CHIRPS FROM THE SPARROW
Grey Sparrow’s National Treasure in Short Stories, Junot Díaz
Junot’s story “Invierno”was first published in Glimmer Train and will be available in the Sparrow’s printed journal, not online.
POETRY
Nepal’s National Treasure in Poetry, Momila Joshi, An Eclipsed Time
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Buddha, I shall Worship You, Guest Rajeshwor Karki
Things I May Never Tell You, Floors, Higher Powers, Lightening Skins, George Bishop
Invitation, Anna Elkins
After, Tawnysha Greene
Echo Park, Christine Hamm
Dark Rooms, Siddharth Katragadda
When Herald Midnight Tolled July the Fourth, John Kearns
Meditations on a Kind of Geen, Caroline Kim-Brown
Under Daytime Moon, Richard Krech
In the Lingering Days to Come, Mercedes Lawry
The Beekeepers, Elizabeth Joy Levinson
Lakeshore, Kore Sets the Record Straight, Poly-Tropic Polyphonous Inferno, Audumbla, The Primal Bovine Octupus in the Market, Stephen Massimilla
The Last Straw, Dan Pettee
When a Sex Symbol Takes to Sensible Shoes, Fiona Sinclair
The Deep, Nathanael Tagg
[Released, July 15th, 2011]
In The Park On An Angry Day, Karlyn Ehrhardt
[Released, August 1st, 2011]
FLASH FICTION
Craven Creek, The Cosmic Eye, Janet Shell Anderson
Dance for Me, Jac Cattaneo
A Slice of His Soul, Patricia Friedrich
Honeymoon Jar, M.J. Iuppa
Uncharted, Alex Myers
An Art, Like Anything Else, Sarah Schwartz
SHORT STORIES
Stacks and Droppers, Charlie Daly
Signs of Concern, Julia Harm
Leaving Taking, Kim Suhr
Holding Tight, Townsend Walker
The Best Stuff, Angela Johnson
[Released August 1st, 2011]
PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART
Photography and Sculpture, Ira Joel Haber
Photography, James S. Oppenheim
LITERARY NEWS
Review of The Poets Laureate Anthology, ed. Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, by Jenny Kingsley
THE CAMPUS
Joseph Michael Owens
Sketch, Sander Lindeke
CONTRIBUTORS
Nepal’s National Treasure in Poetry, Momila Joshi
Momila Joshi is an Assistant Professor of Nepali literature at GoldenGate International College, Tribhuvan University and Chair of the Nepali Art and Literature Dot Com Foundation. She is also the winner of several literary awards: Padmakanya Award, Nepal Academy Award for poem, Shatabdee Yuwa Honor 2000, Mohan Regmi Smrit Honor, Gunjan Talent Award, Yuwa Moti Award and several others. Mrs. Joshi has also published the following books: Painyu Phunla Thalepachhi (Poem Collection), Neelo Neelo Aakash ra Dui Thopa Aansu (Poem-Essay Collection; Co-writing), Junkiriharu Orlirahechhan (Poem Collection- 2055), Durgam Unchaima Phoolko Aandhi (Poem Collection),: Ishwor Ko Adalatma Outsiderko Bayan (Essay Collection, An outsider in the court of God (Collection of lyrical essays), Several Poems of Hem Chandra Pokharel (editor), ‘Nobel’ Annual Literary (editor), Kalchakra Poetic Issue (editor), and the Sagarmathako Nrityamagna Aatma (editor).
Nepalese Guest Poet Rajeshwor Karki
Rajeshwor Karki is the Chair of the Mountdigit
Publication and has two collections of poetry in circulation: Mero Kawitako Antim Pristha (Poem Collections, 2005) and The Last Page of My Poem (Poem Collections, 2010).
Grey Sparrow’s National Treasure in Short Stories, Junot Díaz
As noted in the following biography, “Writer Junot Díaz (born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institutute of Technology (MIT). Central to Díaz’s work is the immigrant experience.
He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, in 2008. Professor Díaz will have his story solely in print at the Sparrow.
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Janet Shell Anderson has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Micro and has been published by Vestal Review, The Grey Sparrow Press, Convergence, Gemini Magazine, The Citrus Review, Green Silk Journal, Concisely and others. She is an attorney.
George Bishop was raised on the Jersey Shore and now lives and writes in the Central Florida area. Recent work has been published in White Pelican Review, Philadelphia Stories, Prick Of The Spindle and is forthcoming in Melusine, and Nova Scotia Review. His chapbook Love Scenes was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009 and a new chapbook, Marriage Vows & Other Lies, will be released by Flutter Press in late 2010.
Charlie Bondhus, poet, holds a PhD in literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. He has published two books of poetry: What We Have Learned to Love(Brickhouse Books, 2009) and How the Boy Might See It (Pecan Grove Press, 2010), and a novella, Monsters and Victims (Gothic Press, 2010). What We Have Learned to Love was the recipient of the 2008-2009 Brickhouse Books Stonewall Series Award and How the Boy Might See It was nominated for the 2010 Levis Reading Prize. He teaches creative writing, literature and composition at Raritan Valley Community College.
Jac Cattaneo is an artist, writer and lecturer who lives on the south coast of England. Her short fiction has appeared in a range of publications, including Flash magazine, 100 Stories for Haiti anthology, Word Riot, Metazen and Foundling Review. Her story”Sky Walk”was short-listed for the Asham award and “Bringing the War Back Home” (Bartleby Snopes) was chosen by the Million Writers Award as a Notable Story of 2009. Jac is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University and completing a novel.
Charlie Daly is 21 years old, from Boston, rural Ireland, and more recently, San Diego, CA. His work has appeared in Shoots and Vines, Troubadour 21, Gloom Cupboard, Writers bloc(Rutgers), a Year in Ink III & IV (San Diego writers anthology) ROOTS, Steez, and Survivor’s Review.
Karlyn Ehrhardt holds a master’s degree in English with a concentration in linguistics. An English Language Learning (ELL) instructor, she lived and worked in Japan for over twenty years. She currently works at a technical college in northeast Wisconsin where she teaches several classes including writing, reading and vocabulary, pronunciation, and TOEFL preparation.
Anna Elkins earned an MFA in poetry and was a Fulbright Fellow of creative writing in Germany. In the intervening ten years, she enjoyed a writerly journey ghostwriting fiction in Spain, editing theology in Switzerland, teaching literature on a distant island in Micronesia, and now exploring prophetic poetry here on the mainland, in the mythical state of Jefferson. She has been published in several journals and books and has multiple poems forthcoming in the North Carolina Literary Review and Reunion: The Dallas Review.
Patricia Friedrich is an Associate Professor of English at Arizona State University and Director of First Year Composition, having received her PhD from Purdue University. Professor Friedrich is a published author of non-fiction, with two books by Continuum: Language, Negotiation and Peace: the use of English in conflict resolution, 2007 and Teaching Academic Writing (ed.), 2008. She has authored articles in such periodicals as Harvard Business Review and World Englishes. She has also written book chapters in national and international publications and published short stories in The Linnet’s Wings and Blue Guitar.
Tawnysha Greene received her MA from Auburn University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in fiction writing at the University of Tennessee. Her work has appeared in various literary journals including The Foundling Review and Wigleaf and is forthcoming in The Southern Humanities Review.
Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn New York. He is a sculptor, painter, book dealer, photographer and teacher. Haber’s work has been seen in numerous group shows in United States and Europe and has been honored with nine one man shows, including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum and The Albright-Knox Art Gallery. His paintings, drawings and collages have been published in many on line and print magazines. Over the years he has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and two Pollock-Krasner grants. In 2004, he received The Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant, and in 2010 he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. Currently he teaches art at the United Federation of Teachers Retiree Program in Brooklyn.
Christine Hamm is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Rattle and many others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize, and she teaches English at CUNY. The Transparent Dinner, her book of poems, was published by Mayapple Press in 2006 and her second book, Saints & Cannibals, came out in 2010. Christine was a runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens,
NY.
Julia Harm was born and raised in California. She is currently working on her first novel, The Passenger. She is also organizing the 2012 Pasadena Literary Festival as well as USC’s Literature for Life.
Kevin Hinkle, photographer, is a full-time professor of English as a Second Language at Raritan Valley Community College and holds a PhD in International Education from New York University. As a New York City resident throughout the 1990s, Kevin took a variety of photography courses at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography. Early morning strolls during those years helped Hinkle develop his eye for the overlooked detail in the urban landscape. In the past three years, he has participated in more than twenty juried art shows including, most recently, the Marylou Hillyer 25th International Juried Show at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, jurored by Joan Young, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. His website can be found at: http://www.arloartists.com
M.J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Her most recent chapbook is As the Crows Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008). She is also the author of a second full length collection titled, Within Reach, (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010). She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College, Rochester.
Angela Johnson grew up in Flint, Michigan but now calls Minnesota her home. She’s come to love the Twin Cities despite its seeming 10,000 days of winter. She reads on her front porch on warm days and hunkers down to write fiction and freelance lifestyle stories on most all of the other days. Angela draws on her experience with differing regional worldviews, socioeconomic environments and cultural quirks to provide inspiration and backdrop for her writing. The Best Stuff is part of her growing collection of short fiction. Her first published short story, She Hopesappears in the spring 2011 issue of Rose and Thorn Journal.
Siddharth Katragadda is the author of two award-winning volumes of poetry (San Diego Book Awards, 2002 and 2003). His work has appeared in Writer’s Monthly, Chaffey Review, A Generation Defining Itself, Golden Thoughts, Boston Poet and Sulekha and has been reviewed innewspapers/magazines like the Best Reviews and Suite101.
John Kearns has a Masters Degree in Irish Literature from the Catholic University of America and lives in Manhattan, where he has had several full-length and one-act plays produced. His novel, The World, was published in 2003 and his novel-in-progress, Worlds, was a finalist in the 2002 New Century Writers’ Awards. His short-story collection, Dreams and Dull Realities, is now available on Amazon.com. Recent fiction publications include “A Tragic Story by Beatrice Mahon, O.P.,” “Chances,” and “Dreams and Dull Realities” in the Danse Macabre online literary magazine. His poetry has recently appeared in the Feile-Festa literary journal, and the ASBDQ experimental text journal. Visit http://www.kearnscafe.com.
Caroline Kim-Brown was born in South Korea but emigrated to a small town in Massachusetts as a child. Having lived all over the U.S., she has now settled in Oakland, CA with her husband and two children. She works as fiction editor for Hyphen Magazine. She has published previously in Spinning Jenny, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Green Mountains Review and MANOA.
Jenny Kingsley is a short story writer, poet and journalist living in London with her husband and two sons. Her work has appeared in American and British publications, including The Art Book,The Berkshire Eagle, The Blackmore Vale, Cassone, TheCinnamon Press, The Daily Telegraph, Decanto, Petits Propos Culinaires and South BankPoetry. Jenny has a BSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics, an MA in Government from Georgetown University and an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Please visit Jenny at jennykingsley.com. This fall, Jenny has volunteered to copy edit at Grey Sparrowfor one year.
Richard Krech started writing poetry at seventeen, and his first book was published by d.a. levy in 1967. He published a poetry magazine and organized a series of poetry readings at a bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley from 1966 to 1969. He authored half a dozen books and had numerous periodical appearances before he stopped writing poetry in the mid-seventies and went to law school. Krech has been practicing criminal defense in Oakland since 1980, his practice including everything from murder to shoplifting as well as pro bono representation of anti-war demonstrators and others similarly situated. After a twenty-five year line-break, Krech began writing poetry again and has had several books published and periodical appearances since then. Krech has traveled frequently to Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. He has three children, three grandchildren and lives with his wife Mary Holbrook in Albany, California.
Mercedes Lawry was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and has lived in Seattle over thirty years. She’s published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Rhino, Nimrod, Poetry East, Seattle Review and others. Her chapbook, There Are Crows in My Blood, was published by Pudding House Press. She’s also published some fiction as well as stories and poems for children. Among the honors she’s received are awards from the Seattle Arts Commission, Hugo House, Artist Trust, and has been a Jack Straw Writer and held a residency at Hedgebrook.
Elizabeth Joy Levinson lives, teaches, and writes on the west side of Chicago. Her work has appeared in Apple Valley Review, Up the Staircase, Burnt Bridge, and in Roast. She usually has some dirt in her nails from working in the garden. Elizabeth has recently completed her MFA in poetry from Pacific University.
Annam Manthiram, our copy editor, is retiring with this issue. She will now serve as associate editor at Grey Sparrow for one year. She is the author of the forthcoming novel, After the Tsunami (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2011), and a short story collection (Dysfunction), which was a Finalist in the 2010 Elixir Press Fiction Award and received Honorable Mention in Leapfrog Press’ 2010 fiction contest.A graduate of the MA Writing program at the University of Southern California, Ms. Manthiram resides in New Mexico with her husband, Alex, and son, Sathya. You can visit her online at AnnamManthiram.com.
Stephen Massimilla is a poet, writer, literary critic, and painter. He is the author of four poetry books, including Forty Floors From Yesterday (Bordighera), which won the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Poetry Prize. Other awards include the Grolier Poetry Prize, a Van Renssalaer Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and two Pushcart nominations. He has new poems in or forthcoming in AGNI, Atlanta Review, Barrow Street, The Bitter Oleander, Chelsea, The Colorado Review, Confrontation, The Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, Folio, Green Mountains Review, The Greensboro Review, Natural Bridge, The Paterson Literary Review, Phoebe, Ping Pong, Provincetown Arts Magazine, Quarterly West, The Southern Review, Tampa Review, Terrain.org, Verse Dailyand other journals and anthologies. His current project addresses the relationship between literature, food, and ecological issues. Massimilla holds an MFA and a PhD from Columbia University, where he teaches classics and modernist literature. Website: stephenmassimilla.com
Alex Myers lives and teach in Rhode Island. His fiction has appeared in places such as Juked, A Cappella Zoo, and Drunken Boat. In addition to writing, he enjoys playing tuba and racing triathlons.
James S. Oppenheim works in creative writing, music, and photography, pursuing each separately but with perhaps each evolving in response to activity in its alternate and with the countryside around Hagerstown, Maryland providing a rich environment for inspiration.”
James Owens lives in New Carlisle, Ind. Two books of his poems have been published: An Hour is the Doorway (Black Lawrence Press) and Frost Lights a Thin Flame (Mayapple Press). His poems, reviews, translations, and photographs have appeared widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in The Cortland Review, The Cresset, and The Chaffey Review. He walks in the dunes along the southern shore of Lake Michigan and watches the waves and the gulls.
Joseph Michael Owens has written for PANK Magazine,The Rumpus, The Houston Literary Review, InDigest Magazineand Grey Sparrow Journal(CELJ’s Best New Literary Journal of 2010), where he is a regular contributor to its “Man on Campus” section and will be an associate editor starting with the fall issue.. Additionally, his short story “We Always Trust Each Other, Except for When We Don’t” was nominated for both Dzanc Books‘ Best of the Web 2011 anthology and storySouth’s MillionWriters Award. Joe lives in Omaha with five dogs and one wife.
Dan Pettee is a former teacher and advertising manager who operates his own freelance writing business in Grand Rapids, MI. His poetry has appeared in a wide range of publications including Chicago Review, Texas Review, Amherst Review, Descant, Puerto del Sol and Evansville Review.
Sarah Schwartz is pursuing her Master’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at Fordham University. She also teaches pre-k in New York City, and lives in Maplewood, New Jersey. Her work has been published in Third Wednesday, Ducts.org and Sangam Literary Magazine.
Fiona Sinclair has numerous poems published in reputable magazines. Her pamphlet ‘Dirty Laundry’ was published by Koo Press Scotland May 2010. She is the editor of the online poetry magazine Message in a Bottle.
Kim Suhr is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared at Foundling Review, Staccato Fiction and the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, 2011. In addition, her writing has aired on Lake Effect at the NPR affiliate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kim is the director of RedBird-RedOak Writers and Red Oak Young Writers, organizations dedicated to supporting writers through critique groups, workshops, camps and camaraderie.
Nathanael Tagg has earned his BA and MA in English. He teaches composition at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Metropolitan Community College. His poetry has appeared in Numinous: Spiritual Poetry and is forthcoming in Visions with Voices, and Sleet.
Townsend Walker lives in San Francisco. His stories have appeared in L’Italo-Americano, Crimson Highway, Static Movement, 971 Menu, The Aggregated Press; Raving Dove, AntipodeanSF, Neonbeam, Amazon Shorts, The Write Side Up, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Battered Suitcase, Dark Sky Magazine, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Cantaraville, Pequin, Danse Macabre, the delinquent, Bartleby Snopes and in the collection In the Silence of this Room. During a career in finance he published three books on foreign exchange, derivatives, and portfolio management. Four years ago he went to Rome and started writing short stories.
Grey Sparrow Journal 