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About Our Contributors

Joe Albanese's fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can be found in publications across the U.S. and in ten other countries. His novel Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press) and his novella Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now) were both published in 2018.

Born in France, Cécile Barlier has lived in the United States for over a decade, raising a family and working as an entrepreneur. Her work is featured or is forthcoming in Amarillo Bay, Bacopa Lit­erary Review (first place for fiction, 2012), Clare Literary Journal, Crack the Spine, Cerise Press, Delmarva Review, The Emerson Review, Gold Man Review, Knee-Jerk, The Lindenwood Review, The Meadow, New Delta Review, Penmen Review, Saint Ann’s Review, Serving House Journal, Sou’wester, Summerset Review, The Tower Journal, and Valparaiso Fiction Review.

A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is an author of three chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016), Adagio (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and Dear Suki: Letters (Platypus 2412 Mini Chapbook Series, 2016), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 450 journals. Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.

Brian R. Bland is a retired Associated Press Radio correspondent whose own adventures have included coverage of the Gulf War in 1991 along with fires, floods, school shootings and other disasters. A Vietnam veteran, the University of Illinois graduate freelances and is working on a book about his career.

Daniel Bourne teaches in the English Department and in Environmental Studies at The College of Wooster.  His books include The Household Gods and Where No One Spoke the Language, and he has published poems in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Guernica, Yale Review, Sal­magundi, and elsewhere.  Also a translator of Polish poetry, he will be spending two months this Fall in Gdansk, Poland, working on an anthology of Polish poets of the Baltic Coast.

Liz Bruno is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Oregon and a graduate of Yale Divinity School.  Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Coachella Review, ISLE, Roast Maga­zine,Vagabond City Lit, and Montana Magazine. New work is forthcoming in The Cape Rock, Reunion: The Dallas Review, The Virginia Normal, and Euphony Journal.

L Caballero was born in El Salvador and now lives in Los Angeles. She has attended Santa Mon­ica College, and is a regular at the Write-Away writers group in that beautiful beach city.

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 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publish­ing Co.) will be out late 2018.

Norita Dittberner-Jax is the author of five collections of poetry. The most recent collections, Crossing The Waters (2017) and Stopping For Breath (2014) were both published by Nodin Press. Norita has won numerous awards and fellowships, among them several nominations for the Push­cart. One of the poetry editors for Red Bird Chapbooks, Norita lives in Lilydale, Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River. Always a poet of place, the presence of the Mississippi in her life now is a joy.

Greg Girvan grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received a bachelor’s degree in English from Slippery Rock University. His writing appears or is forthcoming in The South Carolina Review, Red Rock Review, Sleet Magazine, Blue Lake Review and a number of other periodicals.

Mike Finley is a Pushcart winner, and author over 200 books of various kinds, and 100 provoca­tive videos. His latest work is the book Suffering Cats, available for download on http://issuu.com/mike_finley. In recognition of this work, Mike was awarded the 2010 KPV Kerouac Award, a life­time achievement honor.

Margaret Hasse’s latest book of poems, Stars Above, Stars Below, is also her oldest, dating back to 1984. Long out of print, the book has been re-released by Nodin Press. Two of her five poetry collections, Between Us and Milk and Tides, received the Midwest Book Award for poetry. Her poem, “Night on the Town,” was among the winners of Common Good Books’ 2018 poetry con­test.

James Croal Jackson is a poet and editor. His first chapbook is The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017) and he edits The Mantle (www.themantlepoetry.com).

Ted King is the author of four chapbooks and the curator of the popular Tributary monthly reading series.

Valerie Kinsey lives in the Bay Area with her husband and children. She teaches writing at Stan­ford University. “In the Darkroom” first appeared as "Postcard from the Darkroom" in the online lit­erary review, Streetlight Magazine, in spring 2018.

DS Maolalai recently returned to Ireland after four years away, now spending his days working maintenance dispatch for a bank and his nights looking out the window and wishing he had a view. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Carla McGill has had poems and stories published in several literary journals, including The Alem­bic, Broad River Review, and Shark Reef. She lives in Southern California with her husband where she writes poetry and fiction.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Osiris Poems published by boxofchalk, 2017. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Hugo Simões is a 24-year-old writer and actor currently living in Lisbon. His work has previously appeared or is pending publication in Third Point Press, The Río Grande Review and Across the Margin.

Julia Klatt Singer is the poet in residence at Grace Neighborhood Nursery School and a rostered artist for Compas. She is co-author of Twelve Branches: Stories from St. Paul, (Coffee House Press), and author of four books of poetry; In the Dreamed of Places, (Naissance Press), A Tan­gled Path to Heaven, and Untranslatable, (North Star Press), and her most recent chapbook, Ele­mental, published by Prolific Press. She has co-written over two dozen songs with composers Tim Takach and Jocelyn Hagen. Ms. Singer’s son likes to describe her as a long-haired, sweater-wear­ing poet and thief.

Justin Teerlinck is currently away on a squeezal-hunting expedition, and so Fun Patrol his column is being penned by guest-author Dr. Horace S. Browntrout. To learn more about Dr. Browntrout, go to his website, The Dash Fire Diaries: dashfirediaries.tumblr.com.

Joel Van Valin is the publisher of Whistling Shade. His first poetry chapbook, The  White Forest, was recently published by Prolific Press. He lives with his wife and twin sons in the city.

Richard Weaver lives in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, acts as the Archivist-at-large for a Jesuit college. He is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press). Most of his life has been spent in Alabama or New Orleans (it’s a State of mind). Some recent acceptances: Juxtaprose, Kestrel, Hamilton Stone Review, Sequestrum, & Algebra of Owls.

Dan Wiencek is a poet, critic and humorist who lives in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hypertrophic Literary, Crack the Spine, New Ohio Review and other publications. He is currently working on his first collection of poems.