Information on Contributors: Spring 2021

Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer whose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Orange Blossom Review, Funicular Magazine, and EcoTheo Review, among others. His debut chapbook, I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He can be contacted at matthewjandrews.com.

A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia.  Her poetry has appeared previously in Assisi and recently in Allegro, Delta Poetry Review, Mezzo Cammin, and Vita Brevis.  Her fourth collection with Kelsay Books is In or Out of Season.

Susan Taylor Brand is a writer and teacher who hails from Northern California and, after living in various locales in the U.S. and abroad, currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. A wife, mother, dog mom, school teacher, reading specialist, and horsewoman, her fiction has also appeared in the Feminine Collective and Belle Ombre. Currently a member of Northern Colorado Writers, she is at work on a coming of age novel.

Carol Casey lives in Blyth, Ontario, Canada. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Prairie Journal,The Anti-Langourous Project, Please See Me, Front Porch Review, Cypress, Vita Brevis and others, including a number of anthologies, most recently, i am what becomes of broken branch, We Are One: Poems From the Pandemic and the TL;DR Hope Anthology. Facebook: @ccaseypoetry; Twitter: @ccasey_carol; Webpage: https://learnforlifepotential.com/home-2/poetry/

D.T. Collins is a part time composition instructor who is really bad at grammar and a part time amateur writer who writes really bad poetry. He is very good at being a full-time binge watcher and snack grazer. He graduated with an M.F.A. from Spalding University’s Low-Residency Program back in 2017. Before that, he got a B.A. in English from California State University of San Bernardino. Both prove invaluable. When he was younger, he wanted classes taught on his work. Now, his goal is simply to write what he desires for those who will enjoy it and to stop worrying about what posterity might think. And also, to eventually sell a TV show pilot. He lives in a small apartment in a small town with his lovely wife and looks forward to the day their future child will join them.

Sunset Combs is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at Colorado State, but she enjoys writing fiction in her free time. She has also been published in Doubly Mad, Deep Overstock, Brief Wilderness, and The Courtship of the Winds.

MaKenzie Jean Copp was born and raised in the small town of Cumberland, Maine. MaKenzie enjoys writing, reading, photography, painting, and arts of many other forms. MaKenzie was drawn to writing from a very young age, and further pursued poetry as a craft during her years at school. She specializes in freeform poetry, and much of her writing is laced with strong feminist undertones. She graduated with a double major in English and Writing/Publishing from Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, and was the recipient of the 2020 Edward J. Rielly Writing and Publishing Award.

William C. Crawford is the inventor of Forensic Foraging, a throwback, minimalist technique for modern digital photographers. See William C. Crawford on Pinterest.

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hubbub, Grain, and Third Wednesday, and her newest books are The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), Book of Beasts (Weasel Press), Bound in Ice (Shanti Arts), and Music Composition for Dummies (Wiley).

Monty Jones is a writer in Austin, Texas. His book of poems Cracks in the Earth was published in 2018 by Cat Shadow Press of Austin.

Casey Killingsworth has work in The American Journal of Poetry, Two Thirds North, and other journals. His book of poems, A Handbook for Water, was published by Cranberry Press in 1995 and a new book, A nest blew down, is due in July 2021 from Kelsay Books. Casey has a Master’s degree from Reed College.

Jacqueline Lapidus, co-editor of The Widows’ Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival (Kent State University Press), is a (retired) Boston-based poet, editor, teacher and translator with degrees from Swarthmore College and Harvard Divinity School. Originally from New York City, she has also lived in Greece, France (where she was active in international feminist groups) and Provincetown. Her published work includes three poetry collections, Ready to Survive, Starting Over, and Ultimate Conspiracy, as well as poems and articles in numerous periodicals and anthologies.

Mitch Levenberg has published fiction and non-fiction in journals and magazines such as Fiction, The Saint Anne’s Review, Local Knowledge, The Same, The Cream City Review, Fine Madness, Literary Vegan, Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts  and Letters, The Common Review, and others. He teaches Writing and Literature at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

Originally from Texas, Shannon Lise spent twelve years in Turkey and is currently located in Québec City, where she is pursuing her doctorate in clinical psychology. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee and her début poetry collection is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming from NOVUS Literary Journal, The Sunlight Press, Sandy River Review, Rising Phoenix Review, Foundling House, and Tiny Spoon.

Dakota McLane is a recent graduate of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, where she received her degree in creative writing. She was also a part of Capital’s literary magazine, ReCap, as a prose editor for three years. Though she typically enjoys writing prose the most, she finds poetry to be a medium for switching things up.

Michael Olsen has been involved in the performing arts since starting a three year Acting Master Class in 1990.  In 1995 he produced Australia’s inaugural short play festival, Squibfest. Over 30 of his one-act plays have been performed in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, and Africa. Two Women & A Chair, which was performed at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe and the 2008 Prague Fringe, is probably his best known work. The Bakehouse Theatre in Adelaide produced A Retiring Lady and Room Service as part of their Festival of One. Footsteps in the River won first prize at the 2002 Noosa Arts Theatre One-Act Play Festival. The People of the Paparazzi won the 2012 South Australian Writers’ Theatre One Act Play Competition. I Hate ABBA and Son of the Revolution were winner and runner-up respectively in the 2012 National Playwright Competition In 2014 Dog Day Trio was part of the Explorations season at La Mama Theatre. He has conducted playwriting workshops for Essendon Theatre Company, Peridot and Eltham Little Theatre. The Melbourne Writers’ Theatre produced Comet, Arriving Today, Sapling and The Forgotten Return as part of their annual monologue and short play shows. His poetry has been published in Farrago and Quadrant, and he won the Local Section of the 2017 Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Competition. With poetry, Michael particularly loves the challenge of getting words to mean more and more while using fewer and fewer of them.

Mark Parsons received his MFA from the University of Arizona. His poems have recently been published or are forthcoming in Dahlhousie Review, The Floor Plan, North Dakota Quarterly, Antigonish Review, Chariton Review, and Cobalt Review. He lives in Tokyo, Japan.

Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health research. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in six years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and photography in over 150 journals and anthologies on four continents. Publications include 580 Split, Bombay Gin, Burningword, Columbia Journal, Hippocampus, Ilanot Review, Lunch Ticket, The Atlantic, The Manchester Review, and Typehouse. Recent photo essays include Barren, Kestrel, Litro, New World Writing, So It Goes, and Wordpeace. A nonfiction piece led to a role in a documentary limited series to be broadcast globally. Jim and his wife—parents of two health professionals on the front line and grandparents of five preschoolers—split their time between city and mountains.

Mary Shanley is a poet/storyteller living in New York City with her wife, Lisa Genet. She began publishing poems in 1984 at the behest of Allen Ginsberg and Lucien Carr. She has since published three books of poetry and one book of short stories. She is a frequent contributor to online and print journals and was WBAI FM Radio, NYC’s Featured Poet. Mary was selected as a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Cathryn Shea is the author of the full-length poetry collection Genealogy Lesson for the Laity (Unsolicited Press, September 2020). Her chapbooks include Backpack Full of Leaves (Cyberwit, 2019), Secrets Hidden in a Pear Tree (dancing girl press, 2019), It’s Raining Lullabies (dancing girl press, 2017), and Snap Bean (CC. Marimbo, 2014). Cathryn’s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and she has also been shortlisted or selected for a variety of poetry prizes, including a merit finalist for the Atlanta Review 2013 International Poetry Competition. In 2004 she received the Marjorie J. Wilson Award for Poetry judged by Charles Simic. Her poems have appeared in anthologies and many journals including Poet Lore, New Orleans Review, Tar River Poetry, Gargoyle, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. She served as editor for the annual Marin Poetry Center Anthology. Cathryn is a fourth-generation northern Californian and lives with her family in Fairfax, CA. See www.cathrynshea.com.

Karl Walters is a writer, poet, and illustrator living in Albuquerque, NM. His work has been featured in the 3Element Review, Passengers Journal, and American Chordata. You can see his illustrations on Instagram @_karlfuffle_.

Jennifer Weigel is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, video and writing. Much of her work touches on themes of beauty, identity (especially gender identity), memory & forgetting, and institutional critique. Weigel’s art has been exhibited nationally in all 50 states and has won numerous awards. The paintings in this issue of Assisi were created en plain air and celebrate the beauty found out and around in our human interactions with nature.

Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. With an M.A. in child development and a B. A. in education, she has a strong interest in art education and teaches art to adults, children and families in Seattle. A former ceramicist, she studied with J.T. Abernathy in Ann Arbor, MI, though after receiving her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington she switched from 3D art to 2D and has stayed there since, working primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections and has been shown nationally in California, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Wyoming. She has exhibited extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is an affiliate member of Gallery 110 and is a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and COCA (Center of Contemporary Art) and an affiliate member of Gallery 110 in Seattle.