CHIRPS FROM THE SPARROW
POETRY
Our National Treasure, Philip Schultz
Poem Number 1, from Living in the Past, Philip Schultz
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The Many and the One, Ann Hostetler
Away from the lights…, Claudia Serea
Love Triangles, Meredith Davies Hadaway
I Find…, Sandra Sidman Larson
Making a Home, Raj Sharma
82 and Cloudy, Andrew F. Popper
Add Diction, George Korolog
The Eye of the Sky, L.C. Atencio
Broccoli Rabe, Broccoli Rasta, Ron Singer
Brother’s Day, Steve McCord
SHORT STORIES
Petite Suite Inutile, Robert Wexelblatt
The Number of Dolan’s Destiny, Gene Fehler
Broken Pieces, Malikah Goss
Secrets of the Bees, Nicola Hodges
The Lonely Kettle, Charles Daly
LITERARY NEWS
Book Review, After the Tsunami, Annam Manthiram
FLASH COMPETITION WINNERS AND HONORABLE MENTIONS
Tour Bus, John J. White. First Place; Published, $100.00 cash prize
The Patron Saint of Easy Girls, Colleen S. Harris, First Place, Published, $100.00 cash prize
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Finalists/Honorable Mentions
Mandala, Angele Ellis
The Monster in her Bedroom, Katherine Valdez
Mac Tire, Son of the Countryside, Stephen Wade
The Giant, Catina Tanner
Many many thanks to our judges: Annam Manthiram, Townsend Walker, and Mandi Casolo.
Competition was stiff. Thank you to all those who participated!
CONTRIBUTORS
Our National Treasure
Philip Schultz was born in Rochester, New York in 1945. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2008 for his collection of poetry titled, “Failure.” Schultz penned Living in the Past(2004) and The Holy Worm of Praise (2002), both published by Harcourt. His poems have graced the pages of The New Yorker, Partisan Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Slate,among other magazines. Poet Schultz is the recipient of numerous awards which include a Fulbright Fellowship in Poetry to Israel and a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry.
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L.C. Atencio is a senior at the University of Central Florida who is seeking a bachelor’s degree in English with special emphasis on creative writing. Furthermore, he’s an honor student who has received collegiate achievements in the literary field, such as having his essays showcased in the hall of fame of advanced literary courses. In 2010, he was also the poetry editor for the 13th issue of Phoenix Magazine; the magazine was published last year. His poems have appeared in Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature, Perspectives, Black Lantern Publishing: A Macabre Journal of Literature & Art and Wilderness House Literary Review.
Terry Bat-Sonja was born in South Africa. She has a BFA in painting from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and an MFA in painting/sculpture from SUNY Albany. She is also a poet who was featured all over southern California, has chapbooks, and a book out. Terry is also an enthusiastic photographer and quilter. She lived for 12 years in southern California where she taught at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, also exhibiting her work at Irvine City Hall, and with Gallery 57; an artists collective in Pomona, and with SCA, (Southern California Artists.) She has had one woman shows in California and the east coast. Currently, she lives upstate New York and teaches painting at Fulton Montgomery Community College.
Charles Daly’s prose has appeared in Gloom Cupboard, Troubadour 21, a Year in Ink III & IV, the Survivors Review, and a few others. He swims, he travels, he collects hats. Find him at http://dalyprose.com/
Gene Fehler is the author of thirteen published books, ten of them dealing with baseball. Among his most recent are teen novels from Clarion Books (Beanball, 2008), Zonderkidz (Never Blame the Umpire, 2010), and Darby Creek (Forced Out, 2012). Change-up: Baseball Poems was published by Clarion in 2009 and won the 2010 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, Grades 4-6. His nonfiction book, When Baseball Was Still King,was published by McFarland & Company in 2012. He can usually be found on the ball field (playing 80 or so baseball and softball games a year) or else writing, collecting and reading books, playing games with his wife, or walking their two toy poodles. His website is http://www.genefehler.com
Malikah Goss is a graduate student, in education leadership, at Columbia University. She has a BFA in Screenwriting from the University of the Arts and a Master of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from Rutgers University. Her other short fiction has been published in Volt Magazine, Foliate Oak, SN Review and Temenos Magazine. She is currently at work on her first novel.
Meredith Davies Hadaway is the author of two poetry collections, The River is a Reason (2011) and Fishing Secrets of the Dead (2005). In addition to publishing poems and reviews in various literary journals, she serves as poetry editor for The Summerset Review. Hadaway is VP College Relations & Marketing for Washington College.
Colleen S. Harris is a two-time Pushcart nominee, and the author of three books of poetry, including The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010), and God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009). She co-edited Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012). Colleen’s poetry has appeared in The Louisville Review, Wisconsin Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Adirondack Review, and various others. Her fiction has appeared in Adanna and Midnight Screaming. She works as a professor and librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Nicola Hodges has a BA from the University of Essex where she studied Sociology and Literature and won a prize for her dissertation, which she researched in the USA. She writes short stories and poetry and is currently working on an historical novel. Her poetry has been published in anthologies in the UK and she has read her work on local radio. Born in England, she has been living in Zürich, Switzerland since 2003, seizing the time to write whenever she can whilst bringing up two young, energetic boys and grappling with German. This has meant forging the ability to write practically anywhere: on the bus, in cafes, or at the top of a mountain.
Ann Hostetler is the author of Empty Room with Light and editor of A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. She is a professor of English at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana and co-editor of the Journal of the Center for Mennonite Writing at http://www.mennonitewriting.org. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Adanna, The Alembic, The American Scholar, Future Earth Magazine, Gulf Stream, Literary Mama, The MacGuffin, Mid-America Poetry Review, The Monarch Review, Nimrod, Perspectives:A Journal of Reformed Thought, Poet Lore, Porcupine, Stickman Review, Talking River, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Washington Square, among others. Her work has been published in anthologies by The University of Iowa Press, Penn State University Press, SUNY Press and The University of Mississippi Press.
George Korolog lives in Woodside, California. He works in the left hemisphere of the world with a right hemisphere brain. Somehow, he makes it work. His poetry has been widely published in over forty print and online journals such as Word Riot, Forge, Punchnels Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, Blue Fifth Review, Poets and Artists Magazine, Red River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Connotation Press, The Chaffey Review, Riverbabble, Grey Sparrow Journal and many others. His poem, “From tending sheep to confusion on the Amtrak 10:50” was awarded second prize in the prestigious 2011 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest. He was a runner up in the 2012 in the Contemporary American Poetry Prize for his poem, “Soul Stone.” He is an active member of The Stanford Writers Studio. His first book of poetry, “Collapsing Outside of the Box,” is being published by Aldrich Press and will be released in late 2012.
Sandra Sidman Larson has been writing poetry for a quarter century. Most recently she was selected for the Foreword Apprentice Program at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, a program established to assist promising writers produce a manuscript for publication. Along the way, her poems have appeared in magazines and journals in Minnesota and elsewhere. Sandra has three published chapbooks, two from Pudding House Publications of Columbus, Ohio, and one self-published through Brio Press. She appears in a new anthology Gatherings this spring with eight of her fellow poets at The Loft. She also has the honor of having been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Naomi Shihab Nye. Larson is retired from leading a number of Twin Cities nonprofit organizations. She is the mother of three, grandmother of two, and lives in Minnetonka.
Steve McCord is a family therapist specializing in addiction medicine and a member of the labor management partnership team at Kaiser Permanente. He is on the board of directors at the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust. Steve has studied with Ellen Bass and Sy Safransky. When his schedule permits, he travels, dabbles with wood carving, and grows organic vegetables in his garden. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Forge, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Schuylkill Valley Journal,
Sun Magazine, Long Beach Press-Telegram and dComp MagazinE.
Andrew F. Popper has taught for 30 years at American University’s Washington College of Law. Recent poems are “Snow and Bone” in the Hudson View and “The Bear” in the Houston Literary Review. His novels include Rediscovering Lone Pine and Bordering on Madness.
Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet who immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. Her poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, Blood Orange Review, Cutthroat, Green Mountains Review, and many others. She was nominated twice for the 2011 Pushcart Prize and for 2011 Best of the Net. She is the author of To Part Is to Die a Little (Červená Barva Press), Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada), and A Dirt Road Hangs from the Sky (8th House Publishing, Canada). She also published the chapbooks Eternity’s Orthography (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and With the Strike of a Match (White Knuckles Press, 2011). She co-edited and co-translated TheVanishing Point That Whistles, an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry (Talisman Publishing, 2011). Visit her blog at http://cserea.tumblr.com/
Raj Sharma has over twenty poems appearing in such magazines as Folly (Ca), Exercise Bowler (Fl), JD Review (Va), The Fine Line (Ca), Ascent Aspirations (Canada). In addition, short stories have appeared in SN Review and The Sun Oasis (CA). Published work also includes a collection of short stories, In My Arms. Many literary publications have appeared in leading Indian magazines as well. Raj is a retired professor of English, who has worked at universities in India, Iraq and U.S.
Ron Singer’s poems have previously appeared in publications including alba, Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo, featured poet, July, 2010), Borderlands: The Texas Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Contemporary Rhyme, elimae, Evergreen Review, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, New Works Review (featured poet, Fall 2008), Third Wednesday, and Word Riot. Some of these poems have been set to music, and three are included in the 2009 anthology, Poetic Voices Without Borders-2. Singer has just completed Uhuru Revisited, a book of interviews with pro-democracy activists (Africa World Press/Red Sea Press, forthcoming). His story, “On Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’” (Third Wednesday, Fall, 2010), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His website is found at http://www.ronsinger.net
Robert Wexelblatt is professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He has published essays, stories, and poems in a wide variety of journals, two story collections, Life in the Temperate Zone and The Decline of Our Neighborhood, a book of essays, Professors at Play; his novel, Zublinka Among Women, won the Indie Book Awards First Prize for Fiction. His most recent book is a short novel, Losses.
John J. White has penned five novels and over two hundred short stories. He has had articles and stories published in several anthologies and magazines including, Wordsmith, The Homestead Review, and The Seven Hills Review. His story, “The Nine Hole League,” is scheduled to be published in theSherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 14, at the end of this year. He has won awards for his work, including honors from the Alabama Writers Conclave, Writers-Editors International, Maryland Writers Association, The Royal Palm Literary Awards, Professional Writers of Prescott, and Writer’s Digest. He recently finished the novel, Nisei, the story of a Japanese-American teenager from Hawaii caught up in events surrounding the Second World War. John is presently working on a historical novel about the Border Wars of Southwest Africa. He enjoys writing, surfing, golf and tennis. He lives in Merritt Island, Florida with his understanding wife, editor, and typist, Pamela.
Grey Sparrow Journal 