Jan/Feb 2026

Tom Dooley co-founded Eclectica in 1996 and serves as its Managing and Fiction 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.

Marko Fong is Eclectica's Nonfiction Coeditor. A former Spotlight Author, he lives in North Carolina with his wife, dog, and two cats. He's written fiction and non-fiction for many years, and publications include Solstice, Prick of the Spindle, RKVRY, and Volleyball Magazine.

Christine Potter is Eclectica's Poetry Editor. A former Spotlight Author, her chapbook, Before The World Was On Fire, was just released by Bottlecap Press and is available there and from her directly. Her fourth full length collection of poems, Why I Don't Take Xanax, will be out this winter on Kelsey Books. Christine has had poems curated by Rattle, Glimpse, ONE ART, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Tar River Poetry, Grain, and Confetti. She lives in the lower Hudson Valley with her husband and their stunning cat Bella, who has turned in her feral card.

Lisa Ashley is a poet, reviewer, and a Pushcart Prize nominee who descends from Armenian genocide survivors. Oubliettes of Light is her first collection and was a finalist for the Sally Albiso Award, 2024. Poems can be found in Willows Wept Review, Juniper, Blue Heron Review, The Healing Muse, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gyroscope, Thimble, Last Leaves, and others. She writes in her log home among the firs on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Lisa holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Montana and a Master of Divinity from Seattle University.

Ruth Bavetta writes at a messy desk overlooking the sea. Her poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, Atlanta Review, Tar River Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, prejudice, and sauerkraut.

Bob Bradshaw is retired and living south of San Francisco. He is a fan of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Mick may not be gathering moss, but Bob is. He is looking for the perfect hammock to spend his retirement in. Work of his can be found at Apple Valley Review, Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY, Dodging the Rain, Eclectica, Ekphrastic Review, and many other publications on the net.

Karen Bramblett has poems published or forthcoming in Rust & Moth, January House Literary Journal, Willows Wept Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and lives in Northern California with her spouse and two spoiled felines. Follow her on Bluesky @poetryeverywhere.bsky.social.

Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His ninth full-length poetry collection is Tragedy in the Arugula Aisle (Arroyo Seco Press, 2025). His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere.

Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author and amateur historian. She holds a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from the University of North Florida. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred literary journals and magazines, including The Sun, McSweeney's, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, Brevity, and The Huffington Post. A Best of the Net nominee, she won 2025 flash fiction contests from Inscape Journal and Blue Earth Review. She is the winner of the 2026 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. She says, "This story, 'Swollen With Inheritance,' is a really personal one for me. I've lost a lot of people in my life, and I've learned that grief always shows up in weird, unexpected ways. I wanted to explore how a family's ritual, something created to cope with loss, can evolve and take on a powerful, almost living presence of its own. The story is about that thin line between remembering someone and straight-up denial, and how memories can be both a comfort and a curse."

J.P. Burns is a writer of nonfiction and fiction. Originally from Chicago, he now lives in New York City, and he received his MFA in Creative Writing in Virginia. "These Faulty Parts" resulted from a fair bit of soul-searching following his error-riddled teens and 20s.

Lani Burshtein is a schoolteacher, artist and writer living in Toronto. Her poetic interests include disaster, history, visual arts, opulence, childhood, and constructed identities.

Terese Coe is this issue's Spotlight Author. Her work has appeared in Agenda, Alaska Quarterly Review, Classical Outlook, Cyphers, Hopkins Review, The Moth, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Review, Stinging Fly, Threepenny Review, and many other journals, including anthologies. She has published three books of poems, including Shot Silk, several from Kelsay Books.

Terence Culleton is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Poet Laureate emeritus who has published poems in a variety of reviews and journals in both the US and the UK, including Amherst Review, Alabama Literary Review, Birmingham Review, Blue Unicorn, Cumberland Review, Eclectica, Modern Poetry Quarterly, and Eunoia. His work has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and his poems have been featured on NPR. Mr. Culleton's fourth volume of poetry, Message From a Floating Dock, is due out in 2026 through White Violet Press. His third book, a collection of sonnets entitled A Tree and Gone, is available through his website.

Tina Harrach Denetclaw is a clinical pharmacist by trade, specialized in critical care and emergency medicine. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared on several occasions in Eclectica Magazine and Silver Birch Press | Poetry and Prose... from Prompts Series, and also in The RavensPerch, Leading the Way: The Wisdom of the Navajo People, Synkroniciti, Verse-Virtual, andPulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine. Her debut chapbook, Life Travels, will be released in March 2026 from Finishing Line Press. She says of the poem in this issue, "Shá is the Sun and Asdzáá Nádleehé is the Navajo deity, Changing Woman. My nephew studies the traditional ways. When he visited us recently, I asked him to share stories with me, and he told me the story of Sun and Changing Woman. This poem is a response to that story."

Gary Duehr is based in Boston and has taught creative writing for local universities. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. He has received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, and North American Review. His books include Point Blank (In Case of Emergency Press), Winter Light (Four Way Books) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press).

Sara Eddy is the author of Ordinary Fissures (2024), and two chapbooks: Full Mouth (2020), and Tell the Bees (2019). Her second full-length poetry collection, How to Wash a Rabbit, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press, and her poems have appeared in many online and print journals, including Threepenny Review, Raleigh Review, Sky Island, and Baltimore Review, among others. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a house built by Emily Dickinson's cousin.

Jeff Friedman has published eleven collections of poetry and prose, including his most recent, Broken Signals (Bamboo Dart Press, August 2024). His work has appeared in Best Microfiction , New Republic, Flash Fiction Funny, Poetry, and American Poetry Review. He has received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship and numerous other awards.

Linda Meg Frith earned an MSSW at the Kent School of Social Work, University of Louisville. She retired from working with clients in 2018. Since then she has devoted her time to family, friends, reading, and writing poetry. In previous iterations of her life, she taught adult education, classes of poetry, vocabulary, and public speaking. She has published poetry in River and South, eMerge, Rainy Weather Days, Amethyst Review, Eclectica Magazine, and most recently was the featured poet in the September issue of Tipton Poetry Journal who nominated her for a Pushcart for "Home Is Where The Hurt Is." She lives with her Chihuahua, Jasmine, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Joel Fry lives in Athens, Alabama. His poetry has previously appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, The Florida Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and elsewhere. His first book of poetry is Late Alabama (Outskirts, 2020)

Wally Glickman has been writing and reading poems for the last 75 years or so; in libraries and bookstores throughout the lower Hudson Valley. His sixth chapbook, Bamboozled, will be available very soon.

Eve Goldberg is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Sonoma County, California. Her writing has been published in American Popular Culture, The Rumpus, The Gay & Lesbian Review, All About Jazz, Cinema Retro, Eclectica, and elsewhere. She is this issue's Nonfiction Spotlight Runner-Up.

Erica Goss is the author of Landscape with Womb and Paradox, forthcoming from Broadstone Books in 2026, and Night Court, winner of the 2017 Lyrebird Award from Glass Lyre Press. She has received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, as well as a 2023 Best American Essay Notable. Recent and upcoming publications include The Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, The Indianapolis Review, Oregon Humanities, Creative Nonfiction, North Dakota Quarterly, Gargoyle, Spillway, West Trestle, A-Minor, Redactions, Consequence, The Sunlight Press, The Pedestal, San Pedro River Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Erica served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California, from 2013-2016. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, where she teaches, writes, and edits the newsletter A Writer's Homestead.

Anne Graue is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet (Woodley Press, 2020) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press, 2017). Her work can be found in Sundress Publications Best Dressed Blog, Verse Daily, Poet Lore, Spoon River Poetry Review, Rogue Agent, Gargoyle, Unbroken Journal, River Heron Review, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere. She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review.

Gary D. Grossman is Professor Emeritus of Animal Ecology, University of Georgia. He has poems and essays in 70-plus literary reviews. He doesn't enter contests, but his work has been nominated for the usual awards (Pushcart, Best of Net, etc.)—no wins yet. Gary enjoys running, music, fishing, and gardening. His poetry books Lyrical Years (2023, Kelsay), What I Meant to Say Was… (2023, Impspired) and Objects in Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear (2025, Arroyo Seco), and graphic memoir My Life in Fish—One Scientist's Journey… (2023, Impspired) all are available from the author or Amazon.

David Guaspari was trained as a pure mathematician and considers himself to be, of all post-19th century mathematical logicians, the funniest. In addition to technical papers, he has published short fiction, essays, humor, and reviews, and has had plays performed in states totaling 331 electoral votes as well as five foreign countries. A member of the Dramatists Guild, he lives in Ithaca, New York.

Tresha Faye Haefner appears or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, Blue Mesa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Five South, Hunger Mountain, Mid-America Review, Pirene's Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle, TinderBox, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and a 2012, 2020, and 2021 nomination for a Pushcart. Her first manuscript, Pleasures of the Bear, was a finalist for prizes from both Moon City Press and Glass Lyre Press. It was published by Pine Row Press under the title When the Moon Had Antlers in 2023.

Laura Hansen is the winner of the N.F.S.P.S. Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition and a Midwest Book Award Finalist for her poetry collection Midnight River. Her writing has appeared in regional publications such as Talking Stick Literary Journal, Martin Lake Journal, Stone Gathering, online at The Heron Tree, and in Lake Country Journal Magazine. Her most recent work, The Night Journey; Stories and Poems published by River Place Press, explores the intersection of art, landscape, and story.

Marina Harris worked for many years as a costumer primarily for modern dance. She also choreographed works for modern dance and ballet. Her final engagement in theater was a puppet theater for adults. During most of that time she wrote and published and has been the recipient of a Writers' Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Madronna Holden won the 2022 Kay Snow Poetry Award. Besides three previous appearances in the word poem arena of Eclectica, her poems have appeared numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Verse Daily, the Bitter Oleander, Cold Mountain Review, Valley Voices, and the Christian Science Monitor. Her poems written as duets with the watercolors of David Wolfersberger have appeared in Puerto del Sol, The Slippery Elm Literary Review, The Santa Clara Review, About Place, The Chestnut Review, and more.

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, 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, and he was the founding editor of the pioneering online publication Gowanus. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, which remains his chief inspiration.

Pramod Lad was born in India and has a PhD in Biochemistry from Cornell University He was a scientist at the National Institutes of Health. His poems have been accepted in Wilderness House, The Examined Life Journal, Right hand pointing, Omentum, Eclectica magazine, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Umbrella Factory, The Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Pennine Platform, Litbreak Magazine, Amethyst Review, Soul Forte, Creations Magazine, Austur Literary Magazine, Closed Eye Open, Waxing and Waning, Neologism, Verse Virtual, Raven Review, Kokako, Penwood Review, 1922 Review, and elsewhere.

Brooks Lampe teaches literature at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He is the author of a poetry chapbook The Planet of Left Hands and the editor of Uut Poetry. His poems have appeared in Peculiar Mormyrid, Right Hand Pointing, Bombfire, and elsewhere.

Gideon Leek has stories published or forthcoming in Wigleaf, Hobart, Expat, Animal Blood Magazine, and the Oxford Review of Books. He was a finalist for the 2025 Robert and Adele Schiff Award for Fiction from The Cincinnati Review. He lives in Brooklyn and is at work on a novel.

Ashley Mabbitt is the author of A Self, A Frame, A Look in Through (Kelsay Books) and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Plume, The Ekphrastic Review, Emerge, South Florida Poetry Journal, Summerset Review, and other magazines. She manages a career in scientific journal publishing and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Megan Merchant is author of six full-length poetry collections, a children's book with Penguin Random House, and a handful of chapbooks. She is a board member for the Northern Arizona Book Festival, she is the owner of an editing, mentoring, and manuscript consultation business and holds an MFA degree from UNLV. She is a visual artist and, most recently, won the New American Poetry Prize for her collection Hortensia, in winter.

Dan Murphy has published two chapbooks—Seasick Serenade, Sung Partial (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and The Book of False Rhyme (Finishing Line Press, 2014)—along with poems in Field, Image, Zyzzyva, North American Review, Spillway, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Murphy received a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a MA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at Cal State Northridge. He worked as a public-school teacher in LA Unified School District as a bilingual teacher as well as union representative.

Arthur Neong is a Malaysian Chinese from Sungai Petani, Kedah. Having taught for 11 years, he now channels the maelstrom of thoughts and visuals into lines, hoping to make sense of it all. His works have appeared in Five Minutes, Particle, Borderless, Malaysian Indie Fiction, ZiN Daily, Alien Buddha Press, Eclectica, Eksentrika, Everscribe, Men Matters, Porchlit Mag, SARE, Tap Into Poetry, and elsewhere.

Robert Perchan eats and drinks and writes in Busan, South Korea, under the bemused gaze of his translator wife, Mi-kyung Lee. His latest books are the comic futuristic novella Tropic of Scorpio (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2022) and Last Notes from a Split Peninsula: Poems and Prose Poems (UnCollected Press, 2021). His poetry collection Fluid in Darkness, Frozen in Light won the 1999 Pearl Poetry Prize and was published by Pearl Editions in 2000.

Kenneth Pobo is the author of 21 chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and most recently, At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.

Meg Pokrass is the author of The First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories (Dzanc Books, 2024) and eight previous collections. Her work has been selected for inclusion multiple times in The Best Small Fictions 2025, Wigleaf Top 50 List, and has recently appeared in Electric Literature, Plume, RATTLE, Lit Hub, New England Review, and other places.

J. Elyse Purvis is a writer, singer, and engineer living in Northern California. She says, "I love writing about bureaucratic reactions to fantastical events. I started 'The Silent Treatment' in the summer of 2025, when I kept hearing the phrase 'Chinese Century' thrown around online in response to the United States' increasingly isolationist policies. I don't know if our whole society would collapse just because an alien couldn't be bothered to hang out with us for an afternoon, but I doubt we'd handle it gracefully."

Beate Sigriddaughter grew up in Nuremberg, Germany, and now lives and writes in Silver City, New Mexico, where she has served as poet laureate. Recent book publications include poetry collections Circus Dancer (2025) and Wild Flowers (2022) and a short story collection Dona Nobis Pacem (2021). She is this issue's Fiction Spotlight Runner-Up.

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.

Janice D. Soderling has published a large body of poetry, fiction, and translations in print and online journals and in anthologies. Her most recent collections (2025) are The Women Come and Go, Talking (poetry) and Our Lives Were Supposed to be Different (short stories), both from Kultivera Production.

Susan Starbird is the essayist and anthologist of Susan The Magazine, and her work has appeared in MacQueen's Quinterly and Unbroken. Reading Oulipo poet Raymond Queneau's 1958 "Exercises In Style" set this piece spinning. The fictional place depicted in "A Small-Town Afternoon" was inspired by various old-fashioned American market towns where Susan once lived (or wished to).

Gregory Stephenson grew up in Colorado and Arizona but has lived in Denmark for many years. His most recent book is To Find Dawn's Moon: Details & Dimensions of The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

Randi Stern is a 2024-2025 graduate of GrubStreet's Essay Incubator program in Boston, Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Little Old Lady Comedy, Literally Literary Magazine, and Racquet Magazine, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Boston with her husband and obsesses over tennis in her spare time.

Lakshmi Arya Thathachar is the Dean of Research and a professor of history at RV University, Bengaluru, India. This is her eighth appearance in Eclectica.

Wendy Vardaman works as a web and digital media specialist. The author of five poetry collections, she served as Madison, Wisconsin, poet laureate from 2012 to 2015 and volunteers as a graphic designer for poetry-related causes. Her most recent book, thread me an exit (2025), is available from Brain Mill Press. A chapbook, the other end of the line, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in 2026.

Marcia Yudkin has published essays in the New York Times Magazine, Ms., Next Avenue, and NPR. She advocates for introverts through her newsletter, Introvert UpThink. Her fiction has appeared in Yankee, Writers Forum, Flash Fiction, Bright Flash Literary Review, and New Stories from New England. She lives in Goshen, Massachusetts (population 960).

 

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