Contributor's Notes - Eclectica Magazine, v9n2, Apr/May 2005

Apr/May 2005

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 shares a birthday with Eminem. She has a Master's in creative writing, which she teaches along with film studies at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. Her work appears in the Iowa Press anthologies Boomer Girls and are you experienced? and she has published in Fiction International, Sundog, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, and others. She wrote, directed, and produced the short film Worlds, sometimes stars in B-horror movies, and is a mother to four personality-rich cats. She first appeared in the magazine back in 1996 and has been a member of the staff since 1999.

Paul Sampson is Eclectica's Nonfiction and Miscellany Editor and has been a regular contributor to the Salon. A professional writer and editor for many years, he worked until recently for a mammoth corporation. He has since been downsized, although he remains the same height and weight as formerly. Some of his essays and poems have been published in Image, The Alsop Review, The 2River View, Illya's Honey, The Sulphur River Literary Review, the British publication World Wide Writers II, and the anthology Best Texas Writing (Rancho Loco Press). He lives on the outskirts of a small town east of Dallas, Texas.

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.

Carol Fant is serving as Eclectica's Assistant Poetry Editor. She lives in Florida and has a BA in English from The University of Texas, Austin, a law degree from Stetson University College of Law, and a BA in Creative Writing from Eckerd College. She is now pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte.

Karen Bramblett has been writing poetry for 30 years and is now eager to share it. She has a BA in English and did graduate work in transpersonal psychology. She is an animal and nature lover and lives on an olive farm in Northern California with her husband and three cats.

Megan Buckley was a literary agent in New York City before beginning the M.A. in Writing Programme at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in September, 2004. Her work has appeared in The Ledge (Queens, NY, 2003); the Dazzle and Attract Project at Spennymoor (via the Newburn Enterprise Centre, Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK, 2004); and The Pedestal Magazine (February 2005). She is also the author of two books on wine and cocktails.

Beatríz Cedillo figured now was a good time to publish her poetry for the first time. She has lived in Mexico City, where she wrote poetry and worked for the film industry. She currently resides in the Midwest and continues to write. She lives comfortably and enjoys her family, her best friend, her partner's warm existence, and her eyelash curler.

C.E. Chaffin is a regular contributor to Eclectica and the editor of The Melic Review. He published his first book of poems, Elementary, in 1997 with Edwin Mellen Press, available through Amazon and bookstores. He recently edited and published the anthology, The Best of Melic, available at the Melic website.

Fleur Chapman lives in London, UK. She is a freelance journalist, but has only begun to grasp what writing is really about since joining Boot Camp.

Claire Louise Conway lives in Ipswich, England. She has been writing seriously for less than a year, and is still recovering from the thought of being published.

Andrew Day has published fiction in New England Review, Pindeldyboz.com, and Eleven Bulls. He is working on a novel.

Barbara De Franceschi lives with her husband in Broken Hill (where she was born), a small mining town in outback Australia, where they own and operate an earthmoving business and have a grown-up family of three sons and two daughters. She recently launched her first collection of poems, titled Lavender Blood.In 2002 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community especially in the area of multiculturalism. Barbara joined the Broken Hill Writer's Forum in 2000 when she started to take her writing seriously. Since then she has had her poems and short stories published in literary journals and magazines throughout Australia, including Famous Reporter, Centoria, The Bunyip, Poetrix, The Tablet and Yellow Moon, in which her poem titled "Dust Storm" won first prize in the nature poetry section (to be published in July 2003). She has also read her poetry on radio live to air. She describes her poetry as "immediately accessible."

Susan Dugan has placed nonfiction in magazines such as Colorado Homes & Lifestyles and Mountain Living. Her short stories have appeared in The Saint Ann’s Review, River Oak Review, Echoes, Innisfree, and the Hudson Valley National Journal of Prose and Poetry. She teaches creative writing to children and is a resident artist in Young Audiences, an organization that pays writers to share their craft with children. The story in this issue, "Conjugating Sleep," is the opening story in a collection she is writing featuring several generations in a family of women all afflicted with sleep problems (literal and figurative) in response to personal and larger world crises. This is her first publication in an online journal.

Victor Ehikhamenor was born in Edo State, Nigeria, a place rich in folkloric tradition and materials. He earned a BA degree in English and Literature from Bendel State University, Nigeria, and an MS in Technology Management from University of Maryland, University College. He is an artist, writer, photographer, and a poet. Oracle Books published his first collection of poetry and drawings, titled Sordid Rituals, in 2002. Part of this collection was translated to Dutch, which he performed at the MEP World Festival in Dan Hague, Netherlands, in June of 2003. He received a honorable mention in 2003 for his short story "The Supreme Command" from Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation in London.

Richard Fein has been published in many web and print journals and has appeared in Eclectica before. His work can also be found on his website.

Jennifer Finstrom lives in Chicago, IL. She is a former Eclectica Spotlight Author.

Hazera Forth is a 29 year old British Bengali residing in Bedford with her husband Anthony. She is a graduate in Media with a minor in Journalism, currently working as an Information Manager for the NHS. She has been a performance poet since 1995 and has taken part in "poetry slams." Her short story successes have come since joining Boot Camp in October 2003 at pulp.net, ghotmag.com, Aesthetica Magazine, Dublin Quartlerly, 7th Quark Magazine and most recently Eclectica. She has started working on her first novel and is happy writing for children and adults alike.

Frances Gapper lives in northern England and is trying to learn Danish. Her brain is getting more spacey with age, neuron calling to neuron across the valleys.

Vanessa Gebbie

Elizabeth P. Glixman is a poet and writer whose interviews, poetry, and short stories have been published in print and online magazines including 3 A.M. Magazine, storySouth, The Richmond Review, Frigg, and Women of the Web, a poetry anthology.

Olga Grun has had more than 200 works published in Belorussian and German press. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Gallery, Beginnings, Tryst, Red River Review, Mind Fire, All Things Girl, and Poetic Voices, among others. Her poems have been translated into four languages.

Lisa Ohlen Harris lives in Fort Worth, Texas, far from any active volcanoes. She has published more than four thousand words in over two essays. Those first two essays were published last fall, one in Front Porch Syndicate and the other in Swedish Press Magazine.

Li Min Hua lives in East Orange, NJ, is 68, and is the author of over 1,600 publications. Under his English name, he organized the lbgt groups in the Episcopal Church and in the National Council of Teachers of English.

Thomas J. Hubschman is the author of the novel Billy Boy (Savvy Press) and 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.

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 has written a regular column for the Salon. He lives and works in Queens, New York.

Abigail Jones graduated from Harvard University with a degree in literature and Harvard Law School. As a Small Claims Court Judge Pro Tem in Los Angeles, she gets to dress up in black robes and wield a gavel, a useful counterbalance to wrangling two teenagers at home. This is her first published poem, written in Taos while studying with the legendary Julie King and Billy Collins.

Phil Jones lives in Langley, British Columbia with his wonderful writerly wife Patricia and their two near-perfect kids. He has been published in a number of online and print concerns including Danforth Review, Inkpot, Pindeldyboz, edifice Wrecked, and Gator Springs Gazette. Phil is, at this very moment, hard at work creating an enticing website. It should be completed around 2010.

Alex Keegan lives in Newbury, England with his wife Deborah, son Alex and daughter Bridie. Born in Wales in 1947 of an Irish mother and Welsh father, he played around with writing almost all his life, but only got serious when recovering from injuries and mental trauma after the Clapham (London) train crash in December, 1988. In October, 1992, he decided to "give up the day job" and give himself five years to get published. The result was five "Caz Flood" mystery novels, the first of which was shortlisted for an Anthony Award for best first novel. Since then Alex has moved to writing literary short fiction. His publications include Atlantic Monthly Unbound, Mississippi Review, Blue Moon Review, The Alsop Review, Crania, and of course, Eclectica.

Sherri Linn Kline is a transplanted Appalachian who came to Michigan by way of Ohio. She is a gardener/storyteller/woodcarver who lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and four preternatural cats. She has had pieces in The Salt River Review (online), Cup of Wonder and The Seeker Journal.

Deborah P. Kolodji works in information technology to fund her poetry obsessions and to pay for her children’s college tuition. She is the editor and co-founder of Amaze: The Cinquain Journal and the owner and moderator of a yahoogroups e-mail discussion list for cinquain poetry called CinquainPoets. In addition to Electica, her cinquains have appeared in Scrivener’s Pen, Wilmington Blues, St. Anthony Messenger Magazine, Autumn Pond, Short Stuff, Brevities, Hummingbird, and many other places. Kolodji is a member of the Haiku Society of America and her haiku has appeared in Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, The Heron's Nest, Tinywords, and The Red Moon Anthology.

Roderick Leyland was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1949. Trained as an actor, he has worked in the theatre and also in retailing and financial services. His stories and articles have appeared (or are forthcoming) in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pindeldyboz, BuzzWords, Peninsular, Countryside Tales, and Scribble. He now lives and works in Brighton, England.

A. Lopez is a teacher in the United Arab Emirates.

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

Victoria Marinelli reports nearly missing the deadline for furnishing a bio for this issue because, in the way life often imitates art, she was desperately attempting to get her house clean in anticipation of her stepmother's visit. When not occupied with the requisite details of parenting, marriage, employment, and occasional sleep, she writes. Pubs, works in progress, blog, etc. may be found at her website.

Kat McElroy was born in Laramie, Wyoming in 1950. She came to in Delta Junction, Alaska in 1986. She is a high school drop-out. She has a minor criminal record. She has been employed in a wide variety of occupations including drug dealing, bull-cook in a gold mine camp, bartender, wood-cutter, waitress, meat-wrapper, barroom floozie, and town drunk. She is a mother and a grandmother. She spent ten years living a subsistence lifestyle in the Interior of Alaska. During all this, she wrote, which she continues to do. She raises MacKenzie River Huskies and likes to play with fire. She has over-corrected in the criminal-behaviors arena and is now known as something of a stick-in-the-mud.

Patricia Parkinson lives in Langley, British Columbia, with her husband, writer Phil Jones, and their two children. She is very happy. Her work has appeared in Ink Pot, NFG, Salome Magazine and other publications. Links to her work can be found at her website.

Katherine Pirnie

Laurie Porter decided at age seven that she would be an artist and writer when she grew up. She's been a little bit of both over the years alongside her many other jobs (the strangest of which involved monitoring mould growth on bread). This is her first publication since she was 14. She lives in the UK with a bunch of amazing people and some animals.

Gilbert Wesley Purdy had had work in poetry, prose and translation appear in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine (Australia); Poetry International (San Diego State University); Grand Street; SLANT (University of Central Arkansas); and Eclectica. His Hyperlinked Online Bibliography appears in the pages of The Catalyzer Jourrnal.

Gokul Rajaram is a writer and technologist. His short stories have been published in literary magazines including Eclectica, The Paumanok Review, Pindeldyboz, and Scrivener's Pen. He lives and works in Silicon Valley. The plot of "A Suitable Girl" is interwoven from real-life episodes that have transpired in India and that Gokul heard about from reliable sources. "A Suitable Girl" is Gokul's second story to be published in Eclectica. He hopes it will be as lucky as his first, "The Boy With The Hole In His Head" (published in the Apr/May 2003 edition), which was judged one of the top 10 stories in the storySouth 2003 Million Writers Contest.

Marina Lee Sable was born in Windsor, England. She lived in London for six years working for a newspaper in Fleet Street before moving to New York, where she works for an international law firm. She enjoys oil painting and crafts. Her poetry has appeared in Dark Krypt, Whispering Spirits, Astropoetica, Twilight Times, A Tangled Script of Intangible Soul Engravings, and other magazines.

Sherri Linn Kline is a transplanted Appalachian who came to Michigan by way of Ohio. She is a gardener/storyteller/woodcarver who lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and four preternatural cats. She has had pieces in the online journals Salt River Review, Amarillo Bay, and Eclectica, and the print publications Cup of Wonder and The Seeker Journal.

Gary Sloan is a retired English professor in Ruston, Louisiana. He writes on religion and literature for Free Inquiry, Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, American Atheist, and The Freethinker (London). He also writes syndicated political commentaries for Nando Media, a newspaper service.

Valentine Michael Smith has been writing on the Net for almost 16 years on Russia, the Middle East, his family, growing up, mental illness, reading, and a variety of other subjects. He is an adjunct professor at two Phoenix AZ junior colleges, owns 25,000 books and read 350 a year, and produces 200-250 essays annually, some of which can be found on his personal website.

Joanna Spice trains English teachers at Fujairah Women's College in the United Arab Emirates. She dreams of a day when she can teach less and travel more. She also writes on her research in social linguistics.

christopher watkins lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York. He leads a double life as both a professional songwriter and recording artist, as well as a published poet and short story writer. His lyric poetry has been published in the critically lauded Generation X anthology In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself (MWE Press), as well as in such esteemed poetry and literature journals as 3RD Muse and Electric Acorn. He is currently completing work on SongPomes, a collection of his lyrics to be published as a book of poetry. Excerpts from SongPomes have recently been published in the above publications, and in addition 3RD Muse has just published Watkins' essay "Constraint And Emancipation -or- Why I Think Song Lyric Ought To Be Considered A Legitimate Poetic Form," which will serve as the book's introduction. As a songwriter and recording artist, Watkins (under the name Preacher Boy) has released four albums, most recently The Devil's Buttermilk (Manifesto Records), and is featured in The Rolling Stone Guide to Jazz and Blues. His fifth album will be released in spring of 2004. He has also written songs with and for a number of other artists, including six songs on Eagle-Eye Cherry's 2001 album Present Future, which sold over 700,000 copies worldwide, and his new album Sub Rosa, which features four co-writes.

Duncan White is 27. He lives with his wife in a basement in London.