Contributor's Notes, Eclectica Magazine, v30n4, Oct/Nov 2026

Oct/Nov 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 editor. 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, she has also published poetry in Rattle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, ONE ART, Glimpse, BOOTH, and many other magazines. She has two new poetry collections out: Before The World Was on Fire (Bottlecap) and Why I Don't Take Xanax (Kelsay Books). She lives in a very old (haunted) house with her adorable kitty and husband in the Hudson Valley.

Airrion Blackstock is an Atlanta-based husband, proud girl dad, former college athlete, and seminary dropout. By day, he serves as an accountant at Untold, a global nonprofit helping people live a life beyond AIDS. Airrion's poetry has featured or is forthcoming in Inkwell (formerly Ekstasis), the engine idling, and Discretionary Love.

Stephen Bunch lives and writes in Lawrence, Kansas. His poems have appeared in Rootdrinker, Mudlark, Ithaca Lit, The Literary Bohemian, Autumn Sky Poetry, and many other print and online publications. His chapbook, Preparing to Leave, was published in 2011 by The Lives You Touch Publications. His e-chapbook, DisquiEtudes, was published by Mudlark in 2015. A book-length collection, Transmissions from Bone House, appeared in 2016 (Woodley Press). From 1978 to 1988 he edited and published the little magazine Tellus, which included work by Edward Dorn, Denise Low, Donald Levering, Jack Anderson, Paul Metcalf, Edward Sanders, Jane Hirshfield, Harley Elliott, and many others.

Salvatore Difalco Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller writes from Toronto Canada. Recent work appears in Cafe Irreal, Heavy Feather Review, and Bull.

Richard W. Fields is an American lawyer, entrepreneur, poet, and memoirist whose career has spanned more than four decades at the intersection of law, finance, public service, and international affairs. As a litigator, he has represented governments, victims of terrorism and human rights abuses, major corporations, and other clients in some of the world's most complex disputes, recovering billions of dollars and earning recognition as a leading advocate and negotiator. Throughout his legal career, he worked with multidisciplinary teams across law, science, finance, technology, and public policy, experiences that took him to unusual places and exposed him to extraordinary people and events. His recent works include Why We Love Budapest, inspired by a family journey to Hungary, and Why We Explore, dedicated to the members of The Explorers Club, whose commitment to discovery, conservation, scientific inquiry, and the boundaries of human achievement reflects themes that have long informed Fields's own life and writing. Through poetry and memoir, he explores not only the places he has visited, but also the enduring human impulse to discover, remember, and understand the world around us.

Denise Gilchrist appears or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Gentian Journal, Paterson Literary Review, ELLIE Magazine, The Woodside Review, and other publications. Her work often draws from memory, grief, place, the sacredness of ordinary life. "December Counterglow" arose from a harrowing and unrelenting bout of insomnia she experienced nearly 30 years ago.

Vedant Gupta is a senior in high school interested in pursuing a degree in biology. In his free time, he loves dancing, playing video games, and spending time with his dog.

Madronna Holden won the 2022 Kay Snow Poetry Award. She enjoys writing poems inspired by the "word poem" challenge—which give her the opportunity to join Electica's wonderful community of poetic voices. Nearly 100 of her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including Verse Daily, the Bitter Oleander, Cold Mountain Review, Equinox Poetry and Prose, The Timberline Review, the Christian Science Monitor, and many more. Her collaborations with painter David Wolfersberger have appeared in Puerto del Sol, the Slippery Elm Literary Review, the Santa Clara Review, About Place, and elsewhere. An award-winning film documenting the production of her play in poetic text, The Descent of Inanna, has been aired several times on Oregon Public Broadcasting, and she is the author of the chapbook, Goddess of Glass Mountains.

Ken Holland has had work widely published in the journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Rattle, and Atlanta Review. Poetry forthcoming or recently published in Willow Springs, Poetry South, Tar River Poetry, South Carolina Review, and Catamaran. Three Pushcart nominations. Finalist in Black Lawrence Press' 2025 Chapbook competition, finalist in the 2025 Moonstone Press chapbook competition, which Moonstone subsequently published (Rust and Slag), finalist in the 2025 Black River Chapbook Competition, semi-finalist for the 2025 Word Work's book-length Washington Prize, as well as having placed first in New Ohio Review's 2022 competition, among others.

Lesley Howard graduated from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Before that, she worked in regional planning, founded a land trust, raised two sons, and helped establish the co-housing community where she still lives. Her fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train and Zoetrope and published in the Lascaux Prize Anthology, Leon Literary Review, the Little Patuxent Review, Narrative, and the Western Humanities Review. Her "Under the Gum Tree" flash creative nonfiction essay was one of Creative Nonfiction's Sunday Short Reads.

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.

Jenny Isaacs earned a BA in writing poetry from Johns Hopkins University at the age of nineteen. Over 40 years later, her first collection, The Argument of Time, was published by Finishing Line Press as a finalist in their 2025 Open Chapbook Contest; a second chapbook, Latin Names, was recently named a finalist in The Poets Corner chapbook competition judged by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Her poems appeared last year in Pedestal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Thimble Literary Magazine, Mezzo Cammin, Bulb Culture Collective, Willows Wept Review, Pulsebeat, The Loch Raven Review, The Hyperbolic Review, and Neologism Poetry Journal, and recently in print in Blue Unicorn and The Schuylkill Valley Journal. Married for more than half her life to the father of her three grown daughters, she now lives with him just four doors down from her parents on a creek off the Chesapeake Bay.

Beverly Jackson is a fine arts painter, writer, and poet living in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Her artwork can be viewed on her website and her literary work on the Internet and in print, in over 100 venues.

Corrine Noel Knapp (Corrie) has always loved poetry, but failed to commit to her long-term love until she found her first beautiful grey hairs. She writes about what she knows and has experienced with her body and being and sees these experiences as doors to connect all lived experience. She lives in Wyoming, where big skies, sagebrush, and the flung song of meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds filter down, and often into, her poetry. She writes to understand and to be grateful. She works as a professor of human-nature relationships, and her research relates to how we might survive and thrive despite climate change.

Jerry Krajnak grows heirloom tomatoes, fosters animal shelter rejects, and writes a few poems in the North Carolina mountains after 40 years in public school classrooms. His writing appears in numerous journals.

Kristen Keckler teaches creative writing at Mercy University (Dobbs Ferry, New York). Her work has recently appeared in L'Esprit Literary Review, Sky Island Journal, The Disappointed Housewife, Collidescope, As it Ought To Be, Cutleaf, Main Street Rag, Collateral, and other journals. She can be found rummaging around garage sales, on the lookout for things she definitely doesn't need but suddenly wants. The Cornell box mentioned in "Untitled (Colombier)" is on display at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Svetlana Litvinchuk is anticipating the release of her debut poetry collection, Navigating the Hallways by Starlight (Fernwood Press, 2026). Her work has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Rhysling Awards. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Pleiades, New Orleans Review, swamp pink, Redivider, Moon City Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her essays and stories have appeared in ONLY POEMS, Astrolabe, Plant-Human Quarterly, Apocalypse Confidential, and elsewhere. She is the Programming Director for Chill Subs and a columnist for Sub Club. Originally from Ukraine, she is an MFA candidate at the University of Victoria.

David Mathews has appeared in After Hours, Eclectica Magazine, CHEAP POP, Midwestern Gothic, Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology, Open Heart Chicago: An Anthology of Chicago Writing, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart, and he is a three-time Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards finalist. David lives in his hometown of Chicago, where he teaches and writes.

Jill Michelle is the author of Underwater (Riot in Your Throat, 2025), a finalist for the Julie Suk Award, and Shuffle Play (Bottlecap Press, 2024). She's the winner of New Ohio Review's 2023 NORward Prize for Poetry. Her newest work is forthcoming in Constellations, Poetry Online, Quartet Journal, and Whale Road Review. She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida.

Donna Lee Miele writes, edits, and slings literature from her longtime home of Rockland County, New York. She's had stories and essays published in Massachusetts Review, Blood Orange Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her memoir, Pain Country, is forthcoming in 2027. Most days you will find her at The Sparkle Bookstore, which she owns and operates in Sparkill, New York.

Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. In January of 2025, he became Poet Laureate of Rockland County, New York. His poems appeared in The Louisville Review, Ilanot Review, and Tupelo Quarterly, among other publications in the US, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times, and his chapbook, Contraband, was published in 2022. His current manuscript was a finalist in the Lily Poetry Review's 2026 Paul Nemser Prize.

Curtis C. Morgan is an 84-year-old essayist living in Falls Church, Virginia. An Army brat raised from Texas to Tokyo, he has been a beekeeper, an IT contractor in the US and London, and a teacher in Australia and New Zealand, and he competes in masters track and field. His essays have appeared in Mother Earth News, Responsible Statecraft, The Humanist, Across the Margin, and Main Street Rag. He is at work on a memoir in essays, Who Am I.

Yvonne Morris is the author of three chapbooks of poetry: Small Animals and Other Poems (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2026), Busy Being Eve (Bass Clef Books), and Mother was a Sweater Girl (The Heartland Review Press). Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in 3Elements, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Eunoia Review, The Galway Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere.

Chee Kein (Arthur) Neong is a Malaysian Chinese. Having taught for 11 years, he now delineates the maelstrom of thoughts and visuals. His works have appeared in Shift, Pen to Print, Silver Birch Press, The Leafline Magazine, Rue Scribe, and others.

Bryan Oliver is a writer and former English teacher based in the New York City area. He received his Master's from the University of Chicago, and has previously published fiction in Bristol Noir and The Brussels Review.

Brian O'Sullivan is an English professor and chair of first-year and transfer seminars at St. Mary's College of Maryland. He is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose work has been published in Rattle, ONE ART, Modern Haiku, MacQueen's Quinterly, HOWL New Irish Writing, and other journals. He is a frequent panelist on a podcast, _ThePoetrySpace, and a poetry reader for The Chestnut Review.

Heather Pegas is one of this issue's Spotlight Runners-Up. She lives in Los Angeles where she writes grant proposals, essays, stories, and flash. Her work is featured in publications such as Heavy Feather Review, Does It Have Pockets, Tahoma Literary Review, Tiny Molecules, and Weird Lit Magazine. She is finishing an unruly first novel. About the story in this issue, she says, "I love historical fiction, and I started writing this story before the pandemic, inspired by the work of Katherine Anne Porter. During the pandemic I read plague literature by William Maxwell, Poe, and Camus. I finished the story after the pandemic when I knew what it was like to live through one. May it be the last."

Adrienne Perry is an associate professor of English at Villanova University and the co-editor of Other Legacies: Great Unsung American Poets (Wesleyan University Press, 2026). Her prose has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Friends of Writers, and Inprint. She is a Kimbilio for Black Fiction Fellow and a Hedgebrook alumna. Her prose has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Callaloo, the Iowa Review, and elsewhere.

Kenneth Pobo is the author of 33 chapbooks and 15 full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Raylene and Skip (Wolfson Press), and Wrap Me In Plastic And Feed Me A Butterfinger (Chaps Poetry Series). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Weber Studies, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.

Sam Reichman is this issue's Spotlight Author. A writer, translator, and visual artist, his work has appeared in Washington Square Review, Cagibi, Rappahannock Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Kansas City, Sam moved to New York for college, where he received his BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia University and his MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College. While in New York, Sam also worked at several non-profits, studied drawing and painting at an atelier, and did a variety of odd-jobs. He has also spent time living in Amman, Jordan; Sur, Lebanon; and New Delhi, India. He now lives in Te-Whanga-nui-a-Tara/Wellington, Aotearoa / New Zealand, where he is pursuing his PhD in Literary Translation Studies at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington.

Riley Richards taught Creative Writing and Political Writing at Uzhhorod National University in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and is a PhD student at Florida State University. Riley's writing has been published or is forthcoming in Fugue, The Journal, After Happy Hour Review, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere.

Chris Ringwalt has over 150 publications in juried professional journals and many book chapters, but this is his first venture into publishing any of the personal essays he's written over the years. He says, "I have always maintained I didn't care one way or the other. It turned out that I was lying." He thanks his writing group for inviting him into its charmed circle and coaching him, with great patience, as he developed the vision and skills to write personal essays. They also pushed him to publish, which in his vanity he resisted. Until now.

Sharon Rose-Kourous is a self-described relic, fossil, grey-haired lady-who-hates-being-called "dear" by strangers, working poet, and octogenarian. Her first two books were published after she attained (stumbled into) elder status. In the days before the Internet, she published poetry in print journals, and then as the entire world went online, she published work in the early "zines." A native of northwest Ohio and sojourner in Michigan, she has, post-retirement from public high school teaching, spent her time word-smithing as a community activist, traveling, pulling weeds in her flower beds, and writing poetry.

Russell Rowland appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications) and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His own poetry books, Wooden Nutmegs and Magnificat, are available from Encircle Publications. He is a trail maintainer for the Lakes Region (NH) Conservation Trust.

Marybeth Rua-Larsen lives on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in Lily Poetry Review, Magma, Orbis, Crannóg, Eclectica Magazine, and American Arts Quarterly, among others. She won the 2017 Luso-American Fellowship for the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, was a Hawthornden Fellow in Scotland, and was a 2025 Writer in Residence at historic Linden Place in Bristol, Rhode Island. Her chapbook Nothing In-Between is available from Barefoot Muse Press.

David Sahner is a physician-scientist and poet with work forthcoming in Comstock Review, which received recognition as a poem of special merit in the Muriel Craft Bailey poetry contest. His previously published poems have appeared in Catamaran, Connecticut Review, The Bitter Oleander, Eclectica, Mudlark, Tears in the Fence, Blue Unicorn, Blackbox Manifold, and Agenda, among other places. Some of his work has been included in multi-author anthologies, including a release from Anhinga Press. A book length collection of his poetry, Hum, was published several years ago by FutureCycle Press.

Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (1925 – 1964) was a leading Iraqi poet and one of the most influential Arab poets of the 20th century. He helped create Arabic free verse and was a pioneer of the Tammuzi movement, which infused the modern Arab world with pre-Islamic mythology.

Phillip Shabazz is one of this issue's Spotlight Runners-Up. He serves as a poet-in-the schools of North Carolina and is the author of four poetry collections. His most recent, Moonflower, is published by Fernwood Press. Some journal publication credits include The Blotter, Florida Review, 34th Parallel, BREATHE, Queens Quarterly, K'in, and Thimble.

Shoshauna Shy has recently been published by One Sentence Poems, Stories I'll Tell My Daughter, Cider Press Review, and Poetry South. Her poems have been made into videos, graced the interior of taxi cabs, and even decorated the hind quarters of city buses. Not a monogamous writer, she works on seven to eleven pieces at the same time. She is also a flash fiction author—but that's a whole 'nother story!

Hilary Sideris is the author of the poetry collections Calliope (Broadstone) and Liberty Laundry (Dos Madres), among others. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is a co-founder and curriculum developer for CUNY Start, a college preparatory program at CUNY, and a co-host of the Carmine Street Metrics reading series in NYC. Her new collection, Kissing Ilaria Goodbye, is out from Dos Madres Press.

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.

Jake Stimmel is a teacher and writer in Minneapolis. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Some of his other work can be read in Cleaver and Tough Magazine.

Shelley Stoehr has published four young adult novels and more than 30 short works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She has received awards from The De Groot Foundation, The North American Review, New Millennium Writings, Writer's Digest, WOW: Women on Writing, The New York Public Library, and the ALA. Her memoir, Girls Girls Girls: One Woman's Experience as a Sex Worker in the 1990s, will be published by Legacy Book Press in September 2026.

Eldridge Thomas III lives and writes in Knoxville, Tennessee, but he's originally from Deep South Georgia. Recent fiction has appeared in The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Blood+Honey, Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature, and Radical Catalyst.

Jim Zola is a poet and photo artist living in North Carolina.