Contributors, Winter 2020
Alahnna Alvarado was born in Southern California, where she learned how to curse, but not to swim. She was previously mentioned in San Diego CityBeat as a local author on the verge. With an affinity for the beautiful, sinister, and poignant, Alahnna enjoys writing about losing, longing, and especially monsters.
Ariadne Makridakis Arroyo is a writer of Greek and Guatemalan descent who resides in Los Angeles. She currently attends Occidental College where she is getting a degree in Critical Theory & Social Justice. Her work has been featured in Twisted Moon Magazine.
Caroline Arthur is a short story writer and artist who focuses intermittently on nonfiction and steampunk science fiction pieces. Having been deemed A.B.M. (“all by myself”) and fiercely independent in learning to tie her own shoes in childhood, Caroline has been labeled by family as a “protector of the weak” through frog, cat, and lost human care. Her work’s strong voice weaves in gentle sensitivities and reflects on love, loss, feminism and the misunderstoods.
Megan Atthowe lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she explores the otherworldly present in nature and everyday life through writing. She has work forthcoming in The Fifth Plinth and Inkwell.
Brian Michael Barbeito is a poet, photographer and essayist. He is the creator of the ongoing visual and written project, a country and city narrative, called Mosaics, Journeys through Rural and Urban Landscapes.
John A. Barrett’s work and other adventures have taken him to many different parts of the world, where human volatility and disregard for the planet’s environmental health are at risk. His publications have appeared in Wanderlust, Our Canada Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, Sentinel, Burningword and Meat for Tea. Instagram: john.a.barrett
E.B. Bartels holds an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, The Believer Logger, The Millions, The Toast, The Butter, and Fiction Advocate, among others. E.B.’s book, Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter, about the ways we mourn and remember the animals we love after they die, is forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in spring 2021.
Stephanie Alexis Bonvissuto is a Ph.D. candidate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies based in NY. She almost forgot that she continues to be a storyteller, poet, and spoken-word artist in the world. Almost.
Carl Boon is the author of the full-length collection Places & Names: Poems (The Nasiona Press, 2019). His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Posit, and The Maine Review, among other places. He received his Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century American Literature from Ohio University in 2007, and currently lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at Dokuz Eylül University.
Anissa M. Bouziane was born in the United States to a Moroccan father and a French mother. She is an English language novelist, filmmaker and educator, whose debut novel, Dune Song has been published to critical acclaim in the U.S. by Interlink Publishing, in the U.K. by Sandstone Press, and in France by Les Editions du Mauconduit. Dune Song was awarded the Special Jury Prize in 2017 for the Prix Littèraire Sofitel Tour Blanche. Anissa is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, with a Masters of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing, and also holds a Bachelors Degree in Political Science from Wellesley College, and a Certificate in Film from New York University. She lives and teaches in Paris, and is currently completing a doctorate in Literary Practice and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and working on her next novel.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. She is a recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award. Her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, HeadStuff, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other is scheduled for publication in 2020 with Dos Madres Press. She is the current Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib.
Amie Campbell is an emerging poet based in Austin, TX. She has been published in two anthologies released in 2019: “Mother of Angels 2” and “SMITTEN: Women Who Love Women.” She enjoys spending her time with her children and rescue dog and trying to keep her succulents alive.
Schuyler Dawson is a sculpture and installation artist from Novato, California. He holds an MFA in Sculpture from Alfred University and has recently participated in residencies in Willapa Bay, Washington, Utica, New York, and Vijandi Estonia.
Eileen Dirks is a Brooklyn born artist and designer, who received an MFA in Interior Design from Pratt Institute and a BA from the University of Vermont for Art History and European Studies. Eileen is fascinated by the subjective nature of form and strives to infuse a colorful dialogue of form, light, and hue within each of her works
Francis Duffy is a Yank who has lived abroad for decades. His fiction has appeared in Amarillo Bay, Typishly, Connotation, Junto, Eclectica, Storgy, and Columbia Journal. His website is www.duffarelli.net.
Lila Flavin is a doctor and writer. She is currently doing her residency in psychiatry at NYU Langone. She has published short stories in Torrid and Embark Literature Journal. She is interested in how we can use art to better understand the body. She is at work on her first book.
Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strictly in film and prints in a darkroom she built within her apartment. Her own art has always been her top priority in life, and in this digital world she will continue to work with old processing. Anything can simply be done in photoshop, she prefers to take the camera - a tool of showing reality - and experiment with what she can do in front of the lens. Julia is currently working as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, USDAN Art Center, and Lehigh University.
Jackson Gambee works in mental health. He has a Master's degree in Performance Psychology, and he writes poetry to make sense of dating apps, binge drinking, and the natural world. He believes poetry is therapy.
Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum & The Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Since 2007 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 200 on line and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists' Fellowship Inc. He has also received 2 SU CASA teaching grants.
Michael Hardin is originally from Los Angeles and now lives in rural Pennsylvania with his wife, two children, and two Pekingeses. He is the author of a poetry chapbook, Born Again (Moonstone Press 2019), and he has had poems published in Seneca Review, Connecticut Review, North American Review, Quarterly West, Gargoyle, Texas Review, Tampa Review, among others. He recently finished his memoir, Touched.
Shurouq Ibrahim is an Arab-American English instructor residing in Ohio. She holds an MA in 21st Century Literature. She has lived between the United States, England, and the West Bank, Palestine. She enjoys writing poetry and short stories. Her work is inspired by her everyday experiences as a female, Arab, hijabi, American, Muslim, Palestinian human - which is sometimes a lot of things to be all at once. Her focus is on the taboo in Arab and American culture including mental health, divorce, and domestic violence.
Nicole Irene is an art instructor, aspiring poet, and mixed media artist who creates in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. A gem + mineral enthusiast, eclectic solitary, and consciousness explorer, she believes in magic and is moved by the beauty of the nocturnal sky, astronomical phenomena, metaphysics, and cosmology. Nicole attempts to unfold the delicate fabric of self-conscious epistemic moments of knowing. The workings of the universe within ourselves and around us fascinates her while contemplations of these mysteries manifest as conversions populated with textural vibrations, colorful swells, and rhythmic compositions in her artwork. Nicole is a practitioner of herbal medicine, empyreal dreamer, and an alchemical philosopher who dwells in a derelict apple orchard surrounded by an extensive collection of houseplants, geological specimens, and creature companions.
Adriene Jenik is a queer artist and educator who resides in the desert. Following three decades of pioneering work in computer and media arts, she has re-centered her practice to address the urgency of human-driven climate disruption. Since November 2017, she has been offering free “climate future readings” in public settings utilizing her customized deck of ECOtarot cards.
Rosanna Jimenez is a tech writer and researcher covering workplace technology trends. When she is not writing about tech, she is working on her poetry. Rosanna currently resides in Boston with her chihuahua, Edith.
Katerina Kan was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan, her father being North Korean and her mother being Russian. Having caught a glimpse of the ex-USSR, she has a nostalgic, conflicting perception of political and cultural systems. Unable to fully assimilate into any one culture, she finds herself as an outsider with an eclectic artistic taste. Devoid of a homeland, her art focuses on themes of ethnical atomization, emptiness and nostalgia as well as globalization, surveillance, utopia, and eroticism. Through her artistic practice, she recreates the state of inspiration and emancipation experienced during her childhood. Recently, she was involved in initiatives with the Royal Watercolor Society, Art Below, Art Wars in London, Red Dot Miami and Los Angeles. This year, she has shows at 508 Kings Road in London as well as Untitled Space, the New York Art Expo, Theresa Byrnes Gallery and Salon Anise in New York.
Sabbas Leung has been a painter for over 30 years. She has used many different mediums such as Chinese calligraphy, Chinese Paintings, and watercolors until finally focusing on oil painting. She has been an apprentice to many master painters in Canada and Hong Kong. Every few years Sabbas will host a charity event featuring her paintings, where all the proceeds go to different charities in Hong Kong.
Vanessa Leung received a BFA in Product Design from Parsons School of Design and an MFA in Interior Design from Pratt Institute, where she received an excellence in academic achieve award and The Pratt Circle Award. Her work explores how the composition between light and dark within the same boundaries can change the atmospheric and emotional qualities within a space, affecting the perception of depth and space. She has shown furniture pieces in New York City at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Gowanus Open Studios, Pratt Institute, and the Invisible Dog Gallery. She believes in creating well-crafted, responsible products that last longer than a lifetime by taking a slow and intentional design and manufacturing process. Learn more at her artist website: VLStudiosDesign.com
Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an MFA. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press's 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Terminal Destination (Spartan Press, 2019). He lives with his wife Lili and two children in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.
Krystal Norton has had poetry published in Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology Vol.2, Alt-Minds Magazine and Ink & Voices.
Soli Shin is a Korean-American Manhattanite. Formerly, she was a reader for Conjunctions and is currently a reader for Nat. Brut.'s Poetry section. She has been published in Apricity and Glass Mountain. She is now based in Los Angeles, CA working on renewable energy. She has a Bachelor’s from Bard College and a Master’s from Duke University.
Kathryn Silverstein is a Ph.D. Candidate in Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University, where her research focuses on queer relationality through the lens of detective fiction. She is currently at work on a queer fantasy and mystery novel that draws inspiration from Jewish magic, and lives with her wife and cat in Brooklyn. She can be found on Instagram @mysteriousqueer and @batpriestess.
Jess Skyleson is an emerging writer who identifies as gender neutral in a lesbian relationship. They recently started writing poetry after their diagnosis with stage 4 cancer at age 39.
Katherine Suppa is an emerging writer. Her work “A Study in Charcoal: Nudity No. 3” appears in Colonnades Literary and Art Magazine. She is an undergraduate student at Elon University, pursuing a degree in English and Creative Writing. She enjoys knitting and baking in her free time; she has mastered the art of pie making and has moved on to the much more difficult task of bread. She is sure she will write an essay on that process in the future.
Sal Tinajero is a senior at Western Kentucky University. He has been published in Zimbell House Publishing's Secrets in the Water anthology, as well as being commended by the Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation.
Alla Vilnyansky is a recent graduate of Columbia University's MFA program with a concentration in Poetry. She was born in the Ukraine and came to the U.S. when she was eight years old. She grew up in Philadelphia and finished her BA at the University of Pittsburgh and her MA at Miami University. Her poems have been previously published in Poetry International, Zaum, and Boog City. Recently she had a translation published in Asymptote magazine.
Florence Walker is a recent graduate of Oxford University, with work published in the 2017 The Mays Anthology and featured on Acumen's 'Young Poets' page. Her current interests are writing from the body and exploring narrative voice. While not writing, she enjoys LARP (live action role-playing games), musical theatre, and literary criticism.
Madison Whatley is a Saint Leo University undergraduate from Hollywood, Florida, specializing in Literary Study. Her poetry has been published in Furrow, Chomp, Sheila-Na-Gig Under 30, 30 N, and Outrageous Fortune.
Heather Whited graduated from Western Kentucky University in 2006 with a BA in creative writing. She lived in Japan and Ireland before returning to her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee to obtain her graduate degree. She now lives in Portland, Oregon. She has been published in the literary magazines Straylight, Lingerpost, The Timberline Review, A Door is Ajar, Allegro, Foliate Oak, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Windmill; The Hofstra Journal of Art and Literature, Chantwood Literary Magazine, Cricket, Storm Cellar, Forge, Gravel, The Hungry Chimera, The Broke Bohemian, Gival Press's Arlington Literary Journal, Wax Paper, Projected Letters, Borrowed Solace, and soon Edify Poetry. In 2015 she was an honorable mention in Gemini Magazine's annual short story contest and in 2018 she was a finalist in the Adelaide Literary Award contest. She is a contributor to The Drunken Odyssey podcast and Secondhand Stories Podcast.
Terry Wise has evolved into being a painter by way of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Textile Design from Indiana University, studies in printmaking and painting, and lots of experimentation in various forms of design and illustration. She maintains a painting studio in Great Barrington, MA, in the culturally rich Berkshires, and exhibits throughout the Northeastern states and occasionally in Europe.
Jean Wolff was born in Detroit, Michigan and studied fine arts at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving a BFA in Studio Arts. She then attended Hunter College, CUNY in New York, graduating with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She has had group and solo exhibits in various galleries in New York City and internationally, published works in 54 issues of 38 magazines, and is part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan. For complete exhibition list and bibliography please visit artist website at www.jeanwolff.com.
Tanner X has had work published in Penultimate Peanut, SHARE, Porch Critters, and The Peacocks Feet. He received the Academy of American Poets’ Student Poetry Prize for his poem "The Wind Gatherer."
