Rob Carney
is the author of two books—Weather Report (Somondoco Press, 2006) and Boasts, Toasts, and Ghosts (Pinyon Press, 2003), winner of the Pinyon Press National Poetry Book Award—and two chapbooks, both winners of national contests: New Fables, Old Songs (Dream Horse Press, 2003) and This Is One Sexy Planet (Frank Cat Press, 2005). His work has been published in American Poetry Journal, Mid-American Review, Mobius, The National Poetry Review, Quarterly West, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, and other journals, as well as Flash Fiction Forward (W.W. Norton, 2006). You may write to him at rob.carney@uvu.edu.
“A Million-and-One Things Missing, Plus a Couple Items Found” • Vol. 20, No. 3
“Recommended Daily Allowance” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Earl Coleman
Two short stories nominated for Pushcarts XXIII and XXVII and one short story nominated for Best American Short Stories. His first book of poetry, A Stubborn Pine in a Stiff Wind (Mellen Poetry Press) was published in 2001. Earl Coleman’s Greatest Hits was published by Pudding House as part of their poetry chapbook series in 2004. In April 2007 a collaboration with his son, Like Father, Like Son, was published.
“Diet of Worms” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Geoff Collins
lives in Marshall, a small farm town on the eastern end of Dane County. He writes, gardens, plays with his kids, and teaches science at the local middle school. His work has recently appeared in Main Channel Voices, Free Verse, Slant, Blue Earth Review, and Willow Review.
“Falling Apart” • Vol. 20, No. 2
CS DeWildt
has two jobs and writes stories. He is a teacher by paycheck but prefers the title "corrupter of youth". His hobbies include changing dirty diapers and preparing warm bottles of milk. He can usually be spotted with his nose in a book. His stories have appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Static Movement, The Horror Press, and now Mobius. Contact him at myspace.com/csdewildt.
“They Speak Mexican Down on the South Side” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Ken Dickerson
is a writer living in Asheville, NC. He has traveled widely through Africa and the United States. He attended the University of Colorado and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His work appeared in the March 2009 issue of The Long Story.
“Digital Gitmo” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Alejandro Escudé
lives in Santa Monica, California and teaches high school English. His second collection of poems, Unknown Physics, was published in 2007 by March Street Press. He is originally from Argentina. Interested readers can go to alexescude.com for more information.
“After Bush” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Jim Fuess
uses Liquitex paint which he dilutes and Golden fluid paints. Mixing them together takes a long learning curve. Some colors overwhelm others and some produce spectacular effects. See more work at jimfuessart.com.
Breathng Fire #2 • cover art for Vol. 20, No. 2
Wade German
writes journalism by day and weird poetry by night. He currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic. His recent poems have appeared in or are upcoming in Dark Horizons, Dreams and Nightmares, Illumen, Space and Time, Star*Line, and Strange Sorcery, among others.
“Kropotkin's Universal Bread Distribution Apparatus” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Roland Goity
lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His stories appear in numerous literary publications, including Fiction International, Scrivener Creative Review, Underground Voices, Talking River, Bryant Literary Review, and Word Riot. He is fiction editor of the online journal LITnIMAGE.
“Next Available Flight” • Vol. 20, No. 2
J.M. Hall
has had poetry published in various literary journals including Ibbetson St. Press, The Penwood Review, and Hazmat Review. He was born and raised in Birmingham, AL, has a M.A. in philosophy from Penn State, and is currently finishing his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University. He is also a classically-trained violinist and Latin dance instructor and choreographer.
“Say something about the imposition” • Vol. 20, No. 3
William Locke Hauser
After military and business careers, he is engaged in a 'third career' of writing fiction. "The Ridge" is his eighteenth published story. He and his wife Helen Alexandra, an ardent gardener (he being an avid bicyclist), live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, spending their summers in Reston, Virginia near the homes of their two adult sons.
“The Ridge” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Roy Haymond
was born in Mississippi but spent much of his life in the Carolinas. After a hitch in USMC, he took a degree from the University of South Carolina. Until he retired, he stood in front of high school classrooms instructing in several disciplines. A string of side jobs included commercial tenor saxophone, all-night groceries, grass cutting, and even a shot at selling cemetery lots. After escaping the classroom, he worked for a time as writer and then editor of a weekly newspaper. Some forty pieces have been published in literary journals in eleven states and Canada, mostly straight objective narrative—he prefers to let psychological insight emerge from what the characters do and say. He now lives in a rural enclave (no traffic lights or sidewalks, but there is a herd of goats). His (second) wife writes in between her attempts to cover the earth with flowers. He writes and continues a love affair with the tenor saxophone—"in my dreams I am Lester Young and I wow the ladies in retirement homes."
“Maria's Escape Hatch” • Vol. 20, No. 2
David Highsmith
is the proprietor of Books & Bookshelves in San Francisco. Recent poems appear in the Antioch Review, foam:e, Right Hand Pointing, Shampoo, and Sawbuck. His books include Poison in the System, Fragments from Bernard, The Chatterley Stanzas, and Catalina Island. dkhighsmith@gmail.com.
“Something You Believe In” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Kelli Hoppmann
is a long-time Madison, WI, artist. An accomplished figurative painter, her work is informed by myth. See more work at kellihoppmann.com.
Adam and Eve • cover art for Vol. 20, No. 3
Sally Houtman
is an American-born writer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She is the author of the non-fiction book To Grandma's House, We ... Stay, and has been widely published in the areas of fiction and poetry. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Rustblind, flashquake, Takahe, Bravado, Viola Beadleton's Compendium, Eclecticism, and Touch: The Journal of Healing.
“A Different Tribe” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Michael Kriesel
is a poet and reviewer from rural central Wisconsin and a part-time janitor at the rural elementary school he once attended. His work has appeared in Small Press Review, Library Journal, Nimrod, Rosebud, and the Progressive. He won the 2003 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Prize from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and has had nine Pushcart nominations. mkriesel@wausau.k12.wi.us.
“Original Sin” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Susanna Lang
has published original poems and essays, and translations from the French, in such journals as The Baltimore Review, Kalliope, Southern Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Chicago Review, New Directions, Green Mountains Review, Jubilat, and Rhino. Book publications include translations of Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, both by Yves Bonnefoy. She lives with her husband and son in Chicago, where she teaches at a Chicago public school.
“My Mother’s Names for Me” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Eric D. Lehman
is a senior lecturer in English at the University of Bridgeport and has had short stories, essays, reviews, and poems published in dozens of journals and magazines, such as Nexus, Hackwriters, Identity Theory, Cause and Effect, Switchback, Umbrella, and Entelechy. His first book, Bridgeport: Tales from the Park City, is available from The History Press.
“Last Walk on Silver Lane” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Sandra Lindow
After twenty-five years working in a treatment center for emotionally disturbed adolescents, Sandra Lindow is semi-retired and living on a hill in Menomonie, Wisconsin where she plants vegetables and perennials and communes with a twenty-pound rototiller. Presently she works to prepare education students for their Praxis test. She has six published poetry collections. Touched by the Gods, her most recent, was published in the fall of 2008. Her webpage can be found at wfop.org/poets/lindowsa.html.
“Cinderella Story” • Vol. 20, No. 1
John Lovik
is a graduate of the University of Oregon with a BA in English and Political Science. He currently lives in the mountains outside of his hometown of Sweet Home, Oregon where he spends his time between his books and his woodshop. His poetry has appeared in The Speakeasy, The Storyteller, and Desert Voices. He can be contacted at jlovik2@gmail.com.
“The Thorns Where Snakes Once Grew” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Robert I. Mann
Born May 29, 1952, Burbank, California, he is presently head of the English Dept. at Polimoda, International Institute of Fashion, Florence, Italy. He received a BA in Humanities from the University of California at Berkeley and an MA in English Literature from California State University at Northridge; in short, a product of the public education system of California. His Masters thesis was an analysis of Freudian-oriented biographies of Ernest Hemingway (of which there are several, Hemingway being big game for psychoanalytic critics.) He has published fiction in the new renaissance and The Bitter Oleander. He is married to a native Florentine and has two teenage daughters.
“Welcome to the Icebox” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Greg Markee
makes a practice of conceptual improvisation. He writes poems in Madison, Wisconsin, and materializes at gregmarkee.com.
“phantoms and lunatics and sponges” • Vol. 20, No. 2
G.D. McFetridge
neo-postmodern writer and revolutionary, lives in Montana's beautiful Bitterroot Valley and ponders the snowcapped mountain peaks and his six unpublishable novels. His latest novel, The Jesus Genome, will not be appearing any time soon.
“Far from Everywhere” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Tom Neale
Poetry Editor Emeritus of Mobius, Tom is with us in Spirit—in Spirit Township, on the north fork of the Spirit River. Originally a Jersey boy, he lived in Madison, Wisconsin, for over 30 years. In the summer of 2007 he and his wife moved to a smallholding on Spirit Creek in the southeastern corner of Price County, about an hour northwest of Wausau. He continues to chase poems and songs around in his imagination. Now and again one allows itself to be caught. He then share them with others, to mixed reviews, which can be shared with him in turn at strongdogs@gmail.com.
“Hafiz Reflects on Abundance” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Sergio Ortiz
grew up in Chicago, studied English literature at Inter-American University in San German, Puerto Rico, and philosophy at World University. He was an ESL teacher most of his life but also worked with the elderly blind population as a Daily Living Skills Instructor for the El Paso Lighthouse for the Blind, and the Texas Lions Camp. He studied culinary art at The Restaurant School in Philadelphia and became a chef. His work has been published in Salt River Review, Modern English Tanka, and Yellow Medicine, among others.
“In Line” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Simon Perchik
is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change and elsewhere. Rafts (Parsifal Editions) is his most recent collection. Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press) is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet.
“Just off the ground and the mower” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Michael Pikna
is a mental health therapist by trade. He works with people who have severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and have been working in this field for twenty-five years. He grew up in northern New Jersey and moved to Colorado at twenty-one, where he put himself through school at the University of Colorado–Denver and completed his BA and, eventually, his MA in psychology. Recent publishing credits include thieves jargon, Nuvein Magazine, Bryant Literary Review, and The Furnace Review.
“Teeth” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Aaron Rowley
holds a degree in Ancient Greek and currently lives in Mississippi with his wife.
“John Geld” • Vol. 20, No. 2
R.L. Sanford
You can take the boy out of the eighteenth century but you can't take the eighteenth century out of the boy.
“Executive Profile” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Dave S. Shearer
is from Suffolk County, NY. He is a graduate of Dowling College. In addition to writing you can find him fishing, practicing martial arts, drinking cheap whiskey, scaring his cats, and hotly debating his friends on trivial matters.
“Blood and Revelation” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Myra Sherman
is a clinical social worker who lives in Northern California. Her fiction has appeared or will appear in The Blotter Magazine, Fifth Wednesday Journal, 10,000 Tons of Black Ink (web), Workers Write—Tales from the Couch, 580 Split (web), Another Sky Press Horror Anthology, Thuglit (web) and others. Her nonfiction will appear in the winter issue of Ars Medica. “Third Strike” is part of her recently completed collection of linked jail stories. She is now working on a novel about a homeless, once-middle-class woman.
“Third Strike” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Carol Smallwood
Her work has appeared in English Journal, Poesia, Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer's Chronicle, The Detroit News, 13th Moon, and anthologies. The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing is forthcoming from the American Library Association.
“What Are the Chances” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Timothy Smith
wants to be mysterious.
“The Gatekeeper” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Thomas Sullivan
is the author of Life In The Slow Lane, a memoir about a hair-raising summer spent teaching driver's education to teenagers (available at http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/life-in-the-slow-lane/1085674). A collection of his short essays is also forthcoming from Coolbeat Audiobooks. Thomas's writing has appeared in 3AM Magazine, The Externalist, and Dogmatika, among others.
“Ready to Retire” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Richard Swanson
Slightly bi-polar in Madison, Wisconsin, he writes an approximately equal number of nature and social commentary poems.
“Corporate” • Vol. 20, No. 2
Joel E. Turner
His fiction has appeared in Ambit, Proof, 3AM Magazine, and New Millenium Writings. His first novel, Generation 'Dex, is about the securitization of human potential, and is seeking a publisher. He is working on a novel about an Anglo-Saxon riddle passed down since the fourteenth century from a monk in the Abbey at Malmesbury. He lives near Philadelphia and designs analytic software for banks. joeleturner@comcast.net.
“The Interview” • Vol. 20, No. 3
Mary Turzillo
won a Nebula for her 1999 novelette, “Mars Is no Place for Children,” and her 2007 short story, “Pride,” was on the final Nebula ballot. Her novel, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, was serialized in Analog. Recent books include Ewaipanoma, Dragon Soup (with Marge Simon), and Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, a Pushcart nominee which appeared on the preliminary Stoker ballot. Her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Cat Tales, Fast Forward 1, and other anthologies and magazines in English, Italian, and German. She is working on a novel, Isidis Rising. She lives near the Cleveland Airport with her husband, NASA scientist and science fiction writer Geoffrey Landis. Her son, Jack Brizzi, is an artist. maryturzillo@earthlink.net.
“Rat” • Vol. 20, No. 1
Wendy Vardaman
From Madison, Wisconsin, she has a Ph.D. in English from University of Pennsylvania. She is the new co-editor of the Wisconsin poetry journal Free Verse. Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals; a collection of poetry, Obstructed View (Fireweed Press), is due out Summer, 2009.
“Golden Jubilee” • Vol. 20, No. 2
James P. Wagner
is a young writer about to earn his B.A. from Dowling College with a major in English Creative Writing and a Minor in Literature. He has been writing since he was 12 years old and intends on going to graduate school for creative writing in the fall. His ultimate goal is to earn his Ph.D. and become a college professor for writing and literature. He has published short stories in several magazines including Riverrun, Struggle Magazine and Golden Visions and has been a featured poet for Long Island's Performance Poetry Association. In addition to writing, which he does every day, James is an active martial artist, painter, linguist and musician.
“The Hunt” • Vol. 20, No. 1
James Wilk
is a practicing physician in Denver, Colorado, specializing in medical disorders complicating pregnancy. His work has appeared in Measure, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Barefoot Muse, The Raintown Review, The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine and others. My 2007 chapbook, Shoulders, Fibs, and Lies, is available through Pudding House Press.
“Hands” • Vol. 20, No. 3