Flashlight Memories Authors

 

Carol Ayer was born in Berkeley, California, where she learned to read at the age of five. She credits her discovery of reading as the impetus for her desire to become a writer when she grew up. Her wish came true. Her essays have been published by The Christian Science Monitor, The Prairie Times, and www.RunnersWorld.com.

Lucile Barker is a Toronto poet, writer and activist. She has Had over 400 poems published in North american magazines. She also Writes reviews and articles in community papers. Since1994, she has been the co-ordinator of the Joy of Writing, a weekly workshop at the Ralph Thornton Centre. Recent publications include Bird’s Eye Review, 350 Poems, and inclusion in October is Dada Month.

Elizabeth Barton has been writing stories for just about as long as she can remember and is currently working on her first novel. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two cats. Her recent accolades include second place in the View House Publishing short fiction contest and placement in the WOW Women on Writing spring (third place) and summer (runner up) flash fiction contests. When she is not writing, Elizabeth is an avid reader and enjoys travel, theater, and wine. She also loves dabbling in, but never mastering, various pursuits including drama, sewing, painting, ceramics, and stained glass work.

Ann Marie Byrd, Ph.D., is a freelance writer and dissertation doctor. Her publications have appeared inamerica in WW II, Literary Mama, Long Story Short, Puffin Circus and numerous other journals and magazines. She is a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee and resides in Jacksonville, Florida, with her husband and son.

Carol Carpenter’s poems and stories have appeared in numerous online and print publications, including:Margie, Snake Nation Review, Neon, Georgetown Review, Caveat Lector, Orbis, and various anthologies, the most recent Not What I Expected (Paycock Press, 2007) and Wild Things (Outrider Press, 2008). Her work has been exhibited by art galleries and produced as podcasts (Connecticut Review and Bound Off). She received the Hart Crane Memorial award, Richard Eberhart Prize for Poetry, the Jean Siegel Pearson Poetry award, artists among Us award and others. Formerly a college writing instructor, journalist and trainer, she now devotes her time to writing in Livonia, Michigan.

Mary Carter currently lives, reads and writes in Shreveport, Louisiana. This is her third appearance in the anthologies of Silver Boomer Books.

Susan Pirie Chiavelli was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, where she attended Lake Forest Park Elementary School (the first grade setting for her poem “Fun with Dick & Jane, 1955”). She currently lives in Santa Barbara, California. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, and her award winning fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Chattahoochee Review, Minnetonka Review, 580 Split, Other Voices, New Millennium Writings, and elsewhere.

Suzanne C. Cole is a retired college instructor, wife, mother, and grandmother. She and her husband have traveled and hiked the world including Iceland, China, Nepal, Panama, Peru, Chile, australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, and Russia. Her essays have been published in Newsweek, the Houston Chronicle, The San antonio Express-News, The Baltimore Sun, Personal Journaling, and Troika as well as many anthologies. She writes in a studio in the woods in the Texas Hill Country. She’s pleased to have had poems published in the Silver Boomer Books anthologies This Path, Freckles to Wrinkles, and the original Silver Boomers.

Annemaria Cooperis a writer from a small rural village in Scotland. Her works have appeared in Menda City Review, Byker Books, and Secret attic. She is passionate in her belief to inspire, encourage, and help writers as a community on Chapterseventynine.com with the motto, “as you learn pass it on.”

Carole Creekmore, a baby boomer who grew up in rural North Carolina, is a widow with two adult children, two lovely granddaughters, and an English bulldog named Okie. With degrees in English from Wake Forest University, she teaches English, Creative Writing, and Humanities, writes poetry and prose, and enjoys traveling, genealogy, and photography.

Tim Damiani lives in Jacksonville, Florida, with his family. By day he works as a geriatric psychiatrist watching old people become young, and by night he watches his young children become older. He is fascinated by the events that lead people to know who they are and by the stories which give them new ways to express that discovery, whether they are aging up or down.

Barbara Darnall, the daughter of a high school English teacher and a West Texas lawyer and rancher, has been surrounded by words all her life and grew up telling stories and writing scripts for her playmates to perform. She graduated from Baylor University with B.A. and M.A. degrees in drama, and taught at the college level for several years. Currently president of abilene Writers Guild, she writes poetry, articles, and personal narratives, and has written and directed numerous short dramas for her church. She has copyedited one book and several manuscripts, and, as a tax consultant for more than thirty years, she particularly enjoys the letter-writing contests she occasionally gets into with the IRS!

Amanda C. Davis lives in central Pennsylvania. She has been a destructive tester, an apple grower, a radio newsreader, and a combustion engineer. Learn more about her at www.AmandaCDavis.com.

Frances Davis’s stories, essays and poems have appeared in Calyx, The Chattahoochee Review, The Vincent Brothers Review, Reed Magazine, Passager, Quercus Review, Re(verb), Memoir and several anthologies and online journals. Her travel writing appears in Italy, a Love Story and Mexico, a Love Story, published by avalon Books. She is a winner of the Lamar York prize for nonfiction and a Pushcart prize nominee. She writes a column for Coastal View News and serves on the editorial board for Community of Voices, a Santa Barbara anthology.

Gail Denham’s essays, news articles, poetry, short stories, and publicity have been published in magazines, newspapers, and books, nationally and internationally (including one poem in Silver Boomer Books’ Freckles to Wrinkles) for over 35 years. Denham’s illustrative photos have appeared in many publications. She leads workshops at Northwest conferences. Denham and her husband have four sons with fourteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her family provides inspiration for her writing. Denham has produced three poetry chapbooks, the latest titled Dancin’ Thru’ Puddles.

Liz Dolan’s first poetry collection, They abide, was published by March Street Press. a five-time Pushcart nominee, Liz won a 2009 fellowship as an established professional from the Delaware Division of the arts. In addition, a yet-to-be-published manuscript, a Secret of Long Life, has been nominated for the Robert McGovern Prize, ashland University. She has also been published in On the Mason Dixon Line: an anthology of Contemporary Delaware Writers. She lives with her husband in Rehoboth Beach. Her nine grandchildren live one block away.

Tammy A. Domeier lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her beloved husband, dog, two fat cats and one skinny cat. She worked briefly as a technical writer and has had so many different jobs and has been on so many job interviews that she would like to compile a book detailing the post-traumatic stress of it all! She continues to read as much as she can and occasionally tries to write as well.

Sharon Hogan Ellison is a native Texan. During years of singing, playing piano and directing church choirs, she has written and directed several Christian plays. She puts her BBa in Management to use as a physician’s office manager, and found another creative outlet by joining abilene Writers Guild. She has won several contests, has been published in Proceedings and Nostalgia magazines, and has a story in Silver Boomer Books anthology, This Path. Sharon and her husband, Sterling, enjoy being Gramma and Grampa while their son and daughter-in-love raise the grandchildren.

Joanne Faries, originally from the Philadelphia area, lives in Texas with her husband Ray. Published inDoorknobs & Bodypaint, Off the Coast, Orange Room Review, and Salome magazine, she also has stories and poems inShine magazine, a Long Story Short, and Bartleby-Snopes, and Freckles to Wrinkles. Joanne is the film critic for the Little Paper of San Saba. Visit her at www.WordSplash-JoanneFaries.Blogspot.com.

Gretchen Fletcher won the Poetry Society of america’s Bright Lights, Big Verse competition and was projected on the Jumbotron as she read her poem in Times Square. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including upstreet, Chattahoochee Review, Inkwell, The Mid-american Poetry Review, and Poetry as Spiritual Practice by Robert McDowell. She leads writing workshops for Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. Her chapbooks, That Severed Cord and The Scent of Oranges: poems from the tropics were both published by Finishing Line Press.

Carol Folsom practices law in Jacksonville, Florida, and writes poetry and prose at night to save her sanity, such as it is. She has a journalism degree and a Master’s in communications as well as her law degree. She was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy for three years, defending and prosecuting courts-martial, and has since practiced maritime law, insurance defense and worker’s compensation law. She loves to travel, especially in Europe, and enjoys playing piano and singing alto in a bad but sincere church choir.

David Galassie is an HR specialist in Columbia, South Carolina, who enjoys movies, TV, music, comic books, history, and animation. a frequent contributor to the retro ’50s/’60s website, Rewind the Fifties, he chronicles many notable musical acts of the1960s, to include obscure bands and one-hit wonders, and the cultural trends he personally lived through in the ’60s and ’70s. His work can be seen at aLongStoryShort.com, associatedContent.com, and Storyhouse.org. He has been published in Good Old Days Specials and Reminisce magazines, and was recently interviewed on BBC radio about his recollections of the syndicated children’s newspaper feature, Cappy Dick.

Lewis Gardner’s poems and plays have been published and performed throughout the U.S. and in several other countries. More than 60 of his poems and light verse pieces have appeared in The New York Times. His play “Pete & Joe at the Dew Drop Inn” appears in Best american Short Plays 2008-2009. He is an editor, publicist, and teacher of writing.

Ginny Greene keeps busy in her pursuit of the written word, but even her leisure time is a busman’s holiday of reading. Blue penciling her way through life, Ginny has written newsletters and written for newspapers, served terms in abilene Writers Guild as President and newsletter editor, and most recently became a founding partner in the homegrown abilene publishing company, Silver Boomer Books. She loves seeing her love of books and language taking root in three more generations of her family tree. Ginny’s book Song of County Roads was joyfully flung to the world in 2009.

Becky Haigler is an Editor/Partner in Silver Boomer Books. Her poetry has appeared in national and regional publications and her short stories have been published by several denominational presses. Becky’s collection of short stories, not so GRIMM: gentle fables and cautionary tales, was published by Laughing Cactus Press. a past president of Shreveport Writers Club and member of the artists roster of the Shreveport Regional arts Council, Becky currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri, farther than she would like to be from children and grandchildren in Texas, where she taught junior high and high school Spanish for 24 years.

Cathy C. Hall loved reading children’s stories so much that now she writes her own. She’s currently working on a humorous, young adult paranormal mystery (which may include more genres, if she can fit them in). Cathy also writes true-life stories, poetry, plays, essays and songs, as well as somewhat serious articles and interviews. She lives in Georgia with her dog, the Beneficent Mr. Hall, and an occasional grown kid or two. For more about Cathy, check out her website, www.Cathy-C-Hall.com.

Dixon Hearne teaches and writes in Southern California. His work has been twice nominated for the Push cart Prize, and his new book, Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South, was nominated for a 2010 PEN award. Other short fiction appears in Post Road, Cream City Review, Wisconsin Review, Louisiana Literature, and several inspirational books from adams Media. He is currently at work on a novel and another short story collection.

Holly Helscher has been freelance writing for several years. Her credits include stories in Desert Dog Newsand Girlfriend 2 Girlfriend. She recently was runner up in a flash prose contest for Women on Writing. Holly is the Vice President for academic Operations for Brown Mackie Colleges and has a doctorate in metaphysics as well as a master’s degree in community counseling. Her bachelor’s degree is in English literature which she claims was really more of an avocation since her love of reading is so strong. Holly is currently working on a mystery set in her hometown of Loveland, Ohio.

Deb Hill currently lives in hills of Tennessee with her husband Mike and five of their seven children. She has adopted five, birthed two, and fostered many children and is grandmother to five. She truly enjoys reading and writing simple verse.

Patricia Hopper is a native of Dublin, Ireland, and lives in West Virginia. She earned an B.a. and M.a. from WVU. She received honors from WVU such as the Waitman Barbe Creative Writing award and the Virginia Butts Sturm award. She has received numerous awards from the West Virginia Writers competitions ranging from second place to honorable mention. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published in magazines, reviews, and anthologies.

Anna G. Joujan was born in South Dakota, as a Canadian citizen, and was raised in Zambia, the child of missionary teachers. Since her family’s move to the U.S., anna spent her childhood and early adulthood traveling throughout the world, thanks to various educational and work opportunities. France, China, Peru, and Jamaica were some of the stops in her journeys. Her undergraduate degree in French Literature led to a Masters in Information Sciences, and to work as a college and high school librarian, and a cross country coach. She has also returned to Zambia multiple times to teach for individual families and for local schools, while continuing to pursue her passions of writing, artwork, photograph – and running to a fault.

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, originally from Columbus, Ohio, is in her first year as a Ph.D. student in creative writing at Florida State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Review americana, The Laurel Review, and Earth’s Daughters. The poems of her not-so-secret alter ego, Cafey Nated, have appeared in asinine Poetry: The Journal of asinine Poetry.

Mary Potter Kenyon lives in Manchester, Iowa, with her husband David, four of their eight children, and shelves full of books. She has been published in magazines such as Home Education, The Sun, The Writer and in the anthologies Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul, Voices of Caregiving, Women Reinvented and Love is a Flame. Mary blogs at MaryPotterKenyon.wordpress.com.

Nancy Julien Kopp draws from her growing-up years in Chicago and many more in the Flint Hills of Kansas for essays, stories, poems, and articles. Her work is in eleven Chicken Soup for the Soul books, three Guideposts anthologies, and other anthologies, magazines, newspapers, and ezines. a former teacher, she still enjoys teaching through the written word. Read Nancy’s blog at WriterGrannysWorld. blogspot.com.

Madeleine Kuderick is an author and poet. Her work appears in Chicken Soup, Cup of Comfort, Hallmark Gift Books and similar anthologies. She has a special interest in writing for reluctant readers and the teachers who touch their lives. She’s been invited to speak at conferences hosted by the International Reading association and the Council on Learning Disabilities. Madeleine holds a Master’s degree from Saint Leo University. She is a member of SCBWI and a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. More information is available at her website: www.MadeleineKuderick.com.

Marjorie Light is a writer and National Board Certified English teacher. By day, she introduces 7th graders to the joys of reading and writing; by night, she taps away on her laptop in the “writing cave.” She writes for both mid-grades and young adults, which includes historical fiction and modern realism. Marjorie was an air Force brat; her meteorologist father kept them moving frequently. Her mother’s work as an aide inspired one of her novels. When she grows up, she would like to be a skateboarder and graffiti artist. For now, she is content to meddle in her two college-aged children’s lives.

Penny MacPherson, a Florida resident, holds both a B.a. from Wells College (aurora, New York) and a Master’s of Teaching degree from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville.) She has offered poetry workshops at various elementary schools. MacPherson conducts women’s healing through writing workshops, spiritual writing intensives, and community poetry readings. She has authored six books of poetry. Her work has appeared in such publications as Just another Writing Magazine, Beginnings: a Magazine for Emerging Writers, access, Expressions, The Glens Falls Post Star, Discovery: the John Milton Magazine, and Muscadine Lines: a Southern Journal.

Keri Mathews lives with her family, human and canine, on 25 acres in the mountains of West Virginia. She is a novelist, an animal activist, and a devout fan of comedy. She attended Binghamton University, she has been published in The Fear of Monkeys, and she hopes to change the world, or at least a small part of it, through her writing.

Anthony J. Mohr writes from his home in southern California. His essays, memoirs, and short stories have appeared in or are upcoming in Bibliophilos; Chicken Soup for the Soul – True Love; The Christian Science Monitor; Currents; The Kit-Kat Review; The LBJ: avian Life, Literary arts; Literary House Review; Oracle; Skyline Magazine; Word Riot; and ZYZZYVa. He has appeared in Freckles to Wrinkles and This Path. Since he is a recovering lawyer, he also has been published in several bar journals and law reviews. His hobbies include hiking, travel, horseback riding, reading, and improv theater.

Sharon Fish Mooney, a native upstate New Yorker, teaches nursing research and gerontology online (Ph.D., University of Rochester). Her most recent book is alzheimer’s – Caring for Your Loved One, Caring for Yourself, targeted for a UK audience (Lion Hudson, England). One of her poems on alzheimer’s is featured on the Ohio Poetry association (OPa) website. She coordinates monthly poetry and music nights at Tim Hortons for the Write-On Writers of Coshocton, Ohio. Sharon and her husband Scott spend weekends blazing trails in the woods for a future home and writing/poetry retreat center.

Beth Stefanik Morrissey followed her love of literature to a position as a school librarian before becoming a full time freelance writer. Her work has appeared in a variety of online and print publications including Self, Girls’ Life and The Writer magazines as well as anthologies like Chicken Soup for the Soul Getting Into College and My First Year In the Classroom. Visit Beth online at www.BethIsWriting.com.

Jason Mullin earned his M.F.a. in fiction from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine arts Consortium. His prose has appeared in various small literary journals, and a production of an original play debuted at Cleveland Public Theatre in 2008. Currently, he is the Liberal arts Program Director at Bryant and Stratton College in Parma, Ohio. He reads and writes as often his lovely wife, his teenage son, his infant son, and his two dogs allow.

Theresa Nelson has a Master of Fine arts in creative writing. She taught English and literature classes at Edmonds Community College for five years. She has had over 40 poems and prose pieces published. Her favorite pastime is curling up with a warm blanket and a good book.

Robbi Nester teaches writing (what else?) at Irvine Valley College in Irvine, California. She has published poems most recently in Floyd County Moonshine, Qarrtsiluni and Caesura, and completed Balance, a series of 15 yoga sonnets. an essay appears in the upcoming anthology Bless Your Heart. She is currently shopping around a full manuscript of poems, a Likely Story. These and other things appear on her blog, Shadow Knows, at Robbi-ShadowKnows.blogspot.com.

Dionne Obeso specializes in freelance magazine writing, and has written on just about every possible topic. She lives in California with her husband and son, but would move to London in a heartbeat. She spends her spare time playing with yarn or studying circus arts, and hopes to perform. You can learn more about her at DionneObeso.com.

Linda O’Connell is an award-winning writer and poet whose work appears in numerous anthologies, periodicals, literary magazines, books and newspapers. Linda is a teacher, wife, mother, grand- mother who believes literacy is the greatest gift we can give our children. Read Linda O’Connell’s blog, Write from the Heart (LindaOConnell. blogspot.com).

Dale Ogren, a native Texan and former resident of abilene, now lives in northern Minnesota with her husband and love of her life, al Ogren. They travel, enjoy their home and garden in Buhl and time at their cabin on Mirror Lake, where they hike, fish, and cross country ski. Dale’s published writings include poems, a cookbook, a series of daily inspirational messages for a commercial web site, a short story and articles for Christian Woman magazine. Her picture book was accepted by Raven Productions for publication in 2012.

Carl Palmer, nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry and the Micro award in flash fiction, was formerly of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, Virginia. He now lives in University Place, Washington.

Donna Alice Patton lives in rural Ohio. a freelance writer, she maintains a children’s page for several Ohio newspapers and works for an online educational supplement provider. Donna’s first two books for children appeared in 2010:Search for the Madonna by Behold Publications and The Gift of Summer Snow by Philothea Press.

James Penha, a native New Yorker, has lived for the past seventeen years in Indonesia. a collection of his adaptations of classic Indonesian folk tales has won the Cervena Barva Press fiction chapbook contest. No Bones to Carry, the latest volume of Penha’s poetry, is available from New Sins Press at www.NewSinsPress.com. Penha edits a website for current-events poetry at www.NewVerseNews.com.

Marian M. Poe writes less like a boomer and more like a silver boo merang. a published writer since she was the young wife of an air Force officer, she continues returning to stories and poems. She also takes time for grandchildren, walks in the neighborhood and playing Boggle. Her most recent story appeared in the Summer 2008 journal published by THEMa Literary Society of Metairie, Louisiana. One of her haiku appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of Modern Haiku.

Carol Mcadoo Rehme most prizes of all her childhood memorabilia her first library card with its hand-stamped due dates, gold star stickers, and achievement buttons. More than five decades later, she still has a passion for print. Carol’s 25-year career of freelancing includes ghostwriting, editing, and compiling anthologies; her award-winning vignettes appear widely in inspirational collections. Carol’s publications include The Book of Christmas Virtues, five gift books, and her latest release, Chicken Soup for the Empty Nester’s Soul: 101 Stories about Surviving and Thriving When the Kids Leave Home. Learn more at www.Rehme.com.

Alyssa Riley is the daughter of two boomers, and it has influenced her writing ever since she picked up the pen in grade school. Raised in Massachusetts, she moved to Philadelphia to pursue her Bachelor’s in English. She has been published in a few college magazines around Philly, where she is also active in the slam poetry scene.

Kerin Riley-Bishop cut her teeth in the publishing world with Silver Boomer Books as a general partner, editor, and contributing author. She is a poet, essayist, photographer and blogger. Her writing can be found in the Silver Boomer Books anthologies: Silver Boomers – a collection of prose and poetry by and about baby boomers, Freckles to Wrinkles, This Path, From the Porch Swing – memories of our grandparents and her first collection of poetry, Three Thousand Doors, published by Laughing Cactus Press. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Learn more about Kerin at KarenEGreene.com.

Philippa Roberts is a professional writer from the UK who has published ebooks, short stories, poetry, reviews and journalism, at intervals, over a period of about twenty years. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, from children’s magazines, Horizon and aquila, to Cadenza and Quality Women’s Fiction. It has also appeared in a number of anthologies, including children’s poetry from Oxford University Press. Philippa edited print editions of Winter Jasmine, The Golden Glory has Fled and a Wartime Poetry Journal – books of poetry by her grandmother, Effie M. Roberts – for her own publishing company, Fractal Publishing.

Robert B. Robeson was commander and operations officer during his tour with the 236th Medical Detachment (Helicopter ambulance) in Da Nang, Viet Nam, and also commanded the 63rd Medical Detachment (Helicopter ambulance) in Landstuhl, West Germany. He earned 35 medals in combat and has been decorated for valor eight times, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two air Medals with “V.” Robeson has been published over 725 times in 250 publications in 130 countries, including the Reader’s Digest. He’s also a professional (life) member of the National Writers association and the Military Writers Society of america.

Barbara B. Rollins has been a teacher, Christian educator, legal secretary, lawyer, and judge. Finally, she’s a has-been-each-of-those and a fulltime author, editor, and publisher. Her books include a Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes from Eagle Wings Press imprint of Silver Boomer Books, to be followed in 2011 by a Crowd of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OaStepper, author of Slender Steps to Sanity – Twelve-Step Notes of Hope. Earlier books include a set of forensic books for children and her young adult novel, Syncopated Summer. Barbara’s name appears on some books, and she claims all Silver Boomer Books as her own, having given birth to them on her computer. She’s not a has-been wife and mother, and hopes soon to spoil twin grandsons.

Helen Ruggieri is a lifelong reader and supporter of librar­ies. She has published prose recently in The Scream, Lost, The Heartlands, SimplyHaiku.com, and FragLit.com. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Minnesota Review, Labor, and elsewhere. See HelenRuggieri.com.

Bobbye Samson is a West Texas judge who vents by spilling out poems and essays. Her work appeared inSilver Boomers, a collection of prose and poetry by and about baby boomers.

Kate Powell Shine has studied creative writing at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She is currently studying gerontology in the Human Sciences graduate program at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. Her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, FuseLit, Clearfield Review, and Poems against War.

Betty Thomason’s writing has been published in Frontier Times, Confederate Veteran Magazine, Good Old Days, Small Town Texas, and short pieces in Parents, Lady’s Circle, alaska, and Mature Living. She sold thirty devotionals toIam3rd.com. along with nine other contestants, she won honorable mention in alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s, “Mysterious Photo Contest” in 1994. Betty loves old windmills and her article, “Windmills Helped Settle the West,” appears on The american Windmill Co. website. Betty is a retired RN and lives with her husband, Keith, in West Texas. Besides writing, she paints with acrylics, draws cartoons, and plays canasta.

Tammy Tillotson lives in Chase City, Virginia, with her husband and two small tireless boys, with whom she shares her never-ending love of reading. She earned her Master of arts in Liberal Studies from Hollins University and her award-winning poetry appears and is forthcoming online and in several anthologies.

Tim Tomlinson was raised on Long Island, New York, where books other than My First Catechism and the Cub Scout Handbooks were looked on with suspicion. Listening to songs, in particular Bob Dylan’s, and reading about groups, in particular The Beatles and the Grateful Dead, led him to novels and poems and histories ignored by the reading lists of his public school classes. That reading begat other reading, begat still other reading, which led to the rest – a tragedy with a happy ending.

Dale Myra Tushman’s writing started with notes to Santa, semi-maturing into first lines and phrase bites on the inside of match books, finally arriving at bound book and small screen. Her poetry took on a life of its own in the last two years; all prior pieces have been prose. Ms. Tushman is very excited about the way this new work has been received. a transplanted New Englander, a psychotherapist, living in a piece of the very Deep South which dearly loves its crazy people, she notes she is hardly noticed among the bougainvilleas and Spanish moss.

Anne Valente’s work appears in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Unsaid, Hobart and The Washington Post, among others. Her writing has also appeared in Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010 anthology and in Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood (WestSide Press, 2011). She lives and teaches in Ohio.

Stephanie Vanderslice is an author and creative writing teacher at the University of Central arkansas. She has published fiction and nonfiction in anthologies such as Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in their 40’s andMothers in all But Name and many others. In addition, she is passionate about improving the teaching of creative writing in higher education and has authored and/or edited several books and articles on the subject. She also blogs about the writing, reading and teaching life, www.Wordamour.wordpress.com. She lives in Conway, arkansas, with her husband and two sons.

Wendy Vardaman, www.WendyVardaman.com, has a Ph.D. in English from University of Pennsylvania. Co-editor of the poetry journal Verse Wisconsin, www.VerseWisconsin.org, her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared inPoetry Daily; Breathe: 101 Contem­porary Odes; Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory; Letters to the World; Poet Lore; qarrtsiluni; Mezzo Cammin; Nerve Cowboy; Free Verse; Wisconsin People & Ideas; Women’s Review of Books; Rain Taxi Review; Rattle and Portland Review, among others. She is the author of Obstructed View (Fireweed Press 2009), works for a chil­dren’s theater, The Young Shakespeare Players, and does not own a car.

Donna Duly Volkenannt got her first byline in high school as a reporter for Prom, a St. Louis-based magazine for teens. also while in high school, classmates encouraged Donna to become a go-go dancer. Instead of buying go-go boots, she got a job as a steno­grapher while attending college at night. She is a retired DOD management analyst and a writer who reviews books for Book Reporter. When not spending time with her husband and grandchildren, scrambling to meet deadlines, and wondering if she would’ve made it as a go-go dancer, Donna blogs about writing onDonnasBookPub.blogspot.com.

Phylis Warady is the author of six historical novels set in Regency England. In addition, her award-winning short stories, essays and light verse are regularly featured in magazines, literary journals and anthologies published in the USa and Canada. Her most recent credit is her short story titled “all the Way to Heaven” published in the 2009 Oasis Journal by Imago Press.

Suellen Wedmore, Poet Laureate emerita for the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts, has twice been published by Silver Boomer Books (“all I Knew about Marriage” in Silver Boomers and “Chemical Warfare” in Freckles to Wrinkles.) She has been widely published and recently had two poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her chapbookDeployed was winner of the Grayson Books annual contest and her chapbook On Marriage and Other Parallel Universes was recently published by Finishing Line Press. She has been awarded first prize in the Writer’s Digest Rhyming Poem Contest, was an International winner in the atlanta Review annual contest, and was a winner in the 2009 New Millenium Obama Contest.

Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, published in many journals and Internet magazines, including HazMat Review, Edgz, Rattlesnake Review, Ibbetson Street and Wicked alice. She has a special interest in healing writing, leads a cancer center writing group, and has work in several anthologies on related subjects. She writes for the review department of the new journal, Recovering the Self: a journal of hope and healing. Poetry chapbooks include Don’t Turn away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

Laura Madeline Wiseman is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Feminist Studies, MaRGIE, arts & Letters, and elsewhere. She is the author of two forthcoming chapbooks My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press) and Ghost Girl (Pudding House).

Jenna Stoker Wright is a faculty member in the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Tennessee at Martin where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writings have appeared in several journals, including Calliope, and the workbook text Poetry analysis: Understanding and Critiquing Poetry. additionally, she has received honors in both nonfiction and national poetry contests.

B.J. Yudelson has written countless newsletters, solicita­tion letters, and annual reports for nonprofit agencies in Rochester, New York. Now retired, she writes memoir, yearns for warm weather when she can read on the backyard hammock, volunteers to help inner-city students improve their reading abilities, and visits nine book-loving grandchildren on two coasts. The picture shows the author reading to three grandchildren.