Contributors - Fall 2014
POETS
Jason Bayani is the author of Amulet from Write Bloody Press. He's an MFA grad from Saint Mary's College, a Kundiman fellow, and a longtime veteran of the National Poetry Slam Scene. He's currently the program manager for Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco and continues to perform regularly.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and is a Canto Mundo fellow, a Zell post-graduate fellow and the first undocumented student to graduate from the University of Michigan’s MFA program. He’s a Pushcart nominee and has received fellowships to attend the Squaw Valley Writer’s Workshop, The Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent work can be found in Jubilat, New England Review, The Paris American, and Buzzfeed, among others.
Tarfia Faizullah is the Pushcart Prize winning author of Seam (SIU, 2014), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems appear inAmerican Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, jubilat, Oxford American, New England Review, Best New Poets 2013, Poetry Daily, and have been anthologized in Excuse This Poem: 100 Poems for the Next Generation, The Book of Scented Things, and Poems of Devotion. Honors include scholarships and fellowships from Kundiman, the Fulbright Foundation, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Vermont Studio Center. She is the Nicholas Delbanco Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program and co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press with Jamaal May.
Nicole Homer is a educator and nerd who currently lives in New Jersey where she bakes carrot cakes and counts deer (dead and alive) on her way to work. http://nicolehomer.com/
Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan lives in Chicago where she works hard at many different things. Her work has recently appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, After Hours, and Compose. Her chapbook, Cigarette Love Songs and Nicotine Kisses was published by Cross+Roads Press.
Carly Joy Miller is a SoCal native through and through. She is an assistant managing editor for the Los Angeles Review, a contributing editor for Poetry International, and a founding editor of Locked Horn Press. She is also the co-curator of the reading series, The Brewyard. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Third Coast, Vinyl, Linebreak, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Ciara Miller, a native of Chicago, is a poetry MFA candidate and an African American/African Diaspora Studies MA candidate at Indiana University. She has published academic essays and poems in such collections and periodicals as Callaloo, SLC Review, Alice Walker: Critical Insights, PLUCK, Chorus, Toegood Poetry, Cave Canem Anthology XII, African American Review, and Blackberry Magazine.
Matthew Olzmann’s first book of poems, Mezzanines, received the 2011 Kundiman Prize and was published by Alice James Books. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in New England Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing in the undergraduate writing program at Warren Wilson College. (matthewolzmann.com)
Megan Peak is a graduate student in The Ohio State University's MFA Program in Poetry. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in A cappella Zoo, Banango Street, The Boiler Journal, DIAGRAM, Four Way Review, North American Review, PANK, The Pinch, Pleiades, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and Tupelo Quarterly.
Justin Phillip Reed is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. His poetry appears in Anti-, Rattle, and Connotation Press, and is forthcoming in Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color. YesYes Books will release his first chapbook, A History of Flamboyance, in 2015. He hails from Florence, South Carolina.
Jayson Smith is a writer & choreographer hailing from the Bronx, NY. His work is published/forthcoming in various journals & anthologies, including Kinfolks Quarterly, boundary2: an international journal of literature and culture, and FreezeRay Press. Jayson facilitates a weekly writing workshop with the LouderARTS project in Manhattan, & is on staff for Union Station Magazine. Find him on Twitter to talk Beyoncé & poems & other, less important things.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Jess X. Chen is a Chinese American multi-disciplinary poet, artist, and filmmaker, and the author of chapbook, From the Earthworm To The Night. Her work intimately extricates narratives of colonial trauma, sexuality, ecological collapse and Asian-American diaspora to build a new language toward social and eco-feminist justice. She is a member of Justseeds, an international collective of socially-engaged artists. Her work has been featured and screened nationally at: Asian American International Film Festival, The Wingluke Museum, The New York Times, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and more. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and currently is working on writing and directing her first feature film under the production house, LoveHoldLetGo. You can find more of her work at www.jessxchen.com.
Allison Kennedy is a hybrid poet and visual artist from Ann Arbor, Michigan, raised on open mics, and sustained by good poets that are even better people. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and facilitates creative writing workshops at a probation facility. She likes to look out windows, put poems in space, and make too many copies of poems before writing workshops.
Shane Watt is a contemporary artist based in Montreal, Canada. Best known for his semi-fictitious, multi-media maps, Watt has exhibited both locally and internationally, and his work has been featured in online and print publications. In 2010, he was selected as a contributing artist for the high-profile exhibition, “You are here: Mapping the Psychogeography of New York City,” curated by Katharine Harmon at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan and in 2013, produced two outdoor murals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In addition to exhibiting,Watt regularly completes uniquely designed commissions and his work is included in gallery and private collections throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Dubai. Recently, one of Watt’s pieces made it onto a list compiled by The Guardian (UK) of the top-ten hand-drawn maps by contemporary artists. This current exhibition, "Billboards" is an investigation into the street culture of South Florida and beyond as well as a journal of the artist's travels there.
Gabriel Weinstock currently lives in and runs a studio in Brooklyn, NY. He received his B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont. He studied sculpture during his time there. He grew up in New York City, where he attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. His work has been featured in the publication Silo as well as onCritiqueCollective.com. He has participated in a variety of group shows including Points of Contact (2011), Products of our Environment (2012), Senior Works (2013) and Object Poverty and its Community of Exchange (2014).
Jason Bayani is the author of Amulet from Write Bloody Press. He's an MFA grad from Saint Mary's College, a Kundiman fellow, and a longtime veteran of the National Poetry Slam Scene. He's currently the program manager for Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco and continues to perform regularly.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and is a Canto Mundo fellow, a Zell post-graduate fellow and the first undocumented student to graduate from the University of Michigan’s MFA program. He’s a Pushcart nominee and has received fellowships to attend the Squaw Valley Writer’s Workshop, The Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent work can be found in Jubilat, New England Review, The Paris American, and Buzzfeed, among others.
Tarfia Faizullah is the Pushcart Prize winning author of Seam (SIU, 2014), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems appear inAmerican Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, jubilat, Oxford American, New England Review, Best New Poets 2013, Poetry Daily, and have been anthologized in Excuse This Poem: 100 Poems for the Next Generation, The Book of Scented Things, and Poems of Devotion. Honors include scholarships and fellowships from Kundiman, the Fulbright Foundation, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Vermont Studio Center. She is the Nicholas Delbanco Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program and co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press with Jamaal May.
Nicole Homer is a educator and nerd who currently lives in New Jersey where she bakes carrot cakes and counts deer (dead and alive) on her way to work. http://nicolehomer.com/
Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan lives in Chicago where she works hard at many different things. Her work has recently appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, After Hours, and Compose. Her chapbook, Cigarette Love Songs and Nicotine Kisses was published by Cross+Roads Press.
Carly Joy Miller is a SoCal native through and through. She is an assistant managing editor for the Los Angeles Review, a contributing editor for Poetry International, and a founding editor of Locked Horn Press. She is also the co-curator of the reading series, The Brewyard. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Third Coast, Vinyl, Linebreak, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Ciara Miller, a native of Chicago, is a poetry MFA candidate and an African American/African Diaspora Studies MA candidate at Indiana University. She has published academic essays and poems in such collections and periodicals as Callaloo, SLC Review, Alice Walker: Critical Insights, PLUCK, Chorus, Toegood Poetry, Cave Canem Anthology XII, African American Review, and Blackberry Magazine.
Matthew Olzmann’s first book of poems, Mezzanines, received the 2011 Kundiman Prize and was published by Alice James Books. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in New England Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing in the undergraduate writing program at Warren Wilson College. (matthewolzmann.com)
Megan Peak is a graduate student in The Ohio State University's MFA Program in Poetry. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in A cappella Zoo, Banango Street, The Boiler Journal, DIAGRAM, Four Way Review, North American Review, PANK, The Pinch, Pleiades, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and Tupelo Quarterly.
Justin Phillip Reed is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. His poetry appears in Anti-, Rattle, and Connotation Press, and is forthcoming in Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color. YesYes Books will release his first chapbook, A History of Flamboyance, in 2015. He hails from Florence, South Carolina.
Jayson Smith is a writer & choreographer hailing from the Bronx, NY. His work is published/forthcoming in various journals & anthologies, including Kinfolks Quarterly, boundary2: an international journal of literature and culture, and FreezeRay Press. Jayson facilitates a weekly writing workshop with the LouderARTS project in Manhattan, & is on staff for Union Station Magazine. Find him on Twitter to talk Beyoncé & poems & other, less important things.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Jess X. Chen is a Chinese American multi-disciplinary poet, artist, and filmmaker, and the author of chapbook, From the Earthworm To The Night. Her work intimately extricates narratives of colonial trauma, sexuality, ecological collapse and Asian-American diaspora to build a new language toward social and eco-feminist justice. She is a member of Justseeds, an international collective of socially-engaged artists. Her work has been featured and screened nationally at: Asian American International Film Festival, The Wingluke Museum, The New York Times, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and more. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and currently is working on writing and directing her first feature film under the production house, LoveHoldLetGo. You can find more of her work at www.jessxchen.com.
Allison Kennedy is a hybrid poet and visual artist from Ann Arbor, Michigan, raised on open mics, and sustained by good poets that are even better people. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and facilitates creative writing workshops at a probation facility. She likes to look out windows, put poems in space, and make too many copies of poems before writing workshops.
Shane Watt is a contemporary artist based in Montreal, Canada. Best known for his semi-fictitious, multi-media maps, Watt has exhibited both locally and internationally, and his work has been featured in online and print publications. In 2010, he was selected as a contributing artist for the high-profile exhibition, “You are here: Mapping the Psychogeography of New York City,” curated by Katharine Harmon at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan and in 2013, produced two outdoor murals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In addition to exhibiting,Watt regularly completes uniquely designed commissions and his work is included in gallery and private collections throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Dubai. Recently, one of Watt’s pieces made it onto a list compiled by The Guardian (UK) of the top-ten hand-drawn maps by contemporary artists. This current exhibition, "Billboards" is an investigation into the street culture of South Florida and beyond as well as a journal of the artist's travels there.
Gabriel Weinstock currently lives in and runs a studio in Brooklyn, NY. He received his B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont. He studied sculpture during his time there. He grew up in New York City, where he attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. His work has been featured in the publication Silo as well as onCritiqueCollective.com. He has participated in a variety of group shows including Points of Contact (2011), Products of our Environment (2012), Senior Works (2013) and Object Poverty and its Community of Exchange (2014).