Contributors


Maggie Blake Bailey has poems published or forthcoming in The Southern Poetry

Anthology, Volume V: Georgia, Tar River, Slipstream, and elsewhere. In 2014, Switchback

nominated her poem “Topography” for a Pushcart Prize.  Currently, she is a poetry reader

for Winter Tangerine Review and teaches full time in Atlanta.


Charlie Bondhus’s second poetry book, All the Heat We Could Carry, won the 2013 Main

Street Rag Award and the Publishing Triangle’s 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His

work appears in numerous journals, including Poetry, The Gay & Lesbian Review,

CounterPunch, The Alabama Literary Review,and Midwest Quarterly. He is the poetry editor

at The Good Men Project.


Michelle Castleberry is a writer and social worker who lives in northeast Georgia. Her work

has appeared in publications such as The Chattahoochee Review, The Naugatuck River

Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology-Vol.V: Georgia and an upcoming anthology on

ecopoetry. Her first book is Dissecting the Angel and Other Poems. Her newest project is

co-writing a film for Flying Mule Films.


Cara Chamberlain is the author of two books of poetry, Hidden Things (2009) and The

Divine Botany (forthcoming in 2015). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston

Review, Chariton Review, Slipstream, Crab Orchard Review, Tar River Poetry, Virginia

Quarterly Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, and other journals. She

has received three Pushcart Prize nominations and has recently been featured in Poetry

Daily.  


Nadia Chaney is primarily a performance poet who has appeared on hundreds of stages. She

has been commissioned by Sinha Danse and the Simon Wosk Centre for Dialogue, among

others.  Her poetry has recently appeared or will appear with Cherry Castle Press, Naugatuck

River Review, and Terrain.org.


Pamela Chatterton-Purdy graduated from New Canaan (Connecticut) High School in 1959,

received an A.A. from Green Mountain College in 1961, and her B.A. from the University of

New Hampshire in 1963. She married her husband David Purdy, a Methodist minister, on

June 7, 1963, and received her M.F.A from the University of Massachusetts in 1966. She has

taught art at Bay Path College, Springfield College, and the University of Massachusetts at

Amherst, plus the public schools of Middleboro and Brookline, Massachussetts. She has

taught art for over thirty years. In 1987, her book Beyond the Babylift: A Story of an

Adoption was published by Abingdon Press.


Theresa Davis is the mother of three and was a classroom teacher for over twenty years.

She reclaimed her love for poetry eleven years ago after the loss of her father.  Since his

death she has emerged as a nationally recognized slam poet, youth advocate, and teacher of

poetry.  Theresa co-founded the ArtAmok Slam Team, and has competed in multiple

national and regional competitions culminating in 2011 when she took first place in

the Women of the World Poetry Slam Competition. In recognition of her years of activism

on behalf of Atlanta’s youth, she was honored by the City of Atlanta with a proclamation,

declaring May 22, “Theresa Davis Day in Atlanta”.  In July 2012, in partnership with the City

of Atlanta’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Theresa released her chapbook Simon Says—poems

about teaching with anti-bullying themes.  The same year, Theresa was named

the 2012  McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia TechUniversity.  According to the GA Tech

website: “In addition to teaching Tech students, each visiting chair will reach into the

community with a program of poetry events and workshops designed to recognize poetry for

its possibilities in all our lives and to recognize those involved in the craft of writing

poetry--whether accomplished, rising, or beginning—for the artists they are.” In May 2013,

her first full collection of poems, entitled After This We Go Dark, was published by Sibling

Rivalry Press. After This We Go Dark became an American Library Association Honoree, and

the book can now be checked out in local and college libraries around the world. Theresa

spent most of 2014 with Shyla Hardwick on The Huemyn Tour.  She was featured as

the opening performance poet for the band Rising Appalachia for their 2014 national tour.


Holly Haworth is a recipient of the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism.

Her work has appeared in Oxford American, Earth Island Journal, and Parabola. She

currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia, where she is a Jackson Fellow at Hollins University.


Andrea Jurjević is a native of Croatia. She is a poet, a literary translator, an artist and a

teacher. Her poems have appeared in The Journal, Harpur Palate, Raleigh Review, Best New

Poets, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere; her translations of Croatian poetry can be found

in Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Berkeley Poetry Review and The Adirondack Review. She is the

winner of the 2013 Robinson Jeffers Tor Prize, the 2014 Der-Hovanessian Translation Award

and the 2015 RHINO Translation Prize.


J. Drew Lanham is a writer, birder, hunter, and naturalist wandering on the edge of the

Blue Ridge in the Upper Piedmont of South Carolina. Lanham considers “conserving birds

and their habitat a moral mission that needs the broadest and most diverse audience

possible to be successful.” He is a Clemson University Master Teacher and Alumni

Distinguished Professor in wildlife ecology, with research interests in songbird ecology and

conservation; integration of game and nongame wildlife management; the African

American land ethic and its role in natural resources conservation. His work has been

featured in Orion and, recently, on NPR’s All Things Considered.

 

Al Maginnes has published ten collections of poems, most recently Music From Small

Towns (Jacar Press, 2014), winner of the annual Jacar Press contest, and Inventing

Constellations (Cherry Grove Collections, 2012). Recent or forthcoming poems will appear in

Lake Effect, Salamander, Asheville Poetry Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review, among

others. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and teaches at Wake Technical Community

College.


Farzana Marie is a poet and PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, where she focuses

on Persian Literature and Creative Writing. Farzana’s poetry and translations have appeared

in print and on-line journals including The Rusty Nail, Adanna, Fourteen Hills, When

Women Waken, Zócalo, Antiphon, Guernica, The Atticus Review, and The Fourth River.

She is author of a nonfiction book, Hearts for Sale! A Buyers Guide to Winning

in Afghanistan (Worldwide Writings, 2013), a poetry chapbook Letters to War and Lethe

(Finishing Line Press, 2014) and a book of poetry in translation from Persian Dari, Load

Poems Like Guns: Women's Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan (Holy Cow! Press, 2015). After

serving in the U.S. Air Force for six years, she now serves as president of the nonprofit Civil

Vision International and can be found on Twitter @farzanamarie.


Imani Marshall-Stephen is a New York City native, born and raised.  She graduated from

Spelman College in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and from Kennesaw

State University in 2012 with a Master of Arts in Professional Writing. She believes in

writing authentic stories, and is especially partial to writing about women in her work.

Although she is a multi-genre writer, poetry is her first love. Her poetry has been featured

in the Red Clay Review, Flycatcher, and more. Her first published collection of poetry,

Unspoken: a poetic novella, was published in November 2013, and she is currently working

on her second collection, which will follow three friends from New York City during their

last summer before college in a series of poetic vignettes.  Besides writing poetry, Imani

enjoys yoga, good food, great conversation, tear-inducing laughter, and spending time with

her best friend and husband, Ostus. 


Victor Masoliah is an Atlanta-based poet who was born and raised in Kenya. He started

performing spoken word over two years ago after going to an open mic. His work has been

influenced by the Atlanta poetry community and African poets that he studied growing up.

He currently has a chapbook, Poems from My Mother's Kitchen. He is constantly evolving to

be a better poet. He hopes his poems provide entertainment, healing, and vision.


Jennifer McGuiggan’s writing has appeared in New World Writing, Numéro Cinq Magazine,

Connotation Press, Extract(s), and elsewhere. She received her MFA from Vermont College of

Fine Arts. This essay is part of her current work-in-process, a book of essays about

spirituality, landscape, and the longing for home in all its forms. Find her online in The

Word Cellar.


Marissa McNamara teaches English at Georgia Perimeter College and attempts to make

time to write when not grading papers. When she was working on her bachelor’s degree, a

professor told her that she was not a good writer, and she stopped writing. Years later, she

decided that he was wrong and began writing again. Marissa enjoys traveling, reading, her

two crazy dogs, and her yard art, including one concrete chicken and a flock of pink plastic

flamingos. Her work has appeared in several publications including RATTLE, StorySouth,

Assisi, and Future Cycle


Scott Neely works in a range of media, including painting, drawing, and writing. His

method balances expression and simplicity. He explains, "I make visual poems: succinct,

present, for the heart." In addition to individual work, Scott has led literary and visual

community projects on issues of diversity, race, and religious pluralism. He serves as

Pastoral Executive at First Presbyterian Church of Spartanburg, South Carolina. His recent

TEDxGreenville talk on race may be found here


Uche Ogbuji was born in Calabar, Nigeria. He lived, among other places, in Egypt and

England before settling near Boulder, Colorado. A computer engineer and entrepreneur by

trade, his poetry chapbook, Ndewo, Colorado (Aldrich Press, 2013) is a Colorado Book Award

Winner, and a Westword 2015 Award Winner ("Best Environmental Poetry"). His poems,

published worldwide, fuse Igbo culture, European classicism, American Mountain West

setting, and Hip-Hop influences. He is editor at Kin Poetry Journal and runs

the @ColoradoPoetry Twitter project.


Sapient Soul, also known as Marlanda Dekine, is a Poet, Licensed Master Social Worker, and

Artistic Activist, currently residing in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  She is the Founder and

Past Member of Furman University’s Poetry Club, Poetic Noise. Sapient Soul is the

Co-Founder and Director of Spoken Word Spartanburg, a nonprofit organization that

nurtures the art of spoken word through performance, workshop, community dialogue, and

activism. This programming includes Speaking Down Barriers, where individuals of all ages,

cultures, and walks of life are encouraged to gather and discuss race-related issues.  She is a

member of Spartanburg’s first ever competitive poetry slam team, Old Soul. Sapient Soul is

the 2012 Queen of the South champion and the 2013 Soul Sista Atlanta champion. She is

also the Co-Founder of the annual poetry slam tournament, Slam Madness.  Sapient Soul is

true to the meaning behind her stage name. Every word has been dipped in the wisdom and

truth that she has been given. Her soul’s purpose is to connect with you through

them. Facebook / Twitter: @sapientsoul / Instagram: @sapientsoul


Trevor Tingle left high school prematurely. After several years sailing tall ships he now

lives in New Orleans and drives crew boats on the Mississippi River. He has been nominated

for a Pushcart Prize and published by Jersey Devil Press, Driftwood Press, Prime Number

Magazine, and A Narrow Fellow, among others.


Jennifer Wheelock's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals and

anthologies, including River Styx, The Diagram, The Inflectionist Review, and Atlanta

Review. Also a painter, Jennifer lives in Los Angeles and works at UCLA.





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