Information on Contributors

A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net, & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is an author of three chapbooks, Under My Dark(Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016), Adagio(Finishing Line Press, 2016), and Dear Suki: Letters(Platypus 2412 Mini Chapbook Series, 2016), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 450 journals, Acentos Review, Comstock Review, EVENT, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Rock & Sling & The Lampeter Review, among others, and work to appear in Aeolian Harp Anthology, Volume 3. Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps. Find more information on Lana here:https://www.facebook.com/Lana-Bella-789916711141831/.

Carol Berrett

Barbara McGillicuddy Bolton’s poetry has appeared in Echoes Magazine and National Catholic Reporter, her short fiction in Puckerbrush Review and Persimmon Tree. She contributed a chapter to Uncovering Teacher Leadership: Essays and Voices from the Field. In 2015, through CreateSpace, she published Lulu Goes to College, a novel set in 1961-62 and based on her freshman year in college. A memoir of her childhood When They Took Dad Away has been accepted for publication by North Country Press and will appear in 2019. She grew up in Maine and graduated from Colby College. A retired teacher with three grown children, she and her husband spend summers in Maine and live the rest of the year in Brooklyn, New York. She can be reached by e-mail at mcgillbolt@yahoo.com

Burt Bradley has published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His poetry collection After Following was awarded First Prize in the 2018 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize and published April 2019. His work appears in The Wayfarer, 50 Haikus, Ring of Fire: Writers of the Yellowstone Region, Michigan Quarterly Review, Best of Writers at Work, among others. He is a professor emeritus at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming.

Isabel Chenot has been reading and practicing poetry all her life.  She loves to serve the work of other artists, and hopes to devote more time to translating metaphysical Spanish poetry into English (a few translations of Amado Nervo’s poems were published in TinderBox Poetry Journal, June 2017).  She is also working on a retelling of “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”.  Her work has appeared in various online and print journals; and a small first collection of poetry, Leaves Like Spindrift, is available from Anima Poetry Press.  She can be contacted at isabelchenot@gmail.com.

Barbara Crooker is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana, and author of eight full-length books and twelve chapbooks of poetry. Her awards, include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships.Her work appears in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including Common Wealth:  Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvaniaand The Bedford Introduction to Literature,has been read on The Writer’s Almanac and featured on Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.

Tony Jasnowski, born and raised in Nebraska, has had poems published in Lake Effect, the Cumberland Poetry ReviewPrairie/Plains Journal, and Poetic Expressions.  He has also had two stories published in Short Story, and his story “The Windfall Harvest” won first place in World Wide Writer’s November 1996 short story contest.  He is a Professor of English at Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska, where he teaches primarily composition and business communication.  His wife, Jan, and he have two twenty-something children: Jozef and Clare.

Laura Johnson is the author of Not Yet, recently released by Kelsay Books and available on Amazon. Her work has appeared in a range of online and print journals and anthologies, including Literary Mama, Time of Singing, Reach of Song (Georgia Poetry Society, 2018), The New Southern Fugitives and Blue Heron Review. Laura holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University and teaches English/ESOL at Fayette County High School in Georgia.This link will take you to her Facebook author’s page: https://www.facebook.com/lauraanella67/.

Laurinda Lind teaches English composition classes in northern New York, near Canada. Last year she won first place in the North Country Writers (NY) poetry contest, and second place in the New York State Fair poetry competition. Some publications/ acceptances have been in Artemis, Blue Fifth Review, Bombay Gin, Chautauqua, Cold Mountain Review, Comstock Review, The Cortland Review, Ekphrasis, Josephine Quarterly, Kestrel, Main Street RagMudfish, Off the Coast, and Paterson Literary Review.

April Lindner is the author of two poetry collections, Skin (Texas Tech University Press) and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped (Able Muse Press).   She also has published three young adult novels, JaneCatherine, and Love, Lucy, all with Poppy/Little, Brown Young Reader.  Her digital-exclusive novella, Far From Over, was published by NOVL.  She teaches writing at Saint Joseph’s University and lives in Lambertville, New Jersey. You can visit her web site here: www.aprillindner.com.

M.L. Lyons

Keith Moul’s poems and photos are published widely. Finishing Line Press released a chap called The Future as a Picnic Lunchin 2015. Aldrich Press published Naked Among Possibilitiesin 2016; Finishing Line Press has just released (1/17) Investment in Idolatry. In August, 2017, Aldrich Press released Not on Any Map, a collection of earlier poems. His blog can be found at http://poemsphotosmoul.blogspot.com/.

Rebecca Monroe lives in Montana in a log cabin by a river and has been writing for most of her life. She has over 90 published stories and a book of short stories Reaching Beyond published by Bellowing Ark Press. Along with writing, she loves to read, take long walks with Dodge, her yellow Labrador retriever and volunteer at the local animal shelter.

Kathleen O’Toole has combined an active professional life in community organizing with teaching and writing. Her poems have appeared widely in magazines and journals including America, Atlanta Review, Christian Century, Margie, Northern Virginia Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Poetry East, Potomac Review,Prairie Schooner. Presence and Spiritus. She is the author of two chapbooks, Practice, andWaking Hours, and a full-length collection, Meanwhile. In the Margins, which she co-authored with three other women poets, was released in 2017. Her new collection This Far, will be released by Paraclete Press in October 2019. She recently retired from Catholic Relief Services and is the current Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, MD. Find her work at www.kathleenotoolepoetry.com.

Norika Osada has published 4 poetry collections in Japan and is preparing a new poetry collection now. Her second poetry collection won the Yokohama Poets Association Prize in 2002. She studied English in Japan and then at the American Language Institute of NYU from January 2011 until Augugust 2012 and at Manhattan Language from September 2012 until December 2012. She wrote “McDonald’s / Africa” when she took Professor Mark-Ameen Johnson’s Creative Writing Class at the American Language Institute.

Brother Placidus Henry serves as a counselor and regards poetry as a spiritual practice. He strives to live a life of listening, prayer, and charity in the world, an approach modeled on the practices of lay monks in the fourth century. He currently lives in a small town in New England.

Fariel Shafee was born in South Asia, but has spent her life in many parts of the world.  She received her degrees in physics and math from the USA (MIT and Princeton), but enjoys writing and art.  Her art is influenced by the various cultures she has been fortunate to live in. She has exhibited both digital art and paintings internationally.  Her work can be seen on http://fshafee.wixsite.com/farielsartand http://fariel1.tripod.com. She has also published poetry and prose in magazines.

Brett Stout is a 38-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and Paramedic. He creates controversial art while breathing toxic paint fumes from a small cramped apartment referred to as “the nerd lab” in Myrtle Beach , SC. His artwork has appeared in a wide range of various media from small webzines like the Paradise Review to the University of Oklahoma Medical School Journal.

Michael Tveter writes poetry and fictional short stories, and his work has appeared in Venture Artistic and Literary Magazine. His recent work focuses on heritage and perspectives of the self. Michael’s focus is poetry, but he also uses his creativity as a photograph, and his pictures have appeared  to sell his photography for Adobe and Getty Images. Michael enjoys using both his poetry and photography to illuminate events and situations. In addition to his creative work, Michael works as a Norwegian diplomat. Michael currently lives in Ankara, Turkey, and he has recently served in both China and Turkey.