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About Our Contributors


Victor Altshul forsook literature for more practical matters when he entered medical school sixty years ago. He rediscovered his passion for poetry four years ago, while attending a symposium on Elizabeth Bishop's magnificent villanelle "One Art" and has not been the same since. He has practiced psychiatry in New Haven for nearly fifty years and is on the faculty of the Yale Medical School.


Abby Caplin's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals and anthologies including Adanna, Big Muddy, The Binnacle, Burningword, Common Ground Review, The Healing Muse, OxMag, Poetica, Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, TSR: The Southampton Review, Third Wednesday, Tikkun, and Willow Review. She is an award recipient of the San Francisco Poets Eleven 2016 poetry contest. Her poem "Still Arguing with Old Synagogue" was a finalist for the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Award. She is a physician and practices Mind-Body medicine in San Francisco, CA, working with life-altering illness. Her poetry website is www.abbycaplin.com.


Sharon Chmielarz's latest books are Visibility: Ten Miles (North Star Press) and The Widow's House (Brighthorse Books). You can hear her read on www.sharonchmielarz.com. She's the happy recipient of the 2012 Jane Kenyon Prize.

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Oyez Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, while her recently published books include Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, A Brief History of Stillwater Minnesota, and Ugly Girl.


Richard Donnelly lives in Maple Grove, Minnesota, a last-resort outpost where wellbehaved citizens dream of the wondrous bohemian nightworld glowing just beyond the horizon. If only we didn't have work in the morning. Mr. Donnelly's first book, The Melancholy MBA (www.themelancholymba.com), is published by Brick Road Poetry Press in Columbus, Georgia.


Doris Ferleger, winner of the New Letters Poetry Prize and the AROHO Creative Non- Fiction Prize, among others, and 2009 poet laureate of Montgomery County PA, is the author of Big Silences in a Year of Rain (Main Street Rag), When You Become Snow (Finishing Line), As the Moon Has Breath (Main Street Rag), and Leavened (Mayapple Press). Her work has been published in numerous literary journals including Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, L.A. Review, and South Carolina Review.


Conrad Geller is an old poet now residing in Northern Virginia. His verse has been published widely, electronically and in print.


Chuck Holmes used to live in the Twin Cities. He floated down the Mississippi in an old wooden rowboat, all the way from Minneapolis to New Orleans. He has had work published in the Vermillion Literary Project, Surfpea Press, Iowa History Illustrated, and South Dakota Magazine; and a long poem about Amy Winehouse read by Lit Undressed, an Omaha group which does readings in the nude.


Brian Howlett lives and works in Toronto, where he is creative director at an ad agency. He has recently turned to short stories with early success. His work has been featured in Limestone, Crack the Spine, Serving House Journal, Forge, Queen's Quarterly, Sou'wester and The Alembic. Feel free to tell him what you think of his story, "The Marlboro Man" @bdhow.


Gwendolyn Jensen began writing poems when she retired in 2001 from the presidency of Wilson College (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania). The places where her work has appeared include the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Harvard Review, Salamander, Sanskrit, and Measure. Her first book (Birthright, Birch Brook Press, 2011) is a letterpress edition, now in its second printing. Her second book (As if toward Beauty, also Birch Brook Press) was published in 2015. She lives in Cambridge., Massachusetts.


Eleanore Lee has been writing fiction and poetry for many years in addition to her regular job as a legislative analyst for the University of California system. She also worked as an editor at Columbia Teachers College and as a stringer for Time Inc. She was selected as an International Merit Award Winner in Atlanta Review's 2008 International Poetry Competition, and won first place in the November 2009 California State Poetry Society contest.


Wulf Losee lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two cats that allow Wulf to live with them are also his severest critics. Writing detracts from play time, petting time, and from feeding them treats - and they regularly show their contempt for his muse by walking nimble-footed on his keyboard.


Betsy Martin's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alembic, Atlanta Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Griffin, Westview, and many others. Her poem, "Byzantine Stillness," was nominated for Best of the Net. She works at Skinner House Books in Boston.


Suzanne Nielsen has been published in various literary journals nationally and internationally. She is the author of two collections of poetry, and the story collection The Moon Behind the 8-Ball and Other Stories, all published by So'ham Books.


Tom Pescatore can sometimes be seen wandering along the Walt Whitman bridge or down the sidewalks of Philadelphia's old Skid Row. He might have left a poem or two behind to mark his trail. He maintains a poetry blog: amagicalmistake.blogspot.com.


Robert Rice's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals, including Dos Passos Review, Grey Sparrow, Hayden's Ferry Review, New Letters, North American Review, Quiddity, and The Saint Ann's Review. He has published several novels, including The Last Pendragon (Walker & Co. 1992). Robert is a recovering lawyer and currently resides in Bozeman, Montana. He enjoys spending his free time fly-fishing, hiking, and practicing Zen.


Thomas R. Smith is a poet and editor living in River Falls, Wisconsin. His volume of new and selected poems, Windy Day at Kabekona, is forthcoming from New Rivers in 2018.


Justin Teerlinck is an occupational therapist in the Tacoma, Washington area, where he is learning how to place his writing skills and sense of the absurd in service to people with disabilities. His response to most standardized test questions is, "Meow don't know this theoretical construct. Meow try again please?"


Joel Van Valin is the publisher of Whistling Shade. His recently released second novel, The Grand Dissolute, is a time travel story set in St. Paul in 1998. He has a dozen ideas for great films, but no movie camera.


Morgan Grayce Willow has received a 2017 MSAB Artist Initiative grant to complete her fourth poetry collection. Earlier titles include Dodge & Scramble, Between, Silk, The Maps are Words. An award-winning essayist, her prose has appeared in Water~Stone Review, Imagination & Place: Cartography, Riding Shotgun, and recently the online BoomerLitMag. Morgan completed the book arts core certificate at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and exhibited her artist's book Collage for Mina Loy in 2016.