Kelly Cherry • Kelly Cherry is author of 24 books, 10 chapbooks, 2 translations of classical drama. Most recent: Twelve Women in a Country Called America. Former PL of Virginia. ember, Poets Corner, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, NYC. NEA, USIA, Rockefeller, Bradley Lifetime Award, Weinstein Award, others. Publication in fiction prize anthologies. Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin Madison. Eminent Scholar, UAH, 2001-2005. More info and details on Wikipedia/Kelly Cherry.
Allan D. Harris • Alan D. Harris is a 60 year-old graduate student who writes short stories, plays, and poetry based primarily upon the life-stories of friends, family and total strangers. Harris is the 2011 recipient of the Stephen H. Tudor Scholarship in Creative Writing, the 2014 John Clare Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Tompkins Poetry Award from Wayne State University. In addition he is the father of seven, grandfather of seven, as well as a Pushcart Prize nominee in both 2013 and 2014.
Wes Civilz • Wes Civilz has a few poems out in the current Green Mountains Review. He’s had poems published in the Colorado Review, CutBank, Spork, Interim, and others (I should mention that these were published under my old name, Andrew Foster). An excerpt from his recently finished memoir is forthcoming online at Hippocampus.
Dd. Spungin • Dd. Spungin, a host for poetry events on Long Island, writes a monthly poem for Brave Hearts (St. Francis Hospital) and has had poems set to music by NY composer, Julie Mandel. Spungin’s work has been published in both online and print journals, most recently, Maintenant 9 and Bards Annual 2015.
Glen Wilson • Glen Wilson lives in Portadown, Co Armagh with his wife Rhonda and children Sian and Cain.He has been published in Iota, A New Ulster and The Interpreters House.In 2014 he won the Poetry Space competition and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He is currently working on his first collection of poetry. Twitter @glenhswilson • glenhswilson@facebook.com
Kenneth Pobo • Kenneth Pobo has a new book of poems forthcoming from Urban Farmhouse Press called Booking Rooms in the Kuiper Belt. His poems have appeared in Mudfish, Indiana Review, Floating Bridge, Nimrod, and elsewhere.
Stephen Pusateri • Stephen Pusateri works for WYEP-FM on its soul and blues shows. He has work collected in the Brentwood Anthology (Nine Toes Press) as part of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. Work has also appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper and Uppagus.
Catherine Zickgraf • Catherine Zickgraf has performed her poetry in Madrid and Puerto Rico—yet homeschooling her boys (about celestial alignments, for example) inspires her the most. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, [Pank], and Bartleby-Snopes. You can find her at http://caththegreat.blogspot.com
Alisha Grace Scott • Alisha Grace Scott is a graduate student at Antioch University Los Angeles pursuing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She has had her flash fiction published in Rose Red Review and her poetry published in Silhouette, and resides in the L.A. area. If you see her wandering the city staring into space and furrowing her brows, shhh, she’s working.
Adrian Ernesto Cepeda • Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is an L.A. Poet who’s lived the writer’s life, traveling on The Road Not Taken, immortalized by Robert Frost. His work has been featured in Luna Luna Magazine’s Latino Poetry Project, Transcendence Magazine The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society and Purrfect Poetry Anthology. Adrian is currently enrolled in the MFA Graduate program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold.
Kate Gillespie • Kate Gillespie is a microbiologist searching for her creative mojo. She is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer who balanced creative writing endeavors while she obtained her PhD in marine biotechnology. An active participant in Baltimore’s literary arts community, she has read at Poets in the Park, EMP collective, and Seltzer. Her poetic work has been published online in Silver Blade, The End of 83, and in the recent edition of The Baltimore Ekphrasis Project.
Abasi Torty Tortivie • Abasi Torty Tortivie is a Nigerian poet with interest in the traditional genre. His common subjects are nature and love. He lives in Nigeria.
Daniel de Culla (1955) • Daniel de Culla is a writer, poet, and photographer. He is also a member of the Spanish Writers Association, Director of the Gallo Tricolor Review, and Robespierre Review. He’s moving between North Hollywood, Madrid and Burgos, Spain. He has more than 70 published books.
Laurin DeChae • Laurin DeChae is a M.F.A. candidate for poetry at the University of New Orleans, where she acts as the associate editor for Bayou Magazine. She is active in the fields of education and composition, assisting in programs such as the Greater New Orleans Writing Project, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Cleaver Magazine, burntdistrict, S/WORD, and Rose Red Review.
Marlena Chertock • Marlena Chertock is the Poetry Editor for District Lit and a graduate of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Lines+Stars, The Little Patuxent Review, Medical Literary Messenger, Fukushima Poetry Anthology, Crab Fat, Cacti Fur, Straight Forward Poetry, The Syzygy Poetry Journal, and Stylus. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Marketplace, NBC News, News21, WTOP, USA TODAY, and The Gazette. Find her at marlenachertock.com or @mchertock.
Strider Marcus Jones • Strider Marcus Jones is a poet, law graduate and ex civil servant from Salford/Hinckley, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry are modern, traditional, mythical, sometimes erotic, surreal and metaphysical http//www.lulu.com/spotlight/stridermarcusjones1. He is a maverick, moving between forests, mountains and cities, playing his saxophone and clarinet in warm solitude.
Don Kingfisher Campbell • Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA, multi-award-winning poet listed on the Poets and Writers website, has been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, Los Angeles Area Coordinator and Board Member of California Poets In The Schools, publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, leader of the Emerging Urban Poets writing and Deep Critique workshops, organizer of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California.
Mark A. Fisher • Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His column “Lost in the Stars” has appeared in Tehachapi’s The Loop newspaper for several years. His plays have appeared on stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, and Hayward. His poetry has appeared in Lummox, The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, and Gutters and Alleyways.
Christopher Grillo • Christopher Grillo has published fiction and poetry in various journals and anthologies including Drunk Monkeys, Noctua Review, Spry, Extracts, and Lunch Ticket Press. Grillo is a graduate of the University of New Haven where he played strong safety for the Chargers, and of Southern Connecticut State University’s MFA program. The poems written for his graduate thesis are set to release this summer as two chapbooks; When Rain Fills the Chasm (Finishing Line Press)and The Six-fold Radial Symmetry of Snow (Zoetic Press). Grillo is a 2014 Best Indie Lit New England winner, and a 2014 Best of Net nominee. Currently, Grillo teaches remedial reading to English Language Learners in New Haven, but moonlights as an assistant football coach at his high school alma mater.
Tim Tipton • Tim Tipton was first seduced by the craft of poetry when he read the “Panther” by Rainer Marie Rilke.. Tim is a graduate of California State University of Northridge where he received a Bachelor of Science in Sociology.
John Savoie • John Savoie’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Best New Poets and Poetry Daily. He teaches great books at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Glen Armstrong • Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three new chapbook: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.
Ann E. Michael • Ann E. Michael considers herself terrible at arithmetic but have been compelled by a love for physical astronomy and cosmological physics since she was a teenager. But she finds it easier to write about nature (I do that, too) and human beings than about Calabi-Yau dimensions, string theory, or black holes.
Craig Kurtz • Craig Kurtz has vexed aesthetic circles since the 1981 release of The Philosophic Collage. Recent work appears in Bunbury Magazine, Clare Literary Journal, Penumbra, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, The Transnational, TWJ Magazine and Ygdrasil.
Linda M. Crate • Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press , June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015.
Ace Boggess • Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire, 2003). He is an ex-con, ex-husband, ex-reporter and completely exhausted by all the things he isn’t anymore. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
Christopher Barnes • In 1998 he won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 2000 he read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology ‘Titles Are Bitches’. Christmas 2001 he debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of his poems. Each year he read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and he partook in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of his collection Lovebites published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
Scott Thomas Outlar • Scott Thomas Outlar survived the chaos of both the fire and the flood…barely. Now he spends the hours flowing and fluxing with the ever changing tide of the Tao River while laughing at and/or weeping over life’s existential nature. His words have appeared recently in venues such as Dissident Voice, Calliope Magazine, Section 8 Magazine, Dead Snakes, and Enclave. Links to his poetry, essays and fiction can be found at 17numa.wordpress.com.
Michael Case • Michael Case is an image archivist. He is 49 and has been writing to amuse himself since he was a kid though until recently he never dared to share with anyone else. He lives in Forest Glen Maryland with his wife and pointer dog.
Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi • Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi is university faculty and assistant professor of linguistics at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India; and author of two books on lesser known Indian languages: A Grammar of Hadoti and A Grammar of Bhadarwahi. His Hindi poetry collection titled Chinaar kaa Sukhaa Patta (means. Dried Leaves of Chinar) is a notable contribution to contemporary Hindi poetry. He has published around 100 poems in different anthologies, journals, and magazines worldwide. Until recently, his poem “Mother” has included as a prologue to Motherhood and War: International Perspectives (Eds.), Palgrave Macmillan Press. 2014.
Marie Lecrivain • Marie Lecrivain is the editor-publisher of poeticdiversity: the litzine of Los Angeles. She’s the author of The Virtual Tablet of Irma Tre (© 2014 Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House), and forthcoming Philemon’s Gambit: Sonnets and Art (© 2015 International Wordbank Press).
Stephen McGuinness is from Dublin, Ireland.
Jude Rawleigh • Jude is obsessed with physics, philosophy, astronomy, religion, and the spinal tap of Hades drum. Originally from New York, but now lives with the magic of the coral reefs in the swamplands of Florida.
Frederick Speers • Professional content strategist and managing editor. Part-time literary publisher and poet warrior. Frederick Speers was born in southwestern Virginia, Fred now works in the Bay Area, where he lives with his husband Chase, a logician and IT guru. Fred’s interests range from comic books and video games to epic poems, from rugby to literary criticism, from mixed martial arts to content marketing. He is the recipient of the first annual Fitzpatrick/Thoreau Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, which is given to poets who “focus on nature in all its many facets,” and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI; The Straddler; Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety; Salamander; and Likestarlings.
Jamal H. Iqbal • A Philomath that truly loves the arts, Jamal is a creative director, film & theatre actor/director/producer/writer, standup and improv comic, published poet & writer and a performing artist living in Dubai. Having first moved here a Corporate Rottweiler in 2008, his 7 years in the city, the longest among the dozen or so he has called home at some point or another, have managed to temper the temper, somewhat. His poetry, flash and essays have been published in the middle eastern poetry anthology – Nowhere Near A Damn Rainbow, in the journal Sukoon, in Rip/Torn Collective, Fictionaut and Uncommon: Dubai. He is presently working on his memoirologue –Padmavati Colony & Other Stories and his poetry collection The Sonapur Diaries.
Caroline Nazareno • A.k.a. Ceri Naz is a multi-awarded poet, editor, journalist, public speaker, linguist, educator and women’s advocate. She was chosen as World Poetry International Director to Philippines by the World Poetry Canada and International. She won several International Prizes including The Frang Bardhi Literary Prize 2014 in Albania, the sair-gazeteci ( Poet Journalist Award 2014) in Tuzla, Istanbul, Turkey and the World Poetry Empowered Poet 2013 in Vancouver, Canada. Her poetry have been published and featured in various book anthologies and magazines worldwide. She’s a member of Asia Writers Pacific and Translators ( APWT) and The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). Currently, she writes for the Philippine Canadian Inquirer and Our Poetry Archive e-journal.
Mark Antony Rossi • Mark Antony Rossi’s poetry, criticism, fiction and photography have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Another Chicago Review Bareback Magazine, Black Heart Review, Collages & Bricolages, Death Throes, Deep South Journal, Ethical Specacle, Deep South Journal, Flash Fiction, The Magill Review, Japanophile, On The Rusk, Purple Patch, Sentiment Literary Journal, The Sacrificial and Wild Quarterly. http://markantonyrossi.jigsy.com
Vimeesh Maniyu • Vimeesh Maniyur is an established bi-lingual poet, novelist and translator from Kerala, India. He has three volumes of poetry and a children’s novel in his credit. He has also penned stories and dramas. His poems were translated into many of the Indian languages. He has bagged for many prestigious awards such as Culcutta Malayali Samajam Endownment, Madras Kerala Samajam, Muttathu Varkki Katha Puraskaram etc. for young writers in Kerala. Email – vimeeshmaniyur@gmail.com
Robert A. Kaufman • Robert A. Kaufman graduated from Brown and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Oslo. He is currently a MALS student at Dartmouth studying poetry.
Rob O’Keefe • Rob O’Keefe lives in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, where he has resided for three decades. During this time, he has been a Copywriter, Creative Director, and Advertising Consultant. His work has appeared in the literary journal, Penny Ante Feud, and he recently self-published his first collection, Living with the Monkey Mind: Poems and Other Shiny Objects.
Rich Follett • Rich Follett is a High School English, Theatre, and Mythology teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than 35 years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and CounterExample Poetics, for which he is a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human & c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, singer/songwriter, playwright and director.
Kevin Cooley • Kevin Cooley is a prose writer and poet from Lake View, NY, just outside of Buffalo. He dabbles in metafiction and is rumored to feel incredibly awkward when asked to write biographies in the third person, as if he were not himself. He is currently a Graduate Fellow at St. Bonaventure University, and is publisher-fishing for his debut novel, The Minimum Wage: A Plot-Dry Novel in Which Not a Whole Lot Happens.
Nick Romeo • Nick Romeo is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and poet. His poems have been published in “The Brentwood Anthology, by Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange,” Uppagus, Rune, StreetCake Magazine, and Eye Contact. He also read his poetry on “Thoughts from the Top of a Ferris Wheel” podcast at http://thoughtsfromthetop.libsyn.com/artist-spotlight-nick-romeo and http://www.pittsburghartistregistry.org/accounts/view/nickromeo
Kelven Ka-Shing Lit • As a Director of an app development company in Science Park Hong Kong, he believes Science is Magic but with time goes by, Science is just too weak to be with our Life. He fills this gap with Literature, and finally a way out comes by.
Marianne Szlyk • Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is… and a professor of English at Montgomery College. Last fall she published her first chapbook with Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print venues, including Silver Birch Press’s contest, Long Exposure, Bottlec[r]ap, ken*again, Of/with, bird’s thumb, Carcinogenic Poetry, Flutter Poetry Journal, and Black Poppy Review as well as Kind of a Hurricane Press’ anthologies from Of Sun and Sand on. She hopes that you will consider sending work to The Song Is. To explore this blog-zine, see http://thesongis.blogspot.com/
Ivan Jenson • Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and contemporary poet. His artwork was featured in Art in America, Art News, and Interview Magazine and has sold at auction at Christie’s. Ivan was commissioned by Absolut Vodka to make a painting titled “Absolut Jenson” for the brand’s national ad campaign. His Absolut paintings are in the collection of the Spiritmusuem, the museum of spirits in Stockholm, Sweden. Jenson’s painting of the “Marlboro Man” was collected by the Philip Morris corporation. Ivan was commissioned to paint the final portrait of the late Malcolm Forbes. Ivan has written two novels, Dead Artist and Seeing Soriah, both of which illustrate the creative and often dramatic lives of artists. Jenson’s poetry is widely published (with over 450 poems published in the US, UK and Europe) in a variety of literary media. A book of Ivan Jenson’s poetry was recently published by Hen House Press titled Media Child and Other Poems, which can be acquired on Amazon. Two new novels by Ivan Jenson entitled, Marketing Mia and Erotic Rights will be published hardcover and will be available for purchase at bookstores worldwide. Ivan Jenson’s website is: http://www.IvanJenson.com.
Keri Withington • Keri Withington lives with her family in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains. She teaches at Pellissippi State Community College and is a graduate student in Women’s Studies at the University of Tennessee. Her poems have appeared in journals including Blue Fifth Review and Blotterature.
JB Mulligan • JB Mulligan has had poems and stories in several hundred magazines over the past 40 years, has had two chapbooks published: The Stations of the Cross and This Way To The Egress, and two e-books, The City Of Now And Then, and A Book of Psalms. He has appeared in several anthologies, including Inside/Out: A Gathering Of Poets; The Irreal Reader (Cafe Irreal); and multiple volumes of Reflections on a Blue Planet.
Emma Moser • Emma Moser’s multi-genre work has appeared or is forthcoming at several literary venues, including Prairie Margins, Yellow Chair Review, Thin Air Magazine, The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Thoreau’s Rooster, and others. As creator of the blog Antiquarian Desiderium (found at antiquedwriter.blogspot.com), I am also a contributor at Writers Get Together.
Vince Gotera • Vince Gotera serves as Editor of the North American Review. He also teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Northern Iowa. His poetry books include Dragonfly, Ghost Wars, Fighting Kite, and the forthcoming Pacific Crossing. His favorite color is blue, in all its dynamic shades and flavors: electric, royal, sky, teal, ultramarine.
Denise Clemons • Denise Clemons spent the first twenty years of her career as an executive in the technology industry before leaving the corporate world to devote her energies to the non-profit arena. She lives in Lewes, Delaware where she writes a weekly cooking column for the Cape Gazette newspaper. Denise’s poetry has been published in journals, chapbooks and anthologies.
April Mae M. Berza • April Mae M. Berza is the author of Confession ng isang Bob Ong Fan (Flipside, 2014). Her poems and short stories appeared in numerous publications in the US, Canada, Romania, India, Japan, UK and the Philippines. Her poems are translated in Crimean Tatar and Filipino. Some of her poems are published in The Siren, Poetica, Calliope, Maganda, Metric Conversions, Ani, The Manila Times and Contemporary Verse 2, to name a few. Her poem “E-Martial Law” was broadcast on IndoPacific Radio on KPFA 94.1FM/kpfa.org. She is a member of Poetic Genius Society. She lives in Taguig, Philippines.
Ye stars! which are the poetry in heaven. - Lord Byron 