~CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES~

CYNTHIA ATKINS is the author of Psyche's Weathers (Custom Words, 2007). Her poems have appeared widely in literary journals, such as American Letters & Commnetary, Bloomsbury Review, Chelsea, Denver Quarterly, Florida Review, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Review, Seattle Review, Seneca Review, and Texas Review. She teaches literature and creative writing at Roanoke College.

NATHANIEL BELLOWS is the author of a book of poems, Why Speak? (W.W. Norton, 2007), and a novel, On This Day (Harper Collins, 2003). His poetry has appeared in such publications as New Republic, New York Times Book Review, and Paris Review.

MICHAEL BLUMENTHAL's seventh collection of poems, And, was recently published by BOA Editions. He is the author of the memoir All My Mothers and Fathers (Harper Collins, 2002), and of Dusty Angel (BOA Editions, 1999). His novel, Weinstock Among The Dying, won Hadassah Magazine's Harold U. Ribelow Prize for the best work of Jewish fiction, and his collection of essays from Central Europe, When History Enters the House, was published in 1998.

KATHRYN STRIPLING BYER has published five books of poetry, including Wildwood Flower (LSU Press, 1992), the Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets,  Catching Light (LSU Press, 2001), and Coming to Rest (LSU Press, 2006). She is the 2007 recipient of the Hanes Award in Poetry from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals. In 2010, she completed her term as Poet Laureate of North Carolina.     

ROBIN CHAPMAN’s poetry collections include the books Learning to Talk (Fireweed Press) and The Way In (Tebot Bach Publishing), which won the Posner Poetry Award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers in 2000. Her chapbooks include Distance, Rate, Time (Fireweed Press), the poetry CD Banff Dreaming (Fireweed Press), The Only Everglades in the World (Parallel Press), Arborvitae (Juniper Press), and Once (Juniper Press). She has had poems appear in American Scholar, Hudson Review, Poetry, Southern Review, and many other journals.

BRAD CLOMPUS has published two chapbooks: Trailing It Home (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2007) and Talk at Large (Finishing Line Press, 2008). His poems and essays also have appeared in various literary journals, including The Journal, Natural Bridge, Sonora Review, Tampa Review, West Branch, and Willow Springs. He teaches at the Arlington Center for the Arts and the Tufts University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

BARBARA CROOKER’s books are Radiance, winner of the 2005 Word Press First Book Award and finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize;  Line Dance, (Word Press, 2008), winner of the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; and More (C & R Press, 2010).  Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Quarterly, Nimrod, Poetry East, Poetry International, and Tampa Review.

MARK DEFOE’s poetry collections include Weekend Update (Main Street Rag Press, 2008), The Rock and the Pebble (Pringle Tree Press, 2006), Mark DeFoe's Greatest Hits (Pudding House Publications, 2004), The Green Chair (Pringle Tree Press, 2003), Aviary (Pringle Tree Press, 2001), and Air (Greentower Press, 1998). His work has appeared widely in Kenyon Review, Paris Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review, Yale Review, and many other literary journals.

HEATHER DERR-SMITH is the author of two books of poetry, Each End of the World (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2005) and The Bride Minaret (University of Akron Press, 2008). Her poems have appeared in various literary journals, including Crazyhorse, Fence, Phoebe, Pleiades, and TriQuarterly.

SEAN THOMAS DOUGHERTY is the author of eleven books, including Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line (BOA Editions, 2010), The Blue City (Marick Press, 2008), and Broken Hallelujahs (BOA Editions, 2007).   His awards include a Fulbright Lectureship to Macedonia from the US State Department and two Pennsylvania Council for the Arts fellowships in poetry.

REBECCA DUNHAM’s first book, The Miniature Room, won the 2006 T.S. Eliot Prize and was published by Truman State University Press. She was awarded a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry to work on her second book, The Flight Cage, which is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. Her poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Field, and Iowa Review, among others. Dunham is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

R. G. EVANS has had poems, fiction, and reviews appear in The Literary Review, Margie, and Pif Magazine, among other publications.  He teaches high school and college English and creative writing in southern New Jersey.

CHARLES FISHMAN is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English & Humanities at Farmingdale State College, and he serves as poetry consultant to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. His books include Water under Water (Casa de Snapdragon, 2009); Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (2007) and Chopin’s Piano (2006), both from Time Being Books; and Country of Memory (Uccelli Press, 2004). Chopin’s Piano received the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence.

REBECCA FOUST’s book, All That Gorgeous, Pitiless Song, won the Many Mountains Moving Book Award for publication in 2010.  She is the author of two chapbooks, Mom’s Canoe (Texas Review Press, 2009) and Dark Card (Texas Review Press, 2008), which won the Robert Phillips Poetry Prize in consecutive years. Her recent poetry is published in Atlanta Review, Hudson Review, Margie, North American Review, Spoon River Review, and other journals.

PAMELA GEMIN’s second book of poetry, Another Creature, was a finalist for the Miller Williams Prize and published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2010.  She also is the author of Vendettas, Charms, and Prayers (New Rivers Press, 1999). In addition, she has served as an editor of three poetry anthologies including Sweeping Beauty: Women Poets Do Housework (Univerity of Iowa Press, 2005). Her poems and anthologies have been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Writer’s Almanac. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

HENRIETTA GOODMAN’s first book of poetry, Take What You Want, was published in 2007 by Alice James Books, and her work has recently appeared in Field, Guernica, New Orleans Review, and other literary journals. Goodman is Associate Director of The Writing Center at the University of Montana.

WILLIAM GREENWAY’s seventh full-length collection, Everywhere at Once, winner of the 2009 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award, was published by the University of Akron Press, which also published Ascending Order, winner of the 2004 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award, and I Have My Own Song For It: Modern Poems of Ohio (2002), co-edited with Elton Glaser. His journal publications include American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Prairies Schooner, Shenandoah, and Southern Review. Greenway is Distinguished Professor of English at Youngstown State University.

CAROLYN GUINZIO’s second book, Quarry, was published in 2008 by Parlor Press. Her first book, West Pullman, won the 2004 Bordighera Poetry Prize and appeared in an English/Italian edition in 2005. A chapbook, Untitled Wave (Cannibal Books), was published in 2007. Guinzio’s poems have appeared in Blackbird, Colorado Review, 42 Opus, New American Writing, Octopus, Willow Springs, and elsewhere.

JAMES HARMS’s most recent book is After West (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2008). An earlier collection, The Joy Addict, has just been released in the Classic Contemporaries Series. His recent work has appeared in Crazyhorse, Drunken Boat, Gettysburg Review, Poetry International, Quarterly West, West Branch, and elsewhere.

GWEN HART is the author of Lost and Found (WordTech Communications, 2005). Her poems also have appeared in a number of journals, including First Things, Measure, and Pivot.

GREGG HERTZLIEB is Director of the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University.  Hertzlieb is the editor of the books The Calumet Region: An American Place (Photographs by Gary Cialdella), published in 2009, and Domestic Vision: Twenty-Five Years of the Art of Joel Sheesley (2008), as well as a contributor to The Indiana Dunes Revealed: The Art of Frank V. Dudley (2006). He has been awarded the Edward L. Ryerson Traveling Fellowship by the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and a Conant Writing Award for Poetry from Millikin University.  His artwork has been exhibited widely, including at the Aron Packer Gallery, August House Studio, the Central School of Art and Design in London, Columbia College, Elgin Community College, the Goodman Theater, and Struve Gallery.

BURT KIMMELMAN has six collections of poetry: Musaics (Sputyen Duyvil Press, 1992), First Life (Jensen/Daniels Publishing, 2000), The Pond at Cape May Point (Marsh Hawk Press, 2002), a collaboration with the painter Fred Caruso, Somehow (Marsh Hawk Press, 2005), There Are Words (Dos Madres Press, 2007), and As If Free (Talisman House, 2009). He is a professor of English at New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of two book-length literary studies: The "Winter Mind": William Bronk and American Letters (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1998) and The Poetics of Authorship in the Later Middle Ages: The Emergence of the Modern Literary Persona (Peter Lang Publishing, 1996).

KAREN KOVACIK is the author of Metropolis Burning (Cleveland State, 2005), Beyond the Velvet Curtain (Kent State, 1999), and Nixon and I (Kent State, 1998). Her work also has appeared in a number of journals, such as Glimmer Train, Massachusetts Review, Salmagundi, and West Branch. She received a translation Fulbright to Warsaw, Poland, and is working on translating several collections by younger women poets.

CHERYL LACHOWSKI teaches at Bowling Green State University.  Her full-length poetry collection, Homing, was the winner of the 2001 Bluestem Poetry Award.  She is the author of a chapbook, The Secret Life of Hardware (Futurecycle Press, 2010) . Her poems have also appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including Carolina Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Passages North, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, and Sou'wester. 

LISA LEWIS is the author of The Unbeliever (University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), winner of the Brittingham Prize; Silent Treatment (Viking/Penguin, 1998), a National Poetry Series selection; Burned House with Swimming Pool (Dream Horse Press), and Vivisect (New Issues Press), both forthcoming.  Her poems have been published widely in literary journals, including American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Kenyon Review, Laurel Review,  Michigan Quarterly Review, and Portland Review. Lewis directs the creative writing program at Oklahoma State University.

ALEXANDER LONG is the author of Vigil (New Issues Press, 2006) and Light Here, Light There (C & R Press, 2009).  With Christopher Buckley, he is co-editor of A Condition of the Spirit: the Life & Work of Larry Levis (Eastern Washington University Press, 2004).  His poetry has appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Callaloo, Pleiades, Southern Review, and Third Coast, among others. Long is an assistant professor of English at John Jay College.

JANET MCCANN is a professor of English at Texas A&M University. Her work has appeared in New Letters, New York Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, as well as other literary journals and anthologies.

NORMAN MINNICK’s first collection of poems, To Taste the Water, won the First Series Award and was published by Mid-List Press in 2007. He is the editor of Between Water and Song (White Pine Press, 2009), an anthology of younger poets.

RICHARD NEWMAN’s recent book of poems is Domestic Fugues (Steel Toe Books, 2009).  He is also the author of  Borrowed Towns (Word Press, 2005).  His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, Meter, Poetry East, Unsplendid, and many other periodicals.  He lives in St. Louis, where he teaches at St. Louis Community College and edits River Styx.

JOANNA PEARSON completed her MFA in poetry at the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars in 2009.  Her work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Best New Poets, Measure, storySouth, and other literary journals.

KEVIN PILKINGTON’s poetry collection, The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2011. Spare Change, the La Jolla Poets Press National Book Award winner, is among his six previous collections. His poems and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines, including Boston Review, Greensboro Review, Gulf Coast, Iowa Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. A past featured poet in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Pilkington is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.

HILA RATZABI’s chapbook, The Apparatus of Visible Things, was published by Finishing Line Press (2009). Ratzabi also has had work appear in Coal Hill Review, Columbia Review, Margie, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

THOMAS REITER's recent book of poems, Catchment, was published in 2009 by LSU Press.  He has received an Academy of American Poets Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

SUSAN RICH is the author of The Alchemist's Kitchen (White Pine Press, 2010), Cures Include Travel (White Pine Press, 2006), and The Cartographer's Tongue: Poems of the World (White Pine Press, 2000). Her poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Poetry International, and TriQuarterly, among other journals. She has received awards from PEN USA, The Times Literary Supplement, and Peace Corps Writers. Susan Rich teaches English and Film Studies at Highline Community College in Seattle.

RICHARD SCHIFFMAN has published two nonfiction books. He has also worked as a freelance journalist and commentator for National Public Radio. His poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, New York Quarterly, Pedestal, Poetry East, and Southern Poetry Review, among other journals.

KATHERINE SONIAT’s fifth collection of poems The Swing Girl  is forthcoming from LSU Press. The Fire Setters is available through Literary Review/Web Del Sol’s Online Chapbook Series. Earlier collections include Alluvial (Bucknell University Press, 2000) and A Shared Life (University of Iowa Press, 1993), which won the Iowa Prize and a Virginia Prize for Poetry. Her poems also have appeared in various literary journals, including Chariton, Denver Quarterly, and Iowa Review.  

CATHERINE STAPLES has had poems published in Commonweal, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Southern Review, and Third Coast. She is the recipient of the William Carlos Williams Award offered by the University of Pennsylvania. Staples teaches at Villanova University.

CHRISTINE STEWART-NUNEZ is the author of Postcards on Parchment (2008), winner of the ABZ Press First Book Prize, as well as two chapbooks, The Love of Unreal Things (2005) and Unbound & Branded (2006), both published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Arts & Letters, North American Review, and Prairie Schooner, among other magazines. She teaches creative writing and literature in the Englsh Department at South Dakota State University.

BRIAN TURNER is the author of Phantom Noise (Alice James Books, 2010) and Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005; Bloodaxe Books, 2007), winner of the Beatrice Hawley Book Award, the Poets’ Prize, the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and other honors. His work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Georgia Review, Poetry Daily, Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation, and a 2009-2010 Amy Lowell Travelling Scholarship.

SALLY VAN DOREN’s book, Sex at Noon Taxes, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2008. Her poems have appeared in many print and online magazines, among them: American Poet, Barrow Street, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, 5Am, Margie, Poetry Daily, Southwest Review, and Verse Daily.

BOB WATTS has had poems published in Paris Review and Poetry, among other journals. His first collection, Past Providence (David Robert Books, 2005), won the Stanzas Prize for excellence in craft. Watts is a founding co-editor of Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, and he serves as an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Lehigh University. 

LESLEY WHEELER’s second collection, Heterotopia, was chosen by David Wojahn as winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Award for publication in 2010. Her previous books include Heathen (C&R, 2009) and Voicing American Poetry (Cornell University Press, 2008). Her poems have appeared in Agni, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and other magazines. Wheeler is Professor and Chair of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

VALERIE WOHLFELD’s book, Thinking the World Visible, was chosen for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and published in 1994. Her work also has appeared in numerous journals, including Antioch Review, Indiana Review, New Criterion, New England Review, New Yorker, North American Review, Partisan Review, Sycamore Review, Western Humanities Review, and Yale Review. Wohlfeld’s new book of poetry, Woman with Wing Removed, is forthcoming from Truman State University Press in October 2010.

Photo Credit for Brian Turner Picture: Kim Buchheit