Contributors Spring 2017

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Mary Akers

B. Chelsea Adams (Near Home) received her MA from Hollins College in Creative Writing and English. Chapbooks of her poems have been published: Looking for a Landing by Sow’s Ear Press in 2000, Java Poems celebrating her addiction to coffee in 2007, and At Last Light by Finishing Line Press in 2012. Her stories and poems also have been published in numerous journals, including Poet Lore, Potato Eyes, Albany Review, Southwestern Review, California State Poetry Quarterly, Clinch Mountain Review, Union Street Review, Wind, Lucid Stone, Rhino, and the Alms House Press Sampler. She taught at Radford University for over 23 years.

Heather Adams (When We Could See But Did Not Know) Winner of the 2016 James Still Fiction Prize, Adams has published short fiction in The Thomas Wolfe Review, Clapboard House, Deep South Magazine, Broad River Review, and elsewhere. This story is based on her first novel, Maranatha Road, which is forthcoming this fall from West Virginia University Press.

Karin Aurino (The Magic Cure) is an American writer of essays, short fiction, and a first novel, which draws on her former career as a fashion model. She worked in the entertainment industry for ICM, Paragon Ent., and was a Longform and Series Television Producer with Alexander/Enright. She is the recipient of residencies at Hedgebrook and Bread Loaf, and her fiction has received recognition from Glimmer Train. She is a member of The Woolf Pack, founded by the Humanitas Prize Foundation—empowering and nurturing writers. Karin lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Roy Bentley (One of These Days! To the Moon, Alice!) was born in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of four books and several chapbooks. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Blackbird, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, North American Review and elsewhere—recently, in the anthologies New Poetry from the Midwest and Every River on Earth. He has received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the NEA (in poetry), as well as fellowships from the arts councils of Ohio and Florida. These days, he makes his home in Pataskala, Ohio.

Penelope Breen (Illustrator) is a photographer who always wanted to be a filmmaker. At the age of fifteen she saw The Manchurian Candidate and was forever changed. Films became something more: compositions, tones of black and white, and thematic purpose. At the time, she couldn’t articulate those early observations, but eventually did. Photography provided a way to see the world cinematically. She has been photographing for the last thirty years, primarily in black and white.

Joseph Chelius (Old Man) is employed as director of editorial services for a healthcare communications company in the Philadelphia suburbs. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Commonweal, Poetry East, Rattle, Poet Lore, and the American Journal of Poetry. His full-length collection, The Art of Acquiescence, was published by WordTech Communications in 2014.

Susan Cole (Harbor Lights) recently completed a memoir about a three-year sailing voyage she took with her husband and daughter from Connecticut to the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. Essays about her family’s sailing adventure have appeared in Daily Palette, Mary, and Living Aboard. She has attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival every year since 2007. In between sails, she earned a B.A. from Barnard College, an M.A in Psychology from Columbia University. She currently lives in New Orleans, enjoying a new land-bound adventure.

Jackie Craven (White Lightning) won the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Award for Our Lives Became Unmanageable, a chapbook of fanciful tales that explore themes of compulsion and recovery. Her poems appear in many journals, most recently in Nimrod, River Styx, Salamander, and Water~Stone Review. Visit her at www.JackieCraven.com.

Timothy Eberle (A Rose Named Gary) is a New York based writer and comedian, like everybody else who lives in Brooklyn. His writing and performances have appeared in McSweeney’s, Splitsider, the Santa Fe Literary Review, Jewish Life Television, Jewlicious.com, Heeb Magazine, and the Madcap Review, among other credits. Most recently he was seen performing at The Peoples Improv Theater in “I Am Not a Man” (a sad show which he wrote alone), and in the review “Sad Men and the People Who Love Them.”

Kyle Laws’ (Into the Fire) collections include This Town with Jared Smith (Liquid Light Press, 2017); So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press, 2015); Wildwood (Lummox Press, 2014); My Visions Are As Real As Your Movies, Joan of Arc Says to Rudolph Valentino (Dancing Girl Press, 2013); and George Sand’s Haiti (co-winner of Poetry West’s 2012 award). With six nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. www.kylelaws.com

Beverly Lucey (Pest Control Methods) has had work appear in Zoetrope All Story Extra, Vestal Review, Absinthe Revival, and Feathered Flounder. She was the winner of the Fiction Contest for Estonian Public Broadcasting (2013) Print anthology: Friend. Follow. Text. #storiesFromLivingOnline (fall 2013 release) “Voice Mail for the Living” in the anthology Up, Do Flash Fiction by Women Writers, (spring 2014). Landmarks: 2015 National Flash-Fiction Day Anthology (UK)

Sheryl Monks (Robbing Pillars) is the author of Monsters in Appalachia, published by Vandalia Press, an imprint of West Virginia University Press. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Sheryl’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Butter, The Greensboro Review, storySouth, Regarding Arts and Letters, Night Train, and other journals, and in the anthologies Surreal South: Ghosts and Monsters and Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary West Virginia Fiction and Poetry, among others. She works for a peer-reviewed medical journal and edits the online literary magazine Change Seven. Visit her online at www.sherylmonks.com.

Kristen Scarlett (Sensory Memory) is a writer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her work has appeared in Cape Fear Living Magazine, East End Elements, and other journals. She received second place in the SCCC Creative Writing Award for College Writers in 2015. Her hobbies include fancy teas, existential crises, and musing with her cat, King Charles.

Leland Seese’s (Hunting) poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Nassau Review, The East Bay Review, and many other journals. He lives in Seattle, where he and his wife are foster-adoptive-biological parents of six children. Much of his work as a pastor involves work with homeless and immigrant communities.

Ron Tanner’s (BOOM!) awards for writing include a Faulkner Society gold medal, a Pushcart Prize, a New Letters Award, a Best of the Web Award, a Maryland Arts Council grant, and many others. He is the author of four books, most recently Missile Paradise, a novel. He teaches writing at Loyola University-Maryland and directs the Marshall Islands Story Project.

A.E. Weisberger’s (Controlled Delivery) work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize. Recent fiction appearing in SmokeLong Quarterly, Structo Magazine, The Collapsar, FLAPPERHOUSE, and Gravel. Recent non-fiction in The Alaska Star, Alternating Current, The Review Review, and Change Seven. She reads for Wigleaf and Pithead Chapel, and is working on an illustrated storybook called “Lives of the Saints.” Follow her @aeweisgerber, or visit http://anneweisgerber.com.

Tyler Anne Whichard (Glass Splinters) is a 21-year-old aspiring writer working toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The r.k.v.r.y quarterly literary journal is the first official publication of her work. Her hobbies include staring at blank Word documents, binge-watching Korean dramas, and pouring too much creamer in her coffee in the morning.

Contributors Winter 2017

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Mary Akers

E. Kristin Anderson (Velvet, Velvet, Velvet, Knife) is co-editor of Dear Teen Me. Her next anthology, Hysteria: Writing the female body, is forthcoming from Sable Books. She is currently curating Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture for ELJ Publications and is the author of eight chapbooks including A Guide for the Practical Abductee (Red Bird Chapbooks), Pray Pray Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), She Witnesses (dancing girl press), and We’re Doing Witchcraft (Hermeneutic Chaos Press). She blogs at EKristinAnderson.com and tweets at @ek_anderson.

Izaak Bacik (Black Ice) is a 22-year-old student pursuing degrees in sociology and creative writing at UNCA who predominantly focuses on poetry and short creative non-fiction pieces and essays centered around identities as autistic and transgender. This short essay deals with surviving coming off of drugs in order to begin gender transition.

Anders Carlson Wee (Shoalwater) is a 2015 NEA Fellow and the author of Dynamite, winner of the 2015 Frost Place Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, AGNI, Poetry Daily, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Best New Poets, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Narrative Magazine, which featured him on its “30 Below 30” list of young writers to watch. Winner of Ninth Letter’s Poetry Award, Blue Mesa Review’s Poetry Prize, and New Delta Review’s Editors’ Choice Prize, he was runner-up for the 2016 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize. His work is currently being translated into Chinese. He lives in Minneapolis, where he’s a 2016 McKnight Foundation Creative Writing Fellow.

Leticia Del Toro (Alive at Lampedusa) has had work appear in Huizache, Mutha Magazine, ZYZZYVA and Palabra magazine among others. Her honors and awards include a Hedgebrook Residency for Women Authoring Change, a fellowship from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, participation in the Voices of Our Nations Arts program, a 2015 finalist for the Maurice Fiction Prize for the collection “Café Colima” and attendance at Bread Loaf 2016 as a Rona Jaffe Scholar in fiction. She is a California teacher, arts activist and mother with roots in Jalisco, Mexico.

Stephen G. Eoannou‘s (Slattery’s Ghost) short story collection, Muscle Cars, was published in April 2015 by The Santa Fe Writers Project. Stories from this collection have appeared in Best Short Stories from the Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest (2013 & 2014), The MacGuffin, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. He has been honored with two Pushcart nominations and an Honor Certificate from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA in English from Miami University. Eoannou has taught at Ball State University and The College of Charleston. He currently lives and writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York.

Cate Hennessey‘s (Shoveling Snow) essays and reviews have appeared in or forthcoming from Gettysburg Review, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Southern Indiana Review, PANK, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. A recent finalist for the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in Creative Nonfiction, she has also received a Pushcart Prize and been noted in Best American Essays.

Terri Muuss (Write to Save Someone) has had poetry appear in numerous journals including Paterson Literary Review, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Apercus Quarterly, Atticus Review, Stirring, Long Island Quarterly, and Red River Review. She is the author of Over Exposed (JB Stillwater, 2013) and the one-woman show, Anatomy of a Doll. Anatomy of a Doll was named Best Theatre: Critics’ Pick of the Week by the New York Daily News and has been performed throughout the US and Canada since 1998. As a licensed social worker, Muuss specializes in the use of the arts as a healing mechanism for trauma survivors. She is married to writer Matt Pasca and her two ginger-haired boys, Rainer and Atticus were former Ellen Show Presidential Experts. www.terrimuuss.com

Liz Prato (Covered in Red Dirt) is the author of Baby’s On Fire: Stories (Press 53). Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Hayden’s Ferry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Rumpus, Hunger Mountain, The Butter, and Subtropics. She is Editor-at-Large for Forest Avenue Press, and teaches at literary festivals across the country. Liz is currently working on an essay collection that examines her decades-long relationship with Hawai‘i, using the prism of White colonialism.

Mary Lynn Reed (FINE) has had work appear in Mississippi Review, Colorado Review, The MacGuffin, Whistling Shade, Jellyfish Review, and Smokelong Quarterly, among other places. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Maryland.

Jeff Rose (Lighting Up) is a published short story writer and essayist and was the first humorist for the ITV television and F1 magazine partnership where he wrote a weekly column on one of his early loves, Formula One Grand Prix racing.

Kristen Scarlett (Aposematic Mimicry) is a writer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cape Fear Living Magazine, and East End Elements, and she received second place in the SCCC Creative Writing Award for College Writers in 2015. Her hobbies include fancy teas, existential crises, and musing with her cat, King Charles.

Noa Sivan (Two Cats) was born and raised in Israel and is currently living in Granada, Spain. She is a graphic designer and a writer. Three of her pieces were published in 2005 in an anthology edited by award winning Israeli author Yitzhak Ben Ner. In 2013 Sivan published a digital book of micro stories called “Semantic Satiation,” that was translated into English by Yardenne Greenspan. In 2016 she started writing in English. Her stories were published on the Jellyfish review, Eleven Eleven and FRiGG. Sivan’s first story, “Plaza Trinidad,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Erica Sofer Bodwell (Aubade in Which Grace Appears) is a poet who lives in Concord, New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Fat, Minerva Rising, White Stag, APIARY, The Fem, Coal Hill Review, PANK, HeART and other fine journals. Her chapbook, Up Liberty Street, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in February 2017.

Haley Yelencich (On Transmutation) was raised in rural Michigan and grew up in Chicago, IL where she obtained a B.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia College. She currently lives in New Orleans where she writes, draws, and sings to her cat, Shark.

Contributors Fall 2016

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Mary Akers

Richard Bader (Harmony) is a former a restaurant cook, whitewater rafting guide, and college communications director who now earns his living working as a writer and consultant for nonprofit organizations. He also sings in a church choir, though nowhere near as well as the characters in this story. His fiction has been published by the Burningword Literary Journal, SN Review, and National Public Radio. This is his third story for r.kv.r.y.

Digby Beaumont (Home Improvements) is an English writer. His flash fiction has appeared widely, most recently in Bartleby Snopes, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Camroc Press Review, Change Seven Magazine, Flash Frontier, Jellyfish Review, 100-Word Story, Cosmonauts Avenue and Olentangy Review. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. He made a living as a nonfiction author for many years, with numerous publications.

Paul Beckman (Higher and Harder) was one of the winners in the Queen’s Ferry 2016 Best of the Small Fictions. His stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Raleigh Review, Litro, Playboy, Pank, Blue Fifth Review, Flash Frontier, Matter Press, Metazen, Pure Slush, Jellyfish Review, Thrice Fiction and Literary Orphans. Learn more at his website and blog.

Roy Bentley (Night Shelter) was born in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of four books and several chapbooks. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Blackbird, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, North American Review and elsewhere—recently, in the anthologies New Poetry from the Midwest and Every River on Earth. He has received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the NEA (in poetry), as well as fellowships from the arts councils of Ohio and Florida. These days, he makes his home in Pataskala, Ohio.

Sue Eisenfeld (No Place Left to Hide) is the author of Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal and a contributor to The New York Times’ Disunion: A History of the Civil War. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Gettysburg Review, Potomac Review, and many other publications, and her essays have been listed among the “Notable Essays of the Year” in The Best American Essays in 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2016. She is a five-time Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a member of the faculty at the Johns Hopkins M.A. in Writing/Science Writing programs. www.sueeisenfeld.com.

Christine Fadden (Dark Feather) work appears in Hobart, Louisiana Literature, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, The Louisville Review, PANK, Joyland, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2014 Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival Prize and the 2013 Blanchan Award through the Wyoming Arts Council. She lives in the Olympic Rain Shadow, beneath some trees.

Joseph Finucane (The Foot of Hamburg and South Streets, 1958) was born and raised in the Old First Ward of Buffalo. He is a retired writing teacher of thirty-nine years and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.This is his first published piece and the opening chapter of his nearly completed memoir.

Claire FitzSimmonds (The Way She Is) lives and writes in Louisville, Kentucky. She graduated from Asbury University in 2009 with a journalism degree. She has dabbled in blogging, but “The Way She Is” is her first published fictional piece.

Wendy Miles (Those Who Once Lived There Return) has had work anthologized and appear in places such as Arts & Letters, Memoir Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, Hunger Mountain, storySouth, The MacGuffin and Alabama Literary Review. Winner of the 2014 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, semi-finalist for the 2016 and 2013 Perugia Press Prize and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she teaches writing at Randolph College in Virginia.

Glenn Erick Miller (Weightless) has had writing appear in The Citron Review, Red Earth Review, and Agave Magazine among others. He is a recent first-place winner in the Adirondack Writing Center’s annual awards and is currently writing a novel for young adults.

Tom Saunders (Somewhere Else), has published a novel Inappropriate Happiness and two collections of short stories, Brother, What Strange Place is This? and Roof Whirl Away, as well as his poetry collection To the Boy. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, appeared in many anthologies, and is an ardent photographer in the UK where he lives.

Dawn Surratt (Illustrator) attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and graduated with a degree in Studio Art. After her father unexpectedly died in a tragic accident, she found herself gravitating toward working with grieving people and earned a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Georgia. The next 20 years she worked with Hospice patients–and this very sacred, intense work became the backbone of her photography echoing strong undercurrents of transition and loss.

Alan Toltzis (Clearing Ivy) is the author of The Last Commandment and the founder of The Psalm Project, which teaches poetry to kids in middle and high school. Recent work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, The Provo Canyon Review, As It Ought to Be, Red Wolf, and Burningword Literary Journal. Find him online at alantoltzis.com.

Rebecca Spears (Breath) is a writer and instructor from Houston, Texas, author of The Bright Obvious (Finishing Line Press). Her work is included in TriQuarterly, Calyx, Crazyhorse, Verse Daily, Image, Relief, Ars Medica, Nimrod, Borderlands, and other journals and anthologies. Currently, she writes online posts for Relief Journal and serves on the board of Mutabilis Press. Spears has received awards from the Taos Writers Workshop, Vermont Studio Center, and The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

John Wojtowicz (Aloha to Alcohol) grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery in the backwoods of South Jersey. He is currently employed as a social worker and takes every opportunity to combine this work with his passion for wilderness. Besides poetry, he likes bonfire, boots, beer, and bluegrass. He has been previously published in Stoneboat, Five2one, Naugatuck River Review, El Portal, and The Mom Egg.

Contributors Summer 2016

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Mary Akers

Jerri Bell (Care Packages) is the Managing Editor for O-Dark-Thirty, the literary journal of the Veterans Writing Project. She and former Marine Tracy Crow are the co-authors of It’s My Country Too: True Stories of Women Under Fire from the American Revolution to Afghanistan (University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, forthcoming).

Kay Merkel Boraff (Painting the Elephant Gold) lived in Viet-Nam 68-70 and was married to an Air America pilot who was killed flying in Laos 18 Feb 70. Her work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Texas Short Stories 2, Taos Magazine, Grasslands Review, Fifth Wednesday, Stone Voices, Turk’s Head, and Paper Nautilus.

Jessica Braun‘s (Stay Awake) writing has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Huffington Post, NEPA Family Magazine, and Literary Mama. She lives with her husband and two daughters in coastal Massachusetts. For more of Jessica’s writing, visit her blog at www.nocigarettesnobologna.com.

Rachel Crawford (Mourning Light) is a writer, teacher, and editor. Her work has appeared in Red Rock Review, Lucid Rhythms, The Lyric, Apeiron Review, Red River Review, Illya’s Honey, Freshwater Poetry Journal, Literary Juice, The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature, Anima Poetry Journal, Crack the Spine, Rock & Sling: A Journal of Witness, and RiverSedge. She lives in central Texas with her husband and daughter.

Kelly DuMar (All These Cures) is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator. Her poems have appeared in Lumina Online, Corium, Cape Cod Review, Kindred, and Tupelo Quarterly. Her poetry chapbook, “All These Cures,” was published by Lit House Press and her plays have been produced around the US and Canada. Her new book of poetry & prose will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Her website is kellydumar.com

Magdalene Fry (Barks & Vois) is a single-parent advocate from Wayne County, West Virginia, and was educated at Anglia Ruskin and Marshall Universities. She lives in Michigan with her daughter and works as a mental health and wellness coordinator. These selections are from her books Barks and Vois.

Fay Henexson (Illustrator) is a native Californian, a librarian by profession, and a photographer by avocation. Fay has developed a particular interest in using the camera to find abstracts in old buildings, neglected machinery, and other objects. Her work can be seen on her website and its companion blog, Spirit Standing Still.

Liam Hogan (Living in Fear) is a student in the Writing B.F.A. program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. This is his first professional publication.

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke (I Am Not Worth $8.50) is originally from Columbus, Ohio and currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida where she teaches creative writing and critical theory at Florida State University. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, and Nimrod.

Danielle Kelly (What to Do on a Day Like This) holds an MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College and is Managing Editor of HeartWood, an online literary journal. She is a banker, a multi-denominational church singer, and currently serves as Adjunct Instructor of English at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, WV.

Lucinda Kempe (On Perseverance) has work published or forthcoming in Jellyfish Review, Summerset Review, Matter Press’s Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, decomP, and Corium. She won the Joseph Kelly Prize for Creative Writing in 2015 and is an M.F.A. candidate in writing and creative literature at Stony Brook University.

Katherine Koller (The Caregivers) is about to begin her career as Development Fellow for the Chicago nonprofit Peer Health Exchange. She graduated from Northwestern University, where she majored in theatre with a concentration in performance, activism, and human rights, and a minor in creative nonfiction. She also taught Pregnancy Prevention in Chicago Public Schools and directed a course in consulting for nonprofits.

Len Kuntz (Twisters) is author of The Dark Sunshine and an upcoming story collection I’m Not Supposed To Be Here And Neither Are You.

Cyndy Muscatel (A Fine Line) has had short stories, poetry, and essays published in many literary journals. A former journalist, she now writes two blogs. She teaches fiction writing and memoir, and is also a speaker and workshop presenter. She is writing a memoir of her years teaching in the inner city of Seattle.

Contributors Spring 2016

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Mary Akers

Wendi Berry (Be Still, My Growling Stomach) divides her time between Richmond, Virginia and the Outer Banks, where she dreams of having a writers’ retreat, with an ocean view. A technical editor by day, she’s published in storySouth, Prime Number Magazine, Hulltown 360, and Hayden’s Ferry Review blog. She previously taught composition at the University of Richmond and J. Sargeant Reynolds and is seeking representation for a novel set in present-day Richmond.

Randall Brown (Stick Figure Suicide) is the author of the award-winning collection Mad to Live, his essay on (very) short fiction appears in The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, and he appears in Best Small Fictions 2015 and The Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction. He blogs regularly at FlashFiction.Net and has been published and anthologized widely, both online and in print. He is also the founder and managing editor of Matter Press and its Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. He received his MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and is on the faculty of Rosemont College’s MFA in Creative Writing Program.

Pia Z. Ehrhardt (What I Meant) is the author of FAMOUS FATHERS & OTHER STORIES. Her fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Oxford American, The Morning News, The Nervous Breakdown, Narrative Magazine, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She lives in New Orleans, where she’s a visiting artist at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). www.justlivehere.com

Todd Follett (Placental Insufficiency) lives in Alameda, California and is currently enrolled in the MFA Writing program at the University of San Francisco. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Natural Bridge, DMQ Review, and The Pedestal Magazine.

Barry Friesen (Fetal Decision) is a psychotherapist and former child protection lawyer. He used to write produced plays and non-fiction books in rainy Vancouver, but this winter writes short stories on the rooftop of his sister’s hotel in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. He has stories in New Plains Review, flashquake, The Toronto Quarterly, Every Day Fiction, “Loss,” an anthology at E Chapbook, Glass Eye Chandelier Anthology, audio stories, and a Kindle book, Recreational Suffering: …and how to choose a better hobby.

Olaf Kroneman (Cuddle the Schizophrenic…) has had work appear in Forge, Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Healing Muse, The Helix, inscape, Left Curve, Quiddity International Literary Journal, RiverSedge, Gemini Magazine, paperplates, and Diverse Voices Quarterly. His story, “Fight Night,” won the Winning Writers Sports Fiction and Essay Contest, and “The Recidivist,” won the Writer’s Digest short story contest. His essay “Detroit Golden Gloves” was selected as Editor’s Choice by inscape, honoring the top nonfiction piece of the issue in which it was printed.

Lori McNamara (Illustrator) was born in Ft. Pierce and has lived there all her life. She has an Associate in Art degree from the Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce and considers herself primarily self-taught. She is a member of Plein Air Florida, and the leader of Plein Air Painters of the Treasure Coast. Her paintings are in art collections worldwide.

Sarah Fawn Montgomery (The Talking Cure) holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from California State University-Fresno and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches and works as Prairie Schooner’s Nonfiction Assistant Editor. She is the author of The Astronaut Checks His Watch (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in Confrontation, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Georgetown Review, The Los Angeles Review, Natural Bridge, Nimrod, North Dakota Quarterly, The Pinch, Puerto del Sol, Southeast Review, and other journals.

Teresa Burns Murphy (Peeling Away the Mask) is the author of a novel, The Secret to Flying (TigerEye Publications, 2011). Her short fiction has been published in Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women (Paycock Press, 2012), Dreamstreets, Gargoyle Magazine, The Penmen Review, Southern Women’s Review, THEMA, The Tower Journal, and Westview. To learn more about her writing, visit her at www.teresaburnsmurphy.com.

Donna Munro (Touchpoints) moved to the ocean and is still searching for one grain of sand with her name on it. She writes with frankness and compassion. She helps with distribution of Cape Cod Poetry Review, is and has been a member of the Cape Cod Poetry Group, the Steeple Street Poets and the Casa Benediction Poets. An emerging poet, her poems have been or are forthcoming in Atomic: a journal of short poetry, Aleola Journal of Art and Poetry and Door Is A Jar Magazine.

Annie Penfield (The Cocktail Glass) received her MFA in Creative Writing from VCFA in July 2011. She has been published in Fourth Genre, Hunger Mountain, and her essay “The Half Life” was named a “Notable Essay” by Best American Essays 2014. She has completed a memoir about her days working on a sheep farm in Australia. She lives in Vermont with her family and horses, and is a part-owner of Strafford Saddlery (and writes a lot of copy for their new mail-order catalog).

Tom Sheehan (Not Yet an Angel) has published 22 books and has had work appear in Literally Stories, Ocean Magazine, Rosebud, Linnet’s Wings, Copperfield Review, Soundings East, Vermont Literary Review, Literary Orphans, Indiana Voices Journal, Frontier Tales, Deep South Magazine, Western Online Magazine, Provo Canyon Review, and other journals. He has 30 Pushcart nominations, and five Best of the Net nominations (and one winner) and short story awards from Nazar Look for 2012- 2015. Swan River Daisy, his first chapbook, is just released and The Cowboys, a collection of western short stories, is due shortly.

Patty Somlo (Time to Go Home) is the author of From Here to There and Other Stories. She also has three forthcoming books: a short story collection, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil); a memoir, Even When Trapped Behind Clouds (WiDo Publishing), and Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing). Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, the Santa Clara Review, Under the Sun, Guernica, Gravel, Sheepshead Review, WomenArts Quarterly and other journals. Find her here.

Jamie Watson (Baby, Do You Pay Here?) has worked as a director of educational outreach programs and served as the Associate Director of Admissions at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Prior to her career in higher education, she acted professionally and continues to appear on the stage. Many years ago, while pursuing theater in Los Angeles, she worked in a geriatric, psychiatric facility. Jamie is pleased to be included in this issue of r.kv.r.y., and to share this remembrance of the extraordinary people who touched her life.

Amber Weyland (The Water-Logged Heart) teaches high school English in Roanoke, Virginia. She is an MFA candidate in Writing at Lindenwood University, and she holds a Master’s in English from Radford University and a Bachelor’s in English from Virginia Tech. She is currently in the midst of moving to New Orleans, Louisiana where she plans to continue writing and teaching English.

William Woolfitt (Hatchlings) teaches at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. He is the author of two books of poetry, Beauty Strip (Texas Review Press, 2014) and Charles of the Desert (Paraclete Press, forthcoming). He is also the author of a fiction chapbook, The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (2014). His poems and stories have appeared in Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Tin House online, and elsewhere. He edits Speaking of Marvels, a gathering of interviews with chapbook and novella authors.

Contributors Winter 2016

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Mary Akers

Chloe Ackerman (Flame) hails from the Land of Enchantment but currently resides with her dog in the much rainier (but no less enchanted) Pacific Northwest, where she recently completed a doctorate in clinical psychology. She has edited or contributed to a small number of literary magazines and anthologies and has been published in Mirror Dance. She hopes to one day be both a famous author and a renowned psychologist because she believes in having it all, but she would also be happy with a supply of tea and a tiny house in a forest.

Christopher Allen (Wile E.) has had work in Indiana Review, Eclectica Magazine, Night Train, Literary Orphans and over a hundred other journals and anthologies. Read his book reviews in [PANK), The Lit Pub, Necessary Fiction and more. Originally from Tennessee, he now splits his time between Munich and Dublin. Allen is the managing editor of SmokeLong Quarterly and blogs HERE.

Kathleen S. Burgess (At Old Oraibi), poet, editor, retired music teacher, union officer, statistical typist, server, factory solderer, videographer, and hitchhiker through North, Central, and South America, has poetry in North American Review, The Examined Life, Evening Street Review, Malpaís Review, Turtle Island Quarterly, Mudfish, other journals and anthologies. A chapbook Shaping What Was Left and the anthology she edited Reeds and Rushes—Pitch, Buzz, and Hum are Pudding House publications. Two new collections Hitchhiking to Peru and The Wonder Cupboard are forthcoming.

Laura Didyk (Illustrator) makes art and writes poetry and nonfiction. Her work has been published in Diagram, Post Road, Alligator Juniper, and the Sun, among others, and her artwork has been printed in No Tokens magazine. With an MFA from the University of Alabama, she has been a writing fellow at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and VCCA. Currently at work on her memoir, she writes, teaches, and makes art in the Berkshires.

Susan Gower (Three Moons Over Maple Grove) is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in magazines, newspapers and literary journals, including Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, and Talking Stick. She lives in Luck, Wisconsin, with her husband Mike.

Ashley Hutson (Hot Bones) lives in rural Western Maryland. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, The Conium Review, Threadcount, and elsewhere. Find her at www.aahutson.com.

Marcu Iannacone (Clair de Lune) lives in New Jersey, a carpenter by occupation who tries to find time for working with language and ideas

Kristin Laurel (Anxiety) is employed as an ED and Flight Nurse. She completed a two-year master track program in poetry at The Loft Literary Center. Her poetry and prose can be seen in CALYX, The Raleigh Review, The Mom Egg, The Main Street Rag, Split Rock Review, and many others. Her first full-length publication Giving Them All Away, won the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press. She lives in Waconia, MN.

Mary McCluskey (Revenge Served Hot) has had prizewinning short stories published in The Atlantic, The London Magazine, StoryQuarterly, London’s Litro Magazine, on Salon.com, and in literary journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong. Her novel, INTRUSION, is scheduled for publication by Little A in March 2016. She divides her time between Stratford-upon-Avon, in England, and Los Angeles.

Simon Perchik (As if these leaves) is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Scott Loring Sanders (Argument with Myself) has had work included and/or noted in Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Essays. He’s published two novels with Houghton Mifflin and was the Writer in Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. His essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction and other journals. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and teaches at Emerson College.

Nicole Stanek (Decaying) is a poet based out of Long Island. She is a graduate of Dowling College with a B.A. in Psychology and Media. She currently leads the Westhampton Poets Society, a writer’s group on the East End of Long Island.

William Woolfitt (Funk Island) teaches at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. He is the author of two books of poetry, Beauty Strip (Texas Review Press, 2014) and Charles of the Desert (Paraclete Press, forthcoming). He is also the author of a fiction chapbook, The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (2014). His poems and stories have appeared in Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Tin House online, and elsewhere.

Contributors Fall 2015

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Mary Akers

David Alasdair (The West Elm Sofa) earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University in Spokane, WA, has seen the Loch Ness Monster, been in the world’s longest chorus line, and occasionally makes Shrek-like noises with his right ear.

Mia Avramut (Illustrator) is a Romanian-American writer, artist, and physician, who worked in laboratories and autopsy rooms from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. Her artwork has recently appeared or is upcoming in Prick of the Spindle, saltfront, The Knicknackery, The Bookends Review Best of 2014 Anthology (cover), Up the Staircase Quarterly, Buffalo Almanack, and Sliver of Stone. She lives in Essen, Germany.

Roy Bentley (Walking on the Effing Moon) has received fellowships from the NEA, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Pleiades, Blackbird, North American Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Books include Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama, 1986), Any One Man (Bottom Dog, 1992), The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine, 2006), and Starlight Taxi (Lynx House 2013). He has taught creative writing throughout the Midwest and south Florida. These days, he teaches at Georgian Court University and lives in Lakewood, New Jersey with his wife Gloria.

B.J. Best (At Goodwill) is the author of three books of poetry: But Our Princess Is in Another Castle (Rose Metal Press, 2013), Birds of Wisconsin (New Rivers Press, 2010), and State Sonnets (sunnyoutside, 2009). I got off the train at Ash Lake, a verse novella, is forthcoming from sunnyoutside. He lives in Wisconsin.

Shaula Evans (Fred) is a writer, editor and translator. Born and raised in Canada, and educated in Montreal, France, and Japan, she currently resides in New Mexico after spending 6 ½ years traveling around North America in a Mini Cooper. You can find her online at shaulaevans.com and on Twitter at @ShaulaEvans.

Robert Fieseler (New Miserable Experience) grew up in Chicago and graduated co-valedictorian from the Columbia Journalism School. He is the proud older brother of William (Billy) Fieseler, who also appears in this essay. Robert’s journalism has appeared in Narratively and The Big Roundtable; W.W. Norton will be publishing his debut book of nonfiction. Tweet him @wordbobby

Avital Gad-Cykman (Fulfillment) published a flash collection LIFE IN, LIFE OUT with Matter Press in 2014. Her stories have been published in The Literary Review, CALYX Journal, Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s, Prism International, Michigan Quarterly Review and elsewhere. They have also been featured in anthologies such as W.W. Norton’s International Flash Anthology, Sex for America, Politically Inspired Fiction, Stumbling and Raging, Politically Inspired Fiction Anthology, The Flash, and The Best of Gigantic. She won the Margaret Atwood Society Magazine Prize, placed first in The Hawthorne Citation Short Story Contest, and was a finalist for the Iowa Fiction Award for story collections. She lives in Brazil.

Ting Gou (Excavation: Mobile Alabama, 1996) lives and writes in Ann Arbor, where she is a student at the University of Michigan Medical School. Her poems have appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Best of the Net 2014, Ghost Ocean Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere.

Beverly Lucey (Good Will) has had work appear in Zoetrope All Story Extra, Vestal Review, Absinthe Revival, and Feathered Flounder. She was the winner of the Fiction Contest for Estonian Public Broadcasting (2013) Print anthology: Friend. Follow. Text. #storiesFromLivingOnline (fall 2013 release) “Voice Mail for the Living” in the anthology Up, Do Flash Fiction by Women Writers, (spring 2014). Landmarks: 2015 National Flash-Fiction Day Anthology (UK)

Laura Moretz (Rules) lives in Winston-Salem, NC, with her husband, two teenage sons, two dogs, and a cat. A previous story, “Philo Goes Home,” won the Rick DeMarinis Short Fiction Prize in 2012 and was published in Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, in March 2013.

Mary McCluskey (Life Saver) has had prizewinning short stories published in The Atlantic, The London Magazine, StoryQuarterly, London’s Litro Magazine, on Salon.com, and in literary journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong. Her novel, INTRUSION, is scheduled for publication by Little A in March 2016. She divides her time between Stratford-upon-Avon, in England, and Los Angeles.

Tina Pocha (You Belong) was born and raised in Bombay, India. She is a scientist by training and a writer by avocation. She currently works as an academic in the field of language and literacy, and is a new and emerging poet with publications in Cadence Collective and Eunoia Review and more publications forthcoming in Hyacinth Press and East Jasmine Review. You can find more of her writing at www.tinapocha.com

Heidi Siegrist (Out of the Nest) is currently trying to make it/fake it in Chicago. She is also an MFA student at the University of the South, and is working on a collection of essays about entanglement (whatever that is).

Jennifer Williams (Europa Hides an Ocean) is a graduate of Pacific University’s MFA Program. Prior to writing, she worked as an engineer in Phoenix. Her short story “Gore Junkies” appeared in the Oregon anthology, The Night, and the Rain, and the River and she lives in Portland, Oregon.

K.A. Wisniewwski (A Taste of Peppermint) is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, the Managing Editor of Roving Eye Press, and an editor at Calypso Editions. His creative work has most recently appeared in Toad Suck, the Tule Review, Third Wednesday, the Chiron Review, Genre, the Sierra Nevada Review, and basalt. He lives in Baltimore.

Contributors, Summer 2015

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Mary Akers

D Ferrara (Special Forces) has been an active writer and ghost writer for more years than she cares to admit. Articles, essays and short stories are her continuing obsession – several publications, including The Main Street Anthology – Crossing Lines, East Meets West American Writers Review, The Broadkill Review, MacGuffin Press, Crack the Spine, Green Prints, Amarillo Bay, The Penmen Review, The Law Studies Forum, and RIMS Magazine have fed this mania by including them. She recently received her M.A. in Creative Writing, where it joined her J.D., L.l.M. and B.A, amid the clutter of her office.

Kathy Fish‘s (Grip) stories have appeared in The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers(Black Lawrence Press, 2015), Guernica, Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, Quick Fiction, and elsewhere. She is the author of three collections of short fiction: a chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness (Rose Metal Press, 2008), Wild Life (Matter Press, 2011) and Together We Can Bury It, a second printing of which is available now from The Lit Pub. She has recently joined the faculty of the forthcoming Mile-High MFA at Regis University in Denver.

Allen Forrest (Illustrator) was born in Canada and bred in the U.S. He has created cover art and illustrations for literary publications and books. He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University’s Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation’s permanent art collection. Forrest’s expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh, creating emotion on canvas.

John Gifford (Lost) is the author of the story collections, Wish You Were Here (Big Table Publishing, 2016) and Freeze Warning, which was named a finalist for the 2015 Press 53 Short Fiction Award. His writing has appeared in Harpur Palate, december, Southwest Review, Cold Mountain Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Oklahoma. (@johnagifford)

Andrew Hahn (Wish Me Well) is a graduate of Liberty University and currently lives in Woodstock, GA. You can find him on Twitter @andyhahn1.

Dan Jacoby (cross) was born in 1947 in Chicago. He is a graduate of St. Louis University and has published poetry in Badlands Literary Journal, Belle Rev Review, Black Heart Press, Bombay Gin, Canary, Chicago Literati, Cowboy Poetry Press, Floyd County Moonshine, Indiana Voice Journal, Haunted Waters Press, Deep South Magazine, Lines and Stars, Red Booth Review, The Tishman Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Steel Toe Review, Red Fez, and the Vehicle. He is a member of the American Academy of Poets.

Herb Kauderer (Equal Time) is a retired Teamster who is currently an associate professor of English at Hilbert College. He holds an MFA from Goddard College among his diverse degrees, and author Will McDermott has called him “the master of life change.” Herb has had about a thousand poems published including eight chapbooks, most recently The Book of Answers which has met with great critical success.

Rayya Liebich (Plea) is a graduate of English Lit. from Mc Gill University and her poetry has been published in “Seasonings” edited by Anne DeGrace. Her play “3 Minutes” was awarded first prize in the Kootenay Literary Competition in 2005.

James McAdams (My Back Pages) has published fiction in decomP, Literary Orphans, One Throne Magazine, TINGE Magazine, Carbon Culture Review, and Copperfield Review, and has additional pieces forthcoming in per contra and Modern Language Studies. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Lehigh University, where he also teaches and edits the university’s literary journal, Amaranth.

Scott T. Starbuck (Unhatched Caddis) was a 2013 Artsmith Fellow on Orcas Island, a 2014 Friends of William Stafford Scholar at the “Speak Truth to Power” FOR Seabeck Conference, and writer-in-residence at The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Thomas Rain Crowe wrote about Scott T. Starbuck’s latest book forthcoming from Fomite Press, “Industrial Oz may just be the most cogent and sustained collection of quality eco-activist poetry ever written in this culture, this country.” Activist Bill McKibben wrote, “Industrial Oz is . . . rousing, needling, haunting.” He blogs at riverseek.blogspot.com

Gina (The Human Typewriter) Graduated from Emmanuel College with a B.A. in Writing and Literature. She enjoys writing non-fiction memoir as well as children’s literature. Gina will be pursuing a Master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and hopes to publish a book for English language learners. Her work has also been featured in Reverb Magazine.

Kristin Walters (Gong Bath) is a yoga and writing instructor in Champaign-Urbana. She will finish her MFA from the University of Illinois in May 2016. Her guilty pleasures are watching movie trailers, eating all the strawberries and wearing flip-flops in the rain. She is learning and teaching how to live a mindful, memorable and expressive life.

Joan Wilking (At Risk) has had short fiction published in The Atlantic, Bellevue Literary Review, The Barcelona Review, Other Voices, The Mississippi Review, Brevity, Ascent, The MacGuffin, Hobart, The Huffington Post, The Santa Fe Writer’s Project Journal and many other literary magazines and anthologies. Her story, Deer Season, was a finalist for the 2010 Nelson Algren Short Story Competition of the Chicago Tribune. Her essay Sunday Times is online at The Manifest Station and her short story, Clutter, in the Elm Leaves Journal is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Tessa Yang (Moonlight Sonata) is a recent graduate of St. Lawrence University, where she majored in English. “Moonlight Sonata” was inspired by several sleepless nights in a dorm room with a very noisy radiator; the story eventually became part of her senior year honors project. Starting in August, Tessa will be attending the MFA program in fiction writing at Indiana University.

Contributors, Spring 2015

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Mary Akers

Ron Burch‘s (Intertwined) short stories have been published in Mississippi Review, Pear Noir!, Eleven Eleven, Pank and others. His first novel, Bliss Inc., was published by BlazeVOX Books. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is Co-Executive Producer on a TV show for DreamWorks Animation. He is also a produced and published playwright. Please visit: www.ronburch.com.

Patricia Caspers (Unreported) is the founding editor of West Trestle Review and poetry editor at Prick of the Spindle. Her full-length poetry collection, In the Belly of the Albatross will arrive via Glass Lyre Press in September, 2015.

Courtney Cragget (Aerial Spray) is a doctoral candidate in creative writing and Chicano/a literature at the University of North Texas, where she teaches English and has served as the Assistant Fiction Editor for the American Literary Review. Her fiction appears in Mid-American Review, Washington Square Review, and Word Riot. Her reviews appear monthly in American Microreviews and Interviews.

Sara Dutilly (Nine Months of Peanut Butter) earned a B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing at High Point University. She has dabbled in journalism and essay, but this is her first piece of published fiction. She lives in Kernersville, NC with her husband, two small boys, and one newborn girl where she writes poetry and short stories and bakes sourdough bread. You can read more from her at haikuthedayaway.wordpress.com.

Lori Eaton (Dance Champ) lives, works and writes in Metro Detroit. Her first short story appeared in Sassy Magazine more than twenty years ago. More recently, her short fiction was published in the spring/summer 2014 edition of The MacGuffin. Several of her 10-minute plays have been produced in theatre festivals in Michigan and California. Her first one-act play will receive a staged reading this spring. When she isn’t crafting stories or plays, Lori writes grants and other content for local nonprofits.

Final Girl (Illustrator) FINAL GIRL is an anonymous Appalachian street artist.

Ann Goldsmith‘s (The Way it Really Was) second book of poems, THE SPACES BETWEEN US, appeared in April 2010. She won the Quarterly Review of Literature’s Poetry Prize for her first book, NO ONE IS THE SAME AGAIN. Goldsmith holds a doctorate from the University of Buffalo, where she taught English for ten years. She has also served on the faculties of D’Youville and St. Trocaire Colleges, and worked as Western New York Coordinator for ALPS, a statewide poetry-in-the-schools organization. She has served as poet-in-residence at the Chautauqua Institution, and taught writing at Buffalo’s Trinity Center, which granted her an Excellence in Teaching Award. Her recently completed book of poems, WAITING AT THE TURN, is looking for a publisher.

Michelle Hanlon (On This Day) is a compulsive list maker. Some of her favorite things: summer nights in West Texas, the first sip of coffee on a dark morning, and the Oxford comma. Her work can be seen in apt. and Burningword Literary Journal.

Brian Kamsoke (God of Thunder) has fiction forthcoming in New Plains Review and Night Train. His other work has appeared in FICTION, Almost Five Quarterly, REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, Reed Magazine, Pearl, and the Flint Hills Review. He received his MFA from Wichita State University where he was awarded the 2012-2013 Creative Writing Fellowship. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on a travel memoir while continuing work on that damn novel. This is his second installment in r.kv.r.y. quarterly.

Amanda Kimmerly (Deficient) is a creative writing coach, editor and owner of Polished Pear Creative Editing out of Los Angeles, California, whose fierce aim is to weave manuscripts into masterpieces for emerging writers. Her poetry can be found in Mad Hatter’s Review, Full of Crow, 3Elements Review, Pear Noir!, and Arsenic Lobster. Read her fiction at Storychord Magazine, and her blog at www.PolishedPearCreative.com, where she discusses metaphysical and practical tools for enhancing overall creative freedom. Dreaming is one of her favorite hobbies. Find her at @PortraitOfALady.

Kate McCorkle (Laundry) works as a freelance writer and editor because life is not crazy enough with four children under eight, a husband, and a mutt from Clarksville, TN. A graduate of The College of the Holy Cross and The University of Chicago, her work has appeared in Free State Review, the Newer York, Darkhouse Books, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society, and Apiary Online. She lives outside Philadelphia with said menagerie and swims to stave off insanity.

Mitzi McMahon (Prison-Orange Bandolinos) lives in Wisconsin, near Lake Michigan, where she writes fiction and chases the light, camera in hand. Her fiction has appeared in over two dozen publications, including The Bitter Oleander, The Summerset Review, The Santa Fe Literary Review, and The Evansville Review. Her photographic work has appeared or is forthcoming in Marathon Literary Review and Apeiron Review. She holds a BA in Business.

Aidan Rooney (The Dance) is a native of Monaghan, Ireland, resident in the U.S. since 1987. He lives in Hingham, Massachusetts and teaches at Thayer Academy. He was awarded the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Poet in 1997, and his collections, Day Release (2000) and Tightrope (2007) are published by The Gallery Press in Ireland. More recently (2013), he was awarded the Daniel Varoujan Award from the New England Poetry Club. Widely published in Europe and North America, his work has appeared in various anthologies including Staying Alive (Bloodaxe) and 180 More (Random House).

David Lerner Schwartz (How to End Your Marriage) lives in Austin, TX where he designs products and services for various industries and performs improv throughout the state. David graduated from Tufts University in 2013 and most recently studied at the Kenyon Writers Workshop in Gambier, OH.

Contributors, Winter 2015

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Mary Akers

Roy Bentley (Rescue Dog) has received fellowships from the NEA, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Pleiades, Blackbird, North American Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Books include Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama, 1986), Any One Man (Bottom Dog, 1992), The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine, 2006), and Starlight Taxi (Lynx House 2013). He has taught creative writing throughout the Midwest and south Florida. These days, he teaches at Georgian Court University and lives in Lakewood, New Jersey with his wife Gloria.

Annie Bolger (Sevenling) is pursuing a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies at Swarthmore College. She is currently the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Swarthmore’s daily newspaper, The Daily Gazette. She recently hand made and published Dated, a chapbook of her poetry. Her work has appeared in Prisms and the Swarthmore Review.

Mikayla Davis (Overdue) is an undergraduate from Spokane, Washington. She has a BA in English from Eastern Washington University as well as several two-year degrees from Spokane Falls Community College. She is the editor for The Wire Harp and has poems published in Railtown Almanac, Northwest Boulevard, Gold Dust, and CandleLit.

Danielle Dugan (A Few Simple Questions) graduated from Emmanuel College with her bachelor’s in writing and literature. While attending she enjoyed composing poetry, fiction and nonfiction pieces. The Boston native continues to further her education.

Laurie Easter‘s (The Polarity of Incongruities) essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Chautauqua, Prime Number Magazine, and Under the Gum Tree, among others. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and recently took on the role of Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor forHunger Mountain: the VCFA Journal of the Arts. She lives off the grid and on the edge of wilderness in a funky, little cabin in Southern Oregon. Visit her at laurieeaster.com.

Jonathan Levy (The Youngest Boy to Ever Fly to Space) lives in Raleigh, NC, with his wife and two dogs. He started writing fiction about a year ago. So far, the staff and readers of Boston Literary Magazine, Pure Slush, Tell Us a Story, r.kv.r.y quarterly, and Paper Tape have made him feel so grateful and lucky.

Mary Lewis (Quesasomethings) has published stories in Trapeze, Valley Voice, and Frank Walsh’s Kitchen and Other Stories. She also has published in Persimmon Tree, Lost Lake Folk Opera Magazine, and Wapsipinicon Almanac. This is her second story for r.kv.r.y.. She is pursuing an MFA in fiction at Augsburg College and teaches biology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. She helped start Badgersett Research Corporation where hazels are being developed for growers in the Midwest. She is a figure skater, and for many years taught dance and piano.

Laurin Becker Macios (At the Piazza, I Remember You) holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire and is the program director of Mass Poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, Extracts: Daily Dose of Lit, Pif Magazine, [PANK], and elsewhere. She lives in Boston with six plants and one wicked awesome husband.

Amy Newell (Born This Way) writes poems about madness, marriage, motherhood, and elevators. In addition to her poetry, she has a trail of abandoned blogs and decades of overwrought journal entries. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, two children, and cat.

Ojas Patel (Your New Face), from Egg Harbor Township, NJ, earned his B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Rowan University. His story “Your New Face” won first place for creative non-fiction in the Denise Gess Literary Awards. He has also won contests for his poetry and critical writing in Islamic Studies, has contributed to his local newspaper, The Current, and is currently working on his first novel.

Matthew Rosin (Hope) is a dad, husband, and author based in California. “Hope” is his first fiction publication (but hopefully not his last). Rosin plans to publish a novelette in 2015, and he writes and podcasts about fatherhood at www.matthewsrosin.com.

Emily Rich (Malignancies) is the non-fiction editor of Little Patuxent Review. She writes mainly memoir and essay. Her work has been published in a number of small presses including Little Patuxent Review, Welter, River Poet’s Journal, Delmarva Review and the Pinch. Her story “On the Road to Human Rights Day” was a notable entrant in the 2014 edition of The Best American Essays.

Annita Sawyer (Fifty-Four Weeks?) is a psychologist in practice for over thirty years and a member of the clinical faculty at Yale. She has been a Wesleyan Writers Conference Fellow and a Bread Loaf Scholar. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, VCCA, Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, and Hambidge Center for the Arts. Her nonfiction has appeared in professional and literary journals, won prizes, and been included among Notables in Best American Essays. Her first book, Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass: A Psychologist’s Memoir, was selected by Lee Gutkind for the 2013 Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards nonfiction grand prize and is forthcoming in June 2015.

Cecil Sayre (Bathing My 20-Year-Old Son) is a visiting lecturer for the English Department of Indiana University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Naugatuck Literary Review, Slipstream, and Southern Indiana Review.

Douglas Shearer (Treatment) spent years traveling for work and living out of a suitcase before returning to the city of his youth near Toronto, Canada where he now lives with his wife and two children. He graduated from The Institute of Children’s Literature in 2010 and was published in non-fiction before completing the course. His instructor said she loved his style, but suggested he not limit himself to writing for kids. “Treatment” is his first fiction to be published.

Randi Ward (Illustrator) is a writer, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and is a recipient of The American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in Asymptote, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, World Literature Today, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and other publications. For more information, visit: www.randiward.com/about

Rkvry Quarterly Literary Journal

A literary journal that explores recovery.

Category Archives: Contributors