CONTRIBUTORS

GREY SPARROWS NATIONAL TREASURE

“Sylvia Plath; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honor posthumously. ” Wikipedia

CONTRIBUTORS

Christopher Barnes worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which he read his poem On Brenkley St. The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science Centre at Newcastle’s Centre for Life.

Paul Bavister has published three collections of poetry with Two Rivers Press, , his latest being The Prawn Season. His work has appeared in a wide range of print and online magazines and journals, Including Oxford Poetry, The Rialto, and The North. His poem, “Starlings” came highly commended in the RSPB/Rialto poetry competition. He was the Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Reading and has taught at Birkbeck College, University of London and for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. He lives and works in Dorset, U.K. and is currently working on a new collection.

Byron Beynon lives in West Wales. Collections include The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions) and Where Shadows Stir (The Seventh Quarry Press). His work has also appeared in several anthologies including the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets) and Winter in America Again (Carbonation Press).

Paul Bavister has published three collections of poetry with Two Rivers Press, his latest being The Prawn Season. His work has appeared in a wide range of print and online magazines and journals, Including Oxford Poetry, The Rialto, and The North. His poem, “Starlings” came highly commended in the RSPB/Rialto poetry competition. He was the Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Reading and has taught at Birkbeck College, University of London and for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. He lives and works in Dorset, U.K. and is currently working on a new collection.

Maureen Clark is retired from the University of Utah where she taught writing. She was the president of Writers @ Work 1999-2001. Her poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Alaska Review, The Southeast Review, and Gettysburg Review. Her first book This Insatiable August will be out February 2024 from Signature Books.

John A. deSouza is the author of the chapbook Hidden (Bottlecap Press 2025). His book, Unimaginable Hardship, was short-listed for the Letter Review Prize (2024). The poem appearing in this issue is from his recently completed, unpublished collection, Concord Ave. Georgics. Other journals who have recently accepted poems from this work are Poetry Salzburg Review, In Parentheses Magazine, The Finishing Line/Paddock Review, Cactus Wren Review, and Neologism Poetry Journal. John’s work has appeared in numerous other journals. He lives with his wife, and their terrier, Mr. Darcy, in Jersey City, NJ.

Richard Dinges, Jr. works on his homestead beside a pond, surrounded by trees and grassland, with his wife, two dogs, two cats, and five chickens.  Toasted Cheese, Queen’s Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, North Dakota Quarterly, and Studio One most recently accepted his poems for their publications.

Stephen Druce is a poet from Shrewsbury in the U.K.

Mark Dunbar lives in Brookfield, Il. His work has appeared in Red Rock Review, Rogue Agent, Corvus Review, Bicoastal Review and the Ekphrastic Review, among others. He attended Kenyon College where he was the recipient of the American Academy of Poets Award. 

A recent octogenarian, Vern Fein, has published over 300 poems and short prose pieces in over 100 different sites. A few are: Gyroscope Review, Young Raven’s Review, Bindweed, *82 Review, River And South, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review .  His second poetry book—Reflection on Dots—was released late last year. 

Barry Green is retired and lives in Ashland, Virginia, where he writes poems and short fiction and works in his large garden and the woods that surround it

Jenny Hockey retired as Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Sheffield University, UK in 2009 to make more time for writing and reading poetry. Since 1985 her work has been appearing in magazines such as The North, Grey Sparrow Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Obsessed with Pipework, Toasted Cheese and Pennine Platform. In 2013 New Writing North awarded her a New Poets Bursary and in 2019 Oversteps Books published her collection, Going to bed with the moon (overstepsbooks.com, jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk). In 2024 her pamphlet, “Indefinite Leave to Roam” was longlisted in the Cinnamon Pamphlet Competition. She reviews regularly for Orbis poetry magazine and co-authored Family Life, Trauma and Loss in the Twentieth Century, a family memoir (https://www.familyhistoryandwar.com/).

Phil Huffy writes early and often at his kitchen table, casting a wide net as to form and substance.  His work has appeared in dozens of journals. He has published three volumes of his poems, including Magic Words, which is also available as an audiobook.

S.R. (Salvatore Richard) Inciardi was born in New York City and attended Brooklyn College and New York University. He was employed in the health care industry for over thirty-five years. Inciardi’s poetry has appeared in the United States and in Europe including Front Porch Review, SpillWords, The Font Literary Journal, Green Ink Poetry, Written Tales, and the Harrow Journal. He was a featured poet in SpillWords’ “Spotlight” segment and by Green Ink Poetry for their publication on “Kennings: Equinox Collection: Autumn” released on Amazon in October 2024. He was a contributor to Newsweek for their “My Turn Segment“ which appeared in September 2024.

What is there left to say about Marc Janssen, other than he should eat more vegetables? Maybe his verse can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Orbis, Pure Slush, Cirque Journal, Two Thirds North and Poetry Salzburg also in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry Festival and keeps getting nominated for Oregon Poet Laurate. For more information visit, marcjanssenpoet.com

Aryan Kaganof is editor and curator of the South African cultural journal herri (https://herri.org.za/10/)

Peycho Kanev is the author of 12 poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the United States and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. 

Paul Kindlon is a humanities professor, former actor, journalist, and musician.  He spent a lot of time abroad: 25 years in Moscow, Russia, and four months in China. Kindlon has 100 plus publications as a writer.

Maisie Kirn is a sometimes-writer and poet whose work is focused primarily on place, the changing West, and her girlhood in her home state of Montana.

Josef Krebs has a chapbook published by Etched Press and his poetry also appears in 84 issues of 39 different magazines, including Packingtown Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Tacenda, The Bohemian, Free State Review, and DASH Literary Journal. A short story has been published in blazeVOX. He’s written three novels and five screenplays. His film was successfully screened at Santa Cruz and Short Film Corner of Cannes film festivals. 

Louis Kummerer is a technical writer working and living in Phoenix, Arizona. His work has been published in New Delta Review, 10×10 Flash, Yellow Mama, CaféLit, Bright Flash Literary Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bristol Noir, The Chamber Magazine, Friday Flash Fiction, and 101 Words. A collection of his work appears at louk247-f iction.com

Blake Leland has published poetry in Epoch, The New Yorker, Commonweal, Atlanta Review, Indiana Review, Thomas Hardy Review, Canopic Jar, The Art Section, Poetry International (online) et al. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. In 2013 he co-authored a selection of occasional poems: On Occasion: Four Poets, One Year.  

T.J. Masluk’s poems appear in The Columbia Review, Wisconsin Review, Xavier Review, New Contrast, Poetry Scotland, Orbis, The Hong Kong Review, Modern Literature, Adelaide Literary Magazine, in various anthologies, and elsewhere. From Pennsylvania, he has master’s degrees from Columbia University, a Ph.D. from Sofia University, and read creative nonfiction at the University of Oxford. Details: https://nyq.org/poets/poet/tj-masluk

Joshua Meander is from Forest Hills, N.Y.  His poems are romantic in spirit with a touch of drama.

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. More than seventy of her poems have been published in magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. Menon was a finalist for the “Willow Run Poetry Book Award” 2023/2024. Her latest poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Tipton Poetry Journal, Adanna Literary Journal, Arlington Poetry Journal, and A Plate of Pandemic. She is also a fiction writer whose latest stories have appeared in Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Hong Kong Review, and Armstrong Literary.

Richard Milne is a former newspaper reporter, speech writer, and communications consultant living on Whidbey Island in the state of Washington, USA.  He is a graduate of Western Washington University with a degree in journalism, and is also an avid gardener, fisherman and photographer.

Jesse Mountjoy is a tax attorney in Western Kentucky, and has published work in the Louisville Review, the Southern Indiana Review, Flint House Review, Adena, Sow’s Ear Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse and Open 24 Hours.

Heidi Naylor is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has lived in Idaho since 1990. She writes and teaches in Boise. Her story collection, Revolver, appeared in 2018, and her poetry collection, February Light, will be published soon; both books from BCC Press. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and received a Fellowship in Literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Find her at heidinaylor.net

Massimiliano Nastri grew up in a German-speaking village, in the Italian Alps, and was born in the South of Italy. He served as Lecturer at Queen’s University where, as a TA, he endlessly revised a book about the interwar collapse of center-right parties and the rise of fascism. Nastri said, “I am also guilty of an unpublished political novel, and of writing a second, to be equally unpublished. I keep going back to the works of Zbigniew Herbert, Vittorio Sereni, and Ingeborg Bachmann, how they witnessed and tried to resist history. Works have been on The Honest Ulsterman, Cyphers, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Ekphrastic Review, Southword, Magma and Grey Sparrow Journal.

Genevieve Pfeiffer is a Ph.D. Candidate enrolled in the Environmental Science, Studies, and Policy at the University of Oregon. They hold a Masters in interdisciplinary studies from New York University, and an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Their manuscript was a finalist for the “Baltic Writing Residency Chapbook” contest as well as “Tupelo Snowbound Chapbook” Award. You can find more of their work in Scientific American, Canary, Salamander, About Place, Juked, and others. Their Substack, exploring Animal Communication and AI, will launch this August. When they’re not in mountains of books, you can find them climbing actual mountains.

Ken Poyner’s four collections of brief fictions, four collections of speculative poetry, and one mixed media collection, can be found at most online booksellers.  He spent 33 years in information systems management, is married to a world-record holding female power lifter, and has a family of several cats and Betta fish.  Individual works have appeared in Café Irreal, Analog, Danse Macabre, The Cincinnati Review, and several hundred other places. Find out more at: www.kpoyner.com

Tony Press writes fiction when he has questions and poems when he thinks he has answers: thus, mostly fiction. His story collection, Crossing the Lines, was printed by Big Table, and an e-chapbook of his poems by Right Hand Pointing. He claims—remember, he writes fiction—25 criminal jury trials, 12 years in the same high school classroom, and over 150 publications of fiction, poetry, and a few non-fiction pieces. He enjoys the San Francisco Bay from his porch and knows how fortunate he is. And he cherishes hot chocolate, too, whether in Bristol, England, or Oaxaca, Mexico, or Brisbane, California.

Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator. He began to send his work to publications when he was in his mid-70s.  His poems have appeared in various journals in the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, India, and Canada. Recently he was named the “Citizen of the Year” in the village where he resides in recognition of his ongoing efforts to distribute books to all members of the community.

Jason Ryberg is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His work has appeared in As it Ought to Be, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Thimble Literary Magazine, I-70 Review, Main Street Rag, The Arkansas Review and various other journals and anthologies. His latest collection of poems is Bullet Holes in the Mailbox (Cigarette Burns in the Sheets) Back of the Class Press, 2024. He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters. 

Mykyta Ryzhykh  is an author from Ukraine, now living in Tromsø, Norway. He was nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2023 and 2024. Ryzhykh has published many times in literary magazines іn Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal and others

Terry Savoie’s poetry has been included in more than two hundred literary journals and anthologies over the past four decades such as APR, Poetry (Chicago), Ploughshares, North American Review, Sonora Review, American Journal of Poetry and The Iowa Review as well as in recent numbers of North Dakota Quarterly, One, America, Tar River Poetry among others. 

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review 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.

Dr. Roger G. Singer is a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Connecticut, and past president of the Connecticut Shoreline Poetry Chapter, in association with the Connecticut Poetry Society.   He has had over 1,600 poems published on the internet, magazines and in books and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee.   

Thomas R. Smith is a poet, editor, essayist, and teacher living in western Wisconsin.  His most recent books are Medicine Year (poetry) from Paris Morning Publications and Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (prose) from Red Dragonfly Press. He was Robert Bly’s personal assistant for over thirty years and has edited three books about Bly.  He has edited a collection of Bly’s essays on poetry and the writing life, some of them never before seen by the public, called The Garden Entrusted to Me, to be published next year by White Pine Press.  

D.W. Stojek is a poet and photographer.

David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Friday Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, R U Joking, Entropy Squared, Every Writer, and Rue Scribe. 

Jim Tilley has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in the fall of 2026.

James Fleet Underwood writes from a memory-shaped American Midwest, often drawing on the working-class scenes and family mythology of his youth. His poems trace the emotional geometry between people and landscapes, focusing on themes of departure, nostalgia, and quiet resilience. His recent work explores the interplay of natural imagery, personal history, and understated surrealism. Underwood teaches English abroad and spends quiet days walking with his dogs, drafting poems on scrap paper or in his head. You can find more of his work at X: @jamesfleetpoems and Substack: @jamesfleetpoems.  

Sharon Venezio is the author of The Silence of Doorways (March 2013, Moon Tide Press). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including the New York Quarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, Wide Awake, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript about dementia.

Until recently, Richard Weaver has been the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore. He has flipped coastlines. Some of his other pubs Include: OffCourse, Misfit Mag, Granfalloon, Burningword LJ, Slippery Elm, Loch Raven review, Spank the carp, and Magnolia Review. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, “Of Sea and Stars” (2005). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review (BWR) and its poetry editor for the first four years. He’s pleased the BWR is now 50 years old. Recently, his 220th prose poem was accepted.