Contributors - Summer 2013
POETS
Amber Atiya, a queer poet and native Brooklynite, has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, the Museum of Modern Art, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Tribes Magazine, and Drunken Boat. She is a 2012 Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow and member of a women’s writing group celebrating 11 years and counting.
Cameron Awkward-Rich is a student and writer based in the bay area. In 2012, his rookie year, he represented bay area venues at the National Poetry Slam, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Cameron's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Revolution House, The Polari Journal, Aim for the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry, among other places. Usually, Cameron appears on the train somewhere between his home in Oakland and Stanford University, where he is pursuing a PhD from the program in Modern Thought and Literature.
Aziza Barnes is 20-year-old brown woman poet from Los Angeles. Her chapbook, me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun is published through Button Poetry: http://buttonpoetry.com/product/me-aunt-jemima-and-the-nailgun/. She is a senior at NYU.
Joshua Bennett is a third-year doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, Callaloo Fellow, budding essayist, and, as of this summer, teacher of 8th grade Composition. His poetry has either been published, or is forthcoming, in Drunken Boat, Poetry Northeast, Wasafiri, Disability Studies Quarterly, Clarion and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Joshua has recited his original work at venues such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.
Megan Falley is a full-time writer and teaching artist based in NYC. In 2012, her first collection of poetry, After the Witch Hunt, was published by Write Bloody Press. She was recently featured on TV One's Verses & Flow, a television show dedicated to showcasing the best in music and spoken word. In 2012 she represented New York at the National Poetry Slam as part of the legendary LouderArts Team. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rattling Wall, Muzzle, Vinyl, PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, decomP, >kill author, The Literary Bohemian and more. Megan is available for performances, hosting, and workshops for all ages. For booking please contact [email protected].
Karen Finneyfrock's debut young adult novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door, was published by Viking Children’s Books in 2013. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released on Write Bloody Press in 2010. She is a former Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program.
Jennifer Hanks will be an MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans beginning Fall 2013. Her work has been previously published in journals such as Foxing Quarterly, (Almost) Five Quarterly, Softblow Poetry Journal, and Glitterpony. She currently lives in New Orleans, LA, where she spends her evenings writing about the apocalypse.
Arian Katsimbras is an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech and earned his BA from the University of Nevada-Reno where he studied creative writing. He has served as Poetry Editor for the minnesota review, Assistant Editor for The Brushfire, has been a recipient of the DQ Poetry Award and the Surprise Valley Writer’s Conference Scholarship, and served as a Nevada Poetry Out Loud Competition judge in 2012. He has had poetry published or forthcoming in The Meadow and THRUSH, and is a contributing writer for Nevada Humanities.
Marie-Elizabeth Mali is the author of Steady, My Gaze (Tebot Bach, 2011) and co-editor with Annie Finch of the anthology, Villanelles (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 2012). She formerly co-curated louderARTS: the Reading Series and the Page Meets Stage reading series, both in New York City. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Poet Lore, and RATTLE, among others. She can be found online at www.memali.com.
Lucian Mattison is currently enrolled in the creative writing MFA program at Old Dominion University and he edits poetry for Green Briar Review. His poems can be found in Barely South Review, Digital Americana, Fat City Review, Literary Juice, and Whurk. He can be reached at [email protected].
Hieu Minh Nguyen is a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has represented both of the National Twin Cities poetry slam teams, He has coached youth, and collegiate slam teams in the Twin Cities, and his work has also been featured in publications such as The Legendary, decomP Magazine, and PANK. He also works at a haberdashery.
Amber Rambharose is a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati and an Assistant Editor at YesYes Books. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, Jersey Devil Press, and Weave Magazine, among others.
Michael Schmeltzer earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. His honors include numerous Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. He has been a finalist for the Four Way Books Intro Prize and Levis Prize, the OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry, and a semi-finalist for the Zone 3 Press First Book Prize and Miller Williams Arkansas Prize. He helps edit A River & Sound Review (www.riverandsoundreview.org) and has been published in Natural Bridge, Mid-American Review, New York Quarterly, and Water~Stone Review, among many others.
Amber Atiya, a queer poet and native Brooklynite, has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, the Museum of Modern Art, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Tribes Magazine, and Drunken Boat. She is a 2012 Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow and member of a women’s writing group celebrating 11 years and counting.
Cameron Awkward-Rich is a student and writer based in the bay area. In 2012, his rookie year, he represented bay area venues at the National Poetry Slam, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Cameron's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Revolution House, The Polari Journal, Aim for the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry, among other places. Usually, Cameron appears on the train somewhere between his home in Oakland and Stanford University, where he is pursuing a PhD from the program in Modern Thought and Literature.
Aziza Barnes is 20-year-old brown woman poet from Los Angeles. Her chapbook, me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun is published through Button Poetry: http://buttonpoetry.com/product/me-aunt-jemima-and-the-nailgun/. She is a senior at NYU.
Joshua Bennett is a third-year doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, Callaloo Fellow, budding essayist, and, as of this summer, teacher of 8th grade Composition. His poetry has either been published, or is forthcoming, in Drunken Boat, Poetry Northeast, Wasafiri, Disability Studies Quarterly, Clarion and The Brooklyn Quarterly. Joshua has recited his original work at venues such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.
Megan Falley is a full-time writer and teaching artist based in NYC. In 2012, her first collection of poetry, After the Witch Hunt, was published by Write Bloody Press. She was recently featured on TV One's Verses & Flow, a television show dedicated to showcasing the best in music and spoken word. In 2012 she represented New York at the National Poetry Slam as part of the legendary LouderArts Team. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rattling Wall, Muzzle, Vinyl, PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, decomP, >kill author, The Literary Bohemian and more. Megan is available for performances, hosting, and workshops for all ages. For booking please contact [email protected].
Karen Finneyfrock's debut young adult novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door, was published by Viking Children’s Books in 2013. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released on Write Bloody Press in 2010. She is a former Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program.
Jennifer Hanks will be an MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans beginning Fall 2013. Her work has been previously published in journals such as Foxing Quarterly, (Almost) Five Quarterly, Softblow Poetry Journal, and Glitterpony. She currently lives in New Orleans, LA, where she spends her evenings writing about the apocalypse.
Arian Katsimbras is an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech and earned his BA from the University of Nevada-Reno where he studied creative writing. He has served as Poetry Editor for the minnesota review, Assistant Editor for The Brushfire, has been a recipient of the DQ Poetry Award and the Surprise Valley Writer’s Conference Scholarship, and served as a Nevada Poetry Out Loud Competition judge in 2012. He has had poetry published or forthcoming in The Meadow and THRUSH, and is a contributing writer for Nevada Humanities.
Marie-Elizabeth Mali is the author of Steady, My Gaze (Tebot Bach, 2011) and co-editor with Annie Finch of the anthology, Villanelles (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 2012). She formerly co-curated louderARTS: the Reading Series and the Page Meets Stage reading series, both in New York City. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Poet Lore, and RATTLE, among others. She can be found online at www.memali.com.
Lucian Mattison is currently enrolled in the creative writing MFA program at Old Dominion University and he edits poetry for Green Briar Review. His poems can be found in Barely South Review, Digital Americana, Fat City Review, Literary Juice, and Whurk. He can be reached at [email protected].
Hieu Minh Nguyen is a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has represented both of the National Twin Cities poetry slam teams, He has coached youth, and collegiate slam teams in the Twin Cities, and his work has also been featured in publications such as The Legendary, decomP Magazine, and PANK. He also works at a haberdashery.
Amber Rambharose is a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati and an Assistant Editor at YesYes Books. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, Jersey Devil Press, and Weave Magazine, among others.
Michael Schmeltzer earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. His honors include numerous Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. He has been a finalist for the Four Way Books Intro Prize and Levis Prize, the OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry, and a semi-finalist for the Zone 3 Press First Book Prize and Miller Williams Arkansas Prize. He helps edit A River & Sound Review (www.riverandsoundreview.org) and has been published in Natural Bridge, Mid-American Review, New York Quarterly, and Water~Stone Review, among many others.
VISUAL ARTISTS
A. M. Brand is a poet and visual artist living in Denver who spends the bulk of her time listening to Soul Train albums and eating unreasonable amounts of candy. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her visual art has appeared in Ginger Piglet, and her poetry has appeared in PANK and Diagram.
Michael Deragon is an interdisciplinary artist working with collage, film, field recordings poetry, and music in an exhausting attempt to find something static in the process of following every idea to its tarnished completion. Deragon holds an Interschool MFA in Experimental Sound and Poetry from Calarts. He puts his words in magazines, his sounds onto films, and teaches Creative Writing and Film History on the slide of Echo Park California. Sound/Film work appears: SoundCloud, ReverbNation, Vimeo, and YouTube.
Molly Herman lives and paints in New York City and teaches at Parsons School of Design. Molly has exhibited in New York and internationally since 1995. Her paintings are part of numerous private and corporate collections. Her work draws inspiration from nature, process, pattern and tapestry. She has recently exhibited at The National Arts Club, Bowery Gallery and Seton Hall University Gallery. Molly Herman’s paintings are represented by Amy Simon Fine Art. More works by Molly can be viewed at www.mollyherman.com.
K. Carlton Johnson has had many art works and photos in various journals, both print and online, and lives on the banks of Lake Superior in Northern Michigan.
JJ Lynne is a recent graduate of Merrimack College. Her poems have won first and second prizes in the annual Rev. John R. Aherne Poetry Contest and her writing and photography have recently appeared in Treehouse Magazine and Green Briar Review. JJ works as a library assistant who spends her time bandaging paper cuts and scribbling micropoems on the backs of due date slips.
Carisa Mitchell grew up in Rockford, IL and lived in Chicago for almost ten years; now she lives in Eugene, OR. She makes photo-based art that is a cohesive look at the boundaries between family, identity, and history. She embraces themes surrounding memory and remembrance that cross the line between fine arts and documentary photography. Carisa graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009 with a BFA in Photography. Since graduating UIC she spent a year (2009-2010) working as a photography teaching assistant at Studio Art Centers International - SACI in Florence, Italy and was an artist-in-residence (2011-2012) at Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL.
South African born artist Janet Slom creates powerful images that reverberate with the rhythms of nature and life, and explore the dance of opposing forces. Janet studied at the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), Massachusetts College of Art, MFA (Boston, MA). She has taught extensively and is currently on the faculty of Lehigh University's Iacocca Institute. www.janetslom.com
Aaron Wooten began to paint in a small studio apartment in NYC. He then moved to Ohio and then his current home of Chicago, where he has further developed his style. He paints figures, portraits, cityscapes, and political cartoons. You can view more at aaronrwooten.com.
A. M. Brand is a poet and visual artist living in Denver who spends the bulk of her time listening to Soul Train albums and eating unreasonable amounts of candy. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her visual art has appeared in Ginger Piglet, and her poetry has appeared in PANK and Diagram.
Michael Deragon is an interdisciplinary artist working with collage, film, field recordings poetry, and music in an exhausting attempt to find something static in the process of following every idea to its tarnished completion. Deragon holds an Interschool MFA in Experimental Sound and Poetry from Calarts. He puts his words in magazines, his sounds onto films, and teaches Creative Writing and Film History on the slide of Echo Park California. Sound/Film work appears: SoundCloud, ReverbNation, Vimeo, and YouTube.
Molly Herman lives and paints in New York City and teaches at Parsons School of Design. Molly has exhibited in New York and internationally since 1995. Her paintings are part of numerous private and corporate collections. Her work draws inspiration from nature, process, pattern and tapestry. She has recently exhibited at The National Arts Club, Bowery Gallery and Seton Hall University Gallery. Molly Herman’s paintings are represented by Amy Simon Fine Art. More works by Molly can be viewed at www.mollyherman.com.
K. Carlton Johnson has had many art works and photos in various journals, both print and online, and lives on the banks of Lake Superior in Northern Michigan.
JJ Lynne is a recent graduate of Merrimack College. Her poems have won first and second prizes in the annual Rev. John R. Aherne Poetry Contest and her writing and photography have recently appeared in Treehouse Magazine and Green Briar Review. JJ works as a library assistant who spends her time bandaging paper cuts and scribbling micropoems on the backs of due date slips.
Carisa Mitchell grew up in Rockford, IL and lived in Chicago for almost ten years; now she lives in Eugene, OR. She makes photo-based art that is a cohesive look at the boundaries between family, identity, and history. She embraces themes surrounding memory and remembrance that cross the line between fine arts and documentary photography. Carisa graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009 with a BFA in Photography. Since graduating UIC she spent a year (2009-2010) working as a photography teaching assistant at Studio Art Centers International - SACI in Florence, Italy and was an artist-in-residence (2011-2012) at Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL.
South African born artist Janet Slom creates powerful images that reverberate with the rhythms of nature and life, and explore the dance of opposing forces. Janet studied at the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), Massachusetts College of Art, MFA (Boston, MA). She has taught extensively and is currently on the faculty of Lehigh University's Iacocca Institute. www.janetslom.com
Aaron Wooten began to paint in a small studio apartment in NYC. He then moved to Ohio and then his current home of Chicago, where he has further developed his style. He paints figures, portraits, cityscapes, and political cartoons. You can view more at aaronrwooten.com.