Contributor's Notes - Eclectica Magazine, v23n2, Apr/May 2019

Apr/May 2019

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.

Gilbert Wesley Purdy has been Eclectica's Review Editor since October of 2013. He first appeared in the magazine as a contributor a decade before that. He has published poetry, prose, and translation in many journals, paper, and electronic, including Jacket Magazine, Poetry International, The Georgia Review, Grand Street, SLANT, The Evansville Review, Rattle (online), Consciousness Literature and the Arts, Orbis, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. He has published numerous books, including Mind Dance (poetry); Kafka in Richmond (Novel); Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof; and Henry David Thoreau and Two Other Autistic Lives: before the diagnosis existed. He has just released Edward de Vere's Retainer Thomas Churchyard: the Man Who Was Falstaff. Links to his work online and to a selected bibliography of his work in paper venues appear at his Hyperlinked Online Bibliography.

David Ewald is Eclectica's Nonfiction Editor. A previous contributor, his work has also appeared in Metazen, BULL: Men's Fiction, Denver Syntax, The Chimaera, Spork Press, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among other publications. He is the author of the novel He Who Shall Remain Shameless, and his chapbook Markson's Pier (written with Stuart Ross) was published in Volume XI of Essays & Fictions.

Peter Amos is a native of rural Virginia. The son of an English teacher and a librarian, he studied music in college and moved to New York City where he works, performs, explores, and writes about it. His writing is available to read on his website, The Imagined Thing.

Lygia Ballantyne nee Lygia Maria Flores da Cunha, published for the first time in Eclectica in 2007. Since that first travel memoir, her work has appeared in Persimmon Tree, Drunken Boat, and Pilgrimage. She returns in this issue with a personal essay inspired by second-generation Filipino poet Patrick Rosal, with whom she shares, unexpectedly, the contradictions, the beauty, and the love of music of a colonized country, as well as the need to express the feeling contained in untranslatable words. In her case, the country is Brazil and the word is the Portuguese saudades. That a Brazilian-American writer living in Virginia can find so much in common with a Filipino-American poet from Brooklyn can only be explained by the power of the English language when used to explore the human condition.

Bob Bradshaw is a big fan of the Rolling Stones and easy times. Mick may not be gathering moss, but Bob is. Bob hopes to retire to a hammock soon. His work can be found at Cha, Eclectica, Pedestal, Stirring, Rose and Thorn, and many other publications.

Peter Bridges is a former Spotlight Author. Also a former US Ambassador to Somalia, he holds degrees in Russian studies from Dartmouth and Columbia. After serving as an Army private in Europe during the Cold War, he was commissioned as a Foreign Service officer and spent three decades on four continents, including service at the American embassy in Moscow during Khrushchev's reign. In recent years he has published two memoirs, one about his diplomatic career and, in October 2018, a memoir entitled Woods Waters Peaks: A Diplomat Outdoors. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Eclectica and many other journals.

Joanna Brown is a family doctor and writer from Rhode Island. She wrote this poem—a fractured villanelle—in an online workshop taught by Elaine Sexton. The poem alludes to the Jewish custom of smashing a glass at a wedding, and the ongoing task of rebuilding. She has published other poems in journals and online venues such as Earth's Daughters, the chapbook 2Horatio, Angels Flight Literary West, the Frequency Writers anthology City & Sea, and Emerge Literary Journal, in which she was honored in their Uncivil Disobedience contest. She has co-hosted, with Jill Pearlman, two poetry readings in Providence called "Poets Resist." She works as medical director for a community health center, WellOne Primary Medical and Dental Care. Providence is her long-time home, where she lives with her spouse and two sons. You can follow her on twitter at @joannadbrown.

Seth Cable is a writer, musician, and academic living in Northampton, Massachusetts. For money, he teaches, develops, and defends opinions about human language. His non-academic work has appeared in such venues as Meat for Tea, Oddball, and Bull & Cross."

Floyd Cheung was born in Hong Kong and raised in Las Vegas. He is author of the chapbook Jazz at Manzanar. His poems have appeared in qarrtsiluni, Rhino, and other journals. He teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature and the American Studies Program at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Arthur Davis is a management consultant who has been quoted in The New York Times and in Crain's New York Business, taught at The New School and interviewed on New York TV News Channel 1. He has advised The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, Senator John McCain's investigating committee on boxing reform, and testified as an expert witness before the New York State Commission on Corruption in Boxing. Over 90 tales of original fiction, and several dozen as reprints, have been published. He was featured in a single author anthology, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, received the 2018 Write Well Award for excellence in short fiction and, twice nominated, received Honorable Mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017.

Barbara De Franceschi is an Australian poet who lives in Broken Hill, a small mining town in outback New South Wales. Besides two collections of poetry, her work has appeared in anthologies and journals Australia wide, on-line, and in other countries, as well as being featured on national radio. For the past four years, Barbara has been part of the Enrich-Art in Health programme, an initiative of the NSW University Department of Rural Health to increase communication skills through creative writing and expand attitudes to compliment undergraduate studies for health professionals. She is also a member of The University of the Third Age and shares her skills with the community at large and people in aged care facilities.

Steve Deutsch lives in State College, Pennsylvania. His recent publications have or will appear in Panoply, Algebra of Owls, The Blue Nib, Thimble Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Ghost City Review, Borfski Press, Streetlight Press, Gravel, Literary Heist, Nixes Mate Review, Third Wednesday, Misfit Magazine, Word Fountain, Eclectica Magazine, The Drabble, New Verse News, and The Ekphrastic Review. He was nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2017 and 2018. His Chapbook, "Perhaps You Can," will be published in 2019 by Kelsay Press.

Jane Penaz Eisner is a writer and psychologist living in San Francisco. Her poetry has appeared in The Journal, Orbis Quarterly International Literary Journal, Neon Highway Poetry Magazine, Smoke, and Fire, and also in poetry-film at several international film festivals, most recently Zebra Poetry Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival. About "Lairs," she says, "During a recent heat wave here in California, I recalled a childhood memory of our neighbors in Texas, an Estonian immigrant and his British wife, who worked earnestly year-round to cultivate their garden. They populated it with flowering plants, none native to Texas, but instead those they loved from their home countries. During summer, the blooms cooked in the deadly Texas heat, and near dusk the couple would emerge without exception, tending the garden daily, no matter how high the temperature outside. The alchemy of this memory and the California heat gave rise to a sense of domestic dread, which became the basis of this poem."

Eli S. Evans is not elderly, but at his current age he can now distinguish between things that happened a long time ago and things that, a long time ago, had already happened a long time ago. "Near Misses in Madrid" is a true story, except those parts of it that are not.

Keith Mark Gaboury earned a MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, and Eclectica. Keith is a Pushcart-nominated poet, preschool teacher, and avid runner in Oakland, California.

Kathleen Latham is a native Californian who somehow ended up in Massachusetts. Her work has most lately appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal and Crack the Spine Literary Magazine. The first few pages of her novel-in-progress were recently shortlisted for The Stockholm Writers Festival First Pages Prize. Regarding "Taking Care of Dad, After Mom," she says, "I lost my mother unexpectedly last July, and my three sisters and I have been taking turns looking after our 89-year-old father, who is adrift without his partner of 70 years. This poem was written for the Word Challenge, but it carries all the grief and helplessness I have grappled with over the last eight months."

Mori Glaser grew up in Britain and moved to Israel 35 years ago. She has blogged and written for non-profits. Since she passed the age of 60, Mori's poetry and flash have appeared in various journals, including Eunoia Review, Unbroken, Akashic Books web series Thursdaze, Vine Leaves Literary Journal's collection of vignettes Between the Lines Anthology of Fairy Tales, and Folklore Reimagined: The Molotov Cocktail's 2017 Shadow Award (3rd prize).

Douglas Gower is a produced and published playwright. His plays have been staged in New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Houston, and San Francisco, including such venues as the Julliard Theater Center, Vineyard Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He has been a recipient of an NEA Fellowship. "Kartoosh" is his first published work of fiction.

Caleb Gonzalez lives in northern Colorado, where he is finishing up his last year of graduate school in the new Creative Nonfiction MFA Program at Colorado State University. He writes travel essays and is working on a collection about the plurality of a home in Latin America, Spain, and the US. He plans to continue his studies at the PhD level in Rhetoric and Composition. His work has appeared in travel magazines and literary journals such as The Hawai'i Review, Wanderlust-Journal, and InTravel Magazine.

Alina Happy Hansen is a Poet in Salt Lake City, Utah. In May 2018 she graduated from The University of Utah with a BA in English and Minor in Writing and Rhetoric Studies. Besides writing and reading constantly, Alina loves a good cup of coffee and discovering new music.

Finn Harvor is an artist, writer and occasional musician/movie-maker living in South Korea. He's published in several journals, including Pacifism21, The Brooklyn Rail, Eclectica, The Puritan, This Magazine, etc. He's written and staged two plays, had films screened internationally, had group and solo shows of his art, and had his work broadcasted on the radio. Academically, He's written on new media, graphic fiction, Yoon Heung-gil and Thomas De Quincey, presenting papers (in person) in Berlin, Oxford, Osaka, and Indonesia (via Skype in Helsinki, Kuala Lumpur, and Madrid). And his authorial videopoems have been screened as finalists at curated film festivals in the US, UK, Ireland, Greece, Hong Kong, South Korea, and India.

Frederick Highland has been, according to the seasons and the tides, a tropical agriculturalist, merchant seaman, and university lecturer. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, he has traveled widely, lived in the Far East, the Middle East, and Europe, and he now resides in Washington State. His novels Ghost Eater (2003 ) and Night Falls on Damascus (2006) are published by St. Martin's Press. He is an active member of the Authors Guild and Mystery Writers of America.

Thomas J. Hubschman is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon and is the author of Look at Me Now, My Bess, Billy Boy, Father Walther's Temptation, Song of the Mockingbird, and The Jew's Wife & Other Stories, as well as three science fiction novels. His work has appeared in New York Press, The Antigonish Review, Eclectica, The Blue Moon Review and many other publications. Two of his short stories were broadcast on the BBC World Service. He has also edited two anthologies of new writing from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, which remains his chief inspiration.

Stanley Jenkins is a former Spotlight Author and longtime contributor to Eclectica. He has been published widely in electronic magazines, print journals, and anthologies, including The Best Creative Non-Fiction, Vol 2 (W.W. Norton, 2008). He is the author of A City on a Hill (Outpost19, 2013).

Melissa Knox is the author of Divorcing Mom: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis, published by Cyren Press (2019). Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Volney Road Review, Streetlight, and The Offbeat. She writes a blog, The Critical Mom.

Fiona Tinwei Lam has a third book of poetry, Odes & Laments, forthcoming with Caitlin Press in 2019. She edited The Bright Well: Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer, and co-edited Love Me True: Writers on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage. She has won The New Quarterly's Nick Blatchford prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her work appears in over 30 anthologies, including The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry: 10th Anniversary Edition and Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC. Her poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies, Vancouver, British Columbia. Regarding the work in this issue, she says, "I love how Mary Pratt's artwork transforms the ordinary through colour and light. She died last year, and I wanted to honor her by conveying the radiant power of this particular woodblock print. The compression and attention required in writing haiku (such as the ones here about the transitions between seasons) have likely informed this ekphrastic poem."

Sean Lause is a professor of English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio. His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, The Alaska Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Illuminations, and Poetry International.

Sydney Lea is the author of 12 collections of poetry, and the 13th, Here (Four Way Books), is due in 2019. In spring 2019, Green Writers Press will publish The Music of What Happens: Lyric and Everyday Life, his collected newspaper columns as Vermont Poet Laureate; the same press recently issued his co-written book of essays with Delaware laureate Fleda Brown, Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets, Two Lives. He has four other volumes of personal essays in print.

Tracie Marie graduated from Ball State University last spring with a BA in English, and her poetry career is just starting out on its fruitful journey. She loves to write about her deepest emotions and themes pertaining to her identity as a queer woman of color. Having minored in theatre, she also has an intense passion for acting. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in From Whispers to Roars.

Rebecca Mark is a native of Nebraska and a former teacher who has BA and MA degrees in English from Nebraska Wesleyan University and Duke University. Her short fiction has been published in the Notre Dame Review, and she recently self-published her first novel, A Calm Round of Hours.

Lisa McMonagle grew up on the Allegheny Front of Central Pennsylvania. She works as the Coordinator of English as a Second Language for an Adult Education program in State College. Her work has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, The Women's Review of Books, West Branch, Word Fountain, and the Ekphrastic Review.

José Enrique Medina earned his BA in English from Cornell University. He writes poems, short stories, and novels. His work has appeared in Best Microfiction 2019 Anthology, Tahoma Literary Review, The Burnside Review, and other publications. He is a VONA (Voice of Our Nation) POC fellow.

Jay Mendell is a young author who writes fiction and poetry in all kinds of genres, from historical romance to contemporary comedy. A college student, Jay loves having the opportunity to dig into the past and use the knowledge of bygone eras to help prepare for the future.

Carole Mertz has poems and reviews in various literary journals, including Arc Poetry (online), CutBank, Dreamers Creative Writing, Eclectica, Society of Classical Poets, South 86 Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. Her poem "The Offspring of the Manuscript Defined as Poem" is her first effort at meta poetry. Carole is both reader and contributor to Mom Egg Review, and was advance reader for WNBA's 2018 Poetry Contest. Her reviews of new works by Layli Long Soldier and Mary Jo Bang are published with Eclectica. Carole lives with her husband in Parma, Ohio, where she teaches classical music.

Marjorie Mir is a retired librarian, living in Bronxville, New York.

Pranav Mishra is enchanted by life, people, and stories. In his writing, he loves to explore the contemporary world, human relations, and individual struggles. His short stories have recently appeared in Indian magazines such as The Bangalore Review, The Spark Magazine, and The Criterion.

Cameron Morse lives with his wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri. He was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an MFA. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, and South Dakota Review. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press's 2018 Best Book Award. His second, Father Me Again, is available from Spartan Press, and his chapbook Coming Home with Cancer is forthcoming in Blue Lyra Press's Delphi Poetry Series.

Brenda Nicholas is an English Professor and lives in Austin, Texas, with her daughter and a Chiweenie. Her work has appeared in The Painted Bride Quarterly, Main Channel Voices, Red River Review, Illya's Honey, Menacing Hedge, Snapdragon, The Helix Magazine, and other literary journals.

Don Pomerantz lives in New York City, where he is a teacher. His poems have appeared in Washington Square, Failbetter, Potomac Review, Eclectica, New Plains Review, Mountain Gazette, SAND, and elsewhere.

Kelsey Rexroat is a San Francisco�based editor and writer who has previously appeared in The Cortland Review, The Atlantic, Litro, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Ron Riekki has published many books, including And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017, Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works, and U.P.: a novel. Upcoming books in 2019: Posttraumatic: A Memoir, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise.

Mala Rai has been published in Eclectica Magazine and High Shelf Press. She's also received a Critic's Choice commendation by the Big Pond Rumours ezine. In her spare time, she thinks of terribly inappropriate band names with her open mic night comrade.

Karen Shepherd lives with her husband and two teenagers in the Pacific Northwest, where she enjoys walking in forests and listening to the rain. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in various print and online journals, including Constellate Literary Journal, The Literary Nest, Halfway Down the Stairs, Riddled With Arrows, and Wales Haiku Journal.

Ronnie Sirmans is a newspaper digital editor whose poems have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Tar River Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Gargoyle, Jewish Currents, BlazeVOX, Barrelhouse's "Dig If You Will the Picture," and elsewhere.

Meghana Lily Shenoy is an Indian American writer and secondary student. She is currently the Editor and Chief of Paper Trains Literary Journal and has received numerous accolades for her writing including a Scholastic Gold Key award and Texas Reflections poetry award. When Meghana is not writing, she enjoys a plethora of other hobbies including studying french and ballet.

Ann Skea lives in Australia. She is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia) and has been contributing reviews to Eclectica Magazine since our very first issue back in October of 1996.

Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over 50 years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website.

N.N. Trakakis is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University, and also writes, edits, and translates poetry. His publications in the area of philosophy include The God Beyond Belief (Springer 2007) and The End of Philosophy of Religion (Continuum, 2008). In the area of poetry, he has edited Southern Sun, Aegean Light: Poetry of Second-Generation Greek-Australians (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2011); he has translated from the Greek Tasos Leivaditis's The Blind Man with the Lamp (Denise Harvey Publications 2014); and he has published several collections of his own poetry, the most recent being After Life (2016).

Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection Night Train, Cold Beer won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Five more books since, with a sixth, a collection of nonfiction, forthcoming this summer. A five-time Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Santa Fe Writers Project, Rattle, and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it.