Contributor Notes

*BUZZ ALEXANDER is the founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English at the University of Michigan. He is the author of three books, most recently Is William Martinez Not Our Brother? (2010) as well as numerous essays and poems. Among his various awards for his work in championing the creative endeavors of incarcerated adults and youth, he received an honorary membership in 2010 in Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College and was granted the Case Carnegie Foundation National Professor of the Year Award in 2005.

JEFFREY ALFIER won the 2014 Kithara Book Prize for his poetry collection, Idyll for a Vanishing River. His latest publication is Southbound Express to Bay Head, a collection of New Jersey poems. Recent publications include Southern Poetry Review, Hotel Amerika and Cold Mountain Review. He is founder and co-editor of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review.

*ASNIA ASIM’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dialogist, Bayou, Salamander, Spillway, Columbia Review, Quiddity, Digital Americana, Booth Journal, and Southern Humanities Review, among others. She is the recipient of the University of Chicago’s Corbel Scholarship awarded to students of exceptional academic promise, and Brandeis University’s Alan B. Slifka Tuition Award. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology.

ROBB ASTOR grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan in the small village of Pentwater. His childhood was full of forests, fields, dunes, and summers at his grandmother’s farm. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the United Republic of Tanzania. Robb currently lives in Traverse City, Michigan, with his wife and two children. Writing has been a daily habit of Robb’s for over thirty years. His collection of poetry, Bitter Dagaa, was selected for publication by Michigan Writers Cooperative Press in 2014. His poems have also appeared in previous issues of the Dunes Review and the current issue of the Bear River Review.

*JAKE BAUER is an MFA candidate at The Ohio State University, where he is a poetry editor at The Journal. His poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in DIAGRAM and The Bennington Review.

*LAURA BERNSTEIN-MACHLAY is an instructor of literature and creative writing at The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI where she also lives. Her poems and lyric essays have appeared in many journals including The Michigan Quarterly Review, New Madrid, Concho River Review, Oyez, Redivider, Soundings East, upstreet, etc. She has work forthcoming in The American Scholar, Storm Cellar, and The Main Street Rag, and has a full collection of creative nonfiction essays forthcoming from Sonder Press.

*WILLIAM BONFIGLIO received a B.A. from Bucknell University and an M.F.A. from Iowa State University.  His writings have been awarded a Pearl Hogrefe Grant in Creative Writing Recognition Award, the Julia Fonville Smithson Memorial Prize, and have been published or are forthcoming in the Sugar House Review, Blueline, and Main Street Rag, among others.

PATRICIA CLARK is Poet-in-Residence and Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. Author of four volumes of poetry, Patricia’s latest book is Sunday Rising. She has also published two chapbooks, a new one called Wreath for the Red Admiral and another titled Given the Trees. She has recent work in Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Superstition Review, Salamander, and online at The Feminist Wire.

BRIAN CZYZYK is a writer and Cherry Child grown and raised in Traverse City, Michigan. An alumnus of the Front Street Writers program, Brian is currently a senior English Writing student at Northern Michigan University. There, he serves as an editor of the undergraduate literary journal Ore Ink Review, and works as a tutor at NMU’s Writing Center. His poetry has appeared in Portage Magazine, Dunes Review, Sink Hollow, and The Sandy River Review.

JEFF EWING is a writer from Northern California. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Sugar House Review, ZYZZYVA, Willow Springs, Crazyhorse, Arroyo Literary Review, Utne Reader, Catamaran Literary Reader, and the Fall 2015 issue of Dunes Review. You can find him online at jeffewing.com.

*KYLE FLAK’s newest book is actually kind of fun. It is called I AM SORRY FOR EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. It will come out in January 2017 from Gold Wake Press.

*SOPHIA GALIFIANAKIS teaches at the University of Michigan, where she received her MFA in poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Plume, The Greensboro Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and other journals, and she has received scholarships from West Chester Poetry Conference, Poetry by the Sea, and Vermont Studio Center.

PETER GRANDBOIS is the author of seven previous books, the most recent of which is, The Girl on the Swing (Wordcraft of Oregon, 2015). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in over sixty journals, including, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner and Dunes Review, and have been shortlisted for both Best American Essays and the Pushcart Prize. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is senior editor at Boulevard magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio.

After a long career of about thirty years in Chicago as an illustrator working for advertising agencies and studios, [cover artist] *LOU HEISER returned to his earlier passion of oil painting. As an illustrator, Lou worked with and became friends with many illustrators that are currently considered to be some of the best fine artists in the country. Lou and his wife Lynn divide their year between Leelanau County, Michigan and Tucson, Arizona.

My name is STEFEN HOLTREY. I live in Traverse City, and I enjoy everything about that.

*D.R. JAMES is the author of the poetry collection Since Everything Is All I’ve Got (March Street Press 2011) and four chapbooks, including Why War (Finishing Line Press 2014). A fifth chapbook, Split-Level, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (November 2016). Poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry (New Issues 2013). He lives in Saugatuck, Michigan, and has been teaching writing, literature, and peace-making at Hope College for thirty years.

*ALYSSA JEWELL studies poetry at Western Michigan University where she served as assistant editor for New Issues Poetry and Prose and is currently poetry editor for Third Coast. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Earth Review, Chautauqua, Cider Press Review, The Columbia Review, Fifth Wednesday, Grist, Painted Bride Quarterly, Permafrost, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in Grand Rapids.

*KAYLIE ANNE JOHNSON is a poet from Grand Rapids, MI. She graduated from Central Michigan University with a B.A. in English, and is working towards her M.F.A in creative writing at University of Michigan. Kaylie loves nothing more than a summer spent in Michigan, even if she’s working at the mall to make some extra cash, because moving out of your mom’s house someday… is Pure Michigan.

*BECCA LAMARRE is an Indiana native and a graduate of Ball State University. After a stint in the Adirondack foothills of New York, she landed in Chicago where she is at work on her debut poetry collection. Her work has most recently appeared in The Open Bar at Tin House, Red Rock Review, SunStruck Magazine and Driftwood Press.

*MICHAEL LAUGHLAN’s poems have landed in many publications including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Harpur Palate, Sugar House Review, and Poetry Ireland. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave., from WSU Press.

*KATHLEEN MCGOOKEY’s most recent book is Stay (Press 53). Her book Heart in a Jar is forthcoming from White Pine Press in Spring 2017. Her work has appeared in journals including Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West. She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

ALEXANDER PAYNE MORGAN’s poetry has appeared in The MacGuffin and Crack The Spine. He received an honorable mention in the 18th National Poet Hunt Contest in 2013 and first prize in poetry in the Springfed Arts writing contest in 2015. He has attended the Squaw Valley Writers Workshops and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is a member of Detroit Working Writers. He lives near Detroit with his wife and two teenage children.

 

ANNE-MARIE OOMEN is author of Love, Sex and 4-H (Next Generation Indie Award for Memoir), Pulling Down the Barn(Michigan Notable Book); and Uncoded Woman (poetry), among others.  She teaches at Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College (MA), Interlochen’s College of Creative Arts (MI), and at conferences throughout the country.

NICCO PANDOLFI lives in Ann Arbor, MI where he recently moved to pursue a graduate course of study in library science. His poetry and prose have appeared in Dunes Review and Edible Grande Traverse respectively.

*ALICE PETTWAY’S work has appeared in over 30 print and online journals. Her chapbook, Barbed Wire and Bedclothes was published by Spire Press in 2009, and her full-length collection, The Time of Hunger | O  Tempo de Chuva, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Pettway is a former Lily Peter fellow, Raymond L. Barnes Poetry Award winner, and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Currently, she teaches creative writing in Bogotá, Colombia.

*RON REIKKI’s books include U.P.: a novel (nominated for the Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book awarded by the Library of Michigan, Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist, Midwest Book Award finalist, Foreword Book of the Year finalist, and Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist), and Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist). Riekki has three books upcoming with Michigan State University Press and McFarland.

*KEVIN RABAS leads the poetry track at Emporia State University. He has seven books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner.

*SUSAN BLACKWELL RAMSEY arrived in Kalamazoo during the Nixon administration and never really got away again.  Her work has appeared in publications from Best American Poetry 2009 to Poetry Motel, and her book, A Mind Like This, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize.

*DON RUSS is author of Dream Driving (Kennesaw State University Press, 2007) and the chapbooks Adam’s Nap (Billy Goat Press, 2005) and World’s One Heart (The Next Review, 2015). His poem “Girl with Gerbil” was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2012 after it appeared in The Cincinnati Review.

TERESA SCOLLON is the author of To Embroider the Ground with Prayer, from Wayne State University Press, and a chapbook from Michigan Writers Cooperative Press. Scollon is a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient, and alumna and former writer-in-residence at Interlochen Arts Academy. She teaches at Northwestern Michigan College, and is the instructor for the Front St. Writers program at the TBAISD.

*NATALIE SOLMER is a florist at a chain of supermarkets and an adjunct English instructor at Ivy Tech Community College. She received an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and her work has appeared in journals such as Chicago Quarterly Review, The Louisville Review, Willow Springs, Tinderbox, and forthcoming from The Fem. She was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana and now lives with her two sons in Speedway, Indiana, a mile from the famous Indy 500 racetrack.

*PAULA STACEY is a writer and editor who makes her home in Northern California. Her poems and essays have appeared in Mid-American Review and Education Week, among other publications. She is at work on a novel for upper elementary-age students entitled The Gravity Problem.

ANASTASIA K. TOWNSEND, a native of Michigan, has studied at the University of Virginia and the University of Paris.  She has had dramatic works produced on Boston stages and taught language, literature, and translation. She is currently an AP teacher in central Massachusetts, where she is raising three sons.

LISA WAMSLEY is a poet and novelist living in Traverse City.  She loves hearing stories and is inspired by the people she meets on her adventures.

Originally from Michigan, KIRK WESTPHAL is a water planning consultant in Boston.  By night he writes poetry, fiction, memoirs, and music. He has published poems in past issues of Dunes Review, The Road Not Taken, and Albatross and has also read one of his poems on National Public Radio. In 2015, he published his first book, No Ordinary Game, a tribute to great moments in sports that happen to everyday people. He is currently building a cabin in the hills of Western Massachusetts, perched high above a trout stream and looking out over miles of northern forest.

*KEN WHITE is a pastor, poet, and photographer whose artistic projects yoke word and image. His work—whether poem, snapshot, or spoken word—is consistently preoccupied with the interplay between everyday life and the unseen web of emotions, relationships, and spiritual practices that underlie the visible things we know. Working in a poetic tradition that prizes the image for its symbolic capacity, his writing extends this legacy to new images, taking stock of life in the digital age as well as the natural world.