Issue Three: Contributors

Jeffrey Alfier is a 2010 nominee for the UK’s Forward Prize for Poetry. His latest chapbook is The Torch Singer (2011). His first full-length book of poems, The Wolf Yearling, will be published in 2012, by Pecan Grove Press. He is founder and co-editor of San Pedro River Review.

Thomas Bacher was born in Japan before moving to Minnesota, the coldest spot of his life. His formative years were spent in the southwest suburbs of Cleveland listening to rock music and live bands. He grew up when he moved to Brooklyn, New York in the early 1980s. At present, he is maturing in Akron, Ohio. He has written poetry before his age of reason. His work was recently published in Anon Magazine.

Paul Baines is a social misfit and all round troublemaker. He used to print, now he paints. His work offers a unique and controversial selection of skewed artistic views of contemporary society: “iconic prints and paintings for a fallen race of super-intelligent monkeys”. His website can be found here.  

Michelle Ward-Kantor is a teacher and mother of three. She holds a certificate in creative writing, a Bachelor of Education degree and a journalism diploma, all of which may help her somewhat as she strives to write poetry. After all, life itself is the best source of inspiration! Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Prairie Journal, Main Street and Flamborough Families Write (co-written with her daughter). View her work online at http://www.leaplocal.org/ and in issue #7 of http://www.thewritersblockmagazine.ca/. Michelle has lived in western Canada; London, England and Australia. She now resides in southern Ontario, Canada.

W.F. Lantry, a native of San Diego, received his Licence and Maîtrise from L’Université de Nice, and PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. In 2010 he won the Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (in Israel), Crucible Poetry Prize, CutBank Patricia Goedicke Prize and the Birmingham-Southern College National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry. His work has appeared in  Prairie Fire, Asian Cha, Gulf Coast and Aesthetica. His chapbook, The Language of Birds, is available from Finishing Line Press. He currently works in Washington, DC and is a contributing editor of Umbrella Journal. His website can be found here.

Kevin McLellan lives in Memphis, Tennessee where he works as a real estate investor. He is an avid wanderer and writer. His journalism has appeared in Nashville Business Review and Patient Care Magazine. “Postmodern Park” is the first of his creative writing to be published. He has a work of fiction forthcoming in The Monarch Review.  

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, 63 channels, Spectrum, and three Bright Spring Press Anthologies. Four of her books have been published by fine literary presses. Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky. 

David L. O’Neal attended Princeton University, served three years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, then established his own business as an antiquarian bookseller dealing in rare books and manuscripts. O’Neal retired from the book business in 2002 and is now enjoying a second career as a writer, especially of poetry. His work has found publication in Sensations Magazine, Writers’ Forum, Bird Keeper (England), Bird Keeper (Australia), The New York Times, The Marin Poets Anthology, Vision Magazine, Mississippi Crow, Creativity Connection, Street Spirit, Nut House, Writer’s Forum, The Eclectic Muse, Two Hawks Quarterly, Writer’s Digest, Open Minds Quarterly, Voices of Bi-Polar Disorder (anthology), Science Poetry (forthcoming anthology), etc. He has published several books including one about his parrot and Babbling Birds, an anthology of poems about parrots from antiquity to the present.

James Robison has published many stories in The New Yorker, won a Whiting Grant for his short fiction and a Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his first novel, The Illustrator, brought out by Bloomsbury in the U.K. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and Grand Street. The Mississippi Review devoted an entire issue to seven of his short stories. He co-wrote the 2008 film, New Orleans Mon Amour, and has poetry and prose forthcoming or appearing now in The Manchester Review, Story Quarterly, The Northwest Review, The Raleigh Review, Smokelong Quarterly and elsewhere. He taught for eight years at the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program, was Visiting Writer at Loyola College of Maryland, was Fiction Editor of The North Dakota Quarterly and 2011 Visiting Artist at The University of Southern Misissippi.

Sonia Saikaley has lived in Japan, where she taught English and found the solitude to write. She has also gotten lost in the alleys of Venice but found an amazing pizzeria. Now, in Ottawa, Canada, she finds herself surrounded by her big Lebanese family and amidst the chaos and joy, she writes. Her writing has been published in Still Point Arts Quarterly, Monday’s Poem, The Caterpillar Chronicles, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, the anthology Lavandería – A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Word, and other publications. She hopes someday to find a home for her poetry collection Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter.

Lorraine Schein is a New York poet and writer. Her work has appeared in Witches & Pagans, Enchanted Conversation, Hotel Amerika, New Letters and Confrontation. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press.

Lemn Sissay MBE is an award-winning British author and broadcaster. He is known for performances of his poetry and also with jazz fusion groups. He is a playwright, and has worked on radio and television. He appears on the award-winning Leftfield album Leftism. By the age of nineteen he was one of only two black literature development workers in Britain at Commonword, a community publishing cooperative in Manchester. A number of his poems adorn buildings throughout the Manchester area and have become landmarks. In 1995 The BBC made a television documentary about his life called Internal Flight. His 2005 drama Something Dark deals with his search for his family. In 2006 Something Dark was adapted for BBC Radio 3 and won the RIMA award. Television appearances range from The South Bank Show to BBC’s hit series Grumpy Old Men. As a radio broadcaster he makes documentaries for the BBC. They range in subject matter from The Last Poets in New York to WH Auden’s Night Mail; the last in March 2008 was a documentary about the source of pub signs all over Britain called The Black Boy. He is a regular contributor on BBC Radio Four’s Saturday Live which in 2008 is nominated for two Sony Awards. In 2007 he was appointed as artist-in-residence at the Southbank Centre in London. In 2008 his award-winning play was published by Oberon Books as part of Hidden Gems edited by Professor Deidre Osborne. His book of poetry Listener is published by Canongate, the cover shot of which is taken by the award-winning photographer Rankin. Sissay was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours. His website can be found here.

Caitlin Walsh is a full-time college student in California. A poem of hers was recently awarded second place in the Balticon 45 Poetry Contest, but beyond that she is an unpublished writer. When she is not writing, she devours good books, wanders through difficult-to-access parts of town, and scavenges local secondhand shops in search of buried treasure.