“Natalie Diaz, 2021 Pulitzer winning poet, was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. … Diaz lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she has worked with the last speakers of Mojave and directed a language revitalization program.” Poetry Foundation.org

BIOGRAPHIES

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, NE, and volunteers with a non-profit organization as a Donor Ambassador on their blood drives. He has had poems published in The Pangolin Review, Fine Lines, The Sea Letter, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, Poesis Literary Journal and several other publications.

Daisey Bassen is a poet, novelist and practicing child psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at the University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has appeared in Oberon, McSweeney’s, Smartish Pace, and [PANK] among other journals. She was the winner of the 2019 So to Speak Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. Her fiction is represented by Jennifer Lyons. Bassen was doubly nominated for Best of the Net in 2019 and for a Pushcart Prize in 2019 and 2020. Born and raised in new York, she lives in Rhode Island with her family.

Gabriella Bedetti is a professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University. Her recent poems, photos, and translations have appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Typehouse, and World Literature Today. She is assembling a co-translation of the selected poems of Henri Meschonnic. Like an ukiyo-e painting or a William Carlos Williams poem, her photos invite the viewer to live in the moment of the frame for a moment of intimacy, empathy and a feeling of being part of “the floating world.” Shot with a Canon PowerShot SX130 IS. https://gabriellabedetti.wordpress.com/.

Sean Bentley has published three collections: Grace & Desolution (Cune Press\1996), Instances (Confluence Press 1979), and Into the Bright Oasis (Jawbone Press 1976). His poems have appeared in the Mudlark, Chiron Review, The Cape Rock, Poet Lore, Crab Creek Review, Seattle Review, Third Coast Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, Northwest Review, Poetry NOW, Bellingham Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Coe Review, Switched-on Gutenberg and many other magazines.His work has also appeared in the anthologies Page To Page : Retrospectives Of Writers From The Seattle Review (Univ. of Washington Press), Iron Country (Copper Canyon), Intro 6 (Doubleday), Pontoon 3 (Floating Bridge Press), Island of Rivers (Pacific NW National Parks Assoc.), and Darkness And Light: Private Writing As Art (iUniverse). From 1982 to 2002 he co-edited the poetry magazine Fine Madness and its retrospective anthology, March Hares (2002).

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Failed Haiku, Dreich, and Tarot Poetry, among others.

Byron Beynon lives in Swansea, Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including Grey Sparrow, The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, Cyphers, The Blue Nib, Agenda and the anthology Moments of Vision (Seren). Collections include Cuffs (Rack Press), Human Shores (Lapwing Publications) 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).

Llyn Clague’s poems have been published widely in magazines such as Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, Main Street Rag, The Avalon Literary Review, Ibbetson Street, Hiram Poetry Review, Poetry Porch, and other print and online journals. His eighth book, Up Close And Nuclear, was published by Main Street Rag in 2019. Visit www.llynclague.com

Susan DeFelice graduated from Sonoma State University and lives in Georgia. Her stories have been published in Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Toasted Cheese and elsewhere.

John Delaney moved out to Port Townsend, WA, in 2016 after retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University. He’s traveled widely, preferring remote, natural settings, and is addicted to kayaking and hiking. In 2017, Waypoints was published, a collection of place poems. Twenty Questions, a chapbook, appeared in 2019, and Delicate Arch, poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, is forthcoming next year.

donnarkevic lives in Buckhannon, WV. MFA National University. Recent work appears in Street Cake, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Solum Literary Press. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. Poetry Chapbooks include Laundry, published in 2005 by Main Street Rag. FutureCycle Press published, Admissions, a book of poems, in 2013. Many Sparrows, a book of poemswas published in 2018 by The Poetry Box. Plays have received readings in Chicago, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press).

D.A. Gray is the author of Contested Terrain (FutureCycle Press, 2017) and Overwatch (Grey Sparrow Press, 2011). His poems have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Appalachian Review, Rattle: Poets Respond, Comstock Review, Still: The Journal and Wrath-Bearing Tree among others. He holds Masters Degrees from The Sewanee School of Letters and Texas A&M-Central Texas. A veteran, Gray now teaches, writes, and lives in Central Texas.

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is currently enrolled in the Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA in Writing program. She is an eleven-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a seven-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2012 she won the Red Ochre Chapbook Contest, with her manuscript,Before I Go to Sleep. In 2018 her book In the Making of Goodbyeswas nominated for The CLMP Firecracker Award in Poetry, and her poem “A Mall in California” took 2nd place for the Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize. In 2019 her chapbook An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award in poetry. In 2020 Alice in Ruby Slippers was shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize and featured in Sundress Publication’s, The Wardrobes Best Dressed. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Orchards Poetry Journal and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Tule Review. In 2012 she was inducted into the Saratoga Authors Hall of Fame and according to family lore she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson.

A.M. Gwynn’s most recent work appears in The Thieving Magpie and The Deadly Writers Patrol. Her work has also appeared in Prachya Review, Consequence Magazine, War, Literature & the Arts, and other literary venues. She currently resides on the West Coast.

Mark Hammerschmick writes poetry and fiction. He holds a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a BS and MBA. He is a lifelong resident of the Chicago area and currently lives on the north shore, his professional career has been in digital strategy and online consulting.

Phil Huffy had a long career doing something else. Now, he is a busy poet with placements in dozens of journals and anthologies. He has published three collections of his work: Rhymal Therapy (tasteful limericks), Magic Words (children’s poems) and Happy Place (formal verse).

William Huhn is a graduate of Vassar College and lives in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and their four-year-old son. His narrative essays have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and cited seven times as a “Notable Essay” in The Best American Essays series, most recently in 2020. Huhn’s poetry has been featured in The Carolina Quarterly and can be found on the popular website Verse Daily. Most recently, his narrative essay “Silver Hill” appeared in the winter 2020-21 issue of Rosebud. His poem “Blue Corn Pancakes” came out in the June 2021 issue of 34th Parallel. @willhuhn

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 2,013 new publications, and his poems have appeared in 40 countries, he edits, publishes ten poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson has been nominated for two Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018. Two hundred twenty-one poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089. Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings: The Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in high school and in several community colleges. He has five hundred and twenty-one credits including publication in such journals as Writer’s Digest, Auroras & Blossoms, Halcyon Days Magazine, Falling Star Magazine, The Cumberland River Review, The Delta Poetry Review, Calliope, Deep South Magazine, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS.He lives in Luka, Mississippi.

Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) The String of Islands (Dink, 2015) and Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, Mad Hatters’ Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban and many other journals in the U.S. He is also editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He is one of the founding members of the Sacramento Poetry Alliance. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He plays flutes, guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.

Cody Kucker’s poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Natural Bridge, and JuxtaProse, among others. He received his MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He resides and teaches high school English in northeastern Massachusetts.

Vandana Kumar is a middle school French teacher in New Delhi, India. An educator with over 20 years of experience, she is also a French translator and recruitment consultant. Her poems have been published in various national and international journals and websites like Mad Swirl, Toronto based Scarlet Leaf Review, Philadelphia based North of Oxford, UK based Destiny Poets, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Madras Courier, Glomag etc. She has featured in anthologies like Houston, Texas based–Harbinger Asylum, US based Kali Project of Indie Blu(e) Publishing etc. One of her poems on Women was shortlisted in a competition organized by the “Woman Inc.–Sakhi Annual Poetry Awards 2019”. She has been part of two projects of the World literature series on Post-modern voices and critical thought. She also writes articles on cinema that have appeared on websites and journals like Just-cinema, Daily Eye, The Free Press Journal, Boloji.com and The Artamour.

Tom Laughlin is a professor at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts where he teaches creative writing, literature, and composition courses, as well as coordinating a visiting writer series. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Ibbetson Street, Drunk Monkeys, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. His poetry chapbook, The Rest of the Way, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell’s career intertwines art, civic organizations, and politics. She served most recently as Interim Director of the Vermont Studio Center. Other positions include: Rock Point Legacy Minister for the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, President of Marlboro College, Founding Director of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, Deputy Assistant to the President and Advisor to the First Lady in the Clinton administration, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Chief of Staff to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Executive Director of the Vermont Arts Council. She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College and her book GONE was published in 2012 by Janus Press. Her poems have appeared most recently in JAMA and Green Mountains Review. She and her husband Chris live in Montpelier, VT.

Richard Merli has written hundreds of poems and sonnets. A cross-section of his poetry appeared in his first collection, The Light of Ancient Stars, published in 2020 by DPB in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is currently working on a second collection. Merli is also the author of a novel, The Animals, the story of the rise and fall of one of the British Invasion’s most iconic rock bands (“House of the Rising Sun”), to be published by Propertius Press in 2021. He is also the founder and editorial director of October Hill Magazine, a quarterly literary publication (www.octoberhillmagazine.com). Prior to launching his literary career, Merli spent more than 25 years as an investigative journalist and editor of two newspapers and a magazine. A number of his investigative articles exposed accidents, occupational illnesses and fatalities in industrial workplaces in the U.S. and Canada.

Frank C. Modica is a retired public school special education teacher living in Urbana, Illinois. He taught students with special needs for 34 years. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Heart Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, and The Tishman Review. His first chapbook is forthcoming from Alabaster Leaves Publishing.

Rich Murphy’s poetry has won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice Americana (2013) and The Left Behind (2021) and Gival Press Poetry Prize Voyeur (2008). “Space Craft” by Wipf and Stock will be out 2021. Books Prophet Voice Now, essays by Common Ground Research Network and Practitioner Joy, poetry by Wipf and Stock 2020. He has published eight other collections of poetry.

E. Martin Pedersen, originally from San Francisco, has lived for over 40 years in eastern Sicily where he taught English at the local university. His poetry appeared most recently in Blacktop Passages, Millennial Pulp, Scrittura, Albatross Review, and Harbinger Asylum. Martin is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. He has published two collections of haiku, Bitter Pills and Smart Pills and a chapbook, Exile’s Choice, just out from Kelsay Books. Martin blogs at: https://emartinpedersenwriter.blogspot.com

Paul Rabinowitz is an author, photographer and founder of ARTS By The People, a non-profit arts organization based in New Jersey. Rabinowitz’s photography, short fiction and poetry have appeared in many magazines and journals including New World Writing, Burningword, Sacramento Evening Press, The Metaworker, Adirondack Review, Bangalore Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Oddville Press and others. He was a featured artist in Nailed Magazine in 2020 and nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 for his Limited Light photo series. He is the author of Limited Light, a book of prose and portrait photography, and a novella, The Clay Urn. Rabinowitz is working on his novel Confluence, and a collection of prose poems called Love, Death and a Few Things In Between. His short stories, Little Gem Magnolia and Villa Dei Misteri are the inspiration for short films to be released in 2021. http://www.paulrabinowitz.com

Laura Ann Reed completed Masters’ Degree programs in the Performing Arts and Psychology, and was a dancer and dance instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area before working in the capacity of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco Headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, prior to the Trump Administration. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she currently resides with her husband in Western Washington.

Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray (Big Table Publishing, 2015), de/tonations, (Nixes Mate Press, 2020), and Momentary Turbulence (Cernvena Barva Press, 2020). WordinEdgeWise from Cerven Barva Press is forthcoming in 2021. Six times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and twice nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared, The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, Clockhouse, Miracle Monocle, Hunger Mountain, Sequestrum, Folio, Lunch Ticket, 45th Parallel, The Baltimore Review, Cultural Weekly, Into the Void, Right Hand Pointing, and other publications. His story “Desert Motel,” appears in Best Microfiction, 2019. Brad’s website is: www.bradrosepoetry.com Selected readings can be heard at http://bradrosepoetry.com/audio-readings/ A list of publications is available at: http://bradrosepoetry.com/2019/03/a-list-of-publications/

Karen Sandberg lives and writes in Minnesota. She has been published in MainStreet Rag, Grey Sparrow Journal, Vita Brevis, to name a few. Forthcoming in MidWest Quarterly and Clackamas Literary Journal.

Michael Salcman was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore. He lectures widely about art and the brain. Poems appear in Arts & Letters, The Café Review, Harvard Review, Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, New Letters, and Raritan. His work has received six nominations for a Pushcart Prize. Books include The Clock Made of Confetti (Orchises, 2007), nominated for The Poets’ Prize, The Enemy of Good is Better (Orchises, 2011), and Poetry in Medicine, his popular anthology of classic and contemporary poems on doctors, patients, illness & healing (Persea Books, 2015). A Prague Spring, Before & After (2016), won the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press. Shades & Graces: New Poems, (Spuyten Duyvil, New York, 2020), is the inaugural winner of The Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize. Salcman is a poetry editor at the Baltimore Review and consulting art editor at the Little Patuxent Review. Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press (2021).

Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Seyedbagheri’s work has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.

Daniel Sklar teaches creative writing and literature at Endicott College in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in the Harvard Review, New York Quarterly, and the English Journal, among others. His books include Hack Writer, Flying Cats, and Bicycle, Canoes, Drums. He rides a bicycle to work.

Diane Webster’s goal is to remain open to poetry ideas in everyday life, nature or an overheard phrase and to write. Webster enjoys the challenge of transforming images into words to fit her poems. She grew up in Eastern Oregon before she moved to Colorado. She enjoys drives in the mountains to view wildlife and scenery and takes amateur photographs. Her work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Old Red Kimono, Vita Brevis and other literary magazines.

Walter Weinschenk is an attorney, writer, and musician. Until a few years ago, he wrote short stories exclusively but now divides his time equally between poetry and prose. Weinschenk’s writing has appeared in a number of literary publications including the Carolina Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Gateway Review, The Closed Eye Open, The Writing Disorder, The Courtship of Winds, Beyond Words, Griffel and others. His work is due to appear in forthcoming issues of The Raw Art Review, Phantom Kangaroo and Iris Literary Journal. Weinschenk lives in a suburb just outside Washington, D. C.

Susan J. Wurtzburg, a retired academic, lives in Hawai‘i. She writes and runs her editing business (Sandy Dog Books LLC), in between water sports, hiking, and socializing online, while she waits for the pandemic to diminish. Wurtzburg’s poetry has appeared in the Hawai‘i Pacific Review, The Literary Nest, Poetry and Covid, Quince Magazine, and the Rat’s Ass Review. She belongs to the Rat’s Ass Review Writing Group.

NOTES FROM THE SPARROW

ROBERT BLY passed away at 94 years of age, Sunday, November 21, 2021. He was an icon in the poetry world. This brilliant poet will be remembered worldwide for Iron John: A Book About Men that launched the men’s movement worldwide along with global concerns such as the Vietnam War.

Bly often shared his love of the written word with Grey Sparrow. He helped launch the journal in its first year of inception, 2009, with his poem The Water Tank. He continued to share his work each year. I will personally remember him for his great kindness and ongoing support of Grey Sparrow.

Robert Bly is resting now in God’s loving arms. -Diane Smith, Founder and Editor of Grey Sparrow.

.***

Grey Sparrow’s National Treasure is the 2021 Pulitzer Prize Poet Natalie Diaz. Poet Diaz hails from Arizona, my home state. Her work conveys that ‘cancel culture’ concept from a unique perspective. Detail and nuance mark her writing with subtlety and grace. We have a photograph of her home of origin; Needles, California, along with several Mojave Desert panoramic views. And…the monsoons have arrived in Tucson…rain, beautiful rain, thunderous rain, lightening rain, flooding rain, and more…rain. Diane