Contributors to our current issue are:
Lucie Norton Alig wrote this poem as a senior at Interlochen Arts Academy in
Indianapolis, Indiana. She was invited to arts week by the National Foundation for
Advancement in the Arts in Miami, Florida. She is presently a freshman at Kenyon College.
Alison Apotheker has poems published in or forthcoming from Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Mid-American Review, Crab Orchard Review and many other national literary magazines. Her poetry has won an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship, and her manuscript, Slim Margin, was recently a finalist in the Stan and Tom Wick poetry prize competition, Winnow Press competition, and in the Crab Orchard poetry first book award contest. She teaches at Portland Community College where she co-edits the Rock Creek Review.
Adam Bacher has been a professional photographer for more than 15 years. His images have been purchased by collectors nationwide. His photography has been published by the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, Green Peace, and several other organizations. Based out of Portland, Oregon, Adam focuses much of his energy in remote alpine and backcountry wilderness areas in the western United States. He also spends time photographing the beauty of places closer to his home in Oregon. His current project, a book titled "Summits and Solitude," is a collection of photographs taken at or above tree-line in the mountains of the western United States.
Jan Baross has made over 40 documentary films, six animated films, numerous public service announcements for television, worked on a couple of music videos and six feature films. As a playwright, she has written fifteen plays. She’s been produced off off broadway, in the US and Mexico, received awards for her productions and had her plays published. She was commissioned to turn her play, “Mata Hari”, into the libretto for an opera which premiered in Dallas, Texas and won an award.
Judith Barrington is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently Horses and the Human Soul (Story Line Ppress, 2004). A poem from this recent book was recently featured by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio's "The Writer's Almanac." Lifesaving: a Memoir, was the 2000 winner of the Lambda Book Award and finalist for the Pen/Martha Albrand award. She is published widely in literary journals and teaches at workshops across the U.S. and in Europe.
Greg Bartholomew holds degrees from the College of William and Mary and from the University of Washington. He is the 2003 recipient of the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence.
Marvin Bell has been called "an insider who thinks like an outsider." He retired from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2005 and now serves on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program based at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. Mars Being Red, his 19th book, will be published in 2007.
C. L. Bledsoe has published in over 150 journals, including Nimrod, the Cimarron Review, clackamas, the Arkansas Review and Hobart Pulp. His first collection of poetry, Anthem, will be published in 2007. He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine at http://www.ghotimag.com.
Emile Paul Boghos wrote "The House My Father Brought Me to" as a senior high
school student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. He was selected to
participate in the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts 2006 Arts Week in
Miami, Florida, and is now a freshman at Florida State University.
Brian Boulton has had plays staged in New York, Los Angeles,
London and Valdez, Alaska.
Suzanne Brooker received her BFA at the California Institute of the Arts in 1979, attended by invitation the Whitney Museum independent study program in New York city, and pursued her drawing studies at the School of Visual Arts. In 1990 she returned to the west coast, studied life drawing with Gary Fagin at the Gage Academy of Fine Art, and completed her MFA in figurative painting under Domenic Cretara at California State University, Long Beach. Brooker currently lives in Seattle, where she paints and teaches drawing and painting. Her collaboration with poet Craig Van Riper, Each Scar A Broken Arc, is forthcoming from Egress Studio Press (WA).
Andrew Coburn is the author of 12 novels, 3 of them made into French movies. His work has been translated into 13 languages.
Sage Cohen has published poems in Blue Oregon, Comet, San Francisco Reader and elsewhere. Her essays, fiction and articles have been published in many print and online magazines, journals and anthologies. She writes a monthly column for Black Lamb and serves on the board of the Next Word Literary Center.
Camille Cole, a 30-year education veteran, is the author of a book for classroom teachers and numerous articles and columns. She is now writing, editing, and consulting full-time. She is writing a memoir and is a member of the Willamette Writers group.
Jesus Contreras has written, arranged and performed music in a number of diverse forms and styles including Latin American, experimental, Jazz, International, Classical, Pop, Rock, Alternative, Electronic, and in numerous media such as film, dance, and theatre. He studied with Pulitzer Prize winning composer William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, and Evan Chambers at University of Michigan, receiving a Masters of Music in Music Composition in 1996. He currently heads Mockbrawn Records, an independent label that has worldwide distribution.
Dawn Corrigan has published fiction online at Monkeybicycle, The Raging Face, 3711
Atlantic, 55 words, and the "Unfinished Stories" project at Kevsville, and
is forthcoming at The Dream People. Her nonfiction appears regularly at The Nervous Breakdown
(http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/).
Michael Denning has published in Star Wars Tales published by
Dark Horse Comics. He studied screenwriting at Portland State
University.
Mary Ellen Derwis is a photo-artist that lives in Brecksville , Ohio .
Nguyen Qui Duc is the author of the memoir Where the Ashes Are: The Odyssey of a Vietnamese Family (Addison-Wesley, 1994). A widely published translator and short story writer, he currently lives in Hanoi and works for NPR.
John Elliot is a composer who lives and works in Oregon.
George Evans is the author of five books of poetry published in the US and England, including The New World (Curbstone Press), and Sudden Dreams (Coffee House Press). His poetry, fiction, essays, and translations have been published in literary magazines throughout the US, and in Australia, England, France, Ireland, Japan, Nicaragua, and Viet Nam. His has received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, the California Arts Council, and a Japanese government Monbusho Fellowship for the study of Japanese literature. An antiwar activist veteran of the Viet Nam-American War, he is one of the subjects of the 2006 radio series "Shared Weight," a six episode program addressing the impact of war on culture and society produced for National Public Radio (NPR) by the Center for Emerging Media in Baltimore.
George Freek recently had poetry in Abyss & Apex. his short play "The Spanish Whip" was
published in Apt magazine and "Waiting For Julia" was produced in
Sacramento, Stamford Valley, Australia, and Stow, Ohio.
Luke Furman is an aspiring composer from Omaha, NE. Currently studying composition at the University of Oklahoma under Lance Hulme and Marvin Lamb, Luke's work has earned him various accolades over the years, including second place in the 2002 Senior Division Nebraska Music Teachers Association Composition Contest, and the Alice and Albert Kirkpatrick Scholarship in Composition from OU. In 2003, he released a self-published CD featuring 9 of his early compositions. He is also active as a violist, having played with the OU Orchestra and the New Improv! Century Ensemble, a group dedicated to the performance of aleatoric compositions and free jazz.
Devon Greene is a writer/artist living in Houston who writes both plays and fiction. One short story will be published in "Mouthful of Bullets" (an ezine) in June, 2007. Plays and comedy skits have been produced in Houston and Los Angeles. One strong word can be worth a thousand pictures.
Sam Hamill was Editor of Copper Canyon Press from 1972-2004. He is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, poetry-in-translation, and essays. His book of new and selected poems and translations, Almost Paradise, was published by Shambhala. He founded Poets Against the War in 2003.
Helen Harding is a retired medical technologist. She has a diploma in
industrial video production and is guilty of such works as "Safety in the
Auto Shop" and "Basics of Phlebotomy". In addition to "Story A Day" she has
self-published a novel, Hunger, and is hard at work on another.
Michael Harper has been a professor of English at Brown University since 1970.
He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest are Selected Poems and
Songlines in Michaeltree. Michael Harper was Rhode Island's first poet laureate.
Christopher Howell is author of six full-length books of poems, including Memory and Heaven (1997). His collection Sea Change won the Washington State Governor's Award in 1986, and he has been recipient of the Helen Bullis Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Vachel Lindsay Prize, the Vi Gale Award, fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Massachusetts Council for the Arts, and the Adrienne Lee Award. His work has twice been included in the Pushcart Prize anthology, most recently in 1999. Since 1975 he had been director and principal editor for Lynx House Press.
Lynn Jeffress, writer, artist, and teacher, lives on the Oregon coast (and, when not there, in Paris). She is editor of the forthcoming group memoir Writing Under the Influence about a year spent working with Ken Kesey on the group novel Caverns, published by Viking Penguin Press. "Hat Island" began as inherited family lore and is here unabashedly embellished for effect. A cousin, when she saw what the tale had become, said: "It's an Irish trait, to make a story grow in the telling." Most of the family had the knack, she said. "so, you come by it rightly."
Alden Jenks received his Bachelors from Yale and his Graduate Degree from UC Berkeley. He studied Composition under Imbrie, Shifrin, Tudor and Stockhausen. He was the teacher of noted composer John Adams. He is currently Professor of Composition and Director of the E. L. Wiegand Composition Studio at the San Francisco Conservatory.
Melanie Jennings has an MFA from Mills College and a Doctorate from UC San Eiego. Her fiction has appeared in Crab
Creek Review, Spelunker Flophouse, and The Redwood Coast Review. Another short story won the Ooligan Press Editors' Choice contest.
Asuka Kakitani heads the Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra in New York. She was born in Osaka, Japan and moved to New York in 2004 after studying at the Berklee College of Music. Her composition "Dance #1" (included in this issue) won the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize in 2006.
Megan Kruse has received residency grants from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City, Nebraska, and the Ragdale Foundation of Lake Forest, Illinois. In 2006, she received an Oregon Literary Arts fellowship and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Phoebe, Oyez Review, Bellingham Review, Fiddlehead, Gertrude, and The First Edition from Vespertine Press.
Dorianne Laux's fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon (W.W. Norton) is
the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2006 Lenore
Marshall Poetry Prize, for the most outstanding book of poems published in the
United States in the previous year. She is also author of three collections of
poetry from Boa editions and co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the
Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her work has appeared in the
Best of the American Poetry Review, the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry
and has been twice included in Best American Poetry. She has been awarded with
a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and
a Guggenheim Fellowship. :aux is a professor in the University of Oregon's
creative writing program.
David Lee lives in Texas. He has been a semiprofessional ball player, a
boxer, pig farmer and Milton scholar. His latest collection is So Quiet the
Earth, Copper Canyon Press, which turns toward the voice of the desert he knows so well.
Ursula K. Le Guin began publishing in the 1960s and is now regarded as one of the best modern science fiction and fantasy authors, noted for her exemplary style and for her exploration of Taoist, anarchist, feminist, psychological and sociological themes. She has received several Hugo and Nebula awards, and was awarded the Gandalf Grand Master award in 1979 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2003.
Katherine Luck is the author of three novels: In Retrospect, Love Songs, and Snake
Oil Woman. Her short fiction has appeared in several literary publications,
and a number of her plays have received professional theatre productions in
the Pacific Northwest, as well as regional and national awards. She was a recipient of the 2006 Celebration Foundation grant for writing.
Stephen Mackinnon has published work in The Southwest Review, Marginalia, Rosebud, The Belletrist Review, Plum Biscuit, Armageddon, Just A Moment, and The Boston Globe. His story “Fetching Water for the General” was a finalist in the Southeast Review’s 2006 world’s best short short story contest. He has received award recognition from Carve magazine, the El Dorado Writers Guild and the City of Boston Prose & Poetry competition. He lives in Massachusetts and is working on a collection of short stories and a novel “Mercy’s Wake.”
Kevin McCarter earned his Bachelor's degree at Principia College (Illinois). He holds Graduate degrees from USC and Ball State. McCarter has taught at Principia College, Towson University, Salisbury University, and Lehigh University. He is a member of the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, and Chamber Music America.
Joseph Millar is the author of Fortune, from Eastern Washington University
Press. His first collection, Overtime (2001), was a finalist for the Oregon Book
Award. Millar spent 25 years in the San Francisco bay area, working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, and he has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts
in poetry, the Moncalvo Center for the Arts and from Oregon Literary Arts. He teaches at Pacific University’s low residency program.
Carolyn Reynolds Miller's book of poems Rising and Falling was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.
Lars Nordström was born in 1954 in Stockholm, Sweden where he lived until 1974. He was educated at the University of Stockholm, Portland State University, and Uppsala University, where he received his Ph.D. in American literature in 1989. He is the recipient of several Fulbright grants and Swedish Institute grants, as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellowship. In 1988 he settled with his wife and two sons on a small vineyard in Beavercreek, Oregon, where he farms winegrapes, writes and translates. Lars Nordström has published poetry, prose, interviews, translations, and scholarly material in many magazines in a number of different countries.
His most recent publication is a book of oral histories of recent Swedish immigrants to the Pacific Northwest entitled: De nya utvandrarna: Tio svenskar i nordvästra USA berättar (2005).
Steve O'Connor has published stories in The Massachusetts Review, The Bridge Review, and Watchword. He has had essays in Irish America, Fiddler Magazine, Amis, and Esl Magazine. He was raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and two children.
William O'Daly is a poet, translator, and fiction writer. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, his published works include six books of the late and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda and a chapbook of his own poems, The Whale in the Web. His poems, translations, and essays have been published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. With co-author Han-ping Chin, he recently completed a historical novel, This Earthly Life, based on the Chinese Cultural Revolution. A co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, he has worked as a college teacher, a literary and technical editor, and an instructional designer.
Oyamo (a.k.a. Charles F. Gordon) is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Writer-in-residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His plays have been widely performed in such theaters as the Yale Repertory Theatre, The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Working Theatre, The Public Theatre, Negro Ensemble Company, Frank Silvera Writers Workshop, New Federal Theatre, Frederick Douglas Creative Arts Center, Baca, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Triplex Theatre, all of New York City; and in other theaters and universities throughout the country.
Nii Ayikwei Parkes writes poetry, prose and articles. Former Poet-In-Residence at the Poetry Café, he is the author of three poetry chapbooks; eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999), M is for Madrigal (2004) and the self-published shorter (2005), which is a vehicle to raise money for a writers' fund in Ghana. As a socio-cultural commentator and advocate for African writing, Nii has led forums internationally and has sat on discussion panels for BBC Radio with literary heavyweights such as Booker winners, Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt. He runs the African Writers' Evening series, at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden. Nii co-edited the international anthology 'Dance the Guns to Silence' in honour of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro Wiwa.
Jonathan Pease is Professor of Chinese at Portland State University with a research specialty in Northern Sung. In 1991 he received a translation prize from the British Comparative Literature Assocation.
Carla Perry graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of two books of poetry, Illustrations and Photographs: No Questions Asked and Laughing Like Dogs. She co-wrote and published the literary magazine Wild Dog while wandering the United States in a 1976 Chevy camper van. She is the founder of the Nye Beach Writers' Series and Writers on the Edge. In 1999, Carla established Dancing Moon Press, which publishes books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. She received the Stuart H. Holbrook Special Award at the 2003 Oregon Book Awards, a Governor's Art Award, and a Literary Arts Fellowship in fiction. Her poems, short stories, essays, interviews and photographs of writers have been published in numerous literary magazines, including Tin House.
Paulann Petersen’s poems have appeared in numerous periodicals including Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, and Wilderness Magazine. She has published three collections of poetry, “Blood-Silk” (Quiet Lion Press, 2004), “The Wild Awake (Confluence Press, 2002), and “A Bride of Narrow Escape” (Cloudbank Book, 2005). She is the recipient of two Carolyn Kizer Awards, has been on the faculty for the Creative Arts Community at Menucha, and has given workshops for the Oregon Writers Workshop and the Mountain Writers Series, as well as the Oregon State Poetry Association. Peterson serves on the board for Friends of William Stafford.
Mary Rae was formerly editor-in-chief of Romantics Quarterly and has had poems published in many journals over the years including Plains Poetry Journal, Hellas, Piedmont Literary Review, and many others. Her poem "Season" placed first in Raintown Review's 2001 poetry contest. Music also is a composer of contemporary classical music and an artist. Her website address is maryraemusic.com.
Bill Ransom's work as a firefighter/EMT in Central America in the 1980s led to his poetry CD, War Baby. The author of numerous poetry collections and novels, he teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Recent fiction, "Scraps," appears in Carve magazine.
Peter Robertson is a Scottish author ( Glasgow , 1960) based in Madrid . His work has appeared in a number of publications including "Eclectica" "Spike Magazine" and "The Café Irreal". His translations of two Paul Éluard poems are scheduled to appear in the autumn issue of "The Salt River Review".
Bianca Salerno previously appeared in Big Toe Press and Xelas Magazine. She's a graduate of Reed College and studied writing with Rick Hillis.
Peter Schwartz is a poet, painter, author, editor, publisher, essayist, , playwright, humorist, and musician. He has his BA in literature and creative writing. He studied the craft of writing fiction with author Rick Moody. He is the editor, publisher, and founder of 'Eye' - the journal that focuses on editors themselves. He's an associate art editor for Mad Hatters' Review. Recently he retreated to the forests of Maine where he works from his supercomputer on bettering the culmination of his whole life's work... Sitrah Ahra (www.sitrahahra.com).
Peter Sears won the 1999 Pergrine Smith Poetry Competition for his book of poems, The Brink. His first book-length collection, Tour, was published in 1987. He has also published four chapbooks of poetry and two teaching books, Secret Writing and Gonna Bake Me A Rainbow Poem. His work has been published in many magazines and literary journals and widely anthologized.
Curtis Settino has been making art since the beginning. He paints pictures, writes words, makes music and films films. He is the co-operator of The Double Goat Gallery and a TapeOp Magazine columnist (1997-present). He's also the creator of Canoofle, an experimental music group that's been making music up and down the U.S. West Coast since 1992. He's directed many short films; videotaped music performances; supplied computer animations for clients, including Mattel and Nike; and has been a volunteer at Metro East TV since 2002. Curtis has anxiously awaited the day he could edit films at home. It is here! He works as a graphic and interactive designer for money and rides his bike for fun. His Web site, www.canoofle.com, showcases many of these activities.
Eric Paul Shaffer is the author of five books of poetry, including Lähaina Noon (2005), Living
at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen (2001), and Portable Planet (2000). His poems have appeared in
Ploughshares, North American Review, American Scholar,
Acm, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, Threepenny Review, and
100 poets Against the War. In 2002, he received the Elliot Cades Award for Literature, an endowed
literary prize given yearly to an established local writer in Hawaii. In september, 2006, he won
the Rupert Hughes Award for writing for his novel-in-progress Six Ways Home.
Jackie Shannon-hollis lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. As often as she can, she goes back to the east side of the state, to that small town and the farm house where she grew up. Her work has appeared in Mary, The Intentional Ducati and Rosebud. She is working on a collection of short stories.
Nancy Simnitt completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Portland State University . Her poetry, creative non-fiction, and fiction have been published in several editions of Perceptions, Magazine of the Arts where she won best fiction award of 2003 for her short story, "Moses People." She currently works as a writing tutor at MHCC and is completing a Masters degree in English at PSU.
Cynthia Alden Smith is a new writer. she spent 18 years of her professional career in the cable television industry as a sales and marketing executive. She now consults part-time and writes. She has been published in “Caketrain,” “South Loop Review,” “Penwomanship,” and in various online journals.
Gary Soto's forthcoming poetry collection is A Simple Plan (Chronicle Books, 2007).
Mara Stahl has earned a living and shaped a life, working with stories for over forty years. Her theatrical training included seasons with the
Oregon Shakespearean Festival and guest appearances at universities.
Her puppets and masks have been exhibited in the Portland Art Museum,
Contemporary Crafts Gallery and juried shows. Every year she wrote a
new show, then toured across the country, performing in grange halls
and grand theaters. Her new CD, Out of the Ashes, features many of these stories. Now she has moved on to
other stages, painting stories on canvas.
Teresa Stores is the author of two novels (Getting to the Point, 1995; SideTracks, 1996) and numerous poems, short stories and essays. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom, The Beacon Street Review, Out Magazine, Harrington Gay Men?s Fiction Quarterly, Blithe House Quarterly, Poetry Motel, Artistic F/X, Bloom, Earth's Daughters, three anthologies, and other journals. She has been awarded writing grants by the Vermont Arts Council, the Barbara Deming Fund, and the Cardin Fund. She was a resident last summer at Bread Loaf and a scholar at The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. A graduate of the M.F.A. program at Emerson College, She is an assistant professor of English and the director of creative writing at the University of Hartford.
Dan Trujillo won the American College Theatre Festival
Region 2 for the play "Early Poe." Received MFA in dramatic writing from New York
University and the Harry Kondoleon Graduate Award in Playwriting. 2006-07
Dramatists Guild Fellow. Plays include Conference with the Bull, Talk of the Walk-up,
Heaven’s Distant Shore, Toy Planet. Play Jingle Spree inaugurated Coho Productions
2006-07 season in Portland, OR.
Craig Van Riper is the author of Convenient Danger, winner of the Pecan Grove Press National Prize (St. Mary's University, TX, 2000), and Making the Path While You Walk (Sagittarius, WA, 1993). His collaboration with painter Suzanne Brooker, Each Scar A Broken Arc, is forthcoming from Egress Studio Press (WA), as is a collection of selected poems, Craig Van Riper: Greatest Hits, in Pudding House's (OH) Invitational National Archive Series. A contributing editor of San Francisco’s Five Fingers Review, writer-in-the-schools, and poet-in-residence at Goldmyer Hotsprings,
he lives in Seattle.
Stephen Walton teaches French language and literature at Portland State University, where he is an assistant professor. His interests lie in the areas of French poetry, Francophone literature of the Caribbean and West Africa, and 19th-century French literature.
Jim Wylie is a classically trained fingerstyle guitarist, singer/song writer and banjo and bass player (when called upon) who loves to perform and share with the audience. Jim is part of the Wylie-Hill duo and Jim and Mollie and the North Clark County Benign Band. He currently plays bass with Two Rivers Music and banjo with Shamrocks in the Wind (when they come to town). He is an ex-member of the River City Ramblers and the Sunrise Vocal Band from the bay area.
Daisy Zamora is a Nicaraguan poet and the author of four books of poetry in Spanish, including her latest, Fiel al corazón: Poemas de amor [Faithful to the Heart: Love Poems]. She is also the editor of the first major anthology of Nicaraguan women poets, editor of a book about the concepts of cultural politics during the Sandinista Revolution, and, most recently, editor of an anthology of student poetry drawn from workshops she conducted in Spanish at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Books of her poetry available in English translation include The Violent Foam (Curbstone Press), Riverbed of Memory (City Lights), and Clean Slate (Curbstone Press). A prominent voice in Central American poetry, her work has been published throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.