Contributors
Tim Bascom, Des Moines, IA.
Tim Bascom, who spent much of his childhood in East Africa, writes often about cross-cultural encounters, publishing pieces in magazines as varied as The Missouri Review and Selamta: In-Flight Magazine of Ethiopian Airlines. His memoir Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia won the Bakeless Literary Prize in Nonfiction and was published by Houghton Mifflin. His work has also been selected for Best American Travel Writing. Bascom received his MFA degree from the University of Iowa, and he returns there annually to teach at their Summer Writing Festival. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Waldorf College, where he is completing a collection of fiction about travelers in Africa plus a memoir about living through one year of the Marxist revolution in Ethiopia.
Jane Beal, Benicia, CA.
Jane Beal, PhD, is a professor at Colorado Christian University where she teaches literature and creative writing. She writes poetry, fiction, literary criticism, young adult fantasy, and creative non-fiction. Her work appears in The Avocet Review, BirthWorks, Cantos, Crux Literary Journal, The Illinois Audobon Society Magazine, Integrité, Main Street Rag, Midwifery Today, Nota Bene, The Oklahoma Review, Orbit du Novo, The Penwood Review, A Prairie Journal, Priscilla Papers, The Pub, Qasida, Ruminate, shufPoetry, Squat: A Birth Journal, and anthologies such as Closer to God, Call: A Celebration of Black Literature, and The Live Poets of Alexandria Anthology. She is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including Sanctuary (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and The Roots of Apples (Lulu Press, 2012), as well as a short story collection, Eight Stories from Undiscovered Countries. Her research on medieval translation theory and practice appears in her academic monograph, John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon (ACMRS & Brepols, 2012). She is the editor of Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance (Brill, forthcoming 2013) and co-editor of Translating the Past: Essays on Medieval Literature (ACMRS, 2012). Hers is the voice of Songs from the Secret Life (Shiloh Studio of Sound, 2009), a CD of her poetry read aloud. She also writes about childbirth and midwifery, which emerges naturally from her work as a doula, childbirth educator, and student midwife. In her free time, she enjoys bird-watching, music-making, and nature-walking in Colorado. To learn more, please visit sanctuarypoet.net.
Judith Behar, Greensboro, NC.
Judith Behar grew up in Brooklyn, NY, taught English at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and later practiced law in Greensboro for about 30 years. She served as co-editor of an anthology, Lines from a Near Country, has had poems and short stories published in several magazines and anthologies, including Main Street Rag, Fire and Chocolate, and WordWorks. She has led poetry workshops at HopeWell Cancer Support in Baltimore, Maryland; currently, she’s the volunteer publicity director for Writers Group of the Triad. She resides in Greensboro.
Adam Berlin, New York, NY.
Adam Berlin is the author of the novels The Number of Missing (Spuyten Duyvil), Both Members of the Club (Texas Review Press/winner of the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize), Belmondo Style (St. Martin’s Press) and Headlock (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). His stories and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. He teaches writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and co-edits J Journal: New Writing on Justice. For more, please visit adamberlin.com.
Dorothy Blackcrow, Depoe Bay, OR.
Dorothy Blackcrow teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at Oregon Coast Community College. A past editor of Calyx, she is a board member of Writers on the Edge, Willamette Writers, Poets Concord, Oregon Poetry Association, and chair of its Coast Branch. A winner of 30 writing awards, a Walden Fellowship, an Oregon Literary Arts Council Grant, and a Writer in Residence at OWC, she has published in Fiction International, Folio, Fireweed, The Literary Review, Shaman’s Drum, Side Show, Spa, Sun, ZYZZYVA, and 13 anthologies. Her poem “Wind Cave II: Time of Emergence” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Andrew Bourelle, Albuquerque, NM.
Andrew Bourelle’s stories have appeared in Hobart, Thin Air, Jabberwock Review, Red Rock Review, and other publications. His short story “Blue World” was published in the anthology Aftermath: Stories of Secrets and Consequences from Main Street Rag Publishing Company. He lives in New Mexico with his wife Tiffany.
Oliver Butterfield, Kelowna, British Columbia, CA.
Oliver Butterfield is a criminal defence lawyer, who has spent half of his 34 year career prosecuting, and half defending, criminal cases. He started writing fiction four years ago. His topics are the Canadian criminal justice system, and the relationships of lawyers with each other, their clients, and the courts. His short stories and a one act play have appeared in the Advocate, a British Columbia lawyers’ magazine.
Josh Green, Atlanta, GA.
Josh Green’s first book, Dirtyville Rhapsodies, was named a “Best Book for the Beach” by Men’s Health magazine in May 2013, alongside Khaled Hosseini and Stephen King. Paste magazine has named the short story collection a top read of 2013. Green’s work has appeared in Atlanta magazine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Indianapolis Monthly, The Los Angeles Review, Ascent, Creative Loafing (Atlanta), and many other publications. Since 2003, his newspaper writing has won numerous statewide awards in Indiana and Georgia — including top prizes among all major Georgia newspapers. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and daughter, and is currently finishing his first novel.
Aaron Hamburger, Washington, DC.
Aaron Hamburger was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his short story collection The View from Stalin’s Head (Random House, 2004), also nominated for a Violet Quill Award. His next book, a novel titled Faith for Beginners (Random House, 2005), was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Poets and Writers, Tin House, Details, Michigan Quarterly Review, Boulevard, and The Village Voice. He has received fellowships from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy, as well as residencies from Yaddo and Djerassi. He has also taught writing at Columbia University, NYU, and the Stonecoast MFA Program.
R.E. Hayes, Elgin, IL.
R.E. Hayes was born and raised in Chicago and educated at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a labor lawyer and, in an earlier life, was a machine gunner in the Marines. He has published in a variety of magazines and journals including Crab Orchard Review, Evening Street Review, and OASIS Journal 2010. He drew inspiration for The Next Ed Bradley from his great-grandfather who, during the Civil War, served honorably in Co. K, 108th Regiment, U.S. Colored Volunteer Infantry; and who, in 1878, migrated from Kentucky to Illinois to escape the scourge of deadly yellow fever.
Diane Lefer, Los Angeles, CA.
When not writing fiction or getting into trouble, Diane Lefer writes advocacy journalism on behalf of youth in the juvenile in/justice system and in prison. Her published books include the historical novel, The Fiery Alphabet, and the short story collection, California Transit, which received the Mary McCarthy Prize. She taught for 23 years in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and since then has taught writing to men on parole and, in Spanish, to young people living through difficult circumstances in Bolivia and Colombia.
Catharine Leggett, London, Ontario, CA.
Catharine Leggett’s short stories have appeared in a number of print and online journals, including, Room, Event, The New Quarterly, Canadian Author, paperbytes, as well as on CBC Radio. Her novel, The Way To Go Home, was a finalist in the Columbus Creative Cooperative Great Novel Contest for 2013. A new short story will appear in the anthology Best New Writing 2014. She has taught creative writing for Western University.
Brian Leung, Louisville, KY.
Brian Leung is the author of the short story collection, World Famous Love Acts (Sarabande, 2004), winner of both the Mary McCarthy Award for short fiction and The Asian American Literary Award for Fiction. His novels are Lost Men (Random House, 2008) and Take Me Home (Harper/Collins, 2010) winner of the 2011 Willa Award for Historical Fiction. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for a Mid-career Novelist. His poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction appear in numerous nationally distributed publications. Leung currently serves on the LGBT Advisory Board at the University of Louisville where he is the Director of Creative Writing.
Amy Locklin, San Diego, CA.
Amy Locklin is the editor of the Law and Disorder anthology. She previously edited the MSR anthology of sci-fi and fantasy short fiction Altered States. Her own poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in journals including Clementine Magazine, Quarter After Eight, Maize, and Main Street Rag, as well as the anthologies And Know This Place: Poetry of Indiana and Dots on a Map: Stories from Small Town America. Her work has won honors in the Robert J. DeMott short prose contest, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Associated Writing Program’s Intro Journal Project, and the Lois Davidson Ellis Literary Award. A recipient of Indiana Arts Commission grants, she directed the IU Writers’ Conference for four years. Her poetry chapbook The Secondary Burial was a finalist for the San Diego Book Awards.
A. Loudermilk, Baltimore, MD.
A. Loudermilk’s Strange Valentine won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award, and his individual poems appear in reviews like Tin House, Gargoyle, and Smartish Pace. He’s also a cultural critic with essays in Bright Lights Film Journal, Tran(s)tudies, and the Journal of International Women’s Studies. He teaches creative writing in Baltimore.
Adam McOmber, Chicago, IL.
Adam McOmber is the author of The White Forest (Touchstone 2012) and This New & Poisonous Air (BOA Editions 2011). His work was named as notable in Best Horror of the Year Volume 4. He teaches literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago where he is also the associate editor of the literary magazine Hotel Amerika. Recently, his fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Third Coast and The Fairy Tale Review.
Shabnam Nadiya , Albany, CA.
Shabnam Nadiya grew up in Jahangirnagar University, a small college campus in Bangladesh. She is a writer and translator and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Truman Capote Fellow (2010-11); a Teaching Writing Fellow (2011-12); a Post-Graduate Fellow (as an Adjunct) (2012-13); and the first Schulze Fellow (2013-14). Her work has been published in anthologies and magazines such as Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Himal: South Asia, Texts’ Bones, World View, One World (New Internationalist UK), A Stranger Among Us (OV Books/U of Illinois Press), Arsenic Lobster, Raleigh Review, Life Lines (Zubaan Press, New Delhi). Her translations have appeared in Words Without Borders, Nethra Review and Parabaas. Currently she is working on her collection of linked stories titled Pariah Dog and Others.
Mamie Potter, Raleigh, NC.
Mamie Potter is a photographer and short story writer who resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her stories have been published in Flashback: Old Photographs, New Stories, and the 2010 and 2012 Solstice Anthology; Arcadia Magazine, Prime Number and other on-line literary publications. Her story, “The Golf Course Grass,” was included in Impact: An Anthology of Short Memoirs, and won a contest judged by Elizabeth Berg. She prefers writing flash fiction, and most of her published stories are under three pages long.
Daniel Robinson, Fort Collins, CO.
Daniel Robinson has published numerous stories and poems in reviews and magazines. His first novel, After the Fire, was published in 2003 by the Lyons Press, and his noir-novella The Shadow of Violence was published in 2010 by Texas Review Press. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Colette Sartor, Los Angeles, CA.
Colette Sartor’s work has appeared or is upcoming in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Kenyon Review Online, FiveChapters, Printers Row Journal, The Drum, Colorado Review, Harvard Review, Quarterly West, Fugue, and elsewhere, and has received numerous awards, including a Glenna Luschei Award and an honorable mention in Best American Short Stories 2009 for “Lamb.” “Lamb” first appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Prairie Schooner. Sartor lives with her husband and son in Los Angeles, where she is working on a short story collection and a novel.
Kathryn Shaver, Louisville, KY, and Savannah, GA.
Kathryn Shaver spent several decades at the helm of the advertising agency she founded, then developed an international consulting practice for private companies in former Communist bloc countries. After retiring from the business and civic community in 2003, she completed an MFA in Fiction from Spalding University. Her first published story was awarded the 2008 Fiction Prize from Inkwell Journal. Since that time, her stories have appeared in numerous publications including Narrative Magazine, The Louisville Courier-Journal, and several anthologies. A Louisville, Kentucky, native, she graduated from Auburn University with a degree in design, and continues to utilize her early art training in painting, portraiture, and fiber arts. She divides her time between Louisville and Savannah, Georgia.
Don Shea, New York, NY.
Don Shea’s stories have been widely published. Venues include The North American Review, StoryQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, The Utne Reader, Other Voices, Stirring, Brevity, The Quarterly, Quick Fiction and numerous other magazines. His work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, broadcast on NPR’s Selected Shorts, performed by Speaking of Stories, and nominated for best online stories, 2008. He has been included in the Norton anthologies Flash Fiction and Flash Fiction Forward, the Great Books Foundation Short Story Omnibus, the Doubleday anthology Quickly Aging Here, and in Best of Crosscurrents. His stories also appear in the teaching texts Reasoning and Writing Well 5thEd. (McGraw Hill) and Fast Fiction (Story Press). His story collection, Injuries and Damages, was short listed for the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. He has taught writing workshops at The Writer’s Voice, West Side YMCA and The New School, and is currently a writing tutor at Bard High School/Early College, a New York City public school for gifted kids.
Janey Skinner, Richmond, CA.
Janey Skinner has been writing since childhood. “Tangle” is her first submission for publication, and she is rejoicing in her beginner’s luck. She has a novel in progress, teaches at a community college, and has also worked in public health and human rights. She has a Bachelor’s in Comparative Literature from Brown University and a Master’s in Public Health from University of California at Berkeley. She has studied writing with Joshua Mohr, Leslie Kirk Campbell and Karen Bjorneby. She attended the juried LitCamp (2013) and the Napa Valley Writers Conference (2011) and enjoyed both immensely.
Pat Spears, Tallahassee, FL.
Pat Speas’ short fiction has been published in the North American Review, Appalachian Heritage, Seven Hills Review, Habersham Review, Common Lives, Lesbian Lives, the anthology titled Saints & Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival 2012 and the anthology titled Bridges and Borders from Jane’s Stories Press Foundation. One of her stories is forthcoming in Snake Nation Review. In 2009, she was nominated for a United States Artists Grant. In 2010 and again in 2012, Spears was invited to read her short fiction at the Southern Women’s Writer’s Conference. A collection of her short stories is scheduled for release in Spring 2014. She lives and works in Tallahassee, Florida.
Anna Villegas, Lodi, CA.
Anna Tuttle Villegas, a fifth-generation Californian, has been a full-time college English teacher in California’s Central Valley for nearly forty years. While her published work includes essays, poems, newspaper columns, and three novels, the short story remains her favorite form. A forthcoming story collection set in the same Sierran foothills as “When We Were Civil” is titled What Doesn’t Kill You. Villegas looks forward to retiring soon to a writing life lived off the grid on the San Juan Ridge in Nevada County.
