Contributor's Notes - Eclectica Magazine, v5n1, Jan/Feb 2001

Jan/Feb 2001

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.

Julie King has an M.A. in creative writing and teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. Her work has been extensively anthologized, most recently appearing in Iowa Press's Boomer Girls. A former contributor, Julie now lives and co-edits Eclectica with her doting husband.

Tara Brever has appeared in Primavera, and also in a previous issue of Eclectica. She loves her husband and her cats so much she could eat them like chocolate covered cherries. Her kitties are named Ponyboy and Willow (the website featuring these frisky felines should be up and running soon). She would like someday to be the person who names lipstick colors. She spends her free time making bad on her promises not to write about the personal lives of her friends.

Craig Butler lives in Bronxville, NY with his wife Cathy and daughter Ivory Clare. His humorous pieces have appeared in four previous issues of Eclectia. His fiction has appeared in numerous print and online magazines, including TROIKA MAGAZINE ONLINE, HAPPY, MANY MOUNTAINS MOVING, MOBIUS, EWG PRESENTS, BLUE REVIEW, PAUMANOK REVIEW, WRITER'S QUILL, ROCKFORD REVIEW, SATIRE, INDITER and ARMCHAIR AESTHETE. He has also written for THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK JOURNAL NEWS, INDIANAPOLIS STAR, IN THESE TIMES, IMPACT PRESS, and CLAMOR MAGAZINE. This is his fourth appearance in ECLECTICA.

Alison Daniel is an Australian poet. Her work has been published widely within Australia.

Cy Dillon is a college librarian who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains on a farm that has been in his family since well before the Civil War. Along with three friends, he recently received Mellon funding to start a journal of literature and art for a group of 33 colleges in the Appalachian Mountains. Nantahala debuts in January, 2002.

Trevor Dodge lives in Boise, ID and teaches at Boise State University. He is a writer, critic, and electronic artist who has recently published fiction in the deviant Pacific Northwest anthology NORTHWEST EDGE (l.n. pearson and lidia yuknavitch, editors) and TWO GIRLS REVIEW's on-line imprint SLIT. For nearly six years, he has curated OBLIVION, an electronic repository dedicated to the work and life of Kathy Acker, and has recently began composing fictions with Shockwave Flash; TONIGHT ON 48 HOURS is his first such "Flash-fiction."

Phoebe Kate Foster has worked as a professional writer on both East and West coasts, during which time she gained sufficient good sense to return to the South from whence she came and devote herself full-time to writing fiction and poetry. Her short stories have appeared or will be forthcoming in The Distillery: Artistic Spirits of the South, The Emrys Journal, ProCreation, and Short Stories Bimonthly. She is presently working on a collection of short stories as well as her first novel.

Sarah Freeborn attends the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She also works parttime in a candy store. She is majoring in English Education. She says, "Writing is my therapy. Unfortunately, pain is one of the biggest inspirations in life. My poems that are in this issue of Eclectica Magazine are very close to my heart as well as a source of great pride. I would like to thank Julie, who taught my poetry class in the Fall 2000 semester for encouraging me in ways she'll never know."

Mario Gonzales does all sorts of things.

Jason Gurley writes in Nevada, where he lives with his wife, Lori, and a pair of irritable pets. He is the author of two novels, both of which have attracted a wealth of attention from subsidy and vanity-press outfits, yet almost none from the real deal. Jason's fiction has appeared in over 30 publications, both in print and online, including The Paumanok Review, Verge Magazine, The Bay Review, Salon D'Arte, Palimpsest Magazine, Liquid Ohio, Digital Horror, The Richmond Review, Terrain Magazine, Alicubi Journal, and VOiCE Magazine. He has assembled 37,000 words worth of his rambling, often-incoherent fiction into a collection entitled The Myth of Loneliness, and is presently searching for a home for the book. When he's neglecting his writing, it's usually due to the work involved editing Deeply Shallow, an online fiction quarterly which he edits. His story was written at two o'clock on a Tuesday morning, just hours before he had to get up for work.

D. Ting Ho is a first-generation Chinese American, raised in San Francisco, who currently resides in New York City.

Larry Hirshberg is a songwriter, guitarist-bassist and writer living in Missoula, MT. He's had poems published in Zygote, Portable Wall and the White Sands Poetry Review. This is his first appearance on the World Wide Web.

John Hanson holds a Ph.D. in English from SUNY at Buffalo's Center for the Psychological Study of the Arts. He has published articles on Nazi art and the Holocaust and on marketing and psychology. The poems in this issue of Eclectica reflect his interest in dreams, power, and helplessness.

Annette Marie Hyder is a freelance writer whose credits include regular contribution to an international bridal magazine, short stories and magazine articles. Her poetry publishing credits encompass both print and electronic mediums. Some recent additions to her poetry portfolio include Conspire, Poems Niederngasse, The Green Tricycle, The Horsethief's Journal, Mentress Moon, Mefisto, Electric Wine, Fantasy Folklore & Fairytales, The Poet's Canvas, Thunder Sandwich (forthcoming), and Clean Sheets (forthcoming). She is a contributing editor for Poems Niederngasse, and is currently working on a chapbook entitled Dancing With the Minotaur. She is active in several online poetry workshops and is affiliated with The New Blueline poetry forum as a moderator. Annette believes that in love you should not say it with flowers, you should say it with words. Diamonds, however, are always acceptable.

Nicole Jackson lives in Vancouver, Canada and her work can be seen in upcoming issues of The 3rd Muse Poetry Journal and Niederngasse. She was a featured poet at Vancouver's 1999 "Word on the Street" literary festival and is currently a business writing student at Simon Fraser University. Nicole is at work on her first chapbook. Her poem, "The Virgin's Man," previously appeared online in The Poetry Exchange.

Stanley Jenkin's stories and essays have or will appear in Amelia, 32 Pages, The Blue Moon Review, CrossConnectand the Oyster Boy Review. A former Spotlight Author, Stanley now writes a regular column for the Salon. He lives and works in Queens, New York.

Michael Katz

Mike Kemp is a semi alcoholic writer living (after a fashion) and writing (if you can call it that) in London, England. He hates it even though he is paid well for doing a silly job (technical writing for the computing industry), has a good woman, two cats and a typewriter that works sometimes. When he grows up he wants to be a bigger idiot than he is now. His ambition is to drink, smoke, fuck and fight more than anyone else and find a publisher with the balls to take him seriously. His poem was written in five minutes on another long bus ride to work with a hangover.

Natalie Kring is the current Spotlight Author.

Charles Langley , since returning to writing a year ago after a fifty-nine year hiatus, has written seventy-two short stories for E-zines and print magazines as well as numerous columns and humorous pieces. He is currently working on a collection of short stories for publication early this year.

Jeff Lowenstein lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts. His work has been featured on HipMama.com, facinghistory.org, inmotionmagazine, and the Massachusetts Chapter of the A.L.S. Association. He reports that since his last appearance in Eclectica, he eloped (September 4, 2000). Since he wrote "Scooter Envy," he has indeed given one to his son Aidan.

Don Mager has published some 250 original poems and translations from Czech and German over the last 30 years, including two books: To Track The Wounded On (1986) and Glosses (1995).

Kevin McGowin is currently hanging out in southeast New Hampshire, hard at work on three writing projects.

Sean McKim student-taught on the Navajo Rez and currently teaches in Wisconsin.

Jessie Miller is a reference librarian at the public library in Racine, WI. Her poetry has appeared in Sheepshead Revue and VS.

Dan Moyer

Christopher Orlet has published stories most recently in Absinthe Literary Review, Conspire, Deeply Shallow and In Posse Review. He has no idea where the idea for his story "The Lost Liver" came from.

Paul Sampson labors heroically as a technical writer for a mammoth corporation. He has been a professional writer and editor for many years, but he prefers to do the kind of writing you can't make a living from. Some of his recent essays and poems appear in The Alsop Review, The 2River View, the British publication World Wide Writers II, and the new anthology Best Texas Writing (Rancho Loco Press). He lives on the outskirts of a small town east of Dallas, Texas.

Colin Shea was born in New Hampshire in 1973. He graduated from Pomona College in 1995 and moved immediately to Prague. He left Prague for Holland in 1999, where he currently resides. He's completed one novel (And All the Heavens Are Full of Joy) and is currently working on a compilation of short fiction from Prague-based writers.

Ann and David Skea live in Australia. Anne is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia).

Gary Sloan , besides doing commentary for Scripps Howard, writes freethought articles for Skeptic, Free Inquiry, American Atheist, The Freethinker, and like popular and not-so-popular magazines. He's a retired, but not moribund or decrepit, English professor. His wife, LaRue, is the Shakespeare specialist at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Tasha lives in the Chiacago area. She is a receptionist for a retirement facility and a telecommunications business. She is inspired by the poetry of Anne Sexton, Jim Morrison & e.e. cummings. She has been published in numerous web eZines, currently The 2River View, Conspire, and The Adirondack Review, with forthcoming pieces in New World Poetry and Mentress Moon.

Sam Vaknin, PhD. is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101, Go.com and searcheurope.com.

Frank Van Zant has appeared in Eclectica before. His chapbook Climbing Daddy Mountain is out from Pudding House. And after years of waiting, The Lives of the Two-Headed Baseball Siren is at the printers.

Annie Woodford

Alessio Zanelli was born on 12 February 1963 in Cremona, a small, quiet town on the left bank of the river Po, not far from Milan, in Northern Italy. He has been writing verse in English since 1985 and his first collection, entitled Loose Sheets and containing over 120 pieces written over the past 15 years, was published in July 2000 in the United Kingdom. Many of his latest poems appear in British and American print-magazines such as The Journal, Poetry Monthly, Soul Fountain, Melting Trees Review and Hadrosaur Tales among others. He works as a financial consultant for a large banking industry group of Italy.