ISSUE 8- Spring 2023
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels California and Woman No. 17, as well as the editor of Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them. Her new novel, Time's Mouth, will be published in August 2023. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, and The Cut, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Nathan Batchelor writes from Columbus, Ohio. He has sold more than a dozen stories to magazines across the world. You can find him on twitter @NateBatchelor.
POETRY
Annmarie Kelly Harbaugh is the author of Here Be Dragons: A Parent’s Guide, a memoir about the sweet and wonderful misery of raising children with someone you love. She is also the host of Wild Precious Life, a literary podcast about making the most of the time we have. Her essays have appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, in Gordon Square Review, and the New York Observer. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where she is currently querying a YA novel about all the beautiful truth in the lies we tell.
Megan Duffy Brown is a poet and community college educator. Her poems, one of which earned a Pushcart-nomination, have been published by Moonstone Press, MiGoZine, and Forum Magazine and have aired on local radio. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is co-emcee/ co-curator for the open mic and community-poetry project Speakers’Space in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Twitter: @MeganDBrown
Anna Elkins is a poet and painter. She earned a BA in art and English, an MFA in poetry, and a Fulbright Fellowship to write art-inspired poetry in Germany. She has written, painted, and taught on six continents, exhibiting paintings and publishing books along the way—including her latest poetry collection, Hope of Stones, which won an Oregon Book Award. After many travels, Anna now enjoys living in a small town on a big river with her husband, Jared. annaelkins.com
Hari B Parisi’s (formerly Hari Bhajan Khalsa) poems have been published in numerous journals and are forthcoming in The Blood Pudding, Two Hawks Quarterly and Inklet. She is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently, She Speaks to the Birds at Night While They Sleep, winner of the 2020 Tebot Bach Clockwise Chapbook Contest. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
Matthew Brown's first book, Again With the Light, was published by Wipf and Stock in 2020. He has also had poems appear in Image 102 and twice in The Merton Journal. An article including his correspondence and tribute poem to Robert Lax will appear in the Eastertide edition of The Merton Journal. His latest book, Remember the Brotherhood, also from Wipf and Stock, consists mostly of poems by his late friend Carter Lee Aldridge, along with prose poems created from their correspondence.
Beth Mulcahy is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals. She writes to bridge the gaps between history and the self, between hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. She works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Beth’s debut Chapbook with Anxiety Press, Firmer Ground, is now available. Learn more about Firmer Ground and check out her latest publications on her website: www.bethmulcahywriter.com.
Jordan Beck lives in Columbus, Ohio where he teaches and writes. He received his MFA from Ashland University in 2022. His work has been published in Fatal Flaw Magazine. Find him on Twitter or Instagram at @JayAychBee where he shares his process of coming to terms with being human.
Oanh Nguyen is a part-time online student at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on Creative Writing. She currently lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her two children and other animals. Her work appears in Moving Force Journal, Sad Girl’s Literary blog, and Yellow Arrow Publishing.
Khalil Elayan is a Senior Lecturer of English at Kennesaw State University, teaching mostly World and African American Literature. His other interests include gardening and spending time in nature on his farm in both Georgia. Khalil’s poems have been published in A Gathering of the Tribes magazine, Dime Show Review, About Place Journal, and The Esthetic Apostle. Khalil has also published creative nonfiction, with his most recent essay appearing in Talking Writing, and his latest short story was shortlisted and published in The Vincent Brothers Review Annual Short Story Contest.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Joella Aragon is a retired elementary school teacher and a retired labor union representative for the California Teachers Association. She spent much of her childhood traveling to different countries and to different Air Force Bases in the United States with her father, mother, brothers, and sister. She spends much of her retirement life writing about growing up with a blind mother, mentally ill mother, and her immigrant father from Belize. It’s the lessons she learned from watching them maneuver difficult times that inspires her writing.
Jeremy Broyles is an Arizona native, originally from the Cottonwood-Jerome-Sedona high desert. He earned his B.A. from Doane College, now University, in 2001, his M.A. from Northern Arizona University in 2008, and his MFA in fiction from Wichita State University in 2011. His stories have appeared in The MacGuffin, Santa Clara Review, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Pembroke Magazine, Red Rock Review, Pigeon Review, Suburbia Journal, and Reckon Review amongst many others. His novel Flat Water will be published in 2023 by Main Street Rag Press. He is an aging rider of bicycles, a talentless surfer of waves, and a happily mediocre player of guitars.
Jacqueline Knirnschild is originally from northeast Ohio, but she has lived in many places around the world. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Mississippi, and soon, she will begin study for an M.A. in English at the University of Maine. Her poetry, essays and literary criticism appear in MORIA, Ninth Letter, The Cleveland Review of Books and elsewhere. She is the Poetry Editor of BTWN Magazine. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @JacqKnirn.
FICTION
Christian Kiefer is the director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Ashland University, and the author of The Infinite Tides (Bloomsbury), The Animals (W.W. Norton), One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide (Nouvella Books), Phantoms (Liveright/W.W. Norton), and the September 2023 release The Heart of it All (Melville House).
Jeanne-Marie Fleming is a writer and educator. She has an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She taught in public schools for twenty-five years. Her words have been published in the wVw Anthology, Read650 podcast, Loud Coffee Press and Writers Read. She is a fiction editor at Variant Literature Journal, a reader at Lumina Journal, and a writing mentor for the incarcerated population via Transforming Lives NY. Her writing explores the dynamic ways humans manage life and put up with one another. Jeanne-Marie’s home is in the Hudson Valley, New York.
Megan E. O'Laughlin is a psychotherapist, nonfiction writer, and MFA candidate at Ashland University. Her work has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Defunkt Magazine, and others. She lives by the sea in Washington state with her spunky child, spoiled dogs, and surfing spouse. You can find her at meganolaughlin.com
Nikole Pryor is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She received her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and her MFA from Ashland University. You can find her work at at www.nikolepryor.com.
Coleman Bigelow is the father of three suburban sports stars - he tries not to shout too loudly from the sidelines. When not cheering on his kids, Coleman writes fiction. His work has been published in various literary journals, including Bending Genres, Emerge Journal and The Dribble Drabble Review. He's currently at work on a flash fiction collection and a new novel. Find more at: colemanbigelow.com