![]()
Tom Dooley co-founded Eclectica in 1996 and serves as its Managing Editor. In the 12 years between earning a BA in English literature from the University of Chicago and a MPA in municipal management from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he taught middle and high school English in Alaska, Arizona, and Wisconsin, amassing fond memories, dubious experiences, and debt. Two careers post-teaching later, he now creates spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides for the man by day, edits Eclectica by night, and feels very grateful for the blessings he has received—chief among them being married to the sweetest gal and the best poet he knows. He and said gal reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with enough rescued lapdogs to field a diminutive Iditarod racing team and the empty-nest echoes of two amazing Haitian-American children who have flown the coop.
Colleen Mondor is Eclectica's Review Editor. She also reviews for Bookslut, the Voices of NOLA, and Booklist. Short story excerpts from her novel on Alaskan aviation have recently appeared in failbetter and Storyglossia. She maintains a daily blog on all things literary (and sometimes not) at her site, Chasingray.com.
Elizabeth P. Glixman is Eclectica's Interview Editor. Her fiction and poetry have appeared online and in print in Wicked Alice, In Posse Review, 3 A.M. Magazine, Tough Times Companion, a publication of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Her Circle Ezine, Frigg, and Velvet Avalanche, an anthology of erotic poetry. Besides Eclectica, her author interviews, articles, book reviews, and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Whole Life Times, Spirit of Change, Hadassah Magazine, and the anthologies Chocolate for A Woman's Soul II and Cup of Comfort For Women. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: A White Girl Lynching (Pudding House Publications, 2008), Cowboy Writes a Letter & Other Love Poems (Pudding House Publications, 2010), and The Wonder of It All (Alternating Current, 2012). Elizabeth's story, "Mother's Bony Behind," was chosen one of the notable online stories of 2006 by the Million Writers Award. Elizabeth is an animal lover, and she has a blog devoted to shelter animals, especially those at kill shelters.
![]()
Jennifer Finstrom has been the Poetry Editor of Eclectica since the fall issue of 2005. This is her final issue in that capacity. A former Spotlight Author, she teaches in the First-Year Writing Program, tutors in writing, and facilitates writing groups at DePaul University. Recent publications include Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Escape Into Life, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, and NEAT. For Silver Birch Press, she has work appearing in The Great Gatsby Anthology, the Alice in Wonderland Anthology, and in Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks.
![]()
Pamela Mackey is Eclectica's Copy Editor. She teaches English at a community college in central New York. Earlier in her career, she wrote feature stories for newspapers, including The New York Times. Even earlier, she was a researcher and editor in the magazine industry, holding staff positions at LOOK and Saturday Review magazines. She writes poetry and is the mother of a gifted young novelist.
![]()
Tamara M. Brenno-Uribarri served as the fiction co-editor for this issue. She received her masters in creative writing and literature theory from Hollins University. She lives in Albuquerque with her husband Dominic and teaches English at the University of New Mexico.
Bob Bradshaw is a programmer living in Redwood City, CA. He is a big fan of the Rolling Stones. Recent work of his can be found at Mississippi Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Pedestal Magazine, American Poets Abroad, Chantarelle's Notebook, Lucid Rhythms, and Greensilk Journal.
Kevin Brown resides in Cleveland, TN, where he teaches English and writes. His poems have appeared in The New York Quarterly, REAL: Regarding Arts and Letters, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review, h2so4, Jeopardy, Pinyon, and The Pacific Review, among other journals. He has published essays in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Academe, InsideHigherEd.com, The Teaching Professor, and Eclectica. His book of poetry, Exit Lines, will be published later this year, as will a book of scholarship: They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. You can see more of his work on his blog.
Greta Bolger is a writer and visual artist living the dream in northern Michigan. She has published poetry, photography, and prose in The Raven Chronicles, The Chimaera, Third Coast, Juice Box, Contemporary Haibun Journal, and other print and online publications.
Antonia Clark works for a medical software company in Burlington, Vermont. She has taught college-level creative writing and is currently co-administrator of an online poetry forum, The Waters. Her poems have appeared in kaleidowhirl, Lily, Loch Raven Review, Lucid Rhythms, Orange Room Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, Stirring, Umbrella, and elsewhere. She loves French travel, food, and wine, and plays French cafe music on a sparkly purple accordion. Toni invites poets to visit The Waters, home of 77 Sunset Beach, where members go to write a poem a day for seven days.
Barbara De Franceschi is an Australian poet who lives in Broken Hill, a small mining town in outback New South Wales. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals Australia-wide and also in Ireland, Wales, New Zealand, on line USA, and Switzerland. Her first collection, Lavender Blood, was published in 2004, and a second collection, Strands, will be launched in May 2009. When not writing poetry or committed to family and business, Barbara involves herself in community work. She was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2002 for her achievements in the area of multiculturalism. Barbara is a member of the performance group "The Silver Tongued Ferals" and performs at caravan parks, arts festivals, etc., and has read her poetry live to air on ABC Radio on a number of occasions.
Lea C. Deschenesresides in Worcester, MA, and holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College. Her poetry has appeared online, on stage, and in print (Spillway, Snakeskin, So Luminous the Wildflowers, Ballard Street Poetry Journal, et al.) A former member of four National Poetry Slam teams and a coach to two more, she also dusts off her BA in Theater to perform. She has received a Jacob Knight Award, represented Worcester in the 2005 Individual World Poetry Slam, and been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. She is the author of thirteen chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, The Constant Velocity of Trains, is available through Write Bloody Publishing.
Gez Devlin skulls the seas around San Francisco. He writes in the left transept of the Tenderloin's St. Boniface Church and frequents Frank's "21 Club" on Turk.
Cat Dixon earned her MFA from the University of Nebraska Omaha and is now an adjunct instructor at the university. She is the volunteer Marketing Director for The Backwaters Press and a mother of two. Her work has appeared in Temenos, Poetryfish, and Fine Lines.
Gregory Dunn lives in and writes from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the greenhouse manager for Trillium Haven Farm, a CSA in Jenison, Michigan, and intermittently blogs about his experiences there.
Roland Goity lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His stories appear in dozens of literary publications, including Fiction International, Scrivener Creative Review, Underground Voices, Talking River, SUB-LIT, Bryant Literary Review, decomP, and Word Riot. He is fiction editor of the online journal LITnIMAGE.
Taylor Graham has appeared many times in Eclectica and also in International Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere, and she's included in the anthology, California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University, 2004). Her book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. Her current project is Walking with Elihu, poems on the American peace activist Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith.
William Reese Hamilton lives in Choroni, a fishing village on the coast of Venezuela, butted up against a mountainous cloud forest, in a region that produces the finest cacao in the world. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, The North American Review, Puerto del Sol, Night Train Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Review Americana, In Posse Review, Adirondack Review, Scrivener Creative Review, Steel City Review, Loch Raven Review, Vestal Review, Temenos, The MacGuffin, Taj Mahal Review, Ink Pot/Lit Pot, Smokelong Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has found his paradise and is studying it, warts and all.
Thomas J. Hubschman is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon, the author of the novel Billy Boy (Savvy Press), and the publisher of Gowanus, an ezine for authors in and from the so-called Third World. He is also editor of The Best of Gowanus: New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean (Gowanus Books). His short stories, articles and reviews have appeared in The Blue Moon Review, Morpo Review, New York Press, on the BBC World Service and in numerous other print and online publications.
![]()
Niranjana Iyer is a writer from Ottawa, Canada, whose work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Smithsonian Magazine, and SmokeLong Quarterly, amongst other venues. Her blog is called "Brown Paper" (see link).
Stanley Jenkins has appeared in Amelia, 32 Pages, The Blue Moon Review, CrossConnect, and the Oyster Boy Review. A former Spotlight Author, Stanley is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon and holds the record for greatest number of appearances in our issues. He lives and works in Queens, New York.
Barry Jay Kaplan has published stories in Descant, Bryant Literary Review, Upstreet, Storyglossia, Brink, Amarillo Bay, Apple Valley Review (Pushcart Prize nominee) and others. "His Wife" is in Best of the Net 2008 Anthology. His novels include Black Orchid (with Nicholas Meyer) and Biscayne. His musical Like Love (music by Lewis Flinn) appeared last year in the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently at work on two novels, Little Boy Blue and Other People's Lives, and a play, Poverty in America.
Julia Braun Kessler has appeared in Eclectica before. She is a journalist and novelist who has published widely over the years in Seventeen, Family Circle, Travel & Leisure, Geo, Modern Maturity, and others. Her novels (under pseudonym Julia Barrett) are Presumption, The Third Sister, and Charlotte. Her latest fiction is entitled Mary Crawford and is forthcoming.
Jefrey James Keyes is a playwright and journalist. He is the New York Editor of GayCities.com and writes features for Metrosource, Instinct, Theatre Today, and GayWired.com and is developing his thesis for his MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University. Trifon, his adaptation of Turgenev's "The District Doctor" is going to be filmed this summer.
Otto Lambert was born in California and raised in the hotel his father owned on the beach: a happy, healthy child in a bright world of clean sand, orange groves, Golden Retrievers, sea vistas, and smiling faces. Around him the Hotel Mirage revolved as a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside. Regarding "Tangle," he says, "A piece like this doesn't emerge full-born from the brow of the author, despite the size of his head. It was instead written through hundreds of conversations over many years. I am most grateful to my colleagues CC Clark at the Foundation for Media Education, Louise Yu at the Public Domain Union, and Chester Ramsdale of the Poling Fund. I am grateful as well to the extraordinary law professors of the Cognomen Group who taught me far more than I could return to them. My work on this book began at the Schwartzmann Center, where the theme was born in the passionate rants of the twelve percent of American men whose furor is sometimes hard to suffer, but whose insights were critical in re-forming the views I express here."
Richard Larson grew up in St. Louis, MO, but now lives in New York City, where he is a graduate student at New York University. His stories have appeared in Pindeldyboz, Strange Horizons, ChiZine, Electric Velocipede, Vibrant Gray, and others. He also regularly reviews books for Strange Horizons and works for the Expository Writing Program at NYU.
Thomas Lee is an attorney and freelance writer who lives in Northern California. He is currently developing a collection of short stories about the experiences of Korean American immigrants in New York City. Several of the works that are a part of this collection have been published in various literary journals, including the American Literary Review, AIM Magazine, Asian Pacific American Journal, Brink Lit, Kartika Review, Lullwater Review, Reed Magazine, and Short Fiction World. His stories have won several awards including Top 25 finalist in the 2008 Glimmer Train Family Matters Competition, Most Highly Commended in the 2008 Tom Howard/John Reid Short Story Contest of Winning Writers, and 2005 Best Short Story Prize from Nassau Review.
Jami Macarty lives on the coast of British Columbia and in the desert of Arizona. When a desert dweller, she teaches therapeutic movement and skeletal alignment; when in the rain forest, she teaches poetry at Simon Fraser University. Poems from her first manuscript, which is under construction, are forthcoming in Cimarron Review, CV2, Drunken Boat, Mudfish, Skidrow Penthouse, and Volt.
Ellen Meister is the author of two novels, The Smart One (HarperCollins/Avon 2008) and Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA (Morrow/Avon 2006), as well as numerous short stories. In addition to writing, she served as editor for an online literary magazine and currently curates for a literary series that airs on NPR. Ellen also does public speaking about her books and related issues. She writes, she swears, she sings, she dances... all from the front seat of her minivan. A former advertising copywriter, Ellen is a graduate of the University of Buffalo and lives on Long Island with her husband and three children. Her third novel, tentatively titled The Parting, will be published by Putnam in 2010. For more information visit her website.
Hemant Mohapatra is the recipient of the Harper Collins (India) Poetry Prize (2008). He was born and raised in India and spent much of his childhood surrounded by the Himalayan and Shivalik ranges. He moved to Austin, Texas, in 2006 where he currently works as an engineer during the day and moonlights as a writer during the night. His poetry is frequently confessional in nature and is heavily influenced by the literary minimalism of poets such as Jack Gilbert, Stephen Dunn, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gary Snyder. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, traveling, photography, and playing the piano. The poems chosen for publication are part of a manuscript titled Letters From Exile.
Lisa Mullenneaux has published her poetry in Global City Review, Folly, Feile-Festa, and Innisfree. Lisa was a travel journalist for 20 years. Her books, articles, and blogs are described at the web link provided. She teaches two online courses in self-publishing and travel writing.
![]()
Bojan Pavlovic is a Canadian author with roots in Bosnia-Hercegovina. He was born in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia, in 1979, and immigrated to Canada in 1992, where he now lives and works in Toronto. He has written a number of short story collections and poetry compilations. Most of his works deal with themes of history and historicity, the role of myth in national consciousness, topics of nationalism, of war, and of identity. His first novel, Newcomers, Temporaries, was published in 2006. He has won a number of literary awards, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2004 and 2005 for his short-story work.
Daniel C. Porder is a creative writing major at the New School. His recent fiction appears in Monkeybicycle and Pear Noir. He has no plans for the future.
Gilbert Wesley Purdy has published poetry, prose and translation in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), Eclectica, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Links to his work online and to a selected bibliography of his work in paper venues appear at his Hyperlinked Online Bibliography.
John-Michael Rivera teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has published creative non- fiction, poetry, translations and curated a number of programs for innovative Latina/o writers. The work in this issue comes from his new book, amatl, an encyclopaedia in part.
Saralee Rosenberg began her writing career co-authoring books on personal finance and relocation with her husband, Lee Rosenberg, a Certified Financial Planner. Their collaboration produced among others, 50 Fabulous Places to Retire in America and 50 Fabulous Places to Raise a Family. On her own, Saralee has written the following novels: A Little Help from Above, Claire Voyand, and Fate and Ms. Fortune (all published by AvonBooks). Her latest novel, Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead, released in July 2008, is a hilarious, heart stopping romp over fences and defenses that takes on hormones and hunger, family feuds and fidelity, and a harrowing journey that spills the truth about an unplanned pregnancy and a miracle during the Holocaust that altered the fates of next door neighbors forever. It begs the question, what did you do to deserve living next to a crazy woman? Sometimes it's worth finding out. Saralee is a graduate of Indiana University and lives on Long Island with her husband and three children. For more information visit her website.
Anindita Sengupta is a poet and writer in Bangalore, India. Her poetry has been published in several journals and anthologies including Nth Position, Pratilipi, Origami Condom, Quay Journal, Cha: An Asian Journal, and Not A Muse (Haven Books). In 2008, she received the Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing. She is also founder and executive editor of Ultra Violet, a website on contemporary feminist issues in India.
Allan Richard Shapiro lives and collects unemployment in San Francisco. His work has appeared or will appear in The Ne'er-Do-Well, GUD, Pank, Cantaraville, Greenbeards, and The Ampersand Review. He also wrote a book that nobody wants to read. About "being chased..." he says, "It's the third story in a series about a grocery store upon a hill (I love Reagan symbolism) called the Food For All. The whole thing is based on a dream I had when I was running a particularly high fever. In it, I was a clerk/hit man in a grocery store, which was run by the butcher, who happened to be Vin Diesel. It was all done Chinatown-style as if Polanski had directed it, so I just couldn't resist writing it. The first story in the series, "The Butcher and the Breather" can be found in an upcoming issue of Pank, and an abridged version of the fourth story, "Rebuilding Society" will be in the next issue of Greenbeards."
Paul Silverman has appeared in The South Dakota Review, Tampa Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Minnetonka Review, Worcester Review, Alimentum, Coe Review, Jabberwock Review, Eclectica, Hobart Online, Pindeldyboz, The King's English, Smokelong Quarterly, Laura Hird, The Pedestal, Adirondack Review, Dogmatika, Summerset Review, VerbSap, Word Riot, Thieves Jargon, and many others. He has three Pushcart nominations, a Best of the Net nomination, and was shortlisted twice for The Million Writers Award.
Ann Skealives in Australia. She is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia).
Mark Staniforth has published or is forthcoming in Night Train, Aethlon, Dublin Quarterly, and First Edition, among others. He lives in North Yorkshire, England. He wishes he had a real-life friend like Kandy Barr.
Ray Templeton is a former Spotlight Author. A Scottish writer and musician living in St. Albans, England, his poetry, short fiction, writings on music, etc., have appeared in a wide range of both print and online journals, including Magma, Iota, Eclectica, Poems Niederngasse, Thieves Jargon, The New Verse News, The Argotist, Musical Traditions, and Antithesis Common. He is a member of the editorial board of Blues & Rhythm Magazine.
James Terry has published stories in Fourteen Hills, The Dublin Review, The South Dakota Review, The Georgia Review, The Connecticut Review, Fiction, The Barcelona Review, 42Opus, Juked, Dark Sky Magazine, Pindeldyboz, Word Riot, Failbetter, and Storyglossia. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart and O.Henry prizes. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Tanya M. Twete resides in Washington with her husband and three children. She was a professional ballet dancer turned psychologist turned mommy and preschool director. She has a random collection of experiences and travels.
Katie Tunning lives in Philadelphia, where she knits, plays Scrabble, and occasionally remembers to write poetry. Some of her other poems can be found in Prick of the Spindle, Stirring, Philadelphia Stories, and forthcoming in the Cider Press Review.
J. A. Tyler is founding editor of mud luscious and the author of Someone, Somewhere (ghost road press, 2009), In Love with a Ghost (willows wept press, 2010), and Inconceivable Wilson (vox press, 2010) as well as the chapbooks Our Us & We (greying ghost), Zoo: The Tropic House (sunnyoutside), Everyone in this Is Either Dying or Will Die or Is Thinking of Death (achilles), and The Girl in the Black Sweater (trainwreck press).
Alex Ward was recently published in the Anemone Sidecar and in Forklift, Ohio. He works as a receiving clerk. The three pieces accepted were part of a book he wrote last summer called The Progressions.
Kajsa Wiberg is a freelance writer, translator, and horse trainer. Her stories have appeared in The River Walk Journal, Long Story Short, Prose Toad, Chick Lit Review, Flash Shot, and Insolent Rudder. She is a script reader for Blue Cat Screenplay. She lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, where she's at work on her second novel.
Todd Zuniga is the founding editor of Opium Magazine and the co-creator of the Literary Death Match. Recently his fiction has appeared in Canteen and online at Lost Magazine. This essay is from his recently completed book, PASSPORT, about his travels around the planet.
