Our National Treasure
Detroit native Tyehimba Jess’s first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.” Olio, his second collection, was published by Wave Books in April 2016. Jess, a Cave Canem and NYU alumnus, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a 2004-2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Jess is also a veteran of the 2000 and 2001 Green Mill Poetry Slam Team, and won a 2000 – 2001 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a 2006 Whiting Fellowship. He exhibited his poetry at the 2011 TEDxNashville Conference. Jess is an Associate Professor of English at the College of Staten Island.
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Robert Baldwin is a performing musician and a music professor at the University of Utah, Music Director for the Salt Lake Symphony, and the founding conductor for Sinfonia Salt Lake, a professional chamber orchestra that debuted in 2015. He has appeared across the United States, Europe and Asia, as a conductor and performer on viola and viola d’amore. His performances have received international attention and have been featured on New York’s WQXR Classical Radio, and nationally syndicated public radio programs such as Performance Today, Highway 89 and Weekend Edition. In his spare time, he enjoys writing, reading and spending time outdoors in Utah’s wild places. His writing includes published works on music; he also writes poetry, fiction and philosophy. His award-winning blog on classical music and creativity, Before the Downbeat, can be found at: beforethedownbeat.wordpress.com
Christopher Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award (1998). In July of 2000, he read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology Titles Are Bitches. Christmas 2001, he debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower with readings of his poems. Each year he’s read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and has partaken in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of Barnes first collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
Hem Raj Bastola (Raju) is an inhabitant of Pokhara lekhnath metropolitan-22 in western Nepal. Father of two kids, by profession, he is a freelance tourist guide and part time farmer. He has worked as a customer service representative for Global shipping and logistics, guest service agent at Hotel Pokhara Grande and an office assistant at Gupteshwor Mahadev cave. He has a passion for poetry, a leading hobby for him. He loves nature to live an organic life.
Daniel Bourne’s books of poetry include The Household Gods, Where No One Spoke the Language, and a collection of translations by Polish political poet Tomasz Jastrun, On the Crossroads of Asia and Europe. He teaches in English and Environmental Studies at The College of Wooster in NE Ohio, where he edits Artful Dodge. His poems have appeared previously in Grey Sparrow Journal as well as in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Guernica, Field, Salmagundi, Prairie Schooner and Plume, and are forthcoming in Yale Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Lake Effect, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Canary, and Weber: The Contemporary West. Since 1980 he has lived in Poland off and on, including from July 2013 through January 2014 working on collaborative projects with Polish poets and visual artists involving the environment as well as back in 1985-87 on a Fulbright fellowship for the translation of younger Polish poets. Visit his web-site at https://danielbourneblog.wordpress.com/
LB Chhetri: childhood and early schooling in India. In Defense Services for 18 years (1967-1985) before coming to the education sector. Completed graduation while in Indian Army before joining Patna University to complete Post Graduation. Became Assistant Lecturer in 1987 and retired as Associate Professor. Served as a Campus Chief for four years at a TU Campus. Interested in literary activities and joined Kavidada Literary Society of Chitwan becoming its President in 2006. Started a literary magazine in 2010 from hometown and still working as Chief Editor at Charaiveti Literary Quarterly. Have presented paper in SAARK Literary Festival, Delhi 2016 and SAARK Sufi literary festival, Jaipur 2017. One poetry collection, “The Lost Man in a Crowd” and two story collections “In the country of Trishanku” and “In the country of Indramaya” are published so for. Loves visiting different parts of the world and have so for visited America, The United Kingdom, Australia, European and a few Aisan countries. Member and Chief Advisor, International Nepali Literary Society Perth Chapter.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.
Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Former People, The Main Street Rag, Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and Danse Macabre.
William Fabrycki is a retired art history professor and artist, as well as an actor and director and a much published poet. He also has a degree in screen writing.
Nigel Ford was born at Abingdon air base UK. He writes for joy and with a lack of consideration for readers. Ford uses both visual and written art forms. Jobs include reporter, travel writer, English teacher, and copywriter. He helped with Brighton Fringe for a while. Four stories are included in The Penniless Press anthology “Howling Brits” (designed the cover). Story collection “One Dog Barking” ( designed the cover) published by Worldscribe Press in 2011. Available on Kindle. Contributes regularly to The Crazy Oik magazine. Other work has appeared in Outposts, Encounter, New Spokes, Inkshed, The Crazy Oik, Weyfarers, Acumen, Critical Quarterly, Staple, T.O.P.S, The North, Foolscap, Iota, Poetry Nottingham, Tears in the Fence, etc. Ford is producing and directing a stage play in Göteborg.
TS Hidalgo (45) holds a BBA (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), a MBA (IE Business School), a MA in Creative Writing (Hotel Kafka) and a Certificate in Management and the Arts (New York University). His works have been published in magazines in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Germany, UK, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, India and Australia, and he has been the winner of prizes like the Criaturas feroces (Editorial Destino) in short story and a finalist at Festival Eñe in the novel category. He has currently developed his career in finance and stock market.
Rob Hunter’s collection of poems, September Swim, was published by Spoon River Poetry Press. His poems have appeared in Poet Lore, The Oddville Press, Timberline Review, Sleet, Wild Violet, Straight Forward Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, The Blueline Anthology, and others. In 2013 he was a featured writer at Hartwick College’s New American Writers Festival. In 2012 he was an editor of Birchsong, an Anthology of Vermont Poetry. He has been teaching high school English since 1991.
Jeremiah Jenkins is a graduate of the University of Montana’s creative writing program and a twenty-three year old Quebecois currently residing in the San Bernardino mountains of Southern California. When not writing or watering his ficus he teaches archery and outdoor skills to children. He loves traveling–to the forgotten assembly towns of rural America, especially–and considers his work a platelet in Richard Hugo’s vein of “Triggering Towns,” finding his most fluid inspiration rooted in a strong sense of place. Address: PO Box 299, Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352
J.H. Johns “grew up and came of age” while living in East Tennessee and Middle Georgia. Specifically, the two places “responsible” for the writer that he has become are Knoxville, Tennessee and Milledgeville, Georgia. Since then, he has moved on to Chicago-for a brief stint-and New York City-for a significantly longer stay. Currently, he is “holed up” in a small town where when he is not writing, he tends to his “nature preserve” and his “back forty.” His goal is to surround his house with all sorts of vegetation so as to obscure it from the gaze of the “locals.” He is assisted in this task by his coonhound buddy and companion, Roma.
Judy Katz-Levine, as noted from her website, is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Ocarina” (Tarsier/SARU 2006) and When The Arms Of Our Dreams Embrace (SARU 1991). Her most recent chapbook is When Performers Swim, The Dice Are Cast (Ahadada, 2009). Other chapbooks include The Umpire, And Other Masks (Five Trees Press- still available to collectors), Carpenter, Tending, and Speaking With Deaf-Blind Children. Cervena Barva Press will publish her new collection of poetry, There Are Those Of Us Who Are Close By. Recent work has appeared in Salamander, Ibbetson Street, Springhouse Journal, Gravel, Kritya” (India), Allegro Poetry(UK), First Literary Review-East, Stanzaic Stylings, Ygdrasil, and Muddy River Poetry Review. You can find a listing of all her published books by visiting her author page at AMAZON. Katz-Levine is also a jazz flutist who performs occasionally and writes jazz tunes and Jewish spiritual melodies. Her work in musical improvisation informs her poetry. She gives readings in the Boston area.
Arlyn LaBelle is a writer and legal assistant living in Austin, Texas. She has been writing poetry and short fiction since the age of 13, and is particularly inspired by gender, lyricism and evocative imagery. As a child, her poems featured multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies and her short fiction earned her third place in the New Jersey Writing Project. Her recent work has appeared in Words Work, Persona, The Missing Slate, The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz and Southern Poetry Review. She performs her pieces in various locations throughout Austin, Texas.
John C. Mannone has over 550 works published in venues such as Gyroscope Review, New England Journal of Medicine, Inscape Literary Journal, Windhover, Baltimore Review. He’s been awarded a 2016 Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities writing residency and has two literary poetry collections, including one on disability, Disabled Monsters (The Linnet’s Wings Press, Dec 2015) featured at the 28th Southern Festival of Books. He edits poetry for Silver Blade and Abyss & Apex and he’s a college professor of physics in east Tennessee. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart three times. Visit http://jcmannone.wordpress.com
K.G. Newman is a sports writer for The Denver Post. His first two poetry collections, While Dreaming of Diamonds in Wintertime and Selfish Never Get Their Own, are available on Amazon. He is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP
Diana Y. Paul is a printmaker and novelist. A former Stanford professor in Buddhism, she is greatly influenced by the concept of karma. Her mixed-media prints have been exhibited in California, Hawaii, and Japan. Her debut novel, Things Unsaid, has been a 2016 USA Best Book Awards Finalist for Best New Fiction and for Best Literary Fiction, 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards Winner, Readers Favorite Silver Award Winner for Best Drama and listed as #2 on Brit.co’s “14 Books about Families Crazier than Yours.”
Her second novel, a romantic comedy about online dating, tentatively titled “A Perfect Match.” is pending publication. She is currently writing a mystery about a cold case, “Deeds Undone.”. Her websites are: www.unhealedwound.com (for posts on art, movies, and lifestyle) and www.dianaypaul.com for selected articles and excerpts from Things Unsaid. Stop by and visit her on Twitter @DianaPaul10 or on Instagram @DianaPaul10 and @DianaPaul4675
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly and Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and interviews have appeared in literary journals internationally, including Nimrod, Florida English Journal, Cream City Review, Mandala Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Poetry Quarterly, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and Boston Poetry Magazine. He has published a travel book, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems.
Deborah Saltman is a physician and re-emerging poet living across the hemispheres and the Atlantic currently enjoying her London landing. Her work has appeared in Poetica, Off the Coast, and four in BLAZEVOX. After twenty years of scientific writing she”s enjoying her return to her calling.
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, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Scott is the author of Waiting to be Called and the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Bhima Upreti is a well-known Nepali poet and essay writer. Eight books of poems and nine books of essays have been published. His works have been translated into English, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Serbian, Slovenian and Tamil appearing in various International journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is the recipient of the first prize of the National Poetry Competition organized by Nepal Academy of Literature ad Arts in 1994. He is also the recipient of the GTZ Writing Fellowship for preparing his book Tinau River and the Old Tree. Upreti has performed solo poetry readings in various cities of Nepal. He lives in Kathmandu with his family.
J.R. Walsh was born in Syracuse, NY and lives in Boise, Idaho. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University, where he now teaches English as a Second Language. He is the winner of the 2009 Esquire Fiction Contest. His writing is also found in Out of Stock, Juked, Alba, The Rumpus, Alice Blue, and B O D Y.
John Sibley Williams is the editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies and the author of nine collections, including Disinheritance and Controlled Hallucinations. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, 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.
Lee Woodman’s essays and poems have been published in Zocalo Public Square, “What it Means to be American,” Tiferet Journal, and are forthcoming in New Guard Review and Vox Poetica. A longtime writer, her radio and film awards include five CINEs, two NY International Film Blue Ribbons, and three Gracies from American Women in Radio and Television. Lee grew up in France and India, where she developed a lifelong passion for the arts. A world citizen, her poems explore universal themes of home and identity. Her url is at: http://www.poetleewoodman.com
Grey Sparrow Journal 