cascadia. More about her and her formal poetics here.
Juleigh Howard-Hobson was originally left-handed, but was trained in school to use her non-dominant one…this likely has something or other to do with her attitude toward rules in general. Or maybe not.
<—
Siham Karami lives in Florida and co-owns a technology recycling company. Her poetry and critical work have been published in such places as The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Able Muse, Think, Unsplendid, Sukoon, thethepoetry, The Turnip Truck(s), and The Rumpus. A three-time Pushcart and twice Best of the Net nominee, she blogs at sihamkarami.wordpress.com.
Siham can compose and memorize poems (and songs, music and lyrics) in her head, after finding herself frequently unable to write them down at the moment of inspiration. She is moved to tears by fireworks displays and meteor showers. The name Siham means “arrow” in Arabic, which is also sometimes her nickname, another reason to love being Riddled with them.
—>
Herb Kauderer is a retired Teamster who somehow grew up to become an associate professor of English at Hilbert College. This life shift was enabled by too many college degrees and too many poetry publications. His work has appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Grievous Angel, Blood Sweat & Tears, Gnarled Oak, and many more places. Flying Solo: The Lana Invasion is his eleventh book of poetry, out recently from Poet’s Haven Press. More about his writing can be found at HerbKauderer.com.
Herb has forgotten how to play the drums.
<—
Ahmed A. Khan is a Canadian writer, originally hailing from India. His works have appeared in various venues including Interzone, Strange Horizons, Anotherealm, Murderous Intent, and Plan-B. Some of his stories have been translated and published in Finnish, German, Greek and Croatian publications. He has also edited/co-edited anthologies including SF Waxes Philosophical, A Mosque Among the Stars and Dandelions on Mars. His facebook page is: facebook.com/ahmedkhanwrites.
The only unusual thing Ahmed can think of about himself is that he doesn’t find anything unusual about himself.
Khan’s “Point, Counter Point” first appeared in Sparks (October 2008)
—>
E.E. King is a performer, writer, biologist and painter. Her books are; Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife, (“Impish and delightful, a hilarious Zagat’s guide to heaven!” Ray Bradbury “A fantastical, profound, hilarious and rollicking good ride through the heavens and hells of the Afterlife! A wonderful book.” —Margaret Cho) and Another Happy Ending. She has worked with children in Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain, butterflies in South Central Los Angeles and lectured on island evolution and marine biology on cruise ships in the South Pacific and Caribbean—in short, anything that won’t pay the bills. Check out paintings writing and musings at elizabetheveking.com.
King has raises egrets and other birds and beasts—they rarely bite the hand that feeds them, and unlike people, lack teeth.
<—
Sandra J. Lindow has been publishing her poetry for over 56 years. Her first poem was published when she was 11. She has seven books of poetry and 23 Rhysling nominations. Presently she is Vice President of the SFPA.
Sandra Lindow learned flower gardening from her grandmother, a very wise woman who nevertheless neglected to tell Sandra that peonies required ants to bloom. At first Sandra tried to rid her own peonies of the unsightly ants
until a gardening book revealed the unsettling commensal truth.
Lindow’s “How to Write Your Own Peony” (first appeared in
An Ariel Anthology: transformational poetry & art(November 2014)
—>
Lisa Lutwyche received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College (Vermont). Poet, artist, produced playwright, and actor, she has been published across the US and the UK. She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Lisa’s full-length book of poetry, A Difficult Animal, was Published by Saddle Road Press in 2016. Lisa’s background includes a BFA in painting, a BA in art history, and 22 years in architecture. She has taught creative writing at arts centers, retreats, and libraries since 1992, and art and theatre to special needs adults. Lisa is an adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Cecil College in Maryland.
Lisa grew up in a house of Music. Her mother’s piano and her father’s cello were probably the first things she ever heard. She grew up backstage behind symphony orchestras, with musicians and conductors from all over the world. Lisa hears music in her head, constantly,in multi-part harmonies.
<—
Charlotte Mandel’s tenth book of poetry, To Be the Daylight, is forthcoming from White Violet Press, imprint of Kelsay Books. Previous titles include Through a Garden Gate, photographs by Vincent Covello, (David Robert Books), and two poem-novellas of feminist biblical revision—The Life of Mary and The Marriages of Jacob. Awards include the New Jersey Poets Prize and two fellowships in poetry from New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She edited the Eileen W. Barnes Award Anthology, Saturday’s Women. Critical essays include articles on the role of cinema in the life and work of H.D. Visit her at charlottemandel.com.
—>
John C. Mannone has work in Blue Fifth Review, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, and Pirene’s Fountain. He’s the recipient of the prestigious Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) for Appalachian literature. Other accomplishments: two Weymouth residencies; three poetry collections [2017 Elgin-nominated Apocalypse (Alban Lake Publishing), Disabled Monsters (Linnet’s Wings Press) featured at the 2016 Southern Festival of Books, Flux Lines (Celtic Cat Publishing)]; the Joy Margrave Award in creative nonfiction (2015, 2017); 2016 Event Horizon finalist; Pushcart and Rhysling nominations. He edits poetry forAbyss & Apex, Silver Blade, and Liquid Imagination. jcmannone.wordpress.com.
Despite his MS degrees in physical/theoretical chemistry and in physics; a PhD (candidacy) in Electrical Engineering; and experience as a research scientist, consultant to the nuclear industry, and physics professor, John’s right-brain came out of comatose when poetry discovered him in May 2004. He lives between Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN.
<—
Jennifer Stewart Miller’s poetry has appeared in Cider Press Review, Harpur Palate, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jabberwock Review, Poet Lore, Sycamore Review, and other journals. She’s a Pushcart nominee and lives in New York. For more information visit jenniferstewartmiller.com.
In previous lives, Jennifer has fought fires for the U.S. Forest Service, practiced law, dated clay tobacco pipes from archaeological digs, and served as a court-appointed special advocate for a boy in foster care.
—>
Christa Pandey is an Austin poet, whose work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. The wedding garland analogy stems from the Indian side of her family (husband’s), while she herself migrated from Europe. She has published three chapbooks, Southern Seasons, Maya, and Hummingbird Wings.
Much of Christa’s life has been spent juggling three cultures: that of her birth (German), that of her marriage (Indian) and that of the United States where she has lived for half a century. Christa and her spouse just completed 50 years of an intercultural, interracial, interfaith marriage.
<—
Alan Perry is a retired Human Resources executive with a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota. His poems have won awards from the League of Minnesota Poets and Arizona State Poetry Society, and have appeared or are forthcoming in Talking Stick, Sleet Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Gnarled Oak, and elsewhere.
Alan is a native Minnesotan who said he would someday avoid the near-death winter freezings in his home state. In retirement, he and his wife now spend winters in Tucson, Arizona, where the University of Arizona Poetry Center, combined with the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, feel like the mother lodes of poetry immersion year-round.
—>
Jenn Powers is a writer and photographer from New England. She is currently writing a CNF memoir and her most recent work is published or forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jabberwock Review, The Pinch, Gulf Stream Lit Mag, and Raven Chronicles, among others. Please visit jennpowers.com.
Jenn loves adventure and has a permanent case of wanderlust. She climbs mountains and hikes forests. Her last epic trip was a solo cross country exploration spanning five weeks, almost 8,000 miles, and 21 states. The best part was being alone.
<—
Karen Slikker is an emerging poet, as well as artist and theatrical director. She recently completed a writer’s residency at Salmon Poetry and Literary Center in Ireland. She is a member of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild.
Karen fell in love with words at an early age and never recovered. She is regularly razzed by family and friends regarding her vocabulary. “Honestly, I am NOT showing off. I just dearly love finding the exact right word for what I want to say!”
—>
Jane Yolen, “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” is the author of 366 books including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight. Her books, stories, poems have won an assortment of awards–two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, three Golden Kite awards, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award, among many others. She’s the first writer in the Connecticut River Valley to win the New England Public Radio’s Arts and Humanities Award. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates. janeyolen.com
From Jane: “My friend Betsy’s mom loved my book Owl Moon so much, she had Betsy reread it to her as she lay dying. I can think of no greater honor for a writer than a woman of character and courage asking for something I wrote to send her on her final journey. My hands shook as I wrote this poem. It’s the first of two–this when she rallied the other written weeks later after her death, both of which Betsy plans to read at the memorial service. Another way writing holds us together.
<—
Amanda Yskamp’s work has been published in such magazines as Threepenny Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Georgia Review, Boxcar Review, Rattapallax, and Caketrain. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River, where she teaches writing from her online classroom.
—>
Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina .