The Contributors to Solace in So Many Words
Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz
A graduate of Marquette University and Northeastern Illinois University, Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz taught high school English and Creative Writing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Chicago. She has published over one hundred fifty poems in journals such as Spoon River Poetry Review, River Oak Review, Rhino, The English Journal, Whetstone, The MacGuffin, Thema, Blue Mesa Review, Blue Unicorn, Willow Review, After Hours, ELF, Karamu, Ariel, Jean’s Journal, Oyez Review, Margin, Art With Words, Dream Quarterly International, The New York Times, WomenMade Gallery Calendar, and on Poetry.com, also in the anthologies Prairie Hearts and Jane’s Stories, and a short story in the anthology Christmas On the Great Plains (University of Iowa Press). Her poems won first prizes in Rambunctious Review’s annual poetry competitions and in Poets & Patrons and National League of American Pen Women contests. She was a finalist in the Poetry Center of Chicago Juried Reading in 2001, and a finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Award. She won second place in the Jo-ann Hirshfield awards in 2004 and was nominated by Skylark for a Pushcart Prize. She is a past president of Poets’ Club of Chicago and a past co-president of The Writers. She is the author of a poetry collection, Caged Birds, and chapbooks, The Mulberry and When the Sun Burns Out. In a review by CJ Laity on ChicagoPoetry.com, she is called “one of Chicago’s most daring, honest, and talented artists.”
Kathleen Aguero
Kathleen Aguero’s most recent publication is Investigations: The Mystery of The Girl Sleuth (Cervena Barva Books, 2008). She has published three other volumes of poetry: Daughter Of (Cedar Hill Books), The Real Weather (Hanging Loose Press) and Thirsty Day (Alice James Books). She has also co-edited three volumes of multicultural literature for the University of Georgia Press. She teaches at Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, MA in both the undergraduate and low-residency M.F.A. programs. http://www.kathleenaguero.com
Antler
Antler, former poet laureate of Milwaukee, is author of Factory (City Lights), Last Words (Ballantine), Antler: The Selected Poems (Soft Skull), and Exclamation Points Ad Infinitum! (Centennial Press). Winner of the Walt Whitman Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters in NYC, his poems have appeared in over 1,000 litmags and 150 anthologies, including: Poets Against the War, An Eye For an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind, Poets on 9/11, Wild Song: Poems from the Wilderness, Earth Prayers, The Soul Unearthed: Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal through Nature, Comeback Wolves: Bringing the Wolf Home, Best Gay Poetry of 2008, Great Poems for Grandchildren, and Celebrate America in Poetry & Art. Antler’s website is www.antlerpoet.net.
Ellen Bass
Ellen Bass’s poetry books include The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press), named a Notable Book of 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle and Mules of Love (BOA, 2002), which won the Lambda Literary Award. Her poems have been published in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review and many other journals. Her non-fiction books include The Courage to Heal and Free Your Mind. She teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University and at conferences and retreats nationally and internationally. www.ellenbass.com
k. biadaszkiewicz
k. biadaszkiewicz is a writer who treasures the solace of working with extraordinary people, imagined or otherwise. Her anthologized work includes “The Aerodynamics of Bees” (The Chrysalis Reader, Swedenborg Foundation); “Seeds” (The Light in Ordinary Things, Fearless Books); PALO ALTO (Yuan Yang, a collection of Hong Kong and International Writing); “Nothing Soup” (Unruly Catholic Women collection, pending); BOSTON 49 (Regional Best theatre collection, Level 4 Press); POTATO GIRL (One Act Plays for Acting Students, Meriwether); Monologues from MUGGINS and THE LIFE & ADVENTURES OF P.T. HOPEWELL (The Action Scenebook, Great Monologues & Dialogues from Classical and Contemporary Theatre, Meriwether); “The Wrong Bus Out of Dallas” (Spectacle, Pachanga Press); “The Singer, the Martyr, & Me” (Child of My Child, Gelles-Cole Literary Enterprises); and HE CAME HOME ONE DAY WHILE I WAS WASHING DISHES (Yuan Yang, a collection of Hong Kong and International writing; Best American Short Plays, Applause Books) http://rabelaislastwords.wordpress.com
Jan Bottiglieri
Jan Bottiglieri lives, works, and writes in Schaumburg, Illinois. Her poems have appeared in RHINO, Bellevue Literary Review, Margie, Diagram, After Hours, and elsewhere, and have been included in several anthologies. She is also an associate editor for RHINO.
T. C. Boyle
T. C. Boyle is the author of 22 books of fiction, including The Tortilla Curtain, Drop City, The Women, Wild Child and When the Killing’s Done. He is Distinguished Professor of English at USC and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. He was born and raised in the Hudson Valley—the setting for “Hopes Rise” and many of his other stories—and now lives in Santa Barbara. http://www.tcboyle.com/
Brent Calderwood
Brent Calderwood is a San Francisco writer and musician. His essays and reviews appear widely. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Journal, Poets & Artists, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Gertrude, Art & Understanding, modern words, and in the book, Poets 11. He has twice been the recipient of Lambda Literary Foundation Fellowships for poetry, and he was recently name poet laureate of San Francisco’s Sunset District by the San Francisco Public Library.
Daniel Chacón
Daniel Chacón is author of the books Chicano Chicanery, a collection of stories, and the novel and the shadows took him. His third collection of stories called Unending Rooms is the winner of the 2008 Hudson Prize. He is co-editor of The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: The Selected Works of Jose Antonio Burciaga, which won the American Book Award in 2009. He just finished his second novel, The Cholo Tree. http://www.soychacon.blogspot.com
Susan Spaeth Cherry
Susan Spaeth Cherry began her writing career as a journalist for newspapers and magazines nationwide. A persistent need to express herself creatively led her to start writing poetry in mid-life. Her work, which has won many awards, has been published in a variety of literary magazines and poetry anthologies. She is the author of five poetry collections: I Am the Pool’s Perimeter, Reflecting Pool, Breaking Into the Safe of Life, Sonata in the Key of Being, and Hole to Whole. Susan is now setting her poetry to music she writes herself. Other composers have also created songs from her poems.
Joan Corwin
Joan Corwin has a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University. Her nonfiction publications include essays on the subject of her dissertation, the Victorian travel narrative. Her fiction has appeared in several journals and anthologies and has earned a number of writing awards, including the Dana Portfolio Award and, most recently, the Madison Review’s Chris O’Malley Prize. Her story “Hindsight” was a Chicago Public Radio Stories on Stage winner. Her historical novella Safe Shall Be My Going was published in the first Press 53 Open Awards Anthology. Joan lives with her husband in Evanston, Illinois and is currently working on a novel that takes place in West Texas, Oregon and Chicago.
Amy Dengler
Amy Dengler’s collection of poetry, Between Leap and Landing, was published in 1999 by Folly Cove Books. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Christian Science Monitor, IDEALS Magazine, Anthology of New England Writers and many other journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of a Robert Penn Warren Award from New England Writers.
E. Michael Desilets
E. Michael Desilets was born and raised in Framingham, Massachusetts. During his academic career, he taught at Framingham High School, Framingham State College, Rowan University in South Jersey, and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, where he now lives. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including California Quarterly, Poesy, The Rambler and Widener Review.
Kathleene Donahoo
Kathleene Donahoo was educated at Georgetown and Yale, and worked as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Her fiction has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Connecticut Review and North American Review.
Margarita Engle
Margarita Engle is a botanist and the Cuban-American author of young adult novels in verse, most recently The Firefly Letters. The Surrender Tree received a Newbery Honor, the Pura Belpré Medal, James Addams Award, Américas Award, Claudia Lewis Award, and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Honor. The Poet Slave of Cuba received the Pura Belpré Medal, Américas Award, and an International Reading Association Award. Tropical Secrets received the Sydney Taylor Award, Paterson Prize, and an Américas Award Commendation. Engle’s next novel in verse is Hurricane Dancers, the First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck, forthcoming from Henry Holt in March, 2011. Engle’s first picture book is Summer Birds, the Butterflies of Maria Merian. Margarita lives in northern California, where she enjoys hiking and helping her husband with his volunteer work for wilderness search-and-rescue dog training programs. Her next picture book is about search and rescue dogs. As of mid-April Margarita Engle has a new website.
D. I. Gray
D.I. Gray has been writing poetry since he first learned English upon arriving in the States from India at the age of six. Over time, under the tutelage of Hazel Carpenter and Mary Kinzie, he developed his voice and tastes more and— while his work is either in the free line or extremely structured—generally grapples with the theme of finding a sense of comfort in the face of nihilism. His work has also appeared in Avocet, Towers Magazine, The Awakenings Review, and The Black Book Press. http://theadonisproject.xanga.com
Donna Hilbert
Donna Hilbert’s latest poetry collection is The Green Season, World Parade Books, 2009. Earlier books include Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, Pearl Editions, 2004, as well as Transforming Matter, Deep Red and Women Who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them (short stories), winner of England’s Staple First Edition biennial prize. Ms. Hilbert appears in and her poetry is the text of the short film, “Grief Becomes Me: A Love Story,” by award-winning filmmaker Christine Fugate. Ms. Hilbert lives in Long Beach, California, where she teaches the master class in poetry for PEN USA’s Emerging Voice’s program as well as an on-going private workshop. http://www.donnahilbert.com
Jayant Kamicheril
Jayant Kamicheril is a Chemical Engineer and was born in East Africa and studied in Kerala, India. He worked for an engineering company for fourteen years in India and then started marketing spices and is now based in Pennsylvania, working for a food ingredient company. Jayant also writes in his mother tongue—Malaylam—and has published stories and articles both in the United States and in India. http://www.kumarakomkaran.com
Carol Kanter
Carol Kanter has had poems published by Ariel, Atlanta Review, Blue Unicorn, ByLine, Explorations, Hammers, Iowa Woman, The Chester Jones Foundation, Kaleidoscope Ink, The Madison Review, Memoir (and), The Mid-America Poetry Review, Pudding Magazine, The People’s Press, Rambunctious Review, River Oak Review, Sendero, Sweet Annie Press, Thema, Universities West Press, and a number of anthologies. Korone named her the Illinois Winner of its 2001 writing project. Atlanta Review gave her an International Merit Award in poetry in 2003 and 2005. Finishing Line Press published her first chapbook, Out of Southern Africa, in 2005, and her second, Chronicle of Dog, in 2006. No Secrets Where Elephants Walk (Dual Arts Press, 2010) marries Carol’s poetry to her husband’s photography from Africa. Carol Kanter has a B.A. in biology, an M.A. in Social Work and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. She is in private practice in Evanston, Illinois. http://www.DualArtsPress.com
Jodi Kanter
Jodi Kanter is a writer, theater artist, scholar, and educator. She is the author of the book Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community Through Theater and Writing (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007) and an associate professor of theater at The George Washington University.
Elizabeth Kerlikowske
Elizabeth Kerlikowske is a life-long Michigan resident who teaches at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek. Her fifth book of poems, Rib, was recently published by Pudding House Press. She is the president of Friends of Poetry, a group dedicated to the enjoyment of poetry. Each year they sponsor the Poems That Ate Our Ears contest and paint a poetry mural on a downtown Kalamazoo business.
Kathleen Kirk
Kathleen Kirk is the author of Selected Roles (Moon Journal Press, 2006), a chapbook of theatre and persona poems; Broken Sonnets (Finishing Line Press, 2009); and Living on the Earth (Finishing Line Press, 2010, New Women’s Voices No. 74). Her poems, prose poems, and essays appear in a number of journals and anthologies, including After Hours, Another Chicago Magazine, Ekphrasis, Fifth Wednesday, Greensboro Review, Leveler, Ninth Letter, Quarter After Eight, Regrets Only (Little Pear Press, 2006), Poem, Revised (Marion StreetPress, 2008), and Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions, 2009). http://kathleenkirkpoetry.blogspot.com/
D. J. Lachance
Dave Lachance listened to his wife and began writing fiction to reunite with his family after returning from the Gulf War. Though he originally intended to write children’s stories for his kids, “Nagasaki Shadows” is representative of the works that have actually emerged. Dave has had fiction and poetry published in various publications and anthologies in the U.S. and Japan, and several stage plays produced. A one-act play he derived from the story was published in the 2001 edition of Collages and Bricollages, a literary journal edited and published by Marie-Jose Fortes. He also included the story as a monologue in the stage play “Voices From the Cafe” which has been selected to be performed in Iran, by Iranian literary scholar Mohammad Hanif.
Kerry Langan
Kerry Langan’s short fiction has appeared in more than 40 literary journals in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong. Her first collection of short fiction, Only Beautiful and Other Stories, was published in 2009. Her forthcoming collection, Live Your Life and Other Stories, will be published in 2011. Her non-fiction has appeared in Working Mother. http://www.oberlin.net/~langan
Philip Levine
Philip Levine was born in 1928 in Detroit of Russian-Jewish immigrants and educated at the public schools and the city university of Detroit, Wayne University (now Wayne State University). He studied poetry and poetry writing with Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Yvor Winters. In 1958 he settled in Fresno and taught at Fresno State for 22 years. In the mid-Sixties he lived two years in Spain. In October of 2009 he published his 17th collection, News of the World (Random House). His work has won many awards including two National Book Awards, the National Book Critics Award, and the Pulitzer in ‘95. He now divides his time between Brooklyn and Fresno.
Lisa Liken
Lisa Liken is a College Counselor in the redwoods of California. Her work has been published in Jacaranda, Pearl, Slipstream, Gypsy, Nerve Cowboy, SNReview and The Pitkin Review.
Susan O’Donnell Mahan
Born in South Boston, Susan O’Donnell Mahan has been an editor for the South Boston Literary Gazette since the fall of 2002. She began writing poetry after her husband died in 1997. She has published four chapbooks, Paris Awaits, In The Wilderness of Grief, Missing Mum and World View; in addition, she has been published in numerous publications. In November 2003, she had a poem included in Tokens, an anthology of subway poems published in NYC. In December 2004, she received an Honorable Mention in the Pen Women’s Soul Making contest for her poem, “He Called Me Princess …” In February 2005, she was included in Kiss Me Goodnight, the anthology of poems and stories by women whose mothers died during their childhood. In February 2006, she won an honorable mention in the Perigee poetry contest for her poem, “After the Postmark.”
Pamela Malone
Pamela Malone has published her poetry, fiction, and essays in over 150 magazines and anthologies. Her poetry collection, That Heaven Once Was My Hell, is published by Linear Arts Books. She lives in Leonia, New Jersey, with her husband, Joe. Her two sons are grown, and now her house is filled with the noisy joy of granddaughters and a new baby grandson.
Teresa S. Mathes
Teresa S. Mathes holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has taught creative writing to undergraduates at DePaul University, served as a visiting artist at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and founded and directed the Young Authors’ Program at Sunset Ridge Elementary School. Her work has appeared in such diverse journals as The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Calyx, and The Sun. Her fiction has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize anthology and the National Magazine Awards. The religious right calls her “the reason St. Paul said women should be silent in church.”
Michael Constantine McConnell
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Michael Constantine McConnell now resides in Denton, Texas, where he writes prose, poetry, and palindromes. A singer, songwriter, and performer, he is a devout student of the 20-button Anglo concertina as well as an “experimental forms” editor for the online speculative literary exhibition of the bizarre, Farrago’s Wainscot (dot com). “Alleys” is the first chapter of Michael’s unpublished manuscript which follows the decline of a great city and a great family as both collapse following their golden era. http://www.clanmcshite.com/
Ann McNeal
Ann McNeal lives in Pelham, Massachusetts. After teaching physiology at Hampshire College for three decades, she retired to pursue creative writing. Her poems have been published in Right Hand Pointing, Equinox, Paper Street, and other periodicals, as well as several anthologies, including On Retirement(University of Iowa Press), Writing the River, and Love over 60 http://www.annmcneal.com and http://retirespirit.blogspot.com
Joe Meno
Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a finalist for the Story Prize, he is the author of five novels and two short story collections including The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, and Hairstyles of the Damned. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times and Chicago Magazine. He is a professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. http://www.joemeno.com
Pamela Miller
Pamela Miller has published three books of poetry, most recently Recipe for Disaster (Mayapple Press, 2003). Her work has appeared in many print and online magazines and anthologies, and she has just completed a new book manuscript, Miss Unthinkable. She lives in Chicago and finds solace in everything from Rossini overtures and Swedish punk rock to the Houston Art Car Parade. http://www.mayapplepress.com
Tekla Dennison Miller
Tekla Dennison Miller, www.teklamiller.com, a former warden of a men’s maximum and women’s multi-level prisons outside Detroit is the author of two memoirs, The Warden Wore Pink and A Bowl of Cherries, and two novels, Life Sentences and Inevitable Sentences. She lives and hikes in Southwest Colorado with her husband and two adopted dogs. http://www.teklamiller.com
S. Minanel
S. Minanel’s poetry and art have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals, including Pacific Yachting, Hurricane Alice, Personal Computer Age, Animal Review, World Tennis, Once Upon a Time, Shemom, and Absolute Write.
Paula W. Peterson
Paula W. Peterson has published a collection of short stories, Women in the Grove (Beacon Press), and a collection of essays, Penitent, with Roses (UPNE), which was the winner of the Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading and in many literary journals. She is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship.
Jeff Poniewaz
Jeff Poniewaz has taught Literature of Ecological Vision via the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1989. His poems have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. His book Dolphin Leaping in the Milky Way won him a 1987 Discovery Award from PEN, the international writers’ organization. His last name is pronounced POE-nYEAH-vAHsh and is Polish for “Because.”
Arthur Powers
Arthur Powers first went to Brazil with the Peace Corps in 1969 and has lived most of his adult life in that country. His poetry has appeared in America, Americas Review, Christianity & Literature, Hiram Poetry Review, Kansas Quarterly, Papyrus, Rattapallax, Roanoke Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Texas Quarterly, and many others. He is also an award-winning writer of short stories.
Pat Rahmann
Some years ago, “Last Trip Together” was Pat Rahmann’s first published poem. Since then, she has won prizes for her poetry, fiction, and plays, including an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. Her work has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines, such as Other Voices, StoryQuarterly, and Spoon River Anthology. Her plays have had Equity productions in Chicago and New York. Her play Partners placed first in an ABC one-act play contest. She has two published novels, First Reveille and Crossing Borders.
Jenna Rindo
Jenna Rindo lives in rural Pickett, Wisconsin, with her husband and blended family of five children. She worked as a pediatric RN for seven years and now teaches English as a second language to Hmong, Arabic, and Spanish students. Her poems and essays have appeared in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Kalliope, Shenandoah, American Journal of Nursing, Ars Medica, Wisconsin Review, and Mom Writers Literary Magazine.
Laura Rodley
Laura Rodley’s second chapbook, Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose released October 8th by Finishing Line Press. Her first chapbook Rappelling Blue Light was nominated for a Massachusetts Books Award, and includes work nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is co-curator of the Collected Poet Series and teaches creative writing funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her poetry has won numerous awards and been included in anthologies including Kiss Me Goodnight, Crossing Paths, and read on WHMP, KVMR, 89.5 FM radio in Nevada City, CA, and NPR affiliated station, WAMC, Albany NY. She works as a freelance writer and photographer.
Dennis Saleh
Dennis Saleh is the author of five books of poetry and has edited an anthology of contemporary American poetry. He has published books on science fiction films and record album cover design. He has a recent poetry chapbook, Journals, from Choice of Words Press. Two of his collage series, “Accretions, numbers 11 and 12” will be the covers for Blackbird 10. In 2011, he will be Featured Poet in Psychological Perspectives, with both poetry and prose, and an article on his work. He has read from his poetry, and a novel-in-progress set in Ancient Egypt, Bast, at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, CA.
Barry Silesky
Barry Silesky writes “As to the bio, I have three collections of verse—This Disease (Tampa Review, 2007) is the latest—and one of prose poems (One Thing That Can Save Us), in addition to biographies of John Gardner and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. For money, I teach privately and hope (fervently) for grace.”
Dan Sklar
Dan Sklar teaches writing at Endicott College, where he inspires his students to love language and to write in a natural, original, and spontaneous way. Some recent publications include New York Quarterly, Harvard Review, and The Art of the One-Act.
Noel Sloboda
Originally from Massachusetts, Noel Sloboda currently lives in Pennsylvania. He serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company and teaches at Penn State York, where he has won awards for teaching and advising. Sloboda has published poems in venues based in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and New Zealand. His first book of poetry, Shell Games (sunnyoutside), was published in 2008. http://www2.yk.psu.edu/sites/njs16/
J. Scott Smith
J. Scott Smith is a musician and writer in Wilmette, Illinois. Smith has published non-fiction articles and stories, and is at work on a novel.
Laurence Snydal
Laurence Snydal writes, “I am a poet, musician and retired teacher. My poetry has appeared in such magazines as Columbia, Caperock, Lyric and Gulf Stream and in many anthologies, including The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, 2000, and Visiting Frost.”
Patty Somlo
Patty Somlo’s writing has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Santa Clara Review, The Sand Hill Review, Fringe Magazine, and Her Circle Ezine, and in the anthologies Voices from the Couch, VoiceCatcher 2006, Bombshells: War Stories and Poetry by Women on the Homefront and Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration. Her short story, “Bird Women,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was a finalist in the 2004 Tom Howard Short Story Contest. Her short story collection, From Here to There and Other Stories, is forthcoming from Paraguas Books http://www.paraguasbooks.com/
Wally Swist
The author of seventeen books and chapbooks of poetry, Wally Swist’s newest collection is Luminous Dream, the finalist for the 2010 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. A short biographical documentary film regarding his work, In Praise of the Earth, was released by award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Wilda (WildArts, 2008). Also, he has published a scholarly monograph, The Friendship of Two New England Poets, Robert Frost and Robert Francis (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009). A recording of a poem from his reading in theSunken Garden Poetry Festival, accompanied by jazz cellist Eugene Friesen, a member of Paul Winter Consort, is archived at npr.org. http://www.wallyswist.com
Sheila Mullen Twyman
Sheila Mullen Twyman’s poetry has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, most recently Ibbetson Street Press and Unlocking the Poem (edited by Ottone Riccio and Ellen Beth Siegel). She has three collections of poetry including Shadows in Bas Relief (Beachcomber Press), published in 2010. She received First Prize for Poetry, and Honorable Mention for Prose Poetry two times from American Pen Women. For eight years Sheila produced and hosted “Egads, It’s Poetry” for the MA Radio Network for the Blind featuring well known and local poets reading their work. Sheila reviews books and owns a small press.
Patti Wojcik Wahlberg
Patti Wahlberg has been writing poetry since before she was born and plans to continue after death. Her work has been rejected by some of the finest publications in the country, with a smattering of acceptances here and there, which suits her fine, as poets often find too much acceptance disturbing. Raised in Western Massachusetts and migrating to Southern California in 1978, Patti currently writes articles for a small independent publication in Southern California, but her main passions in life are her loving husband and two teenage daughters. Once the girls are off to college, she and her husband plan to hightail it from the concrete jungle and jammed freeways to the mystical land of Mendocino, where they will live happily-ever-after at the end of a winding dirt road on the Lambert Ridge, he as winemaker and farmer, she as wine enthusiast and writer, far, far from the “maddening” crowd.
Sarah Brown Weitzman
Sarah writes: “Taught English in a New York City high school, taught expository writing at New York University, wrote curriculum materials and teacher manuals for the NYC Board of Education and ended my career as the director of an on-site teacher training program. “Did not begin to write poetry until I was 39 or 40. I am now 73 years old. Published approximately 100 poems from 1979 to 1984 in numerous magazines: Kansas Quarterly, Poet & Critic, The Croton Review, Poetry Now, The Bellingham Review, ABRAXAS, The Windless Orchard, The Smith, Riversedge, Tendril, Yarrow, The Wisconsin Review, The World, St. Mark’s Poetry Project Newsletter, The Long Pond Review, Princeton Spectrum, The Madison Review, etc.
“Received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry in 1984. Was a finalist in The Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award in both 1980 and 1981. Was a runner-up in AWP’s first poetry contest in 1983 and selected to read in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Mid-day Muse series.
“Although I continued to write, I did not send my work out from 1984 to 1999. I was a finalist in 2003 for both the Foley Prize contest and the National Looking Glass Poetry Competition. Since 1999 have had almost l00 more poems published in American Writing, Poet Lore, Slant, The North American Review, The Nassau Review, The Long Island Quarterly, Ekphrasis, Cedar Hill Review, Black Water Review, Rattle, America, Common Ground Review, Potomac Review, Poetry Motel, etc. Pudding House published my chapbook, The Forbidden, in 2004. A full-length volume of my work entitled Never Far from Flesh was published in 2006 by Pure Heart/Main St. Rag Press. I retired and moved from NYC to Florida in 1998.”