Author Bios

Amie Adams earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. Her essays have been published in Midwest Review, Pilgrimage, and Topology Magazine. She was raised on the shore of Clear Lake in Iowa and is presently a walking tributary of the South Skunk River.

Maureen Gallagher Boland lives with her family in Philadelphia. Her writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Citizen, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and East Falls Local. She has taught English in Philadelphia public schools for over twenty years.

Erica Charis-Molling is a lesbian poet, educator, and librarian. Her writing has been published in literary journals including Tinderbox, Redivider, Vinyl, and Entropy. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison anthology. A Mass Cultural Council Fellow, she's an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University. More of her work can be found here.

John Philip Drury is the author of four full-length poetry collections: The Disappearing Town and Burning the Aspern Papers (both from Miami University Press), The Refugee Camp (Turning Point Books), and Sea Level Rising (Able Muse Press). He has also written Creating Poetry and The Poetry Dictionary. New poems have appeared recently in The American Journal of Poetry, Ascent, Maryland Literary Review, Measure Review, Nine Mile, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. He teaches at the University of Cincinnati.

Olga Dugan is a Cave Canem poet. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, her poems appear in Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, The Windhover, The Sunlight Press, E-Verse Radio, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Southern Quarterly, Kweli, Ekphrastic Review, Tipton Poetry, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Peacock Journal, Origins, Poems from Pandemia – An Anthology, Cave Canem Anthology: XIII, and Red Moon Anthology of Modern English Haiku. Articles on poetry and cultural memory appear in The Journal of African American History, The North Star, and in Emory University's “Meet the Fellows.”

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and Dust and Ashes (Californios Press, 2020), and his full-length collection, the Colored page, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications. The editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, MEH’s recent poetry is appearing or forthcoming in Dappled Things, FareForward, Massachusetts Review, New York Quarterly, Presence, Pensive, Ploughshares, Saint Katherine Review, Shenandoah, Spiritus, and The Windhover. MEH’s an educator who received his MFA, yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him here.

Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); True, False, None of the Above (Illumination Book Award Medalist); Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award)—the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite); four children’s and YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist Children’s Educational Category 2020 International Book Awards), and A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry; I’m Feeling Blue, Too! Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (co-editor); Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry (assistant editor); and 600+ stories, essays, and poems in journals and anthologies. Forthcoming in 2021 is her book Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press), as well as her ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias, Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts). For more information, please see here.

Mallory Nygard lives and writes in East Tennessee. Her poetry has been published in Ever Eden Literary Journal and and her poem “The Song of Sarajevo” was named Best in Show at the 2021 Rehumanize International Create | Encounter.

Alea Peister's writing meditates on embodied spirituality, prayer, and pilgrimage. She lives in Orange County, where she delights in long walks in her old, tree-lined suburban neighborhood. Her writing has been featured in Ekstasis, Whale Road Review, The Curator, and Art for the Isolated. You can find more of her work on her website and her Instagram.

Eric Potter has published poems in journals such as 32 Poems, Christianity and Literature, and The Christian Century. He has also published several chapbooks and a full-length collection, Things Not Seen (2015). He is a professor of English at Grove City College (PA) where he teaches courses in poetry and American literature.

Whitney Rio-Ross is the author of the chapbook Birthmarks (Wipf & Stock) and poetry editor of Fare Forward. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New South, America Magazine, Psaltery & Lyre, So to Speak, The Windhover, 3Elements Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Nashville, TN, with her husband and practically perfect pup.

Ron Riekki’s books include My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Riekki co-edited Undocumented (Michigan State University Press) and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead (McFarland), and edited The Many Lives of It (McFarland), And Here (MSU Press), Here (MSU Press, Independent Publisher Book Award), and The Way North (Wayne State University Press, Michigan Notable Book).

Denise Rue's poems have been published in Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review, Tiferet, Inkwell, Alimentum, and Miller's Pond, among other literary journals. She received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in 2003 and has taught poetry in schools, nursing homes and a women's prison. She received her master’s in social work in 2012 from Rutgers University, and works at a psilocybin-assisted retreat in Treasure Beach, Jamaica where she acts as a retreat leader and psychedelic integration coach.

Rinnah Shaw is an illustrator, author, and geek from Ohio who’s fascinated by any and all kinds of narratives. She is passionate about storytelling, character design, and amplifying marginalized voices in her work. She currently has a couple of children’s book projects in the works, including the published book “Dumplings Mean Family.” Her dreams include creating a full-length graphic novel of her own, filling an apartment to the brim with plants, and acquiring a scruffy dog (preferably one with a beard). Visit her website here or her Instagram @rinnah_draws!

Derold Ernest Sligh currently lives in South Korea and was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan. He received an MA from Central Michigan University and an MFA from San Diego State University. He was the recipient of the J.L. Carroll Arnett Creative Writing Award. He was a guest poet at the Theodore Roethke Memorial where he ran a workshop for African American fathers and sons. His work has appeared in American Poetry Journal, Catamaran Literary Reader, Konundrum Engine, New York Quarterly, The Offing, Santa Clara Review, Third Coast, and Saw Palm, among other publications.

Shelbi Tedeschi is a writer of primarily nonfiction currently pursuing her MA in Creative Writing at Ball State University, where she teaches first-year composition and serves as an intern for River Teeth Journal. Her work has previously appeared in Rathalla Review.

Erin Wilson's poems have appeared in Trinity House Review, The Windhover, Pensive, A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, Crab Creek Review, Pembroke Magazine, Connecticut River Review, and elsewhere. Her first collection is At Home with Disquiet, published by Circling Rivers Press. She lives and writes in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.

Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Orange Blossom Review, Funicular Magazine, and EcoTheo Review, among others. His debut chapbook, I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He can be contacted here.

Robert Paul Cesaretti has published in My Legacy, Poetic Diversity, Plain Brown Wrapper, Gambling the Aisle, SN Review, Dark Matter Magazine, The Atherton Review, Mad Hatters' Review, Commonline Journal, Avatar Review x2, The Zodiac Review, The Writing Disorder, Wilderness House Literary Review, Gloom Cupboard, Blue Lake Review, California Quarterly, and Wax Paper. He is the founding editor of the litzine Ginosko Literary Journal and a native of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Julia Dallaway is an essayist, poet, and graduate student of modern literature, currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her writing features in the forthcoming New York Quarterly anthology Without a Doubt, as well as in student journals at the University of Oxford, where she studied her BA in English. Her preoccupations include mysticism, feminism, the natural world, and challenging linear narrative structures of autobiography.

Lynn Domina is the author or editor of several books,
including two collections of poetry, Corporal Works and Framed in Silence, a collection of essays, Poets on the Psalms, and her recent book of reflections, Devotions from HERstory: 31 Days with Women of Faith. Her recent work appears in the museum of americana, The New England Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, and many other periodicals and anthologies. She serves as Creative Writing Editor of The Other Journal and as Head of the English Department at Northern Michigan University.

Janice L. Freytag currently resides in Souderton, PA, but she has lived and worked in several different countries. She began writing poetry in earnest after returning from a difficult missionary experience in Bosnia. She is an enthusiastic, if not always successful, gardener and draws much inspiration from her little suburban backyard. In addition to poetry, she has written and directed four children’s musicals.

Stephen Kampa is the author of three collections of poetry: Cracks in the Invisible, Bachelor Pad, and Articulate as Rain. He teaches at Flagler College and, from time to time, works as a musician. Currently, he is poet in residence at the Amy Clampitt House.

Laurie Klein is the author of a poetry collection, Where the Sky Opens, and a chapbook, Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. A Pushcart nominee for poetry as well as prose, and a grateful recipient of the Merton Prize, her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

Jaylan Miller is a writer and graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program at Emerson College. She lives in Marion, Indiana.

Matthew Miller teaches social studies, swings tennis rackets, and writes poetry - all hoping to create home. He and his wife live beside a dilapidating orchard in Indiana, where he tries to shape dead trees into playhouses for his four boys. His poetry has been featured in River Mouth Review, Whale Road Review, Club Plum Journal and Ekstasis Magazine.

Linda Mills Woolsey’s poems have appeared most recently in Coal Hill Review, The Christian Century, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith. After decades of writing in the crevices of time left by teaching and administrative work, she’s devoting retirement to reverie. Linda lives in a rural village in Western New York, sharing a sturdy old house with her husband, two cats, and a comforting stash of books.

Jose Oseguera is an LA-based writer of poetry, short fiction and literary nonfiction. His writing has been featured in Emrys Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Potomac Review and The Literarian. He was named one of the Sixty Four Best Poets of 2019 by the Black Mountain Press. His work has also won the Nancy Dew Taylor Award, placed 2nd in the 2020 Hal Prize Contest and been nominated for the Best of the Net award (2018, twice in 2019) as well as the Pushcart (2018, 2019 and 2020) and Forward (2020) Prizes. He is the author of the poetry collection “The Milk of Your Blood” (available through Kelsay Books and Amazon).

Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications 2021), Parrot Flower (Glass Poetry Press, 2021), Still Life (PANK 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP, 2018). She holds an MA in English Language & Literature from Central Michigan University and an MFA in Creative Writing from New England College. A proud Michigan native, she has taught at Michigan State University, Central Michigan University, and Alma College, and participated in local initiatives to increase awareness concerning sexual assault, survivorship, and healing through artistic expression. Her writing observes the intersections of gender violence, narrative identities, embodiment, trauma, and environmental issues as well as survival, wildness, joy, and grief. Learn more here.

Ellen Rogers holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University. She has served as a poetry editor at The Hopper, the assistant managing editor of Bellingham Review, and chair of the Boynton Poetry Contest Committee in Washington state. She now lives in Minnesota. You can read her recent work in Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, and Terrain.org, or at her website.

Nancy Myers Rust is a writer living in Seattle with her husband and two kids. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and writes most often at the intersections of culture, race, gender, and faith. You can find here and all the usual online places, as well as Patheos, Pangyrus, and Sojourners.

Luci Shaw is a poet and essayist, and since 1986 she has been Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver. Author of over thirty-seven books of poetry and creative non-fiction, her writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals and in 1913 she received the 10th annual Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. Her new collection, The Generosity, will be released in August, 2020, by Paraclete Press.

Jack Stewart was educated at the University of Alabama and Emory University. From 1992-95 he was a Brittain Fellow at The Georgia Institute of Technology. His work has appeared in Poetry, The American Literary Review, The Southern Humanities Review, and other journals and anthologies, most recently in Nimrod and A New Ulster. His book, No Reason, was published by the Poeima Poetry Series. He lives in Coconut Creek, Florida.

Veronica Toth is fascinated by the interconnectedness of things. She studied creative writing and psychology at Taylor University, earned an MA in literature and cultural theory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and has been trying to integrate disparate disciplines ever since. Veronica teaches American literature, ethics, and biblical literature at University Liggett School in Michigan, and her writing appears or is forthcoming in Rock & Sling, Windhover, and The Other Journal.

Jacqueline Vogtman received her MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University, and her work has appeared in Atticus Review, Connotation Press, Copper Nickel, Emerson Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Mud Season Review, The Literary Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Versal, and other journals. She teaches English Composition and Literature at Mercer County Community College, where she is Editor of the Kelsey Review and advises the student creative writing club, SOUL. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter, and dog.