CONTRIBUTORS

Poetry

Celia Bland lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and three children. Her collection of poetry, Soft Box, will be published by CavanKerry Press in 2003. She teaches at Bard College where she is the Director of College Writing.
On writers: "Recently, I've read four volumes of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped and Treasure Island, and I devoured Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall (which could be considered a cynical continuation of boy's adventure stories, except that the adventures are tawdry and the boy jaundiced and cynical). I'm fascinated by Sherlock Holmes' and Jim Hawkins' and David Balfour's codes of honor, their moral decision-making, and the stress of extraordinary events on their weaknesses and strengths."

Kathleen Aguero is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Real Weather (Hanging Loose Press) and Thirsty Day (Alice James Books), and co-editor of three collections of multi-cultural literature: A Gift of Tongues, An Ear to the Ground, and Daily Fare (University of Georgia Press). Her new manuscript, Sister/Legend, has been a finalist for the T.S. Eliot Award, the May Swenson Poetry Award, the Salmon Run Press National Poetry Book Award, the New Issues Press Green Rose Series, and the William Blake Prize, among others. She is an Associate Professor of English at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Helen Ruggieri has a book of haibun, The Character for Woman, available from Foot Hills Publications at fhp@infoblvd.net and a poetry chapbook, Glimmer Girls, from Mayapple Press (kerman@svsu.edu).
On writers: "Lately I've discovered the Japanese poet from the 18th century, Chiyo-ni. Here's one of her haiku: 'I sleep. I wake./how wide the bed/with no one beside you.'"

Martin Walls' collection of poems, Small Human Detail in Care of National Trust, was published in 2000 by New Issues Press. New poems are forthcoming from the Beloit Poetry Journal, Center, and Green Mountains Review, and his work also has appeared in The Nation, The Ohio Review, The Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, Five Points, and elsewhere. Born in Brighton, England, Walls now lives in Solvay, New York with his wife, Christine, and baby son Alexander.
On writers: "I keep habitually a stack of books next to my computer while I am composing and revising poems. Currently appearing in that stack are: César Vallejo's The Black Heralds; Robert Bly's book of translations of European/South American surrealists called Leaping Poetry; A Crack in the Wall, a compilation of new Arabic poetry; Osip Mandelstamm's Selected Poems; Fernando Pessoa's Selected Poems; Summons by Deborah Tall; and the wild and wonderful, A Defense of Poetry by Gabe Gudding."

Ann Keniston's poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Antioch Review, North American Review, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of American Poetry at University of Nevada-Reno, and is completing both a collection of poems, Matter and Spirit, and a study of contemporary American poetry, Overheard Voices: Address and Subjectivity in Postmodern American Lyric.
On writers: "The poet I've been recently reading most attentively for help with my own writing is Forrest Gander. I admire the leaps of his poems and the ecstasy of his language."

Radames Ortiz is the author of a chapbook of poems entitled, Between Angels & Monsters. He lives in Houston, Texas, where he is Marketing Associate for Arte Publico Press.
On writers:"Writers who are important to me: Charles Simic, Yusef Komunyakaa, Pattian Rogers, Vicente Huidobro, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Clarice Lispector, Grace Paley, and the enchanting Albert Camus."

Chris Anderson is a Professor of English at Oregon State University and author or coauthor of nine books, including Edge Effects: Notes From An Oregon Forest (Iowa, 1993), a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction. His poems have appeared in a number of places and his book of poems, My Problem with the Truth, was published by Bedbug Press, a new small press in Calgary, Canada. Chris is a Catholic Deacon and active in parish and campus ministry.
On writers: "I've been reading a lot of William Stafford, especially Oregon Message, and Mary Oliver, especially House of Light. I'm always reading them. I'm also really warming to Billy Collins lately--really liking him--as well as reading some local poets, friends and colleagues, people publishing little books on their own, especially Charles Goodrich and Michael Spring. And I'm a big fan of Peter Sears's new book, Brink."

John Hildebidle is a member of the Literature Faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaching American and Irish literature and poetry of all sorts. In 1994-95, he lived in Ireland as a Fulbright Scholar. John has written studies on Thoreau and on Irish fiction writers. He has also written a collection of fiction and three volumes of poetry--the newest of which, Defining Absence, is available on-line from salmonpoetry.com. A fourth collection of poetry is due in 2004.
On writers: "Always Heaney and Eavan Boland. Always scouring anthologies, especially on the Red Line (the Boston subway), to battle the tide of Ludlum/Grisham. Milosz is a recent encounter, as is Billy Collins."

Jacquelyn Pope is a writer and translator whose poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Partisan Review, Gulf Coast, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The New Republic.
On writers: "I tend to read a lot of writers in translation. Adam Zagajewski, Yehuda Amichai, and Dan Pagis are three writers whose work I regularly come back to, and I'm very thankful to their fine translators. I've also been reading Lorine Niedecker, lately, in the wonderful edition of her collected poems edited by Jenny Penberthy."

Helena Minton is the author of two books of poetry, Personal Effects (with Robin Becker and Marilyn Zuckerman) and The Canal Bed, both from Alice James Books. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Sou'wester, The Larcom Review, The Women's Review of Books, The Acre, and the online Bridge Review, Merrimack Valley Culture. She has also published a book review in www.frigatezine.com. She is on the board of the Robert Frost Foundation in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and works as a librarian.
On writers: "Carl Dennis' Practical Gods is a powerful, melancholy book. I hadn't heard of Kimiko Hahn until recently and I was happy to discover her poetry for its directness and deceptively casual style. I admire Jonathan Franzen's book of essays, How to Be Alone, for its provocative ideas; he is an unflinching observer."

Christina Pugh's chapbook, Gardening at Dusk, was published by Wells College Press in 2002. She has received Poetry magazine's Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, the Grolier Poetry Prize, the Associated Writing Programs' INTRO Award in Poetry, and a Whiting Fellowship for the Humanities. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was recently chosen for Poetry 180, a website sponsored by the Library of Congress. Her poems have recently appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harvard Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Poetry Daily. Other poems are forthcoming in Columbia and Third Coast. Her critical articles have appeared in Verse and Boston Review, and will also appear in Interrogating Images, edited by Stephen Barker (Northwestern University Press, forthcoming) and Herspace: Women Writing from a Space of Solitude, edited by Jo Malin and Victoria Boynton (Haworth Press, 2003). She is currently visiting assistant professor of English at Northwestern University.
On writers: "Recently I've been reading C.D. Wright's Deepstep Come Shining, August Kleinzahler's Green Sees Things in Waves, Ellen Voigt's Shadow of Heaven, and Elaine Scarry's Dreaming by the Book."

Steven Ratiner has recently published two poetry chapbooks: a retrospective collection in the Pudding House Press Greatest Hits series, and Button, Button, an artist's book in collaboration with Marty Cain. He has also published Giving Their Words: Conversations with Contemporary Poets (University of Massachusetts Press).

James R. Whitley lives in Boston, Massachusetts. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been published in numerous literary journals, including Coal City Review, The Paumanok Review, Peregrine, Poetry Midwest, and Xavier Review. His first book, Immersion, was selected by Lucille Clifton as the winner of the 2001 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. He is also the author of two poetry chapbooks: Pietà (Pudding House Publications, 2001) and The Golden Web (Wind River Press, 2003).
On writers: "I've been reading a lot of poetry from newer writers who have published only one or two collections. Some of my favorites include Natasha Tretheway, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Peggy Ann Tartt, Nick Flynn, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Bryan Dietrich and others. It thrills me to know that there is so much risk-taking and innovation happening in poetry."

Fiction

Laurence Davies was born in Llanwrtyd, Wales, and now lives in Pompanoosuc, Vermont. He is putting together a collection of his microfictions and finishing The Cup of the Dead, a novel about sin-eating. Some of his fiction has appeared in New England Review, StoryQuarterly, The Diagram, and Ghost Writing, and more will soon appear in Natural Bridge.
On writers: "I've been going back to some of my favorite microfictions: Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, Jim Crace's The Devil's Larder, Kafka's half-pagers (such as 'Prometheus'), and the brilliant short-shorts of Luisa Valenzuela."

Cover Art

Cover image by Eric Sealine. From 1972-1981, Eric was a nationally recognized glass artist with numerous shows throughout the United States and Europe. Since the early 80s, his focus has changed to 3-dimensional constructions and paintings. His work is included in a number of collections, including the Delaware Museum of Art (Wilmington, Delaware), Iowa State University, and the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art (Loretto, Pennsylvania). His work can also be seen at the Chase Gallery, 129 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts.



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