Hugh Behm-Steinberg’s prose can be found or forthcoming in Gravel, Sand, Grimoire, Joyland, Vestal Review, Gigantic and Pank. His short story “Taylor Swift” won the 2015 Barthelme Prize from Gulf Coast. He is a shop steward for the adjunct faculty union at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where for ten years he edited the journal Eleven Eleven.
Hugh was lucky enough to be a student in John Barth’s last undergraduate fiction workshop.
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Michael Brockley is a semi-retired school psychologist who still works in rural northeast Indiana. He has had poems appear in Atticus Review and Gargoyle and poems are forthcoming in 3Elements Review.
Michael has a collection of over 700 conversational neckties which he wears to celebrate events featured on calendars relative to historical events, famous birthdays and national days.
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Merridawn Duckler is a poet, playwright from Portland, Oregon and the author of “Interstate” forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Recent work published or forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Juked, Jet Fuel Review, the anthologies “Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry” and “Weaving the Terrain” from Dos Gatos Press. Her fellowships/awards include Writers@Work, NEA, Yaddo, Squaw Valley, SLS in St. Petersburg, Russia, Southampton Poetry Conference, Wigleaf Top 50 in micro-fiction. She’s an editor at Narrative and at the international philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics. Find her on twitter @MerridawnD
Merridawn publishes prose, poetry and plays from Portland, living proof of her allegiance to alliteration. She’s come in first in many contests involving who was right about that exit being closed and is writing the libretto, composed from business meeting minutes, for the Blackfish Gallery 40th Anniversary oratorio in 2019.
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Lois Marie Harrod’s 16th and most recent collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016, and Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. She is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches Creative Writing part-time at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work at loismarieharrod.org
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Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman lives, teaches, and writes in Rochester, New York. Author of Railroad Phoenix (Kelsay Books), her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including The Penn Review, Radar Poetry, Word Riot, Watershed Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
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Laura Reece Hogan is the author of the award-winning I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock, 2017), and O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems can be found in or are forthcoming in America, The Windhover, The Christian Century, Plum Tree Tavern, Penwood Review, NonBinary Review and other publications. She lives in Southern California with her family. Find her online at laurareecehogan.com or on Twitter at @laurarhogan.
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Toe Keen is an artist currently residing in Spain. Lover of wine, women and song, though not all at the same time.
Toe is the inventor of flammable agua and de-nuded noodles.
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Diane Kendig, a poet, writer, translator and teacher for over 40 years, has five poetry collections, most recently Prison Terms, a finalist for the Cathy Smith Bowers contest. A recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Poetry Fellowships and a Fulbright lectureship in translation, she has published poetry and prose widely in literary journals, including J Journal, Wordgathering, and Ekphrasis. She curates the Cuyahoga County Public Library site, “Read + Write” for National Poetry Month. A daily webpage with a poem by local poets and a prompt, the site in its fifth year, has over 2200 subscribers. See dianekendig.com.
After 40 years away, Diane moved back home to Canton, Ohio and bought the house her dad built with his own hands when he returned from WWII. He purchased the land with money he made taking photos from his position as a tailgunner on a B-17.
Kendig’s “Confessions of a Looter” first appeared in Prison Terms: Poems by Diane Kendig (Main Street Rag, 2017)
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Grove Koger is the author of When the Going Was Good: A Guide to the 99 Best Narratives of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure, and has published over one thousand articles, stories, poems, and reviews. He is also Assistant Editor of Laguna Beach Art Patron Magazine, Palm Springs Art Patron Magazine, and Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal, and blogs at worldenoughblog.wordpress.com.
Grove was lucky enough to cross and recross the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in 1976 on Hellenic Lines freighters. If he’d been smart rather than practical, he would have done it again. And again.
Koger’s “Ardent Mirrors ” first appeared in Skive Magazine (April, 2013)
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Kim Peter Kovac works nationally and internationally in theater for young audiences with an emphasis on new play development and networking. He tells stories on stages as producer of new plays, and tells stories in writing with lineated poems, prose poems, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, haiku, haibun, and microfiction, with work appearing or forthcoming in print and on-line in journals from Australia, India, Dubai (UAE), England, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, and the USA including The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Red Paint Hill, Elsewhere, Frogpond, Mudlark, and Counterexample Poetics. He is fond of avant-garde jazz, murder mysteries, contemporary poetry, and travel, and lives in Alexandria, VA, with his bride, a Maine Coon cat named Frankie Malone and a Tibetan Terrier named Mick. @kimpeterkovac – kimpeterkovac.tumblr.com
The genesis of Kim’s poem in RwA 2.1 goes back to a Hank Williams tribute concert 15+ years ago in which the singer said if there were better antidepressants back then, we’d have none of Hank’s songs. It got Kim thinking about Sylvia Plath, about whom he knew little beyond the headlines—and imagining someone filled with sparkle and joy
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Eva Liu is a ninth-grader at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, California, who is working on publishing a poetry collection. Her poetry has received two Scholastic Regional Silver Keys, and she has been recognized as a Topical Winner in the Just Poetry Contest. Eva moved to the United States two years ago, and she writes poems that dedicates to both American and Chinese culture.
Struggling to find Eva in the middle of the crowd because of her poor height? Go ahead and try to listen for the loudest laughter.
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Iris Orpi is a poet, screenwriter, book editor, and translator born and raised in the Philippines. She is the author of The Espresso Effect, Cognac for the Soul, and the forthcoming Rampant and Golden. Her work has appeared in over two dozen online and print publications all over Asia, North America, Europe, and Africa. She was a 2014 Honorable Mention for the Contemporary American Poetry Prize, given annually by Chicago Poetry Press. She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and son and maintains a poetry blog at sheisiris.wordpress.com.
Iris is also mathematician and was formerly a university calculus instructor. She considers drawing a hyperbolic paraboloid on chalkboard her greatest achievement. Her addictions include recycling, pho with lots of Sriracha, and Brazilian flip-flops. She has watched the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha” at least 30 times.
Orpi’s “Why Poets Need to Travel” first appeared on her blog in October 2016.
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Carla Panciera has also published two collections of poetry: One of the Cimalores (Cider Press) and No Day, No Dusk, No Love (Bordighera). Her collection of short stories, Bewildered, received AWP’s 2013 Grace Paley Short Fiction Award. Her work has appeared in several journals including Poetry, The New England Review, Nimrod, The Chattahoochee Review, Painted Bride, and Carolina Quarterly. She (sometimes) blogs here. Carla lives in Rowley, MA, with her husband and three daughters.
If necessary, Carla can deworm your heifers, drive your tractor, or milk your cows. Since these are not skills she currently employs in her life, she will be grateful for the opportunity to apply them once again
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Amanda Partridge is a law student who spends what free time she has writing poetry, drinking tea, and exploring alternate timelines with her cat. Her work can be found in Eye to the Telescope and Mad Scientist Journal. She is on various social media platforms as @themandabird.
Despite her friends’ repeated attempts to improve her taste, Amanda wallows in bad puns and listens to pirate shanties.
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A native New Yorker, James Penha has lived for the past quarter-century in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his LGBTQ+ stories appear in the 2017 and 2018 anthologies of both the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival and the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival while his dystopian poem “2020” is part of the 2017 Not My President anthology. His essay “It’s Been a Long Time Coming” was featured in The New York Times “Modern Love” column in April 2016. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry.
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Martin Perez is a Dominican-American poet based in the Bronx borough of New York City. He is usually either yelling at television newscasts, or shuffling through Manhattan streets until a quiet spot to sit and write presents itself. He will be an MFA candidate starting fall of 2018, but he does not know where yet.
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Andrea Potos is the author of seven poetry collections, including most recently Arrows of Light (Iris Press) and An Ink like Early Twilight (Salmon Poetry). She recently received the William Stafford Prize in Poetry from Rosebud Magazine. Her poems appear widely in print and online.
Andrea regularly uses the word “heart” in her poems, and lives for wearing long flowy extremely colorfully loud skirts and dresses.
Potos’ “The Word Heart” first appeared in Yaya’s Cloth (Iris Press, 2007).
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Laurel Radzieski’s debut poetry collection, Red Mother, published by NYQ Books in 2018, is a love story told from the perspective of a parasite. Laurel earned her MFA at Goddard College and her BA at Keystone College. She is a Poetry Editor for Clockhouseand her work has appeared in Down the Dog Hole, Really System, inkscrawl and other publications. Laurel’s poetry has also been featured on the Farm/Art DTour in La Rue, Wisconsin. She has served as a teacher, director, stage manager, actor, theatrical designer and playwright. She can be found online at laurelradzieski.com.
Laurel has an IMDb page due to her work on a documentary about a little-known baseball player from the early 1900s. She carried the tripod a few times.
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Gabrielle Reid is an Australian author of fiction and non-fiction. She has previously been published on Page & Spine, Parent Co, Slink Chunk Press and others. Her debut novel, The Things We Can’t Undo, will be released in Australia in May 2018. You can find Gabrielle online at justkeepreiding.com or follow her on twitter @reidwriting.
Gabrielle has never robbed a bank (yet).
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Christopher Stolle’s writing has appeared most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, Edify Fiction, Contour, The New Southern Fugitives, The Gambler, Gravel, The Light Ekphrastic, Sheepshead Review, and Plath Poetry Project. He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House, and he lives in Richmond, Indiana.
Christopher might be one of the few people on the planet who can discuss baseball, poetry, classical music, penguins, and Western movies in the same conversation.
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Ann Thornfield-Long, a co-author of Tennessee Women of Vision and Courage, (edited by Crawford and Smiley, 2013), has poetry upcoming in Artemis Journal, is published in Silver Blade, The Tennessee Magazine, American Diversity Report, Liquid Imagination, Abyss and Apex, Wordgathering and anthologies. She won the Patricia Boatner Fiction Award (Tennessee Mountain Writers, 2017) for her novel excerpt “The Crying Room,” was awarded a Weymuth residency and received Rhysling and Pushcart nominations. Former editor/publisher of her hometown newspaper, she is a retired nurse, medical first responder and dispatcher for a Volunteer Fire Department.
Ann is the sister of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Dan Luzadder with whom she maintains a robust sibling rivalry.
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Amanda Yskamp is a poet and writer living on the banks of the Russian River. With degrees from UC/Berkeley and NYU, she writes freelance and teaches writing and literary analysis from her online classroom. wordwise-instruction.weebly.com/ She has published her writing in such magazines as Threepenny Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Georgia Review, and Caketrain. Amanda is also a graphic artist specializing in digital collage.