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Issue #7

Summer/Winter 2018 Contributors

Sara Balsom is a graduate of Lewis & Clark College, where she studied poetry and English literature. Since graduating in 2014, she has been intermittently working and studying at a graduate level in both literature and museum studies. Her poetry can also be found on AutumnSkyPoetryDaily.com.

Devon Balwit teaches in Portland, Oregon. She has six chapbooks and two collections out. Among them are We Are Procession: Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), Risk Being/Complicated (a collaboration with Canadian artist Lorette C. Luzajic), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders), and Motes at Play in the Halls of Light (Kelsay Books). Her individual poems can be found in the Timberline Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday Journal, the Aeolian Harp Series, Vol. 3, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, Long Exposure, Free State Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Red Paint Hill, Rattle, and more.

Jacqueline Marie Briggs lived and worked in Zimbabwe as a diplomatic spouse and Peace Corps administrator for three years (1991–1993) and has traveled extensively throughout southern Africa. She later moved to Germany before leaving the diplomatic life for Portland, Oregon. She has been involved in the writing community around the world, studying with Dr. Thom DeFesi in Germany, Diana Abu-Jaber (Writer-in-Residence at Portland State University), and Merridawn Duckler (Senior Fellow at Portland’s Attic Institute of Arts and Letters).

Janel Brubaker graduated from Clackamas Community College with an associate’s degree in English and creative writing. She is currently the managing editor of M Review. Brubaker has been published in The Bookends Review, Mused: The BellaOnline Literary Review, Crab Fat Magazine, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Phenomenal Literature, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and Sheepshead Review. She will soon be published in LEVITATE Literary Magazine. A personal essay of hers was chosen as the number one finalist in Adelaide Literary Magazine’s 2018 Voices Literary Contest. Brubaker is currently pursuing a BA in creative writing from Marylhurst University.

C.W. Buckley, a fourth-generation West Coast native, lives and works in Seattle, Washington, with his family. Corporate by day, Catholic by faith, he reads regularly at Easy Speak Seattle in the city’s northeast, and his writing explores geek culture, conscience, faith, and fatherhood. His work is forthcoming in Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature and The Raven Chronicles and has appeared in Rock & Sling, Lummox Journal, POESY, and the Bay Area Poets Coalition’s Anthology 23. He is the author of Bluing, a chapbook from Finishing Line Press.

Kevin Burris has a degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University, and he has been reading and writing poetry for twenty-five years. His work has appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry East and Atlanta Review. His first poetry collection, The Happiest Day of My Life, was published in 2016 by FutureCycle Press.

Douglas Cole has published four collections of poetry. His work is included in anthologies and also appears or is forthcoming in journals such as the Chicago Quarterly Review, Owen Wister Review, Chiron Review, The Galway Review, and Slipstream. He has been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and has received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, and first prize in the Picture Worth 500 Words contest from Tattoo Highway. His website is www.douglastcole.com.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Two Towns Over, which won the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press. He is the managing editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and children.

Gary Denton is a former middle school teacher who found his muse in teaching his students the love of reading and writing. Born in Washington State, he is a graduate of the University of Washington and Portland State University. He has written numerous short stories, a series of memoir stories, and three novels—one adult and a duo of young adult novels.

Stephanie Dickinson, an Iowa native, lives in New York City. Her novel Half Girl and novella Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil, as is her feminist noir Love Highway. Her other books include Port Authority Orchids, Heat: An Interview with Jean Seberg, The Emily Fables, and Flashlight Girls Run. Her work has been reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading, New Stories from the South, and New Stories from the Midwest 2016.

Jeff Ewing’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Willow Springs, Sugar House Review, Crazyhorse, The Saint Ann’s Review, Lake Effect, and Atlanta Review, among others. He lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter.

Gail Folkins often writes about her deep roots in the American West. She is the author of a memoir titled Light in the Trees, named a 2016 Foreword Reviews INDIES finalist in the nature category, and Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit. Folkins teaches creative writing at Hugo House in Seattle, Washington.

Kurt Giambastiani is the author of nine novels, including the acclaimed alternate history series The Fallen Cloud Saga. He is known for blending genres in his novels and for strong historical and cultural detail. Born near San Francisco, he studied music at San Francisco State University and the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, Israel, and was principal viola with the Bellevue Philharmonic until he took up writing. Kurt now lives in Seattle, Washington, where he works as a software developer and blogs about writing and living in the Pacific Northwest. He is working on a new novel, set in both modern and 1860s-period Seattle.

Jeffrey Gould has been an anthropologist, teacher, mentor, educational consultant, and painter. What better time could there be to share his poignant and witty view of life? Drawing on his seventy-two years of understanding and wisdom, Gould now writes creative nonfiction exploring themes earnest and absurd, common to all people in every locale.

Althea Gregory is a former congressional staffer who escaped the hustle and bustle of Washington, DC, to make her home in Oregon. When she’s not pulling weeds or smelling every lilac she passes, Gregory writes short fiction, poetry, and plays, including a short play recently produced at Lewis & Clark College.

Mark Hall teaches rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies at the University of Central Florida, where he directs the University Writing Center. He is the author of Around the Texts of Writing Center Work: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Tutor Education. His creative nonfiction has appeared in Flashquake, JMWW, and the Timberline Review.

Jason Hill holds an MA in philosophy from the University of Connecticut and an MFA in writing from Spalding University. His work has appeared in The Austin Review, the Tulane Review, and The Louisville Review. He has lived in Providence, Boston, Jersey City, and Louisville. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Gail Hosking is an essayist and poet living in upstate New York. She is the author of the memoir Snake’s Daughter: The Roads in and out of War and the poetry chapbook The Tug. She holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and spends her time editing the work of others and writing her own.

Ginnah Howard’s work has appeared in Water~Stone Review, Permafrost, Portland Review, Descant 145, Eleven Eleven, The Tusculum Review, and elsewhere. Several stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her novel Night Navigation (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009) was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Doing Time Outside, Howard’s second novel, was published by Standing Stone Books in 2013. The final book of the trilogy, Rope & Bone: A Novel in Storie (Illume, 2014), was chosen as one of the “best of the best indies in 2015” by Publishers Weekly.

Philip Kenney has practiced psychotherapy and meditation for over thirty years in Portland, Oregon. In addition to these practices, he writes poetry, fiction, and essays on culture, psychology, and the spiritual challenges of our time. Kenney’s understanding of the many emotional vulnerabilities facing writers and artists is based on his own experiences, as well as those of the creative people he sees in his psychotherapy practice.

Casey Killingsworth has been writing poems for forty years and has been occasionally published over the last twenty-five years in Kimera, Spindrift, Rain Magazine, Slightly West, and a few other magazines. He has an advanced degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Elizabeth Kuelbs lives at the edge of a Los Angeles canyon. When she’s not writing, she’s trying to have a glass of wine with her husband around wrangling teenagers and a Bernese mountain dog cat burglar. She holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has work published or forthcoming in Poets Reading the News, Punchnel’s, Every Day Fiction, Plum Tree Tavern, Cricket, and elsewhere.

Nancy McKinley writes fiction and nonfiction narrative. She grew up in Packanack Lake, New Jersey, where she developed a love of reading and writing that shaped her path to education. She earned a BA from the College of the Holy Cross as one of the first females at the previously male school, an MA from Colorado State University, and a PhD from the State University of New York at Binghamton, receiving the John Gardner Newhouse Award. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and teaches in the low-residency MA/MFA programs at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

John Noland lives and writes near the ocean in Coos Bay, Oregon. He is a retired creative writing instructor who spent a large portion of his life helping students find their creativity within. Now it is time for him to share his own creativity with others.

Jessica Pierce’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured in a podcast episode of Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile. Her poems have been published in The Madison Review, the New Haven Review, Tar River Poetry, JMWW, Euphony, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mead, Illya’s Honey, and the Northwest Review. She earned her EdM from Harvard and is the dean of students at a public alternative school outside Portland, Oregon, where she works with students at high risk of being pushed out. She comes home to two wild and wonderful children and her sitar-playing husband.

Janet Reed is a 2017 and 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Nassau Review, Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Avalon Literary Review, I-70 Review, and others. She is at work on her first collection and teaches writing and literature for Crowder College in Missouri.

Nicholas Samaras is the author of Hands of the Saddlemaker (Yale University Press) and American Psalm, World Psalm (Ashland Poetry Press). He is currently completing a new book of poetry and a memoir of living underground in childhood.

Rikki Santer’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Margie, Hotel Amerika, The American Journal of Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream, and The Main Street Rag. Two of her published poetry collections have explored place: Front Nine (the Hopewell earthworks of Newark, Ohio) and Kahiki Redux (the late Kahiki Supper Club of Columbus, Ohio). Clothesline Logic was released by Pudding House as a finalist in their national chapbook competition. Fishing for Rabbits was published by Kattywompus Press, and her newest collection, Make Me That Happy, was recently nominated for an Ohioana Book Award. Her website is www.rikkisanter.com.

Leland Seese’s poems appear in The MacGuffin, Juked (web), Stonecoast Review, and many other journals. He and his wife live in Seattle, Washington, where they are parents of six children and many foster children over the years.

Colette Tennant has had two poetry books published: Commotion of Wings in 2010 and Eden and After in 2015. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Most recently, her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. She has poems forthcoming in New Madrid Journal. She enjoys playing the piano, writing music, and playing Scrabble.

Milla van der Have is a Gemini. She writes poems and short stories and is currently knee-deep in a novel. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Mud Season Review, and Bird’s Thumb. She is the author of Ghosts of Old Virginny (Aldrich Press, 2015), a chapbook about Virginia City, Nevada. She lives in Utrecht, The Netherlands, with her wife and two badass rabbits.

Mason Voehl is a graduate student in the MA environmental philosophy program at the University of Montana. He lives in the Ninemile Valley, west of Missoula, Montana, with his wife and their two dogs.

GKS Waller lives in Chicago and has also worked as a print reporter for newspapers, radio stations, newsletters, and wire services in California, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Belize, Central America. Waller founded Crooked Door Storytelling in 2011 and currently travels the world as an oral storyteller and arts educator offering story programs, trainings, and workshops to students at all levels and adults in myriad professional fields.

Sarah Brown Weitzman, a past National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry and Pushcart Prize nominee, has had work in hundreds of journals and anthologies including New Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, North American Review, Bellingham Review, Rattle, Mid-American Review, The MacGuffin, Poet Lore, Spillway, Miramar Magazine, and elsewhere. Pudding House published her chapbook, The Forbidden. Her books are available on Amazon.