Contributors to our current issue are:
Chris Abani is the author of the prize winning novels Graceland (Picador) and Song For The Night (Akashic). Hands Washing Water (Copper Canyon Press) is his latest collection of poems.
Diana Abu-Jaber's latest novel, Origin, was named one of the best books of the year by the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and won the 2008 Florida Book Award. Her memoir, The Language of Baklava, won the Northwest Booksellers' Award. Her novel, Crescent, won the PEN Center Award for Literary fiction and the American Book Award. Her first novel, Arabian Jazz won the Oregon Book award. She teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami, Florida.
Kim Addonizio teaches in the Goddard College MFA program. Her latest collection is What Is This Thing Called Love (W. W. Norton).
Jason Allen is a student at Portland State University.
Lindsay Allen graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and currently works at NY Office, a film talent management company. Lindsay is currently writing a collection of short stories.
Alison Apotheker’s first book of poems, Slim Margin, will be published by Word Press in 2008. She has poems published in or forthcoming from Prairie Schooner, North American Review, and Mid-American Review among other literary magazines, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing at PortlandCommunity College. Alison Apotheker teaches composition and creative writing at Rock Creek, serves as the WritingCenter's coordinator and co-edits the Rock Creek Review.
Molly A. Bailen is a screenwriter, filmmaker, artist and medical front desk secretary. Molly wrote for New Music Television on ITV in London , England and worked as a director’s assistant/runner for the feature “Bring It On Again”. She is currently in pre-production on a short “Gravity’s Funeral” with Rain Country Creative.
Joaquin Baldwin is a director and animator from Paraguay, with a BFA in animation from CCAD and working on an MFA in animation at UCLA. He has been granted several awards including the Jack Kent Cooke full Graduate Scholarship in 2006.
C. Rosalind Bell has authored five screenplays, two novellas, a novel and a collection of short stories. Rosalind received a Callaloo Literary Journal Fellowship in 2003—Texas A&M College Park. A short film of one of her stories, "Tootie Pie," was screened at the Seattle International Film Festival in May, 2006. Rosalind is currently a writer in WITS-Seattle (Writers In the Schools).
Marvin Bell is the author of several books of poetry. His most recent collection is Mars Being Red (Copper Canyon Press).
Boyd W. Benson has published poems in The Iowa Review, Ascent and Free Lunch. Additionally, in 2007, his twenty-poem manuscript The Owl's Ears was included in Volume 1 of the LOST HORSE PRESS NEW POETS SERIES: NEW POETS| SHORT BOOKS, edited by Marvin Bell. In early 2009, his poem "Owl" will appear in the Anhinga Press anthology The Poets Guide to the Birds, edited by Judith Kitchen and Ted Kooser.
Amy Bernays is a painter and writer living and working in Los Angeles, California. Amy graduated with a BA(hons) in Fine Art from Central St Martins, London in 2001. Her work is a mix of paintings, prints, drawings; short stories and behind the scenes narratives from London and California. Using her daily experiences and various materials, she provides a window into western culture. Shortlisted for the Mercury prize in 2006, her work can be seen in galleries in Los Angeles, London and Edinburgh as well as online at www.bernays.net and www.newbloodart.com.
Linda Bierds is a former MacArthur fellow. Her latest collection is Flight: New and Selected Poems (Putnam).
John Blackard is a graduate of the University of North Carolina with advanced degrees in English Studies and Library and Information Studies. He has two books of poems in print and a book about the golden age of paperback publishing. He has received Fulbright and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. He once had a great evening cooking and eating pork chops and collard greens with Robert Penn Warren, who told him the best poems grow out of the fertile soil of one's life.
Bernard Bomba's work, (mostly poetry) has been published in many journals over the past thirty years, including The American Poetry Review, West Branch, The Literary Review, and The North American Review. A book of poems, Rags and Again Rags, was published in 2000. He now writes mostly fiction. He's a former editor of Trail and Timberline, the mountaineering magazine of the Colorado Mountain Club. He teaches at Sussex Community College in New Jersey.
Timothy Braun is an American writer who lives in Austin, TX. He is a professor of English at St. Edward's University. You can learn more about him at timothybraun.com.
Kathleen Buck: "I have been a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon since 1994. I am active in the Arts Alliance of Yamhill County, which annually sponsors the Art Harvest Studio Tour, in which I have participated since 1997. My work has been accepted into and won awards in numerous juried shows, including the Northwest Watercolor Society Members Show, six Watercolor Society of Oregon shows, Beaverton Showcase, Coos Art Museum, the OSU Forestry Center, and the International Pinot Noir Festival. I have won awards for my paintings in the 2005 Watercolor of Oregon Fall Show, the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts, and several Village Gallery juried shows. People worldwide collect my work. Currents Gallery in McMinnville, and the Aurora Gallery in Vancouver WA, currently represent me."
Aleksey Budovskiy was born in St-Petersburg, Russia on January 21st, 1975 and moved to New York in 1994. After graduating from Brooklyn College with bachelor of Arts in 2000 he switched to animation. From 2002 to 2008 he created five animated music videos that received numerous awards from many festivals around the globe, and also produced several educational shorts for little kids, that were commissioned by HBO and Sesame street.
Victor Camillo a mathematics professor at the University of Iowa. He is interested in writing that is reality based, echoing the opinion of Marvin Bell, "...poetry, like every art, remains a survival skill."
Robert Castle has published stories in Fiction Funhouse, Fiction Warehouse, Wilmington Blues, 3 AM, 5_trope, The Sidewalk’s End, Octavo, Double Dare Press, Arbutus, Eclectica, Facets, Skive magazine, and Sedona’s Attic. Earlier work appeared in literary magazines like The Sun, Gadfly, Timber Creek Review, Curriculum Vitae, The MacGuffin, The Monocacy Valley Review, The Iconoclast, and A Summer’s Reading. Several plays were published at zygoteinmycoffee.com and Bent Pin Quarterly. His one-act, "The Origin of Consciousness" was performed this past summer in NYC by Turtle Shell Productions.
Barbara Drake has retired from thirty years of teaching at Linfield College and lives on her farm in Yamhill,Oregon. She has a soon to be released collection, Driving 100.
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI is a poet, a writer, a versatile artist. The Reward of Eagerness was given by The Radio NPS of Holland in 1999 and The Reward of Palmares was given by The Organization of Les Amis de Thalie in France to him. He works in The Center of Adult Education ( AFPA) at present.
Alice Derry
John A. Donnelly, a retired lawyer, is an actor and playwright. He performs frequently for Small Screen Video, where a DVD of five of his short plays is in production.
Elizabeth Enslin received her PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University and has been a researcher, teacher, grantwriter and urban farmer. Her essay "Ama" is a finalist for the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize and will appear in The Crab Orchard Review. Drawing on experiences as anthropologist and family member in rural Nepal, she is currently working on an ethnographic memoir - Sacred Threads - a chapter of which is forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review.
Steve Ersinghaus is a poet, novelist, and story writer, specializing in hypertext narrative. In collaboration with artist, Carianne Mack, he is the author of 100 Days, a 100 poem, 100 painting-a-day challenge published at Blurb.com, and the hypermedia work, Stoning Field (http://steveersinghaus.com/flashex/stoningfield/index.htm). His novel The Life of Geronimo Sandoval earned best Reading Room hypertext at the Hypertext '07 conference in Manchester, England. He currently teaches writing, literature, and new media at Tunxis Community College in Farmington, Connecticut.
Jéanpaul Ferro
Louis Gallo was born and raised in New Orleans and now teaches at Radford University in Virginia. His publications include Glimmer Train, New Orleans Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Texas Review, Missouri Review, WIDE AWAKE IN THE PELICAN STATE (LSU fiction anthology), The Ledge (Pushcart nominee), The Journal, Baltimore Review, Greensboro Review, storySouth, Amazon Shorts and many others. The first chapter of his novel BREAKNECK was recently published in Glimmer Train. Gallo states that Dreamtime on Columbus Street is a true account of his childhood, his family's stories and superstitions.
Lisa Galloway is the author of the chapbook Liminal: A Life of Cleavage. She is a graduate of Pacific's MFA program, and hails from Indiana where the Bible Belt still leaves welts.
Molly Gloss is a fourth-generation Oregonian who lives in Portland. Her novel The Jump-Off Creek was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction, and a winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award. In 1996 Molly was a recipient of a Whiting Writers Award. The Dazzle of Day was named a New York Times Notable Book and was awarded the PEN Center West Fiction Prize. Wild Life won the James Tiptree Jr. Award and was chosen as the 2002 selection for "If All Seattle Read the Same Book." The Hearts of Horses, released in Fall, 2007, is the novel of a young woman breaking horses for several ranchers in Eastern Oregon in the winter of 1917.
Kate Gray, after living in Portland for 25 years, has finally discovered the Arts & Crafts movement, and hopes those sturdy lines will enter her writing. She also just published her first full-length book of poems, Another Sunset We Survive in 2007, which followed prize-winning chapbooks, Bone-Knowing, and Where She Goes. She teaches at Clackamas Community College and dreams of linebreaks that are blind dove-tails.
Sam Hamill is a poet, essayist and a founding editor of Copper Canyon Press. He lives in Port Townsend ,Washington and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Ripley Hugo lives in Montana.She has written a biography of her mother entittled Writing for Her Life: The novelist Mildred Walker.
Lawson Inada, American Book Award and Pushcart Prize Winner, is Oregon's poet Laureate. He is the author of the collection Legends From Camp (Coffee House Press).
Bill Johnson is the author of A Story Is A Promise.
Brandon Johnson is a PSU student who writes fiction and screenplays.
Kerri Jones works in the innovative medium of fabric mosaic art. Her life-long experience working with fabrics in apparel design and construction provide a foundation for her current work. Visiting the historical sites of Turkey and Greece ignited her interest in the intricacies of mosaic design, inspiring experimentation with the use of fabrics as a medium for creating mosaic images. The immense supply and variety of fabric resources in Portland both makes this new medium possible and serves to maintain its vitality.
Jesse Kellman: "My medium is Abstract Expressionism mid to large scale works. They are very urban, contemporary pieces using plasters and paints to mixed media. I am available for commissions, gallery events and public art projects. I have up coming exhibitions in Chicago, San Diego and Brussels Belgium."
Tim Keppel has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Seattle Review, Carolina Quarterly, Florida Review, New Delta Review, Prism International, and elsewhere. The Spanish translation of his story collection Earthquake Watch was recently published by Alfaguara.
William Kittredge is the author of The Next Rodeo: New and Selected Essays. He lives in Missoula,Montana.
Janine Kilty is a New York artist who specializes in realistic paintings of
people, pets and places. She has trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of The
Fine Arts and in the atelier of master artist Wade Schuman (New York City).
Her art work has been exhibited in galleries and public spaces in
Pennsylvania and in the western New York area, and hangs in a number of
private collections internationally. Mrs. Kilty has shown paintings in
national exhibitions and competitions and has won numerous prizes.
Suzy Kitman: "After receiving my B. A. from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, I moved to New York City. There I furthered my studies in art. While I worked as a patina artist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in various commercial art related jobs, I began to study figure drawing at the New York Academy of Art. My study of realism led me to the National Academy of Design, School of Fine Arts, where I began to use oils. A merit scholarship from the Art Students League enabled me to continue to study for one year. After 13 years in New York, I headed west, and received my M.F.A. in Painting from The University of Montana in May 1997. My fruit, portrait, landscape, and still life series have been shown in invitational shows and gallery settings across the country, and have received numerous awards."
Richard Krawiec: "I'm a published novelist, story writer, playwright, and poet, with fellowships from the NEA and NC Arts Council. I've been studying photography for 2 decades and am only now beginning to send photos out. I first studied photography in the late 1970s in Cambridge, MA with David Akiba, whose work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and elsewhere. My photography is influenced by the work of Aaron Siskind and Georgia O'Keefe."
Craig Lesley is the author of 4 novels and a memoir, along with numerous other works. He has received three Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards, the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award for Best Novel, and an Oregon Book Award. He has been the recipient of several national fellowships and holds a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Whitman College. Currently the Senior Writer-in-Residence at Portland State University, Craig lives with his wife and two daughters in Portland, Oregon. Both Storm Riders and The Sky Fisherman were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Though born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Evan Lewis considers himself a spiritual Texan. He writes mysteries and historical fiction and is currently at work on two adventure novels featuring legendary Texas heroes. A tall tale about still another Texas hero appeared in the November 2008 issue of the web magazineReflections Edge.
Gary Copeland Lilly is a veteran of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force. He is the author of Subsequent Blues (Four Way Books) and Alpha Zulu (Copper Canyon Press).
Dave McAlinden is a senior at Portland State University.
Moira McAuliffe made her US debut in Damon Knight's Clarion Awards. In the following 25 years she has published fiction and verse in The Adelaide Review, Overland, Australian Short Stories, siglo, FEMSPEC, Eye-Rhyme, and in several webzines, one edited by Bill Shields. She has written a libretto for La Mama Courthouse Theatre in Melbourne (Australia); in 2002 she co-founded the multilingual Portland-based Gobshite Quarterly, where she continues as contributing editor. In 2007 she co-edited The Broken Word: The Alberta Street Anthology, Volume Two, and proof-read the non-pictographic, non-Cyrillic, non-Greek, non-kanakata content of Curse + Berate in 69+ Languages (Gobshite Quarterly and Soft Skull Books, 2008). Her collections include Fighting Monsters (Vaughan Willoughby Publishing, Melbourne, 1998), and a series of mini-chapbooks published in Portland by Urban Serf.
Laura A. Miller lives in Southeast Portland and occasionally blogs at Miller's Crossing (http://www.lamiller.net/).
Mike Mudd, with one foot firmly planted in the singer-songwriter tradition, has a versatile sound that has not only drawn comparisons to Dylan and Woody Guthrie, but also to Tom Waits, Radiohead, Floyd and the beat-jazz style of Kerouac. Mike delivers dynamic solo performances ranging from acoustic guitar and wailing harmonica to any combination of acoustic and electric guitar, percussion and auxiliary instrumentation, often incorporating real-time looping and ambience.
Jefferson Navicky teaches writing at Southern Maine Community College. He earned an MFA from Naropa University. Other excerpts of The Anesthesiologist have appeared in elimae, Fact-Simile and Omphalos. Other work has appeared in Tarpaulin Sky, Octopus, Cross Cultural Poetics, Bombay Gin and others. Black Lodge Press published his chapbook, Map of the Second Person.
William O'Daly is a poet, translator, and fiction writer. His published works include six books of the late and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (Still Another Day, The Separate Rose, Winter Garden, The Sea and the Bells, The Yellow Heart, and The Book of Questions), and a chapbook of his own poems, The Whale in the Web. Two more translations of late Neruda, The Hands of Day and World's End, are forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2008. O'Daly was a finalist for the 2006 Quill Award in Poetry for Still Another Day and profiled on NBC's The Today Show. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he has worked as a literary and technical editor, a college professor, and an instructional designer; and his poems, translations, essays, and reviews 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.
Nina Paley is a longtime veteran of syndicated comic strips, creating "Fluff" (Universal
Press Syndicate), "The
Hots" (King Features), and her own
alternative weekly "Nina's
Adventures." In 1998 she began making
independent animated festival
films, including the controversial yet popular
environmental short,
"The
Stork." In 2002 Nina followed her
then-husband to Trivandrum,
India, where she read her first Ramayana.
This inspired her first feature, Sita
Sings the Blues, which she animated and
produced single-handedly
over the course of 5 years on a home computer.
Nina teaches at Parsons
School of Design in Manhattan and is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow.
Paul Pekin's work has appeared in many literary magazines, commercial magazines, and newspapers, most recently The MacGuffin, Folio, and the Omnidawn fantasy anthology, Paraspheres. His short story "Letter From a Non-Trad" published in Karamu (Eastern Illinois University at Charleston) won a 2008 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award
J. C. Pence is a retired educator turned writer. This play is a seven-year project and the result of reworking the poetry Pence wrote back in the '60s.
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.
Jennifer Phillips emigrated to Australia in 2000 where she is still teaching IT. In 2003 as well as teaching, she completed an IT Diploma in multimedia integration and became president of the ACT branch of the Australian Federation of University Women. In 2004 she published her 5th book, began two certificate courses (Screen + Work Place Training and Assessment) and made and exhibited her first piece of digital Art.
Beth Aeowyn Russell holds a BA from Whitman College, an MAT from Oregon State University, and an MFA earned through the low residency creative writing program at Pacific University. She teaches, writes and makes her home in Corvallis, Oregon.
Vern Rutsala, Junper Prize winner and National Book Award finalist, is the author of twelve collections of poetry, including How We Spend Our Time (University of Akron Press).
Peter Sears is the author of the chapbook, Luge (Cloudbank Books), a full collection of poems, The Brink (Gibbs and Smithh) and Gonna Bake Me A Rainbow Poem: A Student Guide to Writing Poetry (Scholastic).
Jackie Shannon-Hollis lives in Portland but was born and raised in eastern Oregon. Her family still has the ranch she grew up on and she goes home to visit as often as possible. Jackie's fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various literary journals including Rosebud, Inkwell, The Rambler, The South Dakota Review, The High Desert Journal and flashquake. This is her second appearance in the Oregon Literary Review.
Evelyn Sharenov grew up in New York City; she has called Portland, OR home since 1990. Her stories, essays and poetry have been published in Glimmer Train, Etude, Fugue, Rain City Review, Mediphors, Hip Mama, XConnect and other journals. She has been awarded an Oregon Literary Arts grant in fiction and been a notable in Best American Short Stories. She is a reviewer for The Oregonian newspaper, The Bear Deluxe Magazine and Bitch Magazine. Her reviews can also be found at www.writersdojo.org. Her short stories and essays have been anthologized in 'Love You to Pieces,' Beacon Press, 2008 and 'Citadel of the Spirit,' February 2009. She has a BA degree in literature and earns her daily bread in the mental health field.
Matthew Shenoda is on the faculty of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press.)
Daniel Skach-Mills award-winning poetry has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies, including: The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Century. Sojourners, Open Spaces, and Prayers To Protest: Poems That Center And Bless Us (Pudding House Publications, 1998). His chapbook, Gold: Daniel Skach-Mills’s Greatest Hits, 1990-2000, appeared in 2001 from Pudding House. In and around Oregon, Daniel Skach-Mills has been a featured reader for events at Looking Glass Bookstore, Marylhurst University, Living Earth Gatherings, KBOO Radio, and The Friends of William Stafford. A psychotherapist and spiritual teacher, he has lived both as a Benedictine and a Trappist monk, and is currently a volunteer docent for The Portland Classical Chinese Garden. Daniel conducts contemplative workshops based on The Tao of Now. He and his partner live in Portland, Oregon.
Douglas Spangle has emceed open-mike readings, hosted a poetry/talk radio show, and served on the boards of literary and artistic events. He has been Senior Editor of Rain City Review, Co-Editor of Moose, is currently on the staff of Gobshite Quarterly, and in 1994 edited the Festschrift Homespun: A Tribute to Mary Barnard. His poems, reviews, graphics, articles and translations have appeared in Adragtul, Black Bear Review, Georgetown Review, Main Street Rag, Small Press Review; in the anthologies ff The Beaten Track, Portland Lights, Broken Word and many other small press literary publications. His long poem “From Oregon to Gloucester, Maximus” appears on OlsonNow! at Blogspot His chapbooks are Initial (Quiet Lion Press, 1996), Suite: Lost Things (Flyleaf Editions, 1997), 2 ½ Bridges (26 Books, 1999), Perseus Pursuing (9 muses books, 2002) and August (Snark Publications, 2004).
Tim Sproul is the author of How to Leave Your Home Town for Good. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Zone 3, Spoon River Poetry Review, Rain, and The Talking River Review. He received a Zone 3 Poetry Award for "Feeling the Train, Finding You." Writer Willy Vlautin recently described Sproul as "the most impressive gut wrenching poet to come out of the Northwest in years." And poet Eugene Gloria said, "Sproul's voice fuses the big feeling of story and song. His debut collection is an astonishing accomplishment." Sproul lives in Milwaukie, Oregon, works in the advertising business and laments the disappearance of the nylon tavern windbreaker. He is currently writing a novel.
When Professor Primus St. John joined the PSU faculty in 1973 he already enjoyed a national reputation as a fine poet. Since then he has published several collections of his poems, edited two anthologies, helped create the NEA-funded Poets in the Schools Program, won the Western States Book Award for Poetry (2000), and the Oregon Book Award for Poetry (1990). In 2000 he was a finalist for poetry for both the Oregon Book Award and the PEN West Award. Professor St. John has participated in countless readings and taught hundreds of students to write creatively and think critically. Currently he is completing a collection of new poems based on historical and Caribbean themes where he continues his examination of people, their circumstances, and how they deal with those circumstances.
After leaving New York, Leah Stenson lived in Japan for 16 years where she taught English, worked as an editor and raised a family. After moving to Oregon, where she continued her part time editorial work for a Buddhist organization headquartered in Japan and became involved in nonprofit work, she found the time to express herself creatively-in poetry, creative nonfiction and dance. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including School Library Journal, The Oregonian, the Portland Alliance, NewConnexions and the San Diego Poetry Annual. Her poetry chapbook East/West was published by The William Stafford Center in 2005. She is currently at work on a full-length poetry collection.
Joseph Stroud is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. His newest collection is Of This World (Copper Canyon Press).
Wendy Thornton has published stories in Shadowntrain, MacGuffin Magazine, South Dakota Review, LIterary Review and elsewhere.
Pam Walton’s work has screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, at the Margaret Mead Film Festival, and has been included in the prestigious International Public Television Screening Conference (INPUT). Her documentaries have aired on PBS member stations in major American cities, are broadcast nationally on MTV's LOGO, and distributed by New Day Films. From 1989 to 1999 Walton was a lecturer in the Department of Communication (Film and Video Production) at Stanford University.
Michael Weems is a NYC-based plawright/actor/writer and graduate of Lyndon State College. Recent writing credits: Fragments (Little Hibiscus Productions and Festival 56, Chicago IL); Subtlety (Algonquin Theatre); Burden Me (Phare Play Productions) and the upcoming Onward, Forward (Little Hibiscus Productions – Dec 3-7, 2008) and the publication of Love Me, As Well (most recently – Eye Gone Black Literary Journal) and Waiting Life (Freight Train Magazine). Thanks to my Thomas & Christine.
Nicholas Werner is a recent graduate of Stanford University, with a BA in Film and Media Studies. He has been making machinima (the art of making a film with the use of a video or computer game) since October 2005. He is also part of the How They Got Game group at the Stanford Humanities Laboratory.
Leslie Wetter : was born and bred in Brooklyn, New York. That makes me a real New Yorker. I write about my past, my present, my spirit. You might say I have developed in Oregon. I have a manuscript of about 75 poems and intend to either have it published or simply self publish. I'm taking writing classes regarding the business as well as the craft of writing. I had a future as a very promising actress until a car ran over me and broke both my legs. I'm not in a wheel chair but I don't have the physical dexterity needed as an actor in theater and film. However that talent kind of waltzes it's way out while I read my poetry to any audience. I look to Milton Kessler, and David Ignatow as some of my favored poets.
Christopher Woods is the author of a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a collection of stage monologues, HEART SPEAK. His plays have been produced in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
Dr. JohnnyWow! has long been concerned with the disparities of assigned gender roles and consequent disparities in contemporary society. Filtered through his rather obscure biblical and classical themes, some strikingly provocative and inexplicable images have arisen. JohnnyWow! has both a BA and MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Washington, acquired in the 60's. Recently he completed a program resulting in the acquisition of a Doctorate in Metaphysics. He spent over 30 years working as an offset printer, a field in which he had little talent and no interest. Now as Dr. JohnnyWow! he is free to explore the themes and issues that have haunted him for decades. Most of the art works on display are destined to be part of the good doctor's rigorous Creation/Destruction Aesthetic. It may be your last chance to tell him how wonderful the paintings and drawings are. You may speak to the artist and comment on the work. Your humble and silent awe is misplaced in the presence of art. Johnny Wow! guarantees you won't depart without a piece of real art. When you attend an Art show, don't leave without some Art!
Al Young has been the Poet Laureate of California from 2005-2008. He is the author of the novels Sitting Pretty and Seduction By Light, and Something About The Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry (Soures Books Media Fusion).