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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.
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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.
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Graciela Barada is 21-year-old Afro-Latina born in Washington, DC, to a Cuban father and Spanish mother. She loves to read, write, dance, and travel, and has been to 15 countries. She plans to travel to five more by the time she's twenty-five. In June 2019 she graduated from UCLA with a BA in Gender Studies and Black Studies. A Fulbright grant recipient living in Colombia and working as an English Teaching Assistant at the University of Cartagena, she will return to the US next year to work as a middle school teacher in Brooklyn.
Terry Barr is the author of Don't Date Baptists and Other Warnings from My Alabama Mother and We Might As Well Eat: How to Survive Tornados, Alabama Football, and Your Southern Family (Third Lung Press). His work has appeared in Call Me [Brackets], storySouth, The New Southern Fugitives, Cleaning Up Glitter, Wraparound South, Under the Sun, Coachella Review, Flying South, and Eclectica. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with his family and blogs at medium.com/@terrybarr.
Aileen Bassis is a visual artist and poet in New York City working in book arts, printmaking, photography, and installation. Her use of text in art led her to explore another creative life as a poet. She was awarded two artist residencies in poetry to the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart prizes and two poems are in anthologies on the subject of migration. Her journal publications include B o d y Literature, Spillway, Grey Sparrow Journal, Canary, The Pinch Journal, and Prelude.
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Kris Broughton lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He has had stories published previously in Eclectica, Carve, Exquisite Corpse, and Mipoesias. He received a Pushcart nomination in 2004.
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Jeff Burt works in mental health in California. His poetry has appeared in Williwaw Journal, The Rabid Oak, ucity Review, and Mojave Heart Review. He says, "'One Way, Out and Only' unites two paths, the one outside the house where people traipse by hiking uphill, where I see them walking up but never walking down,lost to the mountain. The second path is our linear path from life to death to the lack of remembrance, the loss of my mother to cancer and desire to go back to a time to be with her again."
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Patrice Claeys graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Manchester, UK, and completed a Certificate in Poetry from the Writer's Studio of the University of Chicago. Her first collection, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering, was published by Kelsay Books in 2019. Forthcoming work: Literary Mama, Pirene's Fountain, Origami Poetry Project, and Aeolian Harp Anthology 5. Her second collection, The Machinery of Grace, is due from Kelsay Books in 2020. She was twice nominated for Best of the Net.
Emily Collins is a runner-up Spotlight Author for this issue. She has appeared or is forthcoming in The South Carolina Review, Entropy, The McNeese Review, Coal Hill Review, and others. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she writes and casts a lot of spells.
Essah Cozett is a Doctoral Caribbean Literature and Languages student at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. She is a first-generation Liberian-American, born and raised in Georgia. Her poetry explores African influences in the Caribbean and Latin America women's empowerment, identity, and spirituality. Her work has appeared in several print and online publications, including Moko Magazine, Tonguas, Odradek, and The Odyssey Online.
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Michelle D'costa is a Mangalorean from Mumbai. She was born and raised in Bahrain. Her poetry and prose has been published widely in journals like Litro UK, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Coldnoon, and more. She loves to interview writers. Her debut full-length short story and poetry collections are complete. She edits Kaani, an ezine for fiction. She talks about books on YouTube and blogs on WordPress.
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.
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Sanjyokta Deshmukh is a British-Indian writer pursuing a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing in the UK. She predominantly writes poetry, and her writing often attempts to understand the world around her as she enters adulthood. She was previously published in the Skinny Poetry Journal.
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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.
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Morgan Eklund has appeared in the North American Review, The Louisville Review, ABZ, Whiskey Island, and Anima. Previous awards and nominations include: Hadley Creative Award from the Louisville Community Foundation and Creative Capital, Sarabande Books' Flo Gault Poetry Prize, the Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council, finalist for the James Hearst Poetry Prize and a 2017 Pushcart Prize nomination. Morgan is from Kentucky but recently moved to Chicago.
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Rose Fairfield lives in the Appalachian mountains, where she serves her community as a behavioral health professional. Only recently, she began submitting her poetry to online journals. Her work also can be found in Rue Scribe and Amethyst Review.
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Jennifer Finstrom is a former Spotlight Author and longtime (13 years!) former Poetry Editor. An adjunct instructor at DePaul University in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse Department and also Outreach Coordinator at DePaul's University Center for Writing-based Learning (UCWbL), recent publications include Escape Into Life and MockingHeart Review. Her work also appears in Silver Birch Press's Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks and other Silver Birch Press anthologies.
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Brad Gottschalk is a writer and cartoonist who has lived most of his life in Wisconsin. In a previous life, he worked with an amateur theater troupe, First Banana Productions, but now spends most of his free time writing and drawing. His comics, illustrations, and fiction have appeared in such publications as Raven Chronicles, Berkeley Fiction Review, and Fugue.
Doug 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. This is his second appearance in Eclectica.
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Christy Alexander Hallberg is a Teaching Associate Professor of English at East Carolina University, where she earned her BS and MA in English. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. In addition to her teaching duties, she serves as Senior Associate Editor for North Carolina Literary Review. She has published short stories and creative nonfiction in such journals as Main Street Rag, Fiction Southeast, Riggwelter, Eclectica, Litro Magazine, STORGY Magazine, and Concho River Review.
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Patricia Haney is a student at DePaul University studying Writing & Rhetoric and Creative Writing. At DePaul, she works as a peer tutor and head writing fellow at the University Center for Writing-based Learning. Although a long time creative writer, she only recently began submitting her work to literary magazines, appearing in Motley. She is originally from Michigan and finds inspiration for her work from reflecting on her upbringing in the Midwest.
Stephanie L. Harper is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Butler University. Harper is author of the chapbooks, This Being Done and The Death's-Head's Testament. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Slippery Elm, The High Window, Panoply, Underfoot Poetry, Eclectica, Cathexis Northwest, Prometheus Dreaming, and elsewhere.
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Bob Haynes has appeared in New Letters, Nimrod, Rattle, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. His latest book of poems is The Grand Unified Theory (2001).
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.
Alex Kudera drafted his award-winning adjunct novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. In 2016, he published Auggie's Revenge with Beating Windward Press as well as a Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day with Hard Ball Press. The e-singles "Frade Killed Ellen" (Dutch Kills Press), "Turquoise Truck" (Mendicant Bookworks), and "The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity" (Gone Dog Press) are available most anywhere books are downloaded. His published short stories include "Awash in Barach and Bolano" (The Agonist) and "My Father's Great Recession" (Heavy Feather Review).
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John Mandelberg lives in Los Angeles and works in retail. His stories have appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Santa Monica Review, Pif, and Storyscape.
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D.S. Maolalai has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).
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David Mathews earned his MA in Writing and Publishing at DePaul University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eclectica Magazine, After Hours, CHEAP POP, One Sentence Poems, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. His poetry has been nominated for The Best of The Net and a Pushcart. He lives in his hometown of Chicago.
Kat Meads is a runner-up Spotlight Author for this issue. She is the author of 20 books and chapbooks of prose and poetry, including, most recently, Foreword Reviews Book of the Year finalist Miss Jane: The Lost Years. Her short plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere. She lives in California.
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Erika Michael has a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Washington and has also taught at Trinity University, Oregon State, and the University of Puget Sound. She has participated in extended workshops with Carolyn Forché, Thomas Lux, Linda Gregerson, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, and Tim Siebles. Her poems have appeared in Poetica Magazine, Cascade, Drash: Northwest Mosaic, Mizmor l'David Anthology, Bracken Magazine, The Winter Anthology, The Institute for Advanced Study Letter, Belletrist Magazine, and elsewhere.
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Michael Milburn lives in Hamden, Connecticut, and teaches high school English in New Haven. His nonfiction has appeared recently in Confrontation, Poemeleon, and previous issues of Eclectica.
Sarah Myers is a former Spotlight Author runner-up. An aspiring neuroscientist and nonfiction writer, her piece in this issue, "An American Murder," was written in 2017 when she was 23 years old. This is one of her most lyrical and poetic pieces to date, but she wrote it in the similar mindset she wrote her first Eclectica submission, "Oceans in the Strip Club" (both products a result of her brain being off of medications). She finds Eclectica home for her most experimental and colorful works, and is honored to be published here for the second time. She has been published in Free Inquiry, Huffington Post, the National Alliance on Mental Illness blog, Uncomfortable Revolution, and more for her work on mental illness, humanism, and sexuality. She lives in St. Louis with her tabby cat and two small dogs. No longer obsessed with becoming the next generation's female da Vinci, she enjoys simple things, like browsing crystal diamond necklaces and making her living spaces look like storefronts (okay, maybe not so simple).
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Mandira Pattnaik writes poetry and short fiction in India. She is humbled to have poetry published by The Times of India. Her short story "Adab" was adjudged the Editor's Pick, Juggernaut Publishing. FewerThan500, (Mac)ro (mic), 101words, Lunate Fiction (forthcoming) and Runcible Spoon have kindly provided her work wide readership.
Janet Rodriguez is an author, teacher, and editor living in Northern California. In the United States, her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Cloud Women's Quarterly, Salon.com, American River Review, and Calaveras Station. She is the winner of the Bazanella Literary Award for Short Fiction and the Literary Insight for Work in Translation Award, both from CSUS Sacramento in 2017. Rodriguez has also co-authored two memoirs published in South Africa. Her short stories, essays, and poetry usually have themes of global communities and the mestiza experience in a culturally binary world. She is an MFA candidate at Antioch University, Los Angeles, where she serves as an editor for the magazine Lunch Ticket.
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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.
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Katherine Tunning is this issue's Spotlight Author. She has appeared in publications including Cider Press Review, Eclectica Magazine, Stirring, and Prick of the Spindle. She stopped writing poetry for about a decade, but then she started again.
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Nur Turkmani is a Lebanese-Syrian researcher, focusing on gender in the Middle East, social movements, and refugee livelihoods. She grew up in between Ghana, Lebanon, and Syria, and is currently based in Beirut. She was previously the Managing Editor of Rusted Radishes, Beirut's Art and Literary Journal. About "An Arab in Harlem, Learning," she says, "I wrote this after spending some time in Harlem with one of my best friends, Samar. My entire time there, I was wide-eyed and listening—there was so much soul everywhere I looked. After months of thinking about my place in Lebanon and its political activism scene, and what role poetry plays in this scene, Harlem and its history felt like both a lesson and a reminder. There is a timelessness to the poetry, and music, and art that emerged during that period and they go hand in hand with the social and political change that followed. When Langston Hughes wrote about deferred dreams, Martin Luther King continued the poem with his rallying words, 'I have a dream.' And I felt that in nearly every corner."
