OVS Summer 2011:

About our Poetry Feature:

Killarney Clary was born in Los Angeles in 1953 and raised in Pasadena. She received a B.A. in Studio Art and M.F.A. in poetry writing from UC Irvine. She has taught at UC Irvine and at the University of Iowa. In 1992 she received a Lannan Literary Fellowship and in 2011, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Her poetry collections are: Who Whispered Near Me, By Common Salt, and Potential Stranger. She lives on the central coast of California.

About our poetry contributors:

Carol Alexander is a New York City-based author and editor. A writer for trade and educational publishing, she has authored numerous children’s books and many other works. In 2011, her poetry also appears in Chiron Review (2011), Cave Moon Press, Earthspeak, Numinous, and The Whistling Fire (2011).

Sherman Alexie is the author of, most recently, Face, poetry, from Hanging Loose Press, and War Dances, poems and stories, from Grove Press. He lives with his family in Seattle.

Crystal Bacon’s first book of poems, Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey, won the 2003 A. Poulin New Poetry America prize from BOA Editions and was published in 2004.  These poems are excerpted from her new manuscript entitled The Story in the Tracks.  A 1995 graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, her work has appeared in a variety of publications in the US and Canada, including the Cortland Review, Ontario Review, Tampa Review, Massachusetts Review, Marlboro Review, and Antigonish Review.  She has co-taught with painter Timothy Hawkesworth a workshop on Poetry for Painters and Painting for Poets.  She is an Assistant Professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia.  

Jessica Barksdale is the author (as Jessica Inclan) of twelve novels.  She is a professor of English at Diablo Valley College and teaches novel writing for UCLA Extension.

Janet Barry, a New Hampshire musician and poet, has works published or forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies, including Rock + Sling, Damselfly Press, Off-the-Coast, Canary, and the Christian Science Monitor.  She has twice been judge for Poetry Out Loud, and has received a Pushcart Nomination. Janet holds an MFA in poetry from New England College.

Born in Camden, NJ, Sean Battle is the combination of an ambitious mother and WWE Pay-Per Views. He is an MFA Graduate student for poetry at Rutgers-Newark, and received his BA in English at Rutgers-New Brunswick, where he was President and Open Mic Co-host of the Verbal Mayhem Poetry Collective. Battle has released one chapbook, MID-CARDER (self-published, 2011) and is working on his first poetry CD, The Art in Smoking. Poems have been published or are forthcoming in journals Objet d Art ,Polifax, The College Journal, and Borderline, as well as the anthology Bop, Strut and Dance: a Post-Blues Form for New Generations, and have been written and performed for the Raices Cultural Center production, Spirit of the Drum: History and Evolution of a Caribbean tradition. He lives in Voorhees, NJ.

Jenny Billings Beaver is a native Charlottean, with a MFA in Creative Writing in Poetry from Queens University of Charlotte and a BA in English from Wake Forest University. She lives in Charlotte, NC currently with her husband, Justin, and teaches English at Rowan Cabarrus Community College. Her work has appeared or is to appear in Referential Magazine, Southern Women's Review, Poets for Living Waters, Girls with Insurance, vox poetica, The Dead Mule of Southern Literature, The Penwood Review, Sliver of Stone, H.O.D and Writer’s Advice. 

Genevieve Betts received her MFA in creative writing in 2006 from Arizona State University, where she reviewed poetry for Hayden’s Ferry Review. She was a finalist for the ABZ First Book Award and her latest work appears in Western American Literature, Quarter After Eight, Midwest Quarterly, and NANO Fiction. Genevieve currently teaches English at Drexel University.

Tara Betts is the author of Arc & Hue. In addition to being a graduate of the New England College MFA program, she is a Cave Canem fellow and VONA alum. She teaches creative writing at Rutgers University. Her work has appeared in Gathering Ground, Black Nature Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Tyger Burning, and Essence, among others. 

Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, GA, where she co-curates a poetry and music series in East Atlanta. Recent work has appeared in various journals, includingThe Hat and TYPO, and she has published three chapbooks and has two on the way, soon to appear in print and on the web. She blogs athttp://lauraccarter.blogspot.com. 

Jenith Charpentier lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three daughters. Her work has appeared in several publications including Worcester Magazine, The Orange Room Review, The November 3rd Club, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She is an editor for Ballard Street Poetry Journal.

Grant Clauser works as writer/magazine editor and lives in Hatfield, PA. His poems have appeared in various journals including The Literary Review, Cortland Review, The Heartland Review and the Painted Bride Quarterly. In 2010 he was named the Montgomery County Poet Laureate, selected by Robert Bly. He also runs the poetry blog, www.poetcore.com.

April Dressel studied English at Indiana University and after a brief time owning her own vintage clothing store in Chicago, she went back to school. April has recently obtained her Masters in Education from DePaul University and is now teaching English in Chicago Public Schools. Her interest in writing poetry and taking writing classes has been ever-present, but her ambition to publish has been a more recent objective in her life.

Kristina England lives in Worcester, MA.  She runs a poetry workshop for local poets and recently joined the editorial staff at the Ballard Street Poetry Journal.  Her poetry has most recently appeared in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Breadcrumb Scabs, San Pedro River Review, and The Blotter Magazine.

Melanie Faith holds an MFA in poetry from Queens University of Charlotte, NC. She recently had an essay about editing poetry published in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Writers' Journal.  Her poetry is forthcoming from Tapestry (Delta State U., Spring 2011) and her essay about Thoreau and the internet is also forthcoming, from Front Range Review (U. of Montana, Spring 2011). A travel essay was featured in Quicksilver (U. of Texas, March 2010), and another published essay (Shape of a Box, Oct. 2009) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work won the 2009 Anne E. Sucher Poetry Prize for the Iguana Review.  Her current poetry chapbook, Bright, Burning Fuse, was published by Etched Press (www.etchedpress.com) in Dec. 2008. She has been a small town journalist, an ESL classroom teacher for international students, and (currently) a literature and writing tutor at a private college prep high school.  She has enjoyed teaching poetry and essay writing classes for WOW! for two years.

Kate Falvey's work has appeared in an eclectic variety of print and online journals including Memoir(and), Hoboeye, Hospital Drive, Umbrella, Literary Mama, the Mom Egg, Hearing Voices, Red Line Blues, Big Pond Rumour, the Aroostook Review, and others. She has also published academic articles on women writers and work for children. She is on the editorial board of the Bellevue Literary Review and is the editor in chief of 2 Bridges Review, published through New York City College of Technology/CUNY, where she teaches.

Ruth Foley lives in Massachusetts, where she teaches English for Wheaton College. Her recent work is appearing or forthcoming inRiver Styx, Measure, The Ghazal Page, and Umbrella, which just nominated one of her poems for a Pushcart Prize. She also serves as Associate Poetry Editor for Cider Press Review.

RJ Ingram is pursuing a BFA from Bowling Green State University. He spends his holidays with social workers and artists in the South Bronx, Navajo Nation, and McDowell County, West Virginia. Most recently, RJ has been published in and is forthcoming from Autumn Sky Poetry, Catfish Creek, and Spittoon. 

Elizabeth Johnston is an Assistant Professor in the English and Philosophy Department and in the Honors Institute at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY. Her courses include Composition, Women in Literature, Female Icons in Popular Culture, and both British Literature survey courses. She received her PhD in eighteenth-century British literature from West Virginia University, and has published a range of feminist scholarship, including essays on representations of female rivalry on reality television, representations of maternity and the capitalist impulse in Battlestar Galactica, and the nineteenth-century critical reception of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Mary-Catherine Jones' work has appeared or is forthcoming in elimae, Poetry International, Literary Mama, Scapegoat Review and others. She is the program director for the Datum:Earth Reading Series in Keene, NH. She lives with her husband, two cherubians and dog Bacchus on a river named the Contoocook.

Chelsea Rebekah Kachman (formally Chelsea Rebekah Grimmer) graduated from Oakland University with a BA in English Literature, and is in the MFA in Poetry program at Portland State University.  Her poetry has been published in Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Packingtown Review, The English Channel, and Polaris; it is forthcoming in issues of OVS Magazine, University of Calgary's Nod Magazine, and Welter. Her poetry also placed in both the 2010 and 2011 Annual Oakland University Ekphrasis Poetry Contest, and her fiction has placed in both the 2009 and 2010 Annual Oakland University Flash Fiction Contest.

Jessica Fordham Kidd works as an instructor and the associate director of first-year writing at the University of Alabama. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Crab Creek Review, Six Little Things, and the online version of Grist: The Journal for Writers.

Rich Ives has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines for his work in poetry, fiction, editing, publishing, translation and photography. His writing has appeared in Verse, North American Review, Massachusetts Review, Northwest Review, Quarterly West, Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fiction Daily and many more. He is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. His story collection, The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking, was one of five finalists for the 2009 Starcherone Innovative Fiction Prize. In 2010 he has been a finalist in fiction at Black Warrior Review and Mississippi Review and in poetry at Cloudbank and Mississippi Review. The Mississippi Review finalist works appear in the Spring, 2010 issue of that magazine and the Cloudbank finalist appears in the Spring, 2010 issue of that magazine as well.

Marynia Kolak is an interdisciplinary writer from Chicago with a geology background. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Nonfiction) from Roosevelt University, and prefers the plays of genre blending. Marynia served as an editor of The Oyez Review in 2008. Her work appears most recently in Ghost Ocean Magazine, and the forthcoming issue of Inertia Magazine. She is invigorated by painting, cartography, and hiking with her son.

Steve Komarnyckyj is a  British Ukrainian writer and linguist whose literary translations and poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Vsesvit magazine (Ukraine's most influential literary journal), The North and the Echo Room. 

Jack Kristiansen exists in the compostion books and computer files of William Aarnes. Kristiansen's poets have appeared in FIELD, Tipton Poetry Journal, Caper, and Sunsets & Silencers.

Jackson Lassiter hails from Wyoming, and after several layovers finds himself living and writing in Washington, DC.  His poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction is liberally sprinkled over the internet and has been published in 50+ anthologies and journals, most recently in DuPage Valley Review, Yalobusha Review, Prime Mincer, and Sin Fronteras.  Contact him at LuckyJRL@hotmail.com.  

Pecan Grove Press released Carol Levin’s chapbook, “Red Rooms and Others” 2009. “Sea Lions Sing Scat” was published by Finishing Line Press, 2007. “Stunned By the Velocity,” a full volume of poems is due from Pecan Grove Press 2012.  Work appears or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, The New York Quarterly, Avatar Review, The Massachusetts Review, Third Coast, The Seattle Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Cortland Review, Verse-Wisconsin, The Comstock Review, Umbrella, and others. Poems were set as a choral work by composer Carol Sams and have been performed by various choirs. She collaborated in translating Anton Chekhov’s four major plays and worked as the dramaturge on the subsequent productions. Levin is an Editorial Assistant for the Crab Creek Review and teaches the Alexander Technique in Seattle.

Sara Lier is a student living in New Jersey. Her poetry has recently appeared in Inkwell Journal, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Conte, So to Speak, and Cloudbank. She received Brooklyn College's Academy of American Poets prize in 2007, and one of her poems was chosen by the academy for an anthology of prize winners from the last decade.

Michael Lindgren was educated at Dartmouth College and has worked as a book editor and bookseller in Boston, Pennsylvania, and New York City for fifteen years. His book reviews and essays have appeared in the Washington Post, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, n+1 online, the Brooklyn Rail, Time Out New York, the L Magazine, American Book Review, No Depression, and the KGB Bar online book review.

Steve Longfellow came to poetry late via an MFA from Vermont College around age 50, without benefit of an undergraduate degree. Currently he teaches a little at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and works a lot on renovating his house. His poetry has appeared in the Cafe Review, Drunken Boat, Los Angeles Review, and Talking River Review, among others. Poems will be out soon in Word Riot's 10th Anniversary Anthology, and the online Foundling Review.

Yulya Madrone finally lives at both a port and a land. Other sightings have occurred in a shy town, a capital city, a modern day ruins, and a long-lost princely coast. Their poems can be found or are forthcoming in 580 Split, Handsome, Gulf Coast, American Letters & Commentary, Columbia Poetry Review, Rhino and others.

Rick Marlatt holds two degrees from the University of Nebraska, as well as a MFA from the University of California, Riverside, where he served as poetry editor of The Coachella Review. Marlatt's first book, How We Fall Apart, was the winner of the 2010 Seven Circle Press poetry chapbook award. His most recent work appears in New York Quarterly, Rattle, and Anti. Marlatt writes poetry reviews for Coldfront Magazine, and he teaches English in Nebraska, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Joshua Medsker has had his fiction, non-fiction, and poetry published in a variety of magazines and websites, including: AK Verve, GeekAmerica, Friction, Sexy Small Fry, and We'll Never Have Paris. He is also a contributor to The Zinester's Guide to NYC, and co-editor of Memoir (a Noun): Voices From New York's Criminal Justice System. He lives in the NYC area with his wife and cats.

B.C. Mitchell's poetry is forthcoming in Spring/Summer 2011 issues of The MacGuffin and The Avery Anthology. He graduated from Georgia Southern University, and in Fall 2011, he will begin working towards his MFA in poetry at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, GA.

Rafael Miguel Montes, born in Santiago de Cuba, is a Cultural Studies professor at St. Thomas University and a Cuban-American writer living and working in Miami. His literary work reflects his dual upbringing in the Cuban-American community of Hialeah, Florida, and the academic communities of a number of institutions of higher learning. His poetry has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, The New York Quarterly, 491 Magazine, Tattoo Highway, Conclave: A Journal of Character, Stone’s Throw (Montana), Tipton Poetry Journal, The Honey Land Review, Paradigm, Prole (UK), inscape (Kansas), and a number of other academic and literary journals. His poem “Gymnauseum” was recently nominated for the 2011 Pushcart Prize. He is married to the Cuban-American poet, Celia Lisset Alvarez.

Sean Morrissey is a young poet and student. A Baltimore resident, Morrissey divides his time between Washington D.C.  as a contractor for the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and Madison, New Jersey where he is enrolled in Drew University’s Low-Residency MFA program in Poetry. While studying English on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Morrissey served as co-editor of the Salisbury University Literary Magazine and was awarded their 2009 Poet Warrior award.

Rebecca Pãpucaru is an internationally published poet, and currently a PhD student at the University of Montreal, Canada. Her poetry and prose have been shortlisted for a number of awards in Canada, including Arc Magazine’s Poem of the Year. Her poetry has been anthologized in the 2010 edition ofThe Best Canadian Poetry in English (guest editor Lorna Crozier and series editor Molly Peacock), and in the Headlight anthology of emerging writers. In Canada, her poetry has appeared in Prism International,The Antigonish Review, Acta Victoriana, Soliloquies, and Existere,while both her poetry and prose have been featured in The Nashwaak Review. In the United States, her poetry has appeared in Wordriver Literary Review, Ozone Park Journal, SLAB: Sound and Literary Artbook, The Orange Coast Review, The Emerson Review, Kestrel, and Caesura: The Journal of the Poetry Center San Jose. In Ireland, her work has appeared in Crannóg. This is her first appearance in OVS.

William Reichard is the author of four collections of poetry: Sin Eater (Mid-List Press, 2010); This Brightness (Mid-List Press, 2007); How To (Mid-List Press, 2004) was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and An Alchemy in the Bones (New Rivers Press, 1999) won a MN Voices Prize. Poems from This Brightness and How To have been featured on NPR’s “Writers Almanac.” Reichard has published one chapbook, To Be Quietly Spoken (Frith Press, 2001) and is the editor of The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940’s (Univ. of MN Press, 2001). New Village Press will release his anthology of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, American Tensions: Literature of Social Justice, in April 2011.

Matthew Richards is a 19-year old college student and poet from Manchester, New Hampshire.  He loves writing, and has published two chapbooks of poetry.  His work has been featured in online publications such as The Legendary andBorderline Magazine.  You can find him reading at one of the various open mics throughout New England.

AJ Roberts studied poetry at Dartmouth and Stanford under poets including Cleopatra Mathis, W.S. DiPiero, and Tom Sleigh. AJ currently work as an intellectual property lawyer in Boston, and have written on intersections in law and poetry.

Lee D. Rorman resides in Fargo, ND. He has published poetry in Cynic, Wanderings, ArtsPulse, and other publications. He was the 2010 winner of the LRAC/TAP 6-word Short Story Challenge. He has published short-stories and is currently working on a novel.

Peter Serchuk’s poems have appeared in a variety of journals big and small including Boulevard, Poetry, Denver Quarterly, North American Review, Texas Review, South Carolina Review, New York Quarterly and others. Additionally, a number of his poems have been anthologized, most recently in Against Agamemnon: War Poetry (WaterWood Press, 2009) and The Best American Erotic Poems 1800 to the Present (Scribners, 2008). He is the author of two poetry collections: Waiting for Poppa at the Smithtown Diner (University of Illinois Press) and All That Remains, which will appear in 2012 from WordTech Communications. He lives in Los Angeles.

Diane Smith writes about the homeless, children, immigrants, poverty, healthcare; those who have little visibility or power in society.  Her writing has appeared in modest literary journals in England, Canada and the United States in print and online.  After working as a social worker in child welfare for twenty years, she finally retired.

Lisa Tellor-Kelley has a MA of English from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  Currently, she is lecturing at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois.

Pavlo (Pawlo) Tychyna(translated by Steve Komarnyckyj), the greatest Ukrainian poet of the 20th Century, is almost unknown in the English speaking world- some of my versions of his work have appeared/ will appear in the Oxford University based magazine founded by Ted Hughes, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Salzburg Review, Envoi, The Mozzie, Fire, Vsesvit,  Nasha Doroha, and the Istanbul Literary Review. 

Roxanne Halpine Ward graduated from the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is a past attendee of the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. Her work has appeared in the Greensboro Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and Zoland, among others, and her chapbook, This Electric Glow, will be published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2012. She blogs about all things yoga at http://roxdoesyoga.wordpress.com.

Shana Wolstein is currently studying toward an MFA at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Her work has appeared previously on-line at La Fovea and is forthcoming in Third Coast Magazine. She currently blogs regularly at www.theredspeechballoon.wordpress.com.

Jessica Young currently holds a Zell Fellowship for poetry in Ann Arbor, MI.  She completed her MFA at the University of Michigan, and her undergraduate at MIT.  Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart, and published most recently in Versal, Cold Mountain Review, and CENTER.

OVS Winter/Spring 2011 Poetry Contributors:

Jeanann Verlee

JEANANN VERLEE is an author, performance poet, editor, activist, and former punk rocker who collects tattoos and winks at boys. Her work has been published and is forthcoming in a variety of journals, including The New York Quarterly, FRiGG, PANK, decomP, Danse Macabre, and The Legendary, among others. Her poems have also been included in various anthologies such as “Not A Muse: The Inner Lives of Women” and “His Rib: Poems Stories and Essays by Her.” Verlee’s first full-length book of poems, Racing Hummingbirds (Write Bloody Publishing, 2010), earned the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal in Poetry.

She has represented New York City three times at the National Poetry Slam under two of the most highly-regarded poetry performance series in the nation: Urbana Poetry Slam and The louderARTS Project. Verlee was the highest-scoring individual poet at the 2008 National Poetry Slam Finals, was the 2009 NYC-Urbana iWPS Champion, and represented NYC-louderARTS at the 2010 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She co-curates the Urbana Poetry Slam reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club and serves as writing and performance coach for this three-time NPS Championship venue. She has performed and facilitated workshops at schools, theatres, bookstores, dive bars and poetry venues across North America.

Educated in theatre performance and creative writing, Verlee was co-author and performing member of national touring company, The Vortex: Conflict, Power, and Choice!, has been commissioned by universities for a number of guerrilla theatre events spotlighting domestic violence under MSCD’s Theatre for Social Change, and was a charter member of New York City’s annual Spoken Word Almanac Project. A fan of letter-writing campaigns and constructing protest signs, Verlee is also an ardent animal rights and humanitarian activist who has organized and participated in numerous social actions.

Her first poem was drafted in pencil on the inside cover of a collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales at the age of 7. She won her first writing contest for a short story at the age of 11 and in the same year became the youngest recipient of Parade Magazine’s Young American Ambassadors prize for an essay contest. Hoping to echo S.E. Hinton’s young author milestone, Verlee was determined to write a novel by the age of 16. With three drafts completed by the autumn of her 15th year, she almost reached her goal. Instead, however, found herself blindsided by the insurmountable distraction of tattooed boys, the perpetual chore of dying her mohawk pink, and a life-altering diagnosis of bipolar disorder. A hardcopy of the unfinished manuscript remains in a fireproof safe in her studio apartment.

She lives in New York City with her best pal (a rescue pup named Callisto) and a pair of origami lovebirds. She believes in you.

David Stallings

David Stallings was born in the U.S. South, raised in Alaska and Colorado before moving to the U.S. Pacific Northwest 35 years ago.  Once an academic geographer, he has spent many years promoting public transportation in the Puget Sound area.  His poems have been published in U.S. Northwest literary journals and one anthology.

Laura E. Davis is a poet, editor, and teacher from Pittsburgh, PA. Her poetry has been featured on Prosody and is forthcoming in Coal Hill Review and Rougarou. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry and nonfiction at Chatham University. Laura serves as Managing Editor of Weave Magazine and writes for her personal blog, Dear Outer Space.

Bret Bass

Bret Bass currently serves as an editor for the corporate equivalent of a Turkish bazaar. He has published in journals and anthologies including The Best of Every Day Fiction TWO (2009). His stories can be read at Every Day Fiction, 50 to 1, Tweet the Meat and other publications.

Jason McCall

Jason Mccall is from the great state of Alabama, where he currently teaches English and Literature at the University of Alabama. His poetry has been or will be featured in The Los Angeles Review, Cimarron Review, New Letters, Mythic Delirium, Fickle Muses and other journals. His first manuscript, Silver, received an honorable mention in the 2010 Steel Toe Books Open Reading Period.

AJ Ong

AJ Ong grew up in the Philippines and moved to California in 2005 to study English and Creative Writing. He is a graduate of the University of California, Riverside where he completed an Asian American murder mystery as his thesis. His poems have been published in Tayo Magazine and Mosaic: Art and Literary Journal. For more information, please visit www.aj-ong.blogspot.com.

Allison Wilkins

Allison Wilkins is a graduate of the University of Nevada Las Vegas International MFA program. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming with STILL, Broken Bridge Review, The Georgetown Review, Tiger’s Eye, hotmetalpress and others. She also has an article about Sylvia Plath, titled “through the beautiful red”: The Use of the Color Red as the Triple-Goddess in Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, forthcoming with Plath Profiles.  She currently lives in Virginia with her husband and two dogs. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lynchburg College.

Kristiana Colon

Kristiana Colón, one of Chicago's Def Poets, is a poet, playwright, actress, and educator who has been writing and performing for eight years. She has been featured on Power 92, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, WGN Radio, and WZRD. Kristiana has rocked the mic at some of the Midwest's top venues including the Park West, the Metro, the Star Plaza Theater, the Aragon, the HotHouse, Darkroom, Subterranean, the Funky Buddha Lounge and Sonotheque, as well as venues across the nation and abroad. Kristiana has shared stages with highly acclaimed writers Marc Smith, the creator of the worldwide 'poetry slam' phenomenon, Haki Madhubuti, Luis Rodriguez, Kevin Coval, Tara Betts, Sonia Sanchez, Malik Yusef, and has opened for De La Soul, Grammy-nominated band Ozomatli and internationally-acclaimed comedian Damon Williams. 

Randall Horton

Randall Horton is a poet originally from Birmingham, AL now living in West Haven, CT. He is the author of The Definition of Place and The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street, both from Main Street Rag. He has an MFA from Chicago State University and a PhD from SUNY Albany. Randall is also a Cave Canem Fellow. He is Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Haven.

Charles Ries  

Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing.  He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and six books of poetry. Most recently he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry.  He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. Charles is Co-Chairman of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. He will have new book of poetry published in 2010: Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love that will be published by Alternating Current Press, Leah Angstman, Editor. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes (http://www.visitsheboygan.com/dairyland/). Most recently he was interviewed by Jane Crown for Blog Radio. You may find that interview by going to: www.janecrown.com and clicking on archived shows at the bottom of the page. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries/

Mark Jackley

Mark Jackley is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Lank, Beak & Bumpy (Iota Press) and a full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Web Anthology. He lives in Sterling, VA.

David McLean

David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in a large lake called Mälaren, very near to Stockholm, with woman, cats, often kittens, and a couple of dogs. He has a BA in History from Balliol, Oxford, and an MA in philosophy, taken much later and much more seriously studied for, from Stockholm. Up to date details of over 1000 poems in various zines over the last three years or so and several available books and chapbooks, including three print full lengths, a few print chapbooks, and a free electronic chapbook, are at his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com

Lisa Marie Basile

Lisa Marie Basile lives in Brooklyn, was born in New Jersey, hates NYC and wishes she were in the desert.  Lisa's full-length poetry collection will come out in 2012 by ?ervená Barva Press. She is Editor-in-Chief of Caper Literary Journal, a monthly poetry and prose journal. She has published or upcoming work in Poets & Artists Magazine, The Moon Milk Review, The View from Here, Dew on the Kudzu, Word Riot, CommonLine, Aphros Literary Magazine, Vox Poetica, The Medulla Review, Melusine, Physiognomy in Letters, Feile-Festa and The Broome Street Review among others. She has performed at KGB and with the Poetry Brothel in NYC. Lisa Marie Basile is an M.F.A student, writer and editor living in NYC. Her site is: www.lisamariebasile.com

Stephen Mead

Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer and maker of short collage films living in NY.  His most recent Amazon release, “Our Book of Common Faith”, a poetry-art hybrid, explores world religions/cultures in hopes of finding what might bond humanity as opposed to dividing.

Mary Kane

Born in Texas and raised in Buffalo, New York, Mary Kane currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota where she is a graduate student in Hamline University’s writing program. She also has a career in marketing, and resists the habit of writing ad copy and billboards while working on her first love, poetry. Her work has been published in Murphy Square and Kaleidoscope.

Philipp Aurand

Philipp W. Aurand was born in W. Berlin, Germany but was raised predominantly here in the States, in the Northwest corner.  He has always enjoyed sketching and illustrating.  More recently he has allowed himself to seep into other forms of expression, particularly poetry.  He currently lives in Seattle, WA.  When he's not tending bar he is avidly studying spanish, doodling and trying to let poems find him. 

Francis Raven

Francis Raven’s books include Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), 5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible (Blue Lion Books, 2008), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007), Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox 2005) and the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005).  Francis lives in Washington DC; you can check out more of his work at his website: http://www.ravensaesthetica.com/. 

Joseph Somoza

Joseph Somoza retired from college teaching (New Mexico State University) and editing (Puerto Del Sol) several years ago to have more time for writing.  He's published 4 books and 4 chapbooks of poetry over the years and has had poems in hundreds of magazines and anthologies.  He lives in Las Cruces with Jill, a painter.

Janee J. Baugher

Janée J. Baugher, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University.  A former poetry editor of Willow Springs and Switched-on Gutenberg, Baugher regularly collaborates with visual artists, composers, and choreographers.  Her collaborations have been produced at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music, Interlochen Center for the Arts (MI), and Dance Now! Ensemble (FL).  Baugher’s an adjunct Creative Writing instructor in Seattle and the author of the collection of poems, Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books, 2010).  Visit:  http://JaneeJBaugher.wordpress.com

George Bishop

George Bishop was raised on the Jersey Shore before moving to Florida where he lives and writes. Recent work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, Evening Red Press and Prick of the Spindle.  Forthcoming work will be featured inGrey Sparrow Journal.  His chapbook, Love Scenes, is available from Finishing Line Press & new chapbook,Marriage Vows and Other Lies, has been released by Flutter press.

Maureen Donatelli

Maureen Donatelli is new to writing poetry but not to reading it. Poetry has been the centre of her world since her first trip to the library at the age of 2. She has lived most of her life in Abbotsford, BC where she received her BA in English from The University of the Fraser Valley with Honours in 2001. She has worked as a research assistant in the English Department of UFV, contributing her skills to the publication of Even on Sunday: On the Poetry and Poetics of Robin Blaser, Ed. Dr. Miriam Nichols. When she is not reading and writing, Maureen enjoys photography, spending time with family and walking in the woods on snowy winter evenings.

Rae Spencer

Rae Spencer is a writer and veterinarian living in Virginia. Her poetry has been published in Wild Goose Poetry Review, Raven Images, Bolts of Silk, Grey Sparrow Journal, vox poetica, The Glass Coin, and elsewhere. In 2009, she received a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Ray Succre

Ray Succre is an undergraduate currently living on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son.  He has had poems published in Aesthetica, Poets and Artists, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries.  His novels Tatterdemalion (2008) and Amphisbaena (2009), both through Cauliay, are widely available in print.  Other Cruel Things (2009), an online collection of poetry, is available through Differentia Press. 

Terry Brix

Terry Brix, a “green” chemical engineer, divides his time among Blue River, Oregon; Bozeman, Montana; Scandinavia; South Africa; and China. Inspired by his travels, a collection of his poetry Chiseled from the Heart was published in 2000 by Vigeland Museum, Norway. His poetry has appeared in, among others, The Evansville Review, Fireweed, Curbside Review, Rattlesnake Review, Small Brushes, Blueline, Liberty Hill Poetry Review, Main Channel Voices, and The Antioch Review. His poetry will soon appear in Falling Star Magazine and the Chiron Review.

Truth Thomas

Truth Thomas is a singer and poet, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised in Washington, DC. He is the former poet in residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literary Society. He currently serves on the editorial board of Little Patuxent Review and the Tidal Basin Review. Some of his work has appeared in: African Voices, Alehouse, Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora, The Houston Literary Review, Quiddity Literary Journal, Little Patuxent Review, Mosaic Magazine, Mythium Literary Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Pluck!, Poet Lore, The Progressive, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Welter Literary Journal, and The 100 Best African American Poems (Edited by Nikki Giovanni). He is the author of two collections of poetry, Party of Black (Flipped Eye/Mouthmark Press, 2006), and A Day of Presence (Flipped Eye Publications, 2008). His third book, Bottle of Life came out in 2010.

OVS Vol. 2 Poetry Contributors:

Patricia Smith

2008 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST! Patricia Smith’s fifth book of poetry, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press) chronicles the human, physical and emotional toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophic natural event with lasting spiritual and political impact. This much-anticipated volume is also the focal point of a new dance/theater collaboration between Patricia and Urban Bush Women dancer Paloma McGregor.

Patricia is also the author of Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press), a National Poetry Series winner, the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com, and a 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Paterson Poetry Prize winner; Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland) and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, poemmemoirstory, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, the Chautauqua Literary Journal, TriQuarterly, and other journals, and in many groundbreaking anthologies--most recently Gathering Ground, The Spoken Word Revolution, The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry and Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry. Her poem "The Way Pilots Walk" received a Pushcart Prize, and is featured in Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of the Small Presses.

Recognized as one of the world’s most formidable performers, Patricia has read her work at venues round the world, including the Poets Stage in Stockholm, Rotterdam’s Poetry International Festival, the Aran Islands International Poetry and Prose Festival and on tour in Germany, Austria and Holland. In the U.S., she’s performed at Carnegie Hall, Bumbershoot, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the Folger Shakespeare Library and St. Mark’s Poetry Project, sharing the stage with noted writers such as Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Rita Dove, Joyce Carol Oates, Allen Ginsberg, Walter Mosley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell and “Lord of the Rings” star Viggo Morgensen. She has worked with Boston stalwart Philip Pemberton and the blues band Bop Thunderous, and as an occasional vocalist with the stellar improvisational jazz group, Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble. Patricia is a four-time national individual champion of the notorious and wildly popular Poetry Slam, the most successful competitor in slam history. She was featured in the nationally-released film “Slamnation,” and appeared on the award-winning HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.”

Recordings of Patricia’s work can be found on the CD “Always in the Head” as well as in the compilations “Grand Slam,” “A Snake in the Heart” “By Someone’s Good Graces” and “Lip.” A short film of her performing the poem “Undertaker,” produced by Tied to the Tracks Films, won awards at the Sundance and San Francisco Film Festivals and earned a prestigious Cable Ace Award as part of the Lifetime Network’s first annual Women’s Film Festival. As a budding voiceover artist, she was the radio voice of the Oil of Olay Total Effects product line.

A selection of Patricia’s poetry was produced as a one-woman play by Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott and performed at both Boston University Playwrights Theater and the historic Trinidad Theater Workshop. Another play, based on Life According to Motown, was staged by Company One Theater in Hartford, Ct., and reviewed favorably in The New York Times.

Patricia is currently at work on the verse memoir Shoulda Been Jimmie Savannah and the young adult novel The Journey of Willie J. Previously she authored Africans in America (Harcourt Brace), a companion volume to the groundbreaking four-part PBS history series. Her first children’s book, Janna and the Kings, was a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award winner.

An accomplished and sought-after instructor of poetry, performance and creative writing, Smith is proud to be a Cave Canem faculty member, as well as a professor of English at CUNY/College of Staten Island and a faculty member of the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. She does workshops and residencies customized for all age groups, and is also available for intensive individual instruction.

In October of 2006, during the Gwendolyn Brooks Creative Writing Conference at Chicago State University, Patricia was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.

Serena Tome

Serena Tome launched an international reading series for African children to connect, learn, and participate in literary activity with students from around the world via video conferencing. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in The Litchfield Review, Foundling Review, The Legendary, Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Boston Literary Magazine, The Stray Branch, and other publications. She is currently working on her first chapbook. You can find out more about Serena at www.serenatome.blogspot.com.

Annmarie Lockhart

Annmarie Lockhart is the founding editor of vox poetica, an online poetry salon dedicated to bringing poetry into the everyday. She has been reading and writing poetry since she could read and write. A lifelong Bergen County, New Jersey resident, she lives and writes two miles east of the hospital where she was born.

Robert Lietz

Robert has had 500 poems appear in more than one hundred journals in the U.S. and Canada, in Sweden and U.K, including Agni Review, Antioch Review, Carolina Quarterly, Colorado Review, Epoch, The Georgia Review, Kansas Quarterly, Mid-American Review, Mississippi Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Southern Humanities Review, and Willow Springs. Seven collections of poems have been published, including Running in Place (L’Epervier Press,). At Park and East Division ( L’Epervier Press,) The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press,) The Inheritance (Sandhills Press,) and Storm Service (Basfal Books). Basfal also published After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems .

Kat Sanchez

Kat Sanchez is a Southern California poet making her way in the City of Wind. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Mosaic: Art and Literary Journal and Columbia Poetry Review. She is an M.F.A. candidate at Columbia College Chicago.

Andrea Potos

Jessica Dyer

Jessica Dyer is an MFA student at Columbia College Chicago and a former journalist. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Exact Change Only, Ariel, IMAGES, Snow*Vigate and WordSalad.

Stephan Delbos

Stephan Delbos is a New England-born poet living in Prague, where he teaches at Charles University and Anglo-American University, and edits several literary publications, including The Rakish Angel Poetry Pamphlet Series. His poetry and essays have appeared most recently or are forthcoming in Agni, Atlanta Review, Poetry International, Poetry Salzburg Review and Zoland Poetry.

Kristin Ravel

Kristin Ravel's work has appeared in publications, including Temenos, elimae, Susquehanna Review, and Poets and Artist (O&S). She is currently earning an MFA at Columbia College Chicago.

Carol Lynn Grellas

Carol Lynn Grellas is a three-time Pushcart nominee and the author of A Thousand Tiny Sorrows, soon to be released from March Street Press and two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers, Pudding House Press and Object of Desire, Finishing Line Press. She is widely published in magazines and online journals including most recently, The Centrifugal Eye, Oak Bend Review and deComp, with work upcoming in OVS and Saw Palm Florida Literature and Art. She lives with her husband, five children and a little blind dog who sleeps in the bathtub.

Stephen Danos

Stephen Danos is pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing - Poetry at Columbia College Chicago. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, LEVELER, and Contrary Magazine.

Jeffrey Allen

Jeffrey Allen student in the M.F.A. program at Columbia College Chicago, where he also serves on the editorial board for Columbia Poetry Review. His chapbook, Simple Universal, was published by Bronze Man Books in 2007.

Rhiannon Richardson

Rhiannon Richardson is a performance poet, singer/songwriter and mother. She is a full time student from southern New Hampshire.

Kristina England

Kristina England lives in Worcester, MA. She runs a poetry workshop for local poets and recently joined the editorial staff at the Ballard Street Poetry Journal. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Breadcrumb Scabs, San Pedro River Review, and The Blotter Magazine.

Derek JG Williams

Derek JG Williams is a Boston based writer and performer. His work has been featured at bars, colleges, coffee shops, and house parties throughout New England and New York. He’s also a regular performer at the world famous Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. In the spring of 2009 he released an album of poetry and music titled A Chorus of Cities. He has poems appearing in the new issues of The November 3rd Club and the White Whale Review. During the fall he was a featured performer at the Last Supper Festival in New York City, a multimedia, project-based collaborative festival that addressed the act of consumption. He is currently shopping his first full length book of poems to publishers.

Annie Brechin

Annie Brechin was awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Young Poets Apprenticeship in 2003 and studied with Carol Rumens, George Szirtes & Christopher Reid. Published in The Wolf, Magma, Stand, Rising & The Liberal, until recently she lived and performed in London. She now resides in Prague. Niall O'Sullivan has described her poetry as 'dark and delicious'.

Bernice Lewis

Bernice Lewis has been a singer/songwriter and national touring artist for almost 30 years, as well as a published poet, producer and recording artist. She's worked with Dar Williams, Bobby McFerrin, Rosanne Cash, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Odetta, the Dixie Chicks, Christine Lavin, Patty Griffin, and Patty Larkin. In 2009, she was selected to be Artist in Residence for the National Park Service. She currently teaches Songwriting at Williams College and Colorado College, as well as at schools and retreat centers. Lewis has had a thirty-year daily yoga practice, loves good coffee, and her religion is the Grand Canyon.

Donna Vorreyer

Donna Vorreyer lives in the Chicago area and spend my days trying to convince teenagers that words matter. My poetry has appeared in many literary journals, most recently in Cider Press Review, Autumn Sky Poetry, Apparatus Magazine, and Apt. My chapbookWomb/Seed/Fruit is available from Finishing Line Press. I enjoy my family and friends, Diet Coke, travel, photography, pizza, and massages, not necessarily in that order.Visit me on the web at http://www.donnavorreyer.com

Eric Arnold

Eric Arnold lives in Dallas, where he studies medicine. Two of his poems recently appeared in The Labletter and others are pending publication at New York Quarterly. His short fiction has appeared in Elimae, Pindeldyboz and Monkey Bicycle.

Jade Sylvan

Jade Sylvan is a writer and performer living in Boston. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Spark Singer, was published in 2009 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. She has performed, lectured and facilitated workshops across the country. Her favorite yoga position is Crane Pose, and she never learned how to whistle. She is currently at work on a second novel, an album of songs, and more poetry. You can find her at www.jadesylvan.com.

Janet Engle

Janet Engle was raised in the foothills of southern West Virginia. She tries to write poems that take readers past the stereotypes of the Appalachian hillbilly and capture the magic and frustrations of life in a coal town.

Ryan Holden

Ryan Holden is a graduate student in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. He has been published most recently in The Blue Guitar and received an Honorable Mention for The Katharine C. Turner Prize of The Academy of American Poets in 2009. As part of an international travel fellowship, he will be teaching creative writing at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, this summer.

Sergio A. Ortiz

Ortiz has a B.A. in English literature from Inter-American University, and a M.A. in philosophy from World University. His poetry has appeared in over 200 online and print journals He has been recently published, or his poems are forthcoming in: The Battered Suitcase, Zygote in my Coffee, Right Hand Pointing, Poui: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing, Writers’ Bloc and Temenos: Central Michigan University’s Literary Journal. Flutter Press published his chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk (2009).

Truth Thomas

Truth Thomas is a singer and poet, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised in Washington, DC. He is the former poet in residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literary Society. He currently serves on the editorial board of Little Patuxent Review and the Tidal Basin Review. Some of his work has appeared in: African Voices, Alehouse, Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora, The Houston Literary Review, Quiddity Literary Journal, Little Patuxent Review, Mosaic Magazine, Mythium Literary Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Pluck!, Poet Lore, The Progressive, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Welter Literary Journal, and The 100 Best African American Poems (Edited by Nikki Giovanni). He is the author of two collections of poetry, Party of Black (Flipped Eye/Mouthmark Press, 2006), and A Day of Presence (Flipped Eye Publications, 2008). His third book, Bottle of Life, is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2010.

Tamara J. Madison

Tamara J. Madison is a writer, poet, and performer currently living and working in New Jersey. Her literary work has been published in a number of journals and anthologies including: Temba Tupu! (2009, Red Sea Press), Check The Rhyme, An anthology of female poets and emcees (nominated for a 2007 NAACP Image Award in Poetry/Literature) and Tea Party Magazine. (2009). Tamara is the author and performer of Naked Voice and was featured as bilingual poet and songstress on the self-titled CD, JUBA Collective (Premonition Records). Currently, Tamara is completing a poetry manuscript in search of a publisher with plans to return to the studio for a new literary solo recording. As of May 2010, she will be a Master of Fine Arts graduate of New England College specializing in poetry.

Susan Vespoli

Susan is still a student at Antioch University L.A. studying poetry as well a sliver of creative non-fiction and will receive her MFA in December 2010. She's been mentored, so far, by Richard Garcia, David Hernandez and Sharman Russell. Her work has been published both online and in print and she's been happily expanding her poetry reading horizons more often than her public speaking phobia could ever have imagined.

George Moore

George Moore published poetry in The Atlantic, Poetry, Colorado Review, North American Review, Orion, and internationally of late with The Queen's Quarterly, Dublin Quarterly, Antigonish Review, and elsewhere. Nominated twice last year for a Pushcart Prize, he has had six nominations, this year and last, for "Best of the Web" as well. He was also nominated this year for The Rhysling Poetry Award, and earlier, as a finalist, for The National Poetry Series, The Richard Synder Memorial Prize, The Brittingham Poetry Award, and The Anhinga Poetry Prize. Recent collections include, All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (Pulpbits 2007) and Headhunting (Mellen, 2002). He teaches literature with the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Steve Schreiner

Steven Schreiner is associate professor of English at University of Missouri-St Louis. He is the author of Too Soon To Leave and the founding editor of Natural Bridge, a journal of contemporary literature. His recent work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Margie, Tar River Poetry, and Stosvet: Cardinal Points.

OVS Vol. 1 Poetry Contributors:

Terry Lucas

Terry Lucas was born in the Midwest, grew up in New Mexico, and has lived in the San Francisco bay area for several years. Three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, his work has been published in several on line and print journals including MiPOesias, Ocho, Poets & Artists, Columbia Poetry Review, Solo, Buffalo Carp, Fifth Wednesday Journal and Grain Magazine, among others. He received his poetry MFA from New England College in 2008, and currently serves as an assistant editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal.

Jana Wilson

Jana Wilson is a student at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, South Carolina.

Tayve Neese

Tayve Neese's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the following journals: caesura, The Comstock Review, Fourteen Hills, The Paris Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Sow’s Ear and other journals.She also has essays and a book review appearing in Web Del Sol’s Review of Books. Currently, she lives on Amelia Island, a small barrier island off the coast of north Florida, with her husband and two daughters, and teachs poetry at the University of North Florida.

Susan Vespoli

Is a student at Antioch University Los Angeles, enrolled in their low residency MFA program studying poetry. She mentored with Richard Garcia during her first semester and is currently studying with poet, David Hernandez. Her work also appears in Monsoon Voices. She lives happily in Prescott, Arizona in a rehabbed cabin in the forest.

Steven Riel

Steven Riel is the author of three chapbooks of poetry. How to Dream (1992) and The Spirit Can Crest (2003) were both published by Amherst Writers & Artists Press. Postcard from P-town was selected as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize and was published in 2009 by Seven Kitchens Press. In 2005, Christopher Bursk named him the Robert Fraser Distinguished Visiting Poet at Bucks County (PA) Community College. He served as poetry editor of RFD between 1987 and 1995. Steven graduated with an MFA in Poetry from New England College in 2008. He also received a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 1992.

Sarah Luczaj

Sarah Luczaj is a British poet, translator and therapist living and working in Poland. Her chapbook, An Urgent Request, was published in May 2009 by Fortunate Daughter Press. Poems have appeared widely in journals such as, the American Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, online in, Pedestal Magazine, and the Other Voices International Poetry Project.

Beverly Walker

Beverly Walker received an AA in Studio Art from Rivier College, Nashua, NH, and in addition studied painting with James Aponovich and drawing with Patricia Elliot Schappler. She is a juried member of the New Hampshire Art Association, and was a juried member of Artistic Roots Art Gallery and Education Center in Campton, NH where she exhibited and taught drawing for two years. She also teach drawing and painting at D Acres Organic Farm and Teaching Center in Dorchester, NH. Her work has been exhibited in several juried shows in Portsmouth, Manchester and Concord, NH, and is in several private collections in New Hampshire to Florida. She is also a member of the D Acres Writer’s Group.

Alan King

A fixture on the D.C. MD VA scene since 1999, Alan has at one time blessed every Open Mic spot throughout the area. Mangoes, he was there; Brookland Cup Of Dreams, he was there. The “first” Java Head Cafe in College Park, he was there. The first Mocha Hut on 14th St, he was there. Yogi’s Records, he was there; Harambe’s in Adams Morgan, he was there. Teaism, he was there; and Bar Nun, he was there. This cat is a walking history book of D.C. poetry. Not only that, he’s a dynamic performer and prolific writer” — Derrick Weston Brown, poet-in-resident at the 14th and V streets Busboys and Poets.

Ryan McLellan

The author of three collections of poetry, Ryan McLellan is a performance poet, singer/songwriter and English teacher from New Hampshire. His work has most recently been published in the "2010 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire", "OVS Magazine", "Bird's Eye reView", "Essence" and "Concise Delight". The recipient of the 2009 Esther Buffler Memorial Fellowship and member of the 2009 Slam Free or Die team, he has spent the last year touring and presenting workshops on slam and spoken word to high school students around New England.

Peter Schwartz

Peter Schwartz's poetry has been featured in The Columbia Review, Diagram, and Opium Magazine. When not dreaming of literary conferences he’s writing or taking photos or thinking of who he should get for the next issue of DOGZPLOT, where he is art editor. His third chapbook 'ghost diet' will be out at the end of 2009. Learn more about his work at: www.sitrahahra.com

Paul Fisher

Paul Fisher's first book, Rumors of Shore, is the winner of the 2009 Blue Light Press Book Award, and is forthcoming in 2010. Recent poems appear in Cave Wall, DMQ Review, Kakalak 2009 Anthology of Carolina Poets, Mannequin Envy, Pedestal, 2010 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire, Slow Trains, Snow Monkey, Waccamaw, and various other publications. Paul is the recipient of an Individual Artist's Fellowship in Poetry from the Oregon Arts Commission, and is a graduate of the MFA program at New England College. He recently moved from Nags Head, North Carolina to his home turf in western Washington State.

Matthew Ostapchuk

Matthew Ostapchuk is a senior at Chester College of New England. He has been previously published at Soundzine.org and in Collective Fallout. He is the editor of Two-Bit Magazine, and operates several online writing projects, including the collaborative, stream-of-consciousness blog "arumpahpah:gardyloo."

Jenn Monroe

Jenn Monroe holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Bonaventure University, a master’s degree from The College of Saint Rose, and a master’s of fine art degree in poetry from New England College. She currently lives in Manchester, NH and teaches at Chester College of new England.

Jeff Friedman

Jeff Friedman's fifth collection of poems, Working in Flour, is coming out with Carnegie Mellon University Press in fall 2010. His poems and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Margie, 5 AM, Ontario Review, Poetry International, Rattle and The New Republic. His book of translations, Modern Hebrew Poems of the Bible has been accepted by Wolfson Press.

Janice Krasselt Mendin

Janice Krasselt Mendin has an M.A. in English with Emphasis in Creative Writing from Ohio University. Her publications include two books of poetry: Remembering the Truth (Temenos Publishing Company, 2006) and Communion of Voices (Big Table Publishing Company, April 2009), a chapbook. Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Southern Hum, Alimentum (as menu poem), Gander Press Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Up the Staircase, and many others. Please note that the books and poems above have been published under the name Janice Krasselt Tatter.

Christopher Crawford

Christopher Crawford was born in Glasgow in 1974. He studied Mechanical and Offshore Engineering, and has worked on various oil rigs and seismic vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. His poems, fiction, essays and reviews have recently been published, or are forthcoming, in Evergreen Review, Blatt, The Prague Revue, Grasp, The Clare Market Review and Gently Read Literature. He has lived in the Czech Republic since 2002.

Kathleen Vibbert

Kathleen Vibbert is retired, married with three grown children and one grandchild. She studies creative writing and is visually impaired. Her main interest is narrative and nature pooetry. Previous credits include a chapbook D-N Publishing, Remembering Faces Anthology, Muscadine Lines Anthology, Facets, Breadcrumb Scabs, and various other zines.

Carol Lynn Grellas

Carol Lynn Grellas is a two-time Pushcart nominee and the author of two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers, from Pudding House Press and Object of Desire newly released from Finishing Line Press. She is widely published in magazines and online journals including most recently, The Smoking Poet, Oak Bend Review and Flutter, with work upcoming in decomP, Thick with Conviction and Poetry Midwest and Best of Boston Literary Magazine. She lives with her husband, five children and a blind dog named Ginger.

Eric Crapo

Eric Crapo teaches poetry, playwriting and erotica at Chester College of New England, where is also director of the college’s Wadleigh Library. He is the chief editor and co-founder of Collective Fallout magazine. His work has previously appeared in Sensations Magazine, Verse, BUTT, Origami Condom, and Moonshot.

Heidi Therrien

Heidi Therrien is a performance poet, singer, actor/director and painter from Manchester, NH. Her poems have appeared in journals such as, The 2010 Poets’ Guide to New Hampshire, Blood on the Floor Vol: II, Centripetal, Angelic Dynamo and her chapbook, High Point of My Day, was published by Sargent Press. A finalist for the 2009 NH slam team, her writing group, Blood on the Floor, won the 2008 New England Invitational Slam in Portland, ME. She was one of the featured poets at the 2009 Jazzmouth Poetry Festival and has featured around the seacoast at venues such as The Northstar Café, Beat Night at the Press Room, The Bridge Café and The Stone Pigeon, which she currently co-hosts.