Contributors

Grey Sparrow’s National Treasure Forrest Gander, [recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry,] “is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. The A.K. Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University, Gander won the [2019] Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “Be With” and is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.” Wikipedia
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Grey Sparrow’s Guest Artist Mario Loprete wrote, “My work focuses on research and documentation of the world of hip hop. This philosophy of life is no longer relegated to just the United States. It’s found at any latitude.
I use concrete as I find it is the link between my art and the dance. This cementitious material, like the Internet, clears all geographical boundaries. Created by the ancient Romans, today cement is an indicator of modernity—of the contemporaneous world.”
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Hari Adhikari is the President of Nepalese Writers in English (NWEN). He is an academician, a critic, and a poet. He writes both in English and Nepali (his mother tongue). Hari earned his PhD in English Studies from Illinois State University, USA in 2012. Currently, he is Associate Professor of English at Tribhuvan University. Besides in Nepal, he has also taught at Illinois State University (USA) and United International College (a joint program of Hong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University) in China.
Hari has two scholarly books and over two dozen articles published in national and international journals to his credit. He has presented his research works on diverse topics in seminars and conferences in Nepal, India, China, Taiwan and USA. At the moment, he is working simultaneously on his collections of poetry in Nepali and English which he aims at publishing together within two years.
Maria A. Arana is a teacher, writer, and poet. Various journals including Spectrum, Peeking Cat Anthology, Nature Writing, and Nasty Women’s Almanac published her poetry. You can find her at https://twitter.com/m_a_Arana
Christopher Barnes first collection Lovebites is published by Chanticleer. Each year he reads at Poetry Scotland’s Callender Poetry Weekend. He also writes art criticism which has been published in Peel and Combustus magazines.
Byron Beynon lives in Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including Grey Sparrow, Agenda, The London Magazine, North of Oxford, Poetry Pacific, Planet and the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). He coordinated the Wales’ section of the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). Recent collections include Cuffs (Rack Press) and The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions). His selected poems appeared in 2018 (Bilingual: English/Romanian – published by Bibliotecha Universalis/Collectiile/ Revistei “Orizont Literar Contemporan”, translations by Dr Monica Manolachi, University of Bucharest).
Michael Biehl’s fiction and poetry have appeared in Image Journal, Callaloo, Dappled Things, The Texas Review, and Cimarron Review, among other journals. He teaches English as a Second Language in San Francisco to overseas business executives.
Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller write as a duo and have made their living as playwright/performers for four decades, with productions by more than 30 professional theaters, plus performing their own plays cross-country (www.IndependentEye.org). They have held two NEA writing fellowships and created three public radio series. In fiction, their stories have appeared in Printers Row Journal, The Storyteller, Cobalt Review, Crack the Spine, Exterminating Angel, and BlazeVOX. They’ve also published two novels, a memoir, and two anthologies of the duo’s plays. They write a weekly blog at http://www.DamnedFool.com.
Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, After Hours, poetrysuperhighway.com, and others. He has nine poetry chapbooks, including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). His book A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet’s Journey To The Borderlands Of Dementia was recently published by Cholla Needles Press (2018).
Dan Cardoza has an MS Degree in Education from UC, Sacramento, Calif. He is the author of four poetry Chapbooks, and a new book of flash fiction, Second Stories. Recent Credits include Adelaide, Cabinet of Heed, Cleaver, Dime Show Review, Entropy, Esthetic Apostle, Frogmore, Foxglove, Gravel, New Flash Fiction Review, Rabid Oak, Riggwelter, Spelk, Tulpa, and White Wall Review.
John Delaney moved out to Port Townsend, WA in 2016, after a lifetime in the East, where he was curator of historic maps at Princeton. Delaney is widely traveled, preferring remote, natural settings. He’s addicted to kayaking and hiking. In 2017, Delaney published Waypoints (Pleasure Boat Studio, Seattle), a collection of place poems. Twenty Questions, a chapbook, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in July 2019.
George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Belvidere, IL. His poetry has recently appeared in Off Course; Torrid Literature; The Chiron Review; and The Adelaide magazine. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc.; Lazy Bee Scripts; and Off The Wall Plays.
Nigel Ford is English, lives in Sweden, and works as a translator, writer and visual artist. His stories have appeared in the Penniless Press anthology, Howling Brits and a collection entitled One Dog Barking, published by Worldscribe Press. His stories, poems and pictures have been featured in several literary magazines in the US and UK. His book Snatches is now being serialised in the notorious literary magazine The Crazy Oik.
D.A. Gray is the author of two poetry collections, Overwatch (Grey Sparrow Press, 2011) and Contested Terrain (FutureCycle Press, October 2017). His work has appeared in The Sewanee Review, Appalachian Heritage, Grey Sparrow Journal, Rise Up Review, Rattle: Poets Respond, Still: The Journal, and The Windhover among other journals. Gray holds an MFA from The Sewanee School of Letters and an MS from Texas A&M-Central Texas. Retired soldier and veteran, the author writes, teaches and lives in Central Texas.
Nels Hanson grew up on a small raisin and tree fruit farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California, earned degrees from U.C. Santa Cruz and the U. of Montana, and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations.
Stephen Jackson is originally from Ohio where he attended Kent State University. Currently residing in Seattle, he divides his time between Washington and Oregon. In the not too distant past, he was the sole proprietor of the small press So Many Birds publishing (SMBp), where he published the work of many Pacific Northwest writers in individual author chapbooks, Harness (a literary magazine), and Future Present (a quarterly chapbook which showcased the poetry of five young writers under 25). The author of seven chapbooks, including Saturnine Lives and Grotesque, his own poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, HelloHorror and Impossible Archetype.
Monty Jones is a writer in Austin, Texas, where he has worked as a teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a university public affairs official. His book of poems Cracks in the Earth was published in 2018 by Cat Shadow Press of Austin.
Erren Geraud Kelly’s poetry has been published in numerous publications in print and online in the U.S.A. and around the world. He received his B.A. in English from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Erren lives in Boston.
His most recent event took place at the Lysekil Art Museum (Sweden) in May 2019, this taking the form of a short play entitled “Wader & Bader” using his paintings as a backdrop. More details about all these things can occasionally be found via a click on the Net.
In addition he works at and sometimes curates for the graphics department at the Artists Workshops (KKV) in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Tyrel Kessinger lives in Louisville, Ky and is the stay-at-home dad for two wild animals. He occasionally finds time to write things and has served for one year at Grey Sparrow as a volunteer editor. We have appreciated his help–thanks, Tyrel.
James la Vigne is a fiction writer and converted poet living in Seattle, where he polishes his antique doorknobs. He has work published or forthcoming in Literary Heist, Metaworker, Modern Literature, Cardinal Sins, and a poem in Headway.
DS Levy’s work has been included in New Flash Fiction Review, Little Fiction, MoonPark Review, the Alaska Quarterly Review, Columbia, South Dakota Review, Brevity, The Pinch, and others. Her collection of flash fiction, A Binary Heart, was published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press.
Michael Lyle has always written, but he’s also been a producer/director at a television station, an English teacher, and an ordained minister. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Canary, The Carolina Quarterly, The Hollins Critic, Leaping Clear, The Main Street Rag, MockingHeart Review, Mudfish, Pilgrimage and other magazines and journals. Michael’s chapbook The Everywhere of Light (Plan B Press) was published in 2018. His creative nonfiction has appeared in The Christian Century and Rock & Sling. Michael lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. More about him at http://www.michaellylewriter.com
Brandy McKenzie holds an MFA in writing from the University of Oregon, has published poems in more than three dozen literary magazines, won various awards, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and worked on the editorial boards of three different nationally distributed literary magazines. These days, though, she mostly works as a paralegal, teaches critical thinking and writing to community college students, and tries to provoke conversation about strangeness of our shared waking dream.
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,500 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets(Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press)and‘ Like As If” (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).
Greg Maddigan lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife, Stacy, and their four children. He attended Gonzaga University where he earned degrees in English and religious studies. He teaches at the On Track Academy and spends his summers living and writing in a little cabin near Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. Greg is the author of the chapbook of poems, Paddling through the Meridian’s Wake (Finishing Line Press). Greg’s poetry has also appeared in The Legendary literary magazine, the Tipton Poetry Journal, the Cortland Review, and the Wilderness House Literary Review.
Terry Mulert is a poet and lives at the base of the Monzano Mountains along the Rio Grande with his wife. He has published work in Eating the Pure Light, anthology for Thomas McGrath, Water~Stone Review, California Quarterly, The Madison Review, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Mudfish, Plainsongs (Award Poem), Texas Poetry Review: Borderlands, The Baltimore Review, The Hawai’i Review, Big Scream, The Chiron Review and others.
Christina E. Petrides lives on a rain-drenched volcanic island in a sea which has witnessed more than two millennia of naval battles. She teaches English, eats large quantities of delicious food, and makes dutiful (if futile) attempts several times a week to regain her long-vanished youthful figure by vigorous exercise at the local gym.
David B. Prather studied at Warren Wilson College with Steve Orlen, Agha Shahid Ali, Tony Hoagland, and Joan Aleshire. His debut collection of poetry is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Publishing. His work has appeared in several print and on-line publications, including Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review, Poet Lore, The American Journal of Poetry, The Literary Review, and many others. Prather lives in Parkersburg, WV.
Bryan D. Price’s poetry has appeared in DIAGRAM, Manhattanville Review, Menacing Hedge, and Portland Review. He lives and teaches in the suburbs of southern California where he writes about time, memory, utopia, and its opposite.
Timothy Reilly had been a professional tubaist (including a stint with the Teatro Regio of Torino, Italy) until around 1980, when a condition called “Embouchure Dystonia” put an end to his music career. He gratefully retired from substitute teaching in 2014. He has published widely, most recently in Fictive Dream, Iron Horse Literary Review, Zone 3, Bluestem, The MacGuffin, and Superstition Review. He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Timothy Reilly lives in Southern California with his wife, Jo-Anne Cappeluti: a published poet and scholar.
Jonathan K. Rice edited Iodine Poetry Journal for seventeen years. He is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Killing Time (2015), Ukulele and Other Poems (2006) and a chapbook, Shooting Pool with a Cellist (2003), all published by Main Street Rag Publishing. He is also a visual artist. His poetry and art have appeared in numerous publications, including As It Ought To Be, The Aurorean, Cold Mountain Review, Comstock Review, Diaphanous, Empty Mirror, Eunoia Review, Gargoyle, Gravel Literary Magazine, Inflectionist Review, Levure Litteraire, The Main Street Rag, Plum Tree Tavern, Rye Whiskey Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review and the anthologies, Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race and The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina. Jonathan is the recipient of the 2012 Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award for outstanding service in support of local and regional writers, awarded by Central Piedmont Community College. He lives in Charlotte, NC.
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Bam Dev Sharma, born in 1967, is an assistant professor at Ratna Rajya Laxmi, Tribhuvan University. He has been teaching over the last twenty-one years. He is currently teaching modern poetry to graduates. He has published four collections of poem so far. Sharma is also a children’s writer and has published an interesting collection entitled The Shepherd in the Sky from the US in 2018. He is working on child novels and story collections.
Dr. Roger Singer has been in private practice for 38 years in upstate New York. He has four children, Abigail, Caleb, Andrew and Philip and seven grandchildren. Dr. Singer has served on multiple committees and lectured at colleges in the United States, Canada and Australia, and has authored over fifty articles for his profession and served as a medical technician during the Vietnam era.
Dr. Singer has had over 1,000 poems published on the internet, magazines and in books and is a Pushcart Award Nominee. Some of the magazines that have accepted his poems for publication are: Westward Quarterly, Jerry Jazz, SP Quill, Avocet, Underground Voices, Outlaw Poetry, Literary Fever, Dance of my Hands, Language & Culture, The Stray Branch, Tipton Poetry Journal and Indigo Rising, Down in the Dirt, Fullosia Press, Orbis, Penwood Review, Subtle Tea, Ambassador Poetry Award, Massachusetts State Poetry Society, and the Louisiana State Poetry Society Award.
Thomas R. Smith is the author of seven full-length books of poems: Keeping the Star (1988), Horse of Earth (1994), The Dark Indigo Current (2000), Waking Before Dawn (2006), The Foot of the Rainbow (2010), The Glory (2015), and Windy Day at Kabekona: New and Selected Prose Poems (2018). He edited Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Tranströmer and is chief editor of Robert Bly in This World, published in 2011 by University of Minnesota Libraries. His prose book, Poetry on the Side of Nature, is coming out from Folded Word Press in 2020. His poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac public radio program and Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper feature. He served as a poetry advisor to the Loft Foreword/Master Track program. He posts poems and blogs at http://www.thomasrsmithpoet.com
Tanner Stening is a journalist based in Massachusetts, writing for the Cape Cod Times and covering, among other things, issues of Native American sovereignty and the opioid crisis. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Guard, Portrait of New England, and elsewhere. He is an MFA candidate at Goddard College.
Alan Toltzis is the author of 49 Aspects of Human Emotion and The Last Commandment. A two-time Pushcart nominee, he has published in numerous print and online journals including Hummingbird, The Wax Paper, IthacaLit, North of Oxford, and Poetry NI. He serves as a Contributing Editor for The Saturday Poetry Series in As It Ought to Be Magazine. Find him online at alantoltzis.com and follow him @ToltzisAlan.
Rodney Torreson, the poet laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan from 2007-2010, is the author of two full-length collections of poems and two chapbooks. A third full-length work, The Jukebox was the Jury of their Love, which focuses on rock music, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. His work has appeared in such magazines as the Beloit Poetry Journal, New York Quarterly, Poet Lore, Sou’wester, and Tar River Poetry.
Les Wicks, for over 40 years, has performed widely across the globe. He is published in over 350 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 28 countries in 15 languages. Wicks conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 14th book of poetry is Belief (Flying Islands, 2019). URL: http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm
Richard Widerkehr earned his M.A. from Columbia University and won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan. He has two books of poems, In The Presence Of Absence (MoonPath Press) and The Way Home (Plain View Press), along with three chapbooks and a novel. Recent work has appeared in Rattle, Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, Arts & Letters, and others. Widerkehr has worked as a case manager with the mentally ill and, later, taught workshops at the Port Townsend Writers Conference. He reads poems for Shark Reef Review.
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. A nineteen-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Five more books since. A 5 time Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com
Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has been in PBS Newshour, The Wall Street Journal, The Oxford Review, and over a hundred literary journals. A 2008 Million Writers Award and 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee.