Procession of Goats, Cotonou, La République du Bénin, West Africa. Photo: Bronwyn Mills
CONTRIBUTORS
Issue 17
Summer 2022
Issue 17
Summer 2022
Flash Fiction Pocket Anthology
Susanna Drbal is a fiction writer living in Ithaca, NY who follows her nose to get into a story. Along with fiction, she writes essays about the adoptee experience, appeals for funds to support the freedom to read, and many, many emails. She enjoys leading writing workshops and coaching fellow writers, and encourages everyone she meets to take pen to paper and see what happens. There’s always adventures to be had.
Melanie Bush is a writer from New York City.
Matthew Gordon is a carpenter by trade, a musician and artist by nature, and a writer by habit. He studied printmaking at the State University of New York at New Paltz and has been writing and revising short stories since 2012. His story “Ranch Widows” appears in the 2022 issue of Stone Canoe and was a finalist for the 2020 Salamander Fiction Prize. His short story “Softer Engines” was published in July 2021 as a stand-alone book by Illuminated Press of Trumansburg, NY and has since been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He currently lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York with his partner Courtney and their cat Thumb.
Susanna Drbal is a fiction writer living in Ithaca, NY who follows her nose to get into a story. Along with fiction, she writes essays about the adoptee experience, appeals for funds to support the freedom to read, and many, many emails. She enjoys leading writing workshops and coaching fellow writers, and encourages everyone she meets to take pen to paper and see what happens. There’s always adventures to be had.
Melanie Bush is a writer from New York City.
Matthew Gordon is a carpenter by trade, a musician and artist by nature, and a writer by habit. He studied printmaking at the State University of New York at New Paltz and has been writing and revising short stories since 2012. His story “Ranch Widows” appears in the 2022 issue of Stone Canoe and was a finalist for the 2020 Salamander Fiction Prize. His short story “Softer Engines” was published in July 2021 as a stand-alone book by Illuminated Press of Trumansburg, NY and has since been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He currently lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York with his partner Courtney and their cat Thumb.
Poetry
G. Greene is a native and lifelong resident of Greenfield, MA, with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a graduate degree from the University of Hartford. In 2018, he lost his remarkable wife, Jean Fielding, to a neurological disease that remained undiagnosed. As someone who always enjoyed writing, his grief led him to compose poems in an attempt to express the depth of his loss and examine it in all its nuance. As the pieces accumulated, an inspired grief therapist suggested they might be helpful to others in a similar situation. That led to the publication of Poems In A Time of Grief, his first book.
Norman Fischer is a poet, essayist, and Soto Zen Buddhist priest. He has written and published steadily since the late 1970’s. His latest poetry titles are Nature, There Was a Clattering As…, and The Museum of Capitalism. Chax Press brought out his Selected Poems 1980-2013 in 2022. His Experience: On Thinking, Writing, Language and Religion was published in the Poetics Series by University of Alabama Press in 2016. His latest Buddhist title is When You Greet Me I Bow: Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen. He is the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation (www.everydayzen.org) .
David Augustus Robertson was born in Claymont, Delaware in 1941. The recipient of a Delaware Division of the Arts emerging artists fellowship, he has published widely in journals throughout the mid-Atlantic region. He lives in Newark, Delaware where he tutors English as a second language and is widely active in community arts and advocacy organizations.
Lisa Bourbeau is the author of Cuttings from the Garden of Little Fears (First Intensity Press) and has published poems in many literary journals, such as Ploughshares and Talisman. Bourbeau lives in New Hampshire, where she received the 2003 New Hampshire Artist Fellowship for poetry.
G. Greene is a native and lifelong resident of Greenfield, MA, with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a graduate degree from the University of Hartford. In 2018, he lost his remarkable wife, Jean Fielding, to a neurological disease that remained undiagnosed. As someone who always enjoyed writing, his grief led him to compose poems in an attempt to express the depth of his loss and examine it in all its nuance. As the pieces accumulated, an inspired grief therapist suggested they might be helpful to others in a similar situation. That led to the publication of Poems In A Time of Grief, his first book.
Norman Fischer is a poet, essayist, and Soto Zen Buddhist priest. He has written and published steadily since the late 1970’s. His latest poetry titles are Nature, There Was a Clattering As…, and The Museum of Capitalism. Chax Press brought out his Selected Poems 1980-2013 in 2022. His Experience: On Thinking, Writing, Language and Religion was published in the Poetics Series by University of Alabama Press in 2016. His latest Buddhist title is When You Greet Me I Bow: Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen. He is the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation (www.everydayzen.org) .
David Augustus Robertson was born in Claymont, Delaware in 1941. The recipient of a Delaware Division of the Arts emerging artists fellowship, he has published widely in journals throughout the mid-Atlantic region. He lives in Newark, Delaware where he tutors English as a second language and is widely active in community arts and advocacy organizations.
Lisa Bourbeau is the author of Cuttings from the Garden of Little Fears (First Intensity Press) and has published poems in many literary journals, such as Ploughshares and Talisman. Bourbeau lives in New Hampshire, where she received the 2003 New Hampshire Artist Fellowship for poetry.
Romanian Poets Pocket Anthology
Mihók Tamás (b. 1991) is a bilingual poet, literary translator and editor. He obtained a degree in Letters from the University of Oradea (Romania). From 2011-2013 he studied at ELTE in Budapest and is currently doing doctoral studies at the “Petru Maïor” University in Târgu-Mures (Romania). He is an editor at Poesis International and for the publishing house Cartea Româneasca. His books of poem include: Șantier în rai (2013), winrar de tot (2015), cuticular (2017) cuticulum vitae (2017, in Hungarian), Syllabux (2017) and biocharia. ritual ecolatru (2020). He has also translated several books into Hungarian, including an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry, as well as numerous books from Hungarian into Romanian.
Dan Coman (b. 1975) has published four books of poetry: anul cârtiței galbene (The year of the yellow mole, 2003), Ghinga (2005), Dicţionarul Mara, ghidul tatălui 0-2 ani (Mara Dictionary, father guide: 0-2 years, 2009), Insectarul Coman (Charmides, 2017). He has also published four novels: Irezistibil (Irresistible, 2010), Parohia (The Parish, 2012), Căsnicie (Marriage, 2015), aceste lucruri care nu se vor schimba niciodată (these things that will never change, 2019). He is the organizer of the international poetry and music festival “Poetry in Bistrita.” Among other awards, in 2018, he received a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
Teodora Coman (b. 1976) in Sibiu is the author of Cârtița de mansardă (2012), Foloase necuvenite (2017) Soft Guerrilla (2019) and Lucy (2021).
Domnica Drumea (b. 1979) is a writer, editor and translator who studied Romanian and English at the University of Bucharest has published Crize (Crises), Not for Sale (2009) and Vocea (2014). Her poems have been translated into Czech and Swedish. Into Romanian she has translated works by Anthony Burgess, Charles Bukowski, Tennessee Williams and Allen Ginsberg, among many others.
Cătălina Stanislav (b. 1995) is an editor, translator and poet. Her debut collection, published in 2021 is Nu mă întrerupe. A graduate in literature and gender studies, Stanislav edits the literature and culture magazine Z9 and co-organises its corresponding Z9 International Poetry Festival in Sibiu. Her translations from English into Romanian include Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Lena Chilari has published in many literary journals. Her first book of poetry is O cană de noviciok la bătrânețe (2020).
Dan Sociu (b. 1978) is a prolific and frequent award-winning writer of both poetry and fiction. His poetry collections include borcane bine legate, bani pentru încă o săptămână (2002), fratele păduche (2004), cîntece eXcesive (2005), Pavor nocturn (2011), Poezii naive și sentimentale (2012), Vino cu mine știu exact unde mergem (2013), Uau! (2019) and 17 poezii, (2021). He has also published several novels.
Translators:
Andreea Iulia Scridon (b. 1997) is a Romanian-American poet. She studied Comparative Literature at King’s College London and Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Across the Nile-Green Sky (Greying Ghost Press, 2022), Calendars (Broken Sleep Books, 2022), and Unicornucopia (Ethel Press, 2022). Her poetry collection in Romanian, Hotare (Borders), won second place in a national manuscript contest in 2021. A translator of Romanian literature into English, Andreea Iulia Scridon has translated two books of poetry, one of short stories, and is the editor of an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry.
Oana Sanziana Marian was born in Romania and moved to the US when she was eight. She has published poems, translations, articles and criticism in Phoned-In, Iron Horse Literary Review, Artforum, Guernica, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders. Her translation of Norman Manea’s novel The Lair was published by Yale University Press in 2012.
Mihók Tamás (b. 1991) is a bilingual poet, literary translator and editor. He obtained a degree in Letters from the University of Oradea (Romania). From 2011-2013 he studied at ELTE in Budapest and is currently doing doctoral studies at the “Petru Maïor” University in Târgu-Mures (Romania). He is an editor at Poesis International and for the publishing house Cartea Româneasca. His books of poem include: Șantier în rai (2013), winrar de tot (2015), cuticular (2017) cuticulum vitae (2017, in Hungarian), Syllabux (2017) and biocharia. ritual ecolatru (2020). He has also translated several books into Hungarian, including an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry, as well as numerous books from Hungarian into Romanian.
Dan Coman (b. 1975) has published four books of poetry: anul cârtiței galbene (The year of the yellow mole, 2003), Ghinga (2005), Dicţionarul Mara, ghidul tatălui 0-2 ani (Mara Dictionary, father guide: 0-2 years, 2009), Insectarul Coman (Charmides, 2017). He has also published four novels: Irezistibil (Irresistible, 2010), Parohia (The Parish, 2012), Căsnicie (Marriage, 2015), aceste lucruri care nu se vor schimba niciodată (these things that will never change, 2019). He is the organizer of the international poetry and music festival “Poetry in Bistrita.” Among other awards, in 2018, he received a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
Teodora Coman (b. 1976) in Sibiu is the author of Cârtița de mansardă (2012), Foloase necuvenite (2017) Soft Guerrilla (2019) and Lucy (2021).
Domnica Drumea (b. 1979) is a writer, editor and translator who studied Romanian and English at the University of Bucharest has published Crize (Crises), Not for Sale (2009) and Vocea (2014). Her poems have been translated into Czech and Swedish. Into Romanian she has translated works by Anthony Burgess, Charles Bukowski, Tennessee Williams and Allen Ginsberg, among many others.
Cătălina Stanislav (b. 1995) is an editor, translator and poet. Her debut collection, published in 2021 is Nu mă întrerupe. A graduate in literature and gender studies, Stanislav edits the literature and culture magazine Z9 and co-organises its corresponding Z9 International Poetry Festival in Sibiu. Her translations from English into Romanian include Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Lena Chilari has published in many literary journals. Her first book of poetry is O cană de noviciok la bătrânețe (2020).
Dan Sociu (b. 1978) is a prolific and frequent award-winning writer of both poetry and fiction. His poetry collections include borcane bine legate, bani pentru încă o săptămână (2002), fratele păduche (2004), cîntece eXcesive (2005), Pavor nocturn (2011), Poezii naive și sentimentale (2012), Vino cu mine știu exact unde mergem (2013), Uau! (2019) and 17 poezii, (2021). He has also published several novels.
Translators:
Andreea Iulia Scridon (b. 1997) is a Romanian-American poet. She studied Comparative Literature at King’s College London and Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Across the Nile-Green Sky (Greying Ghost Press, 2022), Calendars (Broken Sleep Books, 2022), and Unicornucopia (Ethel Press, 2022). Her poetry collection in Romanian, Hotare (Borders), won second place in a national manuscript contest in 2021. A translator of Romanian literature into English, Andreea Iulia Scridon has translated two books of poetry, one of short stories, and is the editor of an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry.
Oana Sanziana Marian was born in Romania and moved to the US when she was eight. She has published poems, translations, articles and criticism in Phoned-In, Iron Horse Literary Review, Artforum, Guernica, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders. Her translation of Norman Manea’s novel The Lair was published by Yale University Press in 2012.
Essay
Peter Fisher was a founding member of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival in 1975 where he acted, directed and designed music for 11 years, and served on the Board of Directors for 27 years as it built an outdoor performing space on public land and became the California Shakespeare Theater. He also made two national tours with the New Shakespeare Company of San Francisco, performing in 24 states.
Peter Fisher was a founding member of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival in 1975 where he acted, directed and designed music for 11 years, and served on the Board of Directors for 27 years as it built an outdoor performing space on public land and became the California Shakespeare Theater. He also made two national tours with the New Shakespeare Company of San Francisco, performing in 24 states.
Ad Astra
Beatrix Gates is a poet, essayist and translator. Her New & Selected Poems will be published by Thera Books in 2023. Her collections include Dos; Lambda finalist In the Open; and Ten Minutes. A film about Close Apart: Poetry by Beatrix Gates and etchings by Tim Seabrook, supported by the Anahata Foundation, opened Blue Hill’s Word. Festival. Close Apart is up at Maine’s Back Light Grafika (https://backlightgrafika.com/events.html). Gates has received fellowships from MacDowell, Maine Arts Commission, Monson Arts, Ucross, and Huntington Library’s Jutzi Non-Traditional Scholar. Finalist for MWPA’s Nonfiction chapbook, her hybrid work appears in Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention, and in Scotland’s MAP magazine, www.mapmagazine.co.uk. Gates shared an NEA, as librettist for The Singing Bridge, with composer Anna Dembska, and Witter Bynner Translation Award with Electa Arenal for Jesús Aguado’s The Poems of Vikram Babu. She has taught at Colby College, Goddard’s MFA, Maine Maritime Academy and NYU and in nontraditional settings. She founded Granite Press (1975-89) where she published Grace Paley’s Leaning Forward and IXOK AMAR.GO: Central American Women Poets for Peace. The University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection houses the Granite Press & hopalong press Book Arts Archive. Poetry Northwest’s Interview details her path to poetry, politics and publishing: https://www.poetrynw.org/interview-not-some-side-trip-a-conversation-with-beatrix-gates/. Gates holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has roots in Hancock, Maine and lives in Brooksville. (www.beatrixgates.org).
Beatrix Gates is a poet, essayist and translator. Her New & Selected Poems will be published by Thera Books in 2023. Her collections include Dos; Lambda finalist In the Open; and Ten Minutes. A film about Close Apart: Poetry by Beatrix Gates and etchings by Tim Seabrook, supported by the Anahata Foundation, opened Blue Hill’s Word. Festival. Close Apart is up at Maine’s Back Light Grafika (https://backlightgrafika.com/events.html). Gates has received fellowships from MacDowell, Maine Arts Commission, Monson Arts, Ucross, and Huntington Library’s Jutzi Non-Traditional Scholar. Finalist for MWPA’s Nonfiction chapbook, her hybrid work appears in Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention, and in Scotland’s MAP magazine, www.mapmagazine.co.uk. Gates shared an NEA, as librettist for The Singing Bridge, with composer Anna Dembska, and Witter Bynner Translation Award with Electa Arenal for Jesús Aguado’s The Poems of Vikram Babu. She has taught at Colby College, Goddard’s MFA, Maine Maritime Academy and NYU and in nontraditional settings. She founded Granite Press (1975-89) where she published Grace Paley’s Leaning Forward and IXOK AMAR.GO: Central American Women Poets for Peace. The University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection houses the Granite Press & hopalong press Book Arts Archive. Poetry Northwest’s Interview details her path to poetry, politics and publishing: https://www.poetrynw.org/interview-not-some-side-trip-a-conversation-with-beatrix-gates/. Gates holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has roots in Hancock, Maine and lives in Brooksville. (www.beatrixgates.org).
Urban Legends
Randolph Petsche is a community historian and retired attorney specializing in New York City landlord-tenant law. A local housing activist in Chelsea, Manhattan, he holds a Master's degree in Public Policy Analysis.
Randolph Petsche is a community historian and retired attorney specializing in New York City landlord-tenant law. A local housing activist in Chelsea, Manhattan, he holds a Master's degree in Public Policy Analysis.
Portfolio
Rob Couteau is a writer and visual artist from Brooklyn whose publications have been praised in the Midwest Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and Evergreen Review. His work has also been cited in Ghetto Images in Twentieth‐Century American Literature by Tyrone Simpson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Thomas Fahy, Conversations with Ray Bradbury edited by Steven Aggelis, and David Cohen’s Forgotten Millions, a book about the homeless. His interviews include conversations with Pulitzer Prize‐winning author Justin Kaplan, Last Exit to Brooklyn novelist Hubert Selby, Simon & Schuster editor Michael Korda, LSD discoverer Albert Hofmann, Picasso’s model Sylvette David, sci‐fi author Ray Bradbury, and historian Philip Willan, author of Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy. In 1985 he won the North American Essay Award, sponsored by the American Humanist Association. He has appeared several times as a guest on Len Osanic’s Black Op Radio and on Monocle 24 in Europe.
In 1954 in Vallauris, France, a beautiful young woman named Sylvette David crossed paths with the century’s greatest artist, Pablo Picasso. She soon became the subject of hundreds of Picasso’s drawings, paintings, and sculptures (one towering thirty‐six‐feet high). Sylvette subsequently devoted her life to painting, and in 2017 she published a memoir, I Was Sylvette, co‐authored with her daughter, the sculptor Isabel Coulton. Sylvette’s latest series of watercolors, commissioned for this book, portray the blind art collector Léon Angély and his precocious child guide, who unwittingly served to inspire one of Picasso’s greatest engravings.
Rob Couteau is a writer and visual artist from Brooklyn whose publications have been praised in the Midwest Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and Evergreen Review. His work has also been cited in Ghetto Images in Twentieth‐Century American Literature by Tyrone Simpson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Thomas Fahy, Conversations with Ray Bradbury edited by Steven Aggelis, and David Cohen’s Forgotten Millions, a book about the homeless. His interviews include conversations with Pulitzer Prize‐winning author Justin Kaplan, Last Exit to Brooklyn novelist Hubert Selby, Simon & Schuster editor Michael Korda, LSD discoverer Albert Hofmann, Picasso’s model Sylvette David, sci‐fi author Ray Bradbury, and historian Philip Willan, author of Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy. In 1985 he won the North American Essay Award, sponsored by the American Humanist Association. He has appeared several times as a guest on Len Osanic’s Black Op Radio and on Monocle 24 in Europe.
In 1954 in Vallauris, France, a beautiful young woman named Sylvette David crossed paths with the century’s greatest artist, Pablo Picasso. She soon became the subject of hundreds of Picasso’s drawings, paintings, and sculptures (one towering thirty‐six‐feet high). Sylvette subsequently devoted her life to painting, and in 2017 she published a memoir, I Was Sylvette, co‐authored with her daughter, the sculptor Isabel Coulton. Sylvette’s latest series of watercolors, commissioned for this book, portray the blind art collector Léon Angély and his precocious child guide, who unwittingly served to inspire one of Picasso’s greatest engravings.
Soundings
Brian Cullman is a writer & musician living in New York and in France. He is also a member of the Lisbon-based group Rua Das Pretas.
Brian Cullman is a writer & musician living in New York and in France. He is also a member of the Lisbon-based group Rua Das Pretas.
Remarkable Reads
Mircea Cărtărescu, poet, novelist, and literary critic was born in 1956 in Bucharest and is now an associate professor in the Department of Romanian Literature at the University of Bucharest. Widely acknowledged as one of his country’s leading men of letters, he is the author of more than twenty books, and his writing has been translated into more than a dozen European languages. Nostalgia, first published in Romania in 1989, marks Cărtărescu’s major debut in English. Its French translation was short-listed in 1992 for the Prix Médicis, the Prix Union Latine, and Le Meilleur Livre Étranger.
Elissa Favero teaches at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and previously worked at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Seattle Art Museum. She writes about art, architecture, landscape, and books, and her art criticism, reviews, and essays have appeared in Art Nerd Seattle, ARCADE Magazine, Temporary Art Review, The Timberline Review, River Teeth Journal's Beautiful Things series, and The Rumpus. She is currently studying creative nonfiction at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency M.F.A. program.
José Angel Araguz, is the author of Rotura (Black Lawrence Press, 2022). His poetry and prose have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poetry International, The Acentos Review, and Oxidant | Engine among other places. He is an Assistant Professor at Suffolk University where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Salamander and is also a faculty member of the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program. He blogs and reviews books at The Friday Influence.
Hoda Bakarat was born in 1952, Barakat lived most of her early life in Beirut before moving to Paris, where she now resides. She has published novels, plays, a book of short stories, and a book of memoirs. Her works are originally written in Arabic and have been translated into English, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Romanian, Dutch, and Greek. Barakat often explores themes of trauma and war; three of her early novels are narrated by male characters living in the margins of society during the Lebanese civil war. She was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2015.
Oleg Gennadyevich Sentsov is a Ukrainian filmmaker, writer, and activist from Crimea. Sentsov has directed the feature films Gamer, Numbers, and Rhino. Our review of his book gives more detail.
Ninso John High is a Zen monk and poet, is the recipient of four Fulbrights and has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (fiction and translation) and a 2020 National Endowment for the Humanities for a translation project of Osip Mandelstam’s Voronezh Notebooks. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and translation— the most recent, vanishing acts, a work of cross-genre writings (Talisman House, 2018). A founder and former director of the LIU, Brooklyn MFA Program, he is currently on pilgrim- age working with children, teachers, social workers, and writers, facilitating workshops in creative transformation in Cambodia, China, and Portugal.
Mark Polizzotti, translator, whose work on Rimbaud's Drunken Boat has been noted in our Summer Reads, is the translator of more than thirty books from the French. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The Nation . He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Ilya Kaminsky is author of Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo, 2004) and co-editor of The Ecco Book of International Poetry (2010) and editor of This Lamentable City: Poems of Polina Barskova (Tupelo, 2010). He teaches at San Diego State University and in the New England College M.F.A. Program. He lives in San Diego, California. He was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977. In 1993, his family received asylum from the American government and came to the United States. Ilya received his BA from Georgetown University and subsequently became the youngest person ever to serve as George Bennet Fellow Writer in Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. Dancing in Odessa is his first full length book. In 2005 alone, Ilya Kaminsky won Whiting Prize, the 2005 Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2005 Foreword Poetry Book of the Year award. Ilya’s homepage is ilyakaminsky.com.
Mark Polizzotti, translator, whose work on Rimbaud's Drunken Boat has been noted in our Summer Reads, is the translator of more than thirty books from the French. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The Nation . He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Ilya Kaminsky is author of Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo, 2004) and co-editor of The Ecco Book of International Poetry (2010) and editor of This Lamentable City: Poems of Polina Barskova (Tupelo, 2010). He teaches at San Diego State University and in the New England College M.F.A. Program. He lives in San Diego, California. He was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977. In 1993, his family received asylum from the American government and came to the United States. Ilya received his BA from Georgetown University and subsequently became the youngest person ever to serve as George Bennet Fellow Writer in Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. Dancing in Odessa is his first full length book. In 2005 alone, Ilya Kaminsky won Whiting Prize, the 2005 Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2005 Foreword Poetry Book of the Year award. Ilya’s homepage is ilyakaminsky.com.
Editors
Bronwyn Mills' books include Beastly’s Tale (a novel) and Night of the Luna Moths (poetry); her education, an MFA from UMass, Amherst, a Ph.D. from NYU. She was mentored by James Tate, Samuel Delany, Kamau Brathwaite, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. An Anais Nin Fellow and Fulbright Fellow (La République du Bénin, West Africa) she has lived in Paris, France, New York City, Istanbul, Turkey; Cotonou, Bénin, and Latin America and taught Caribbean literature, African literature and writing in Istanbul, Bénin, and just outside New York City. Formerly a dance and theatre writer in New England, Bronwyn is a founding co-editor for Witty Partition and a Senior Prose Editor for Tupelo Quarterly. Guest-editor for the Turkish issue of Absinthe; New European Writing (#19), her current projects include By the Spoonmaker's Tomb, a collection of vignettes from her time in Istanbul and the newly finished Canary Club, a novel set in medieval Spain. Most recently, Agni Online has published an excerpt from Spoonmaker. She has also published work on African vodou. More of her work can be found at https://bronwynmills.org/. Bronwyn now lives and writes in a tiny mountain village far, far away.
Eric Darton’s books include Free City, a novel, first published in 1996 by WW. Norton and recently re-released by Dalkey Archive Press, and the New York Times bestseller Divided We Stand: A Biography of The World Trade Center (Basic Books, 1999, 2011). Other of his writings may be found at bookoftheworldcourant.net, ericdarton.net
and tupeloquarterly.com. He co-wrote, co-produced, and appears in the award-winning feature Asphalt, Muscle & Bone, directed by Bill Hayward. Darton teaches literature, writing, urban design and Ba Gua Zhang, a Chinese internal martial art. He leads Writing at the Crossroads, an interdisciplinary prose workshop.
and tupeloquarterly.com. He co-wrote, co-produced, and appears in the award-winning feature Asphalt, Muscle & Bone, directed by Bill Hayward. Darton teaches literature, writing, urban design and Ba Gua Zhang, a Chinese internal martial art. He leads Writing at the Crossroads, an interdisciplinary prose workshop.
Hardy Griffin has a Ph.D. from Boğaziçi University, and has published writing in Fresh.ink, New Flash Fiction, Alimentum, Assisi, The Washington Post, American Letters & Commentary, and a chapter in The Gotham Guide to Writing Fiction (Bloomsbury). His translations can be found in Words Without Borders, The Istanbul Biennial, and for the award-winning EU-sponsored study Armenians, which documents the lives of Armenians living in contemporary Turkey. A selection of his work can be found here. He is the founding editor of the literary magazine Novel Slices, dedicated solely to the publication of novel excerpts of all genres.
Consulting Editors
Dana Delibovi, our Consulting Poetry Editor, is a poet, essayist, and translator from Missouri (USA). Her poetry and essays have recently appeared in After the Art, Bluestem, The Confluence, Linden Avenue, Moria, Noon, Psaltery & Lyre, and Riverside Quarterly. She has published translations in Apple Valley Review, Ezra Translations, Presence, and US Catholic. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee in nonfiction and a 2023 Best of the Net nominee for translation. To learn more, visit danadelibovi.weebly.com/
Jan Schmidt, our Consulting Prose Editor, has had fiction published in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Wall, Tupelo Quarterly, The Long Story, IKON and New York Stories. In Downtown she published a series of oral history interviews with hard-core, risky individuals and their brushes with salvation. Her short story collection Everything I Need and Other New York Stories was a semi-finalist for the Eludia Award from Hidden River Arts, 2021. Her unpublished novel Sunlight Underground was a finalist for the Novel Slices Award, 2021. Till 2015, she held the position of Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Some of her published writing can be seen on her website http://contactprod.com/janschmidt/
Jan Schmidt, our Consulting Prose Editor, has had fiction published in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Wall, Tupelo Quarterly, The Long Story, IKON and New York Stories. In Downtown she published a series of oral history interviews with hard-core, risky individuals and their brushes with salvation. Her short story collection Everything I Need and Other New York Stories was a semi-finalist for the Eludia Award from Hidden River Arts, 2021. Her unpublished novel Sunlight Underground was a finalist for the Novel Slices Award, 2021. Till 2015, she held the position of Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Some of her published writing can be seen on her website http://contactprod.com/janschmidt/
Contributing Editor-at-Large
Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, whose memoir we continue to serialize, is the author of more than a dozen books including biographies of Paul Bowles, e.e. cummings, and a group portrait of American writers in Paris 1944-1960, The Continual Pilgrimage. He has translated the Salvador Dalí's "San Sebastien" essay, work by Eduard Roditti, and books by Paul Eluard, Rafael Alberti, Panaït Istrati, García Lorca as well as the Mayan Books of Chilam Balam. The inaugural issue of Wet Cement Magazine has new work by the author: https://www.wetcementpress.com/
wcpmag. Night Suite, his newest book of poems, will be out later this year from Talisman House. Other work includes, Dix méditations sur quelques mots d’Antonin Artaud, translated by Patricia Pruitt (Paris: Alyscamps, 2018) Remission (Talisman House, 2016) and Mussoorie-Montague Miscellany (Talisman House, 2014) Until retiring he taught writing at MIT for over a quarter-century. He lives in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Many of his books are on Amazon and Bookshop.org.
wcpmag. Night Suite, his newest book of poems, will be out later this year from Talisman House. Other work includes, Dix méditations sur quelques mots d’Antonin Artaud, translated by Patricia Pruitt (Paris: Alyscamps, 2018) Remission (Talisman House, 2016) and Mussoorie-Montague Miscellany (Talisman House, 2014) Until retiring he taught writing at MIT for over a quarter-century. He lives in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Many of his books are on Amazon and Bookshop.org.