Jan/Feb 2011

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.

Kimberly L. Becker is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. Words Facing East (WordTech Editions, 2011) is her first book of poetry. Individual poems appear in many journals and anthologies. The Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD) funded her study of Cherokee language, history, and culture in Cherokee, NC. She was awarded a residency at Hambidge Center. Current projects include adapting Cherokee myths into plays for the Cherokee Youth in Radio Project at the Cherokee Youth Center, also in Cherokee, NC.

Peter Bingham-Pankratz lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He is a recent graduate of Beloit College and has just completed his first novel. This is his publishing debut.

Z.Z. Boone lives in Connecticut and teaches writing at Sacred Heart University. His work has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, SNReview, Annalemma, The MacGuffin, Underground Voices, Temenos, Third Wednesday, Swill, FRiGG, Wigleaf, Word Riot, Rumble, Pank, LITnIMAGE, and now, proudly, in Eclectica.

Bob Bradshaw lives in California, a state slowly drifting towards Japan. He is a huge admirer of cherry blossoms and Asian poetry. He looks forward to the docking. Recent work of his can be found at Blue Fifth Review, Orange Room Review, Loch Raven Review, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.

Brad Buchanan teaches English at the California State University, Sacramento. He has published two books of poems: The Miracle Shirker and Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter, the second of which won first prize in the Writer's Digest 2009 competition. He is also co-founder and managing editor of Roan Press, publisher of Visions of Joanna Newsom.

Rohan Chhetri is completing his MA (Hons.) in Literature from the University of Mumbai. He also edits a literary magazine(in print and online) in Mumbai called nether. Prior to this, he hasn't been published elsewhere. He likes to read and write quieter poems.

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.

Scott Cohen has published essays in Salon.com, Narrative Magazine, and various newspapers and literary journals.

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. She recently co-edited the book From this Broken Hill (see link).

Brent Fisk is a writer from Bowling Green, Kentucky who has work in recent issues of Greensboro Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Boxcar Poetry Review.

Alfredo Franco is this issue's Spotlight Author. He studied German and Art History at The Johns Hopkins University and Creative Writing at New York University. His short story, "Eurydice Variations," will appear in an upcoming issue of Compass Rose.

Marc J. Frazier has been published in numerous journals, including ACM, The Broome Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, Eclipse, English Journal, Plainsongs, Poet Lore, Rhino, Slant, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and others. He has received several awards, including an Illinois Arts Council Award for poetry. In addition to having had several residencies at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, he has also led many poetry workshops and currently serves on the Board of Directors of New Town Writers. A full-time educator for over 30 years in the Chicago area, he was selected for an Illinois Humanities Council fellowship to study with Lucia Getsi, former editor of The Spoon River Poetry Review. He has also studied with Lisel Mueller, Carolyn Forche, Susan Mitchell, Heather McHugh, Carol Muske-Dukes, Roger Mitchell, and Joan Houlihan.

Zoë Gabriel has appeared in over two dozen publications, most recently in Goblin Fruit, Tales of the Unanticipated, Oysters & Chocolate and Jerseyworks. She dyes her hair, but is naturally tall. When not writing poems, she works on her PhD.

Jude Goodwin is a poet living in Squamish, BC, Canada. She shares her life with a girl and a dog and works as a web designer, editor, and illustrator. She has published three books, none of them containing poetry. Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print journals including Eclectica, Burnside Review, CV2, Comstock Review, and A Twist of Malice, a poetry anthology. Jude is founder and co-moderator of The Waters Poetry Workshop and director of the Squamish Writers Group.

B. P. Greenbaum is a creative writing instructor at a magnet performing arts school in eastern Connecticut. She has an MFA in fiction from the Stonecoast Program of the University of Southern Maine, a Masters in secondary education and a B.A. in English. Her work has appeared in the Underwood Review and the Hog River Review and won second place for fiction in the CT Authors and Publishers Association writing contest in 2007. She has work forthcoming in Verdad and Inscape. Active in land preservation, she was appointed to the CT Greenways Council last year. She is working on her first novel. About "My Father-In-Law’s Funeral" she says, "This piece came out of the actual event and, for the most part, the events portrayed in it are true. As a writer and long time family member, I've take a lot of liberties in telling my side of this particular story."

William Reese Hamilton lives in Choroní, a fishing village on the coast of Venezuela, set below a mountainous cloud forest, in a region that produces the finest cacao in the world. His stories have appeared in a number of print and online publications, including The Paris Review, The North American Review, The Adirondack Review, Puerto del Sol, Night Train, and Review Americana.

William Han practices law in New York City. His fiction has appeared in Cafe Irreal, and his journalistic writings have appeared in Time Magazine and the Straits Times of Singapore.

Thomas J. Hubschman is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon and is the author of four novels (Look at Me Now, Billy Boy, Space Ark, and Leffingwell's Planet), a short story collection (The Jew's Wife & Other Stories), and two anthologies of writing from the so-called Third World (The Best of Gowanus: New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean and The Best of Gowanus II: More New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean).

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has been published in the U.K. and America in Avon Literary Intelligencer, Eastern Rainbow, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, The Intercultural Writer's Review, Icon, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.

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.

Caroline Kepnes lives in Los Angeles, California. Her stories have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Dogzplot, Duck & Herring Co. Pocket Field Guide, Eclectica, Eyeshot, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Girls with Insurance, Monkey Bicycle, Night Train, Pow Fast Flash Fiction, Thieves Jargon, Word Riot, and Yankee Pot Roast. In 2004 she won the Hemingway Resource Centeras Short Story Contest. She has written for television—7thHeaven, The Secret Life of the American Teenager—and print and online media—Entertainment Weekly, E! Online, Match.com, Tiger Beat Magazine, and TV Guide. She is originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and is, of course, a huge Red Sox fan.

Jascha Kessler shares this issue's Spotlight with his wife, Julia Braun Kessler. He is a Professor of English and Modern Literature at UCLA. He has published seven books of his poetry and fiction as well as six volumes of translations of poetry and fiction from Hungarian, Persian, Serbian, and Bulgarian. About the piece in this issue, he says, "So far as I  know,  none of the Classicists I have consulted for the past 15 years has shown the least inkling of the basic  revelation this essay makes, which is not surprising, since Aristotle  himself omits any discussion of the matters  in the subtext of King Oedipus, relating to his  father and the Gods.  What  was particularly astonishing to me was the last work of the "renowned Classicist" at Harvard, Professor  Segal, who died  a few years ago.  He was famous for his psychosociological approach. I checked his new book shortly after his premature death and found no more than merely the mention of Oedipus' father's name, sans comment, in the  Index!  That, for me at least, put a nail into his coffin and reputation.  Ditto for the great Dutch Classicist at NYU, once at U of Chicago,  who also died around 2005-2006.  So this will be a blinding spotlight to the field, one in which the facts are all available in encyclopedic entries.  The essay speaks for itself.  From me, kudos galore to Eclectica!

Julia Braun Kessler shares this issue's Spotlight with her husband, Jascha Kessler. She is a long-time journalist with credits that include publications like Travel & Leisure, Family Circle, Geo, and many others. She is the author of four novels: Presumption, The Third Sister, Jane Austen's Charlotte and the forthcoming Mary Crawford. The piece in this issue's Spotlight is the latest of her memoir pieces, which have appeared in various magazines in recent years, among them Eclectica, Midstream, and California Literary Review.

William H. Libaw is the author of the following books: How We Got To Be Human: Subjective Minds with Objective Bodies (2000, Prometheus Books), and Painting in a World Transformed: How Modern Art Reflects Our Conflicting Responses to Science and Change (2005, McFarland & Company). His work has appeared in Hobo Pancakes and Prick of the Spindle. Prior to his present work as a writer, he was an electronic design engineer. His designs include parts of an early version of our satellite navigation system and devices that track stars in the daytime sky.

Jed Myers is a Philadelphian living in Seattle. His poems have appeared most recently in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod International Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, and in the new anthology of Northwest verse, Many Trails to the Summit (Rose Alley Press). Several of his poems will soon be featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association. By day, he is a psychiatrist with a therapy practice and teaches at the University of Washington.

Derek N. Otsuji teaches English at Honolulu Community College and works at Otsuji Farms, a family-run farmer's market, on the weekends. His work has appeared in Inscape and Kaimana: Literary Arts Hawaii and is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, The Midwest Quarterly, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Verdad. He won first place in the Eisteddfod Crown Competition, and he has studied writing with the late Welsh poet Leslie Norris.

Micheal Peck was born in upstate New York and began writing soon thereafter. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Believer, Icon Magazine, Juked, 34th Parallel, The 2nd Hand, and many others. He is at work on a novel, a play, and something called Hoffa's Burning. He lives in Montana and reviews books for the Missoula Independent.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" and a complete bibliography, please visit his website.

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), The Evansville Review (University of Evansville), Rattle (online), 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.

Oliver Rice has appeared widely in journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, Argentina, England, The Netherlands, Austria, Turkey, and India. An interview with Creekwalker was released by that zine in January, 2010. His book of poems, On Consenting to be a Man, is offered by Cyberwit in Allahabad, India, and is available on Amazon. His online chapbook, Afterthoughts, Siestas, will appear in Mudlark late this fall.

Marilyn Ringer was born in Oklahoma and now resides in northern California. She received a BA in Social Sciences and an MA in Experimental Psychology, both from Southern Methodist University. She has been a chef and restauranteur, a poet-teacher with California's Poets In The Schools, and a teacher of adult creative writing workshops. During the summer, she spends extended time on Monhegan Island in Maine where she writes with a group of women who are artists, teachers, Gestalt therapists, and gardeners as well as writers. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Drumvoices Revue, Eclipse, Left Curve, Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine, Sanskrit, Porcupine, Wisconsin Review, Cairn, Bayou, The Cape Rock, ellipsis, The Hurricane Review, Limestone, The MacGuffin, Mochila Review, Oregon East, Phantasmagoria, Poet Lore, Reed Magazine, River Oak Review, Westview, Willard & Maple, Folio, The Griffin, RiverSedge, Willow Review, The Binnacle, Chico News & Review, Slant, Studio One, Quiddity Literary Journal, Xavier Review, Watershed, Iodine Poetry Journal, ByLine, California Quarterly, Pisgah Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Sierra Nevada College Review, Taproot Literary Review, Tar Wolf Review, Milk Money, and Poet's Cove. She also appeared in An Anthology: Monhegan in Poetry, 2000-2002 (New Monhegan Press, 2003); The Art of Monhegan Island (Down East Press 2004); and Chico Poets, A Calendar for 2005 (Bear Star Press, 2004).

Sarah J. Sloat grew up in New Jersey and now lives and works in Germany. Her poems have appeared in Linebreak, Juked, and Bateau, among other publications. Tilt Press published Sarah's chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, in 2009. She keep a blog at The Rain in my Purse.

Piers Michael Smith works at the Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait, and occasionally as a roving reporter. Previously published in Critical Quarterly, Journeys, and the Arab Journal for the Humanities. He is completing a fictional work set in Burma and Thailand, and his travel essays can be found on his blog.

Ann Skea lives in Australia. She is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia).

Loren Stephens is founder of Write Wisdom, Inc. which writes and publishes client memoirs. She began her career as an editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishing and went on to produce award winning documentaries and docudramas for PBS. Her short stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications throughout the United States, including MacGuffin, Jewish Women's Literary Annual, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Jewish Light, Distillery, Tapestries, Hudson Group of Newspapers (New Jersey), Thanksgiving Tales, and the online journal The Write Room. She is on the editorial board of Memoir (and), and teaches "Writing Memoir" at cultural institutions in Southern California. She is at work on Dust, a historical novel, which is based on her husband's family and set in Japan and Glendive, Montana.

Ken Taylor lives and writes in North Carolina. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Chattahoochee Review, The Stony Thursday Book, The Fish Anthology, elimae, MiPOesias, Whale Sound, and The New Guard. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Ray Templeton is a former Spotlight Author. A Scottish writer and musician, he lives in St. Albans, England. His writing, including poetry and short fiction among other things, has appeared both in print and on the web, and sometimes even other people sing his songs.  Recent work can be found in Eclectica, nthposition, Left Hand Waving, and qarrtsiluni. His e-chapbook The Act Of Finding was published in 2009 by Right Hand Pointing. He is a regular contributor to Musical Traditions and a member of the editorial board of Blues & Rhythm magazine.

Catherine Treadgold is the publisher of Coffeetown Press and Camel Press in Seattle, Washington. Her background includes twenty-five years as a classical singer, equity actress, adjudicator, public speaker, and voice teacher. She has a certificate from the University of Washington (UW) in writing and editing, an MM in Vocal Performance from the University of Washington, and a BA cum laude in German Literature from Princeton. Three of her opera adaptations/translations have been staged and one of her four novels has been published.

Obodo Dike was born in 1983 in Lagos, Nigeria, where he works as a lawyer. His short fiction and poetry have been published in Saraba and African Writer magazine.

Helen Wickes lives in Oakland, California, and has worked for many years as a psychotherapist. In 2002 she received an M.F.A. from Bennington College. Her first book of poems, In Search of Landscape, was published in 2007 by Sixteen Rivers Press. Her poems can be read and heard online at From The Fishouse. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI Online, Confrontation, Eclipse, South Dakota Review, Stand, Runes, ZYZZYVA, Zone 3, Chicago Quarterly Review, Natural Bridge, Santa Clara Review, Limestone, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Bryant Literary Review, Southwestern American Literature, Verdad, The Coe Review, Crucible, The Jabberwock Review, Kaleidoscope, Pleiades, PMS poemmemoirstory, SLAB, The Griffin, Salamander, Epicenter, Barnstorm, Poetry Flash, In the Grove, CQ, CSPS, Freshwater, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Softblow, 5AM, the Bennington Review, and the anthology Best of the Web 2009.

Michael Zimecki is a practicing attorney who has written about law and medicine for The National Law Journal, Harper's Magazine, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among other publications. His work has been anthologized in Patterns for College Writing, 10th ed., eds. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell (St. Martin's Press, 1998) and What's Going On Here? The Harper's Magazine Book of Annotations, published in 1991 by Delacorte Press. Negative Velocity, a one-act play on the 1953 security trial of atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, was produced by the Pittsburgh New Works Festival in 2003. A full-length version of the play won the 2007-2008 New Playwright Contest of the Fremont CentreTheatre, located in South Pasadena, California. The History of My Final Illness is part of a trilogy about the atom bomb.

 

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