Jeffrey Alfier was a finalist for the Missouri Laureate Prize in 2021. In 2018, he won the Angela Consolo Manckiewick Poetry Prize, awarded from Lummox Press. In 2014, he won the Kithara Book Prize, judged by Dennis Maloney. Publication credits include Arkansas Review, Atlanta Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Columbia College Literary Review, Copper Nickel, Emerson Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Kestrel, Gargoyle, Hotel Amerika, Los Angeles Review, Louisville Review, The Midwest Quarterly, New York Quarterly, Permafrost, Poetry Ireland Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southwestern American Literature, and Texas Review. His latest collection of poems is The Shadow Field (Louisiana Literature Journal & Press, 2020). He is also author of Gone This Long: Southern Poems, The Wolf Yearling, Idyll for a Vanishing River, Fugue for a Desert Mountain, Anthem for Pacific Avenue: California Poems, Southbound Express to Bayhead: New Jersey Poems, The Red Stag at Carrbridge: Scotland Poems, Bleak Music: A Photo and Poetry collaboration with poet Larry D. Thomas, The Storm Petrel: Poems of Ireland. He and his wife, Tobi, are founders of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review, a print publication of poetry and art (since 2009).
Rilla Askew is the author of four novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s a PEN/Faulkner Finalist and recipient of three Oklahoma Book Awards, two Western Heritage Awards, and the American Book Award for her novel about the Tulsa Race Massace, Fire in Beulah. Her collection of nonfiction, Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her essays and short fiction have appeared in AGNI, Tin House, World Literature Today, Translatlantica, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Paul Austin’s collection Notes on Hard Times was published by Village Books Press. His work has appeared in such publications as This Land, Sugar Mule, Oklahoma Review, More Monologues by Men, Newport Review, and Jerry Jazz Musician. His poems have also been included in Speak Your Mind, the 2019 anthology of Woody Guthrie Poets Buff Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush, an anthology of Oklahoma poetry, Behind the mask: Haiku in the Time of Covid-19, Jerry Jazz Musician, and LEVEL Land: poems for and about the I-35 corridor. Late Night Conspiracies, a collection of his writings was performed with jazz ensemble at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre. His book, Spontaneous Behavior, the Art and Craft of Acting, will be published by Turning Plow Press in 2022
Walter Bargen has published 25 books of poetry including: My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes (Lamar University Press, 2018), Until Next Time (Singing Bone Press, 2019), Pole Dancing in the Night Club of God (Red Mountain Press, 2020), and You Wounded Miracle, (Liliom Verlag, 2021). He was appointed the first poet laureate of Missouri (2008-2009).
Alan Berecka is very glad to be back in Ada and amongst friends. He reluctantly earns his keep as a librarian at Del Mar College. Berecka’s recently published 5th volume of poems, A Living is not a Life: A Working Title, explores the nature of work and his life as an employee. One who has never been employee of the month material, Berecka is not surprised by the great American resignation, because work is never cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.
Paul Bowers lives with his wife on a small farm in northwestern Oklahoma. He teaches writing and literature at Northern Oklahoma College in Enid, and is the author of a short story collection, Like Men, Made Various (2006), and three poetry collections: The Lone, Cautious, Animal Life (2016), Occasional Hymns (2018), and his most recent collection, Ten Acres of the Universe (2022).
Joey Brown writes poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in several literary journals including Red Earth Review, Concho River Review, The Sea Letter, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Louisiana Review, The Oklahoma Review, Cybersoleil, The Mid-America Poetry Review, and San Pedro River Review. She reads at literary festivals throughout the Midwest and Southwest. She’s published two collections of poems, Oklahomaography (Mongrel Empire Press) and The Feral Love Poems (Hungry Buzzard Press). Joey teaches professional and creative writing at Missouri Southern State University. She lives in southwest Missouri with her husband, prose writer Michael Howarth, and their congenial pack of rescue dogs.
Joan Canby has her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She worked in Corporate America for Hughes Aircraft, General Dynamics, Ericsson, and Nortel Networks where she was a technical writer and then a project manager in training. She has been a Lecturer at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas Community Colleges and University of Phoenix. Her poems have been published in California Quarterly, The Hawaiian Advertiser, Illya’s Honey, Texas Observer, Forces, Beginnings, New Voices, Cape Rock, Voices Project, Brevitas, Broken Plate, Main Street Rag and Thema. She has written two Chapbooks Metaxe and Cascades that will be published by Assure Press. She lives in Dallas.
Hailed as a juxtaposition of fairy tales and Oklahoma, Yvonne Carpenter’s latest book is a finalist in Women Writing the West in 2021. Westview featured her in a special section also in 2021.She published Red Dirt Roads, 2014 Oklahoma Poetry book of the year. She has read at the Woody Guthrie Festival, the Scissortail Festival and numerous libraries. Her work has appeared in Grain (a Canadian literary journal), Concho River Review, Red Dirt Review, Dragon Poets, Dos Gatos, several anthologies, and e-zines. She has written three books, managed farm finances, worked for a tax accountant, an oil distributor, a newspaper, and taught school.
Robin Carstensen’s manuscript In the Temple of Shining Mercy received the annual first-place award by Iron Horse Literary Press in 2017. Recent work has been published by FlowerSong Press, Jacar Press, and Lamar Press. She is co-founding senior editor for the Switchgrass Review, advises the Windward Review, and serves on the People’s Poetry Festival Committee. Her work has also earned annual first-place awards with So to Speak: a Literary Journal of Language, Feminism, and Art and Many Mountains Moving: a Journal of Diverse and Contemporary Poetry. Poems are also published in BorderSenses, Southern Humanities Review, Tishman Review, Voices de La Luna, Demeter Press’s anthology, Borderlands and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland, Fiolet and Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulist Poetry, and many more.
Leah Chaffins is a short story writer, a novelist, and a poet. Her primary writings are horror fiction, memoir, poetry, and journalism. Her work can be found in publications such as the anthologies Bull Buffalo and Indian Paint Brush, Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way: Poems of Protest & Resistance, and Behind the Yellow Wallpaper, Red Earth Review, and 580 Monthly. Leah recently published her first novel, “The God Seed”, and is currently revising her second novel, “Birthmarks: Lucille” and a chapbook “Deep Prairie Bitters.” She is an Assistant Professor at Cameron University. In her free time, Leah volunteers with organizations that are using creative writing to positively impact the world we share. Her current volunteer work includes being a submission judge for Ageless Authors and hosting WOW (Writer’s of the Wichita’s) Workshops.
In her former life as a professor of medieval and early modern English literature and creative writing, Julie Chappell published six books of scholarship; a collection of her original poetry, Faultlines (Village Books Press, 2013); and other writings. Her poetry and prose have appeared in a number of anthologies and journals including Concho River Review; Stone Renga; Speak Your Mind: Woody Guthrie Poets Celebrate Freedom of Speech 2019; and Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush (The Poetry of Oklahoma). She has also read her work widely in a variety of venues from California to Virginia and places in between. In 1994, she was the Grand Slam Poetry prize winner in Lawrence, Kansas. Since retiring in 2018, she has published two more collections of poetry, Mad Habits of a Life (Lamar University Literary Press, 2019) and As I Pirouette Away (Turning Plow Press, 2021). Her second collection, Mad Habits of a Life was nominated for the Paterson Prize in 2020. Her first collection of original short stories, Homecoming and Other Mythic Tales, was published by Fine Dog Press in 2021.
Village Books Press published Terri Lynn Cummings’ poetry books, Tales to the Wind, An Element Apart, and 33WoodvalePress published When Distant Hours Call. Her work appears in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Flint Hills Review, Malpais Review, Ignacious, The New Mexican Newspaper’s cultural magazine, Pasatiempo, as 2020’s first place contest winner in adult poetry, as well as other journals and anthologies. She is Associate Editor and contributor to Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, a Woody Guthrie poet, University of Oklahoma Mark Allen Everett poet, and Scissortail Creative Writing Festival presenter. She serves on the advisory committee of Oklahoma City University’s Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature, and presents her work at symposiums and festivals. In addition, she co-hosts the monthly Full Circle Bookstore Poetry Series and open mic in Oklahoma City. Terri has studied at Creative Writing Institute and holds a B.S. in Sociology/Anthropology from Oklahoma State University.
Robert L. Dean, Jr. is the author of The Aerialist Will not be Performing: ekphrastic poems and short fictions to the art of Steven Schroeder (Turning Plow Press, 2020), and At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018), and a forthcoming chapbook, Pulp, scheduled with Finishing Line Press for July 2022. A multiple Best of the Net nominee and a Pushcart nominee, his work has appeared in MockingHeart Review; October Hill Magazine; Flint Hills Review; I-70 Review; Chiron Review; The Ekphrastic Review; Sheila-Na-Gig online; Shot Glass; Illya’s Honey; Red River Review; KYSO Flash; MacQueen’s Quinterly; Thorny Locust; River City Poetry; Heartland! and the Wichita Broadside Project. Dean is a member of The Writers Place and the Kansas Authors Club, and event coordinator for Epistrophy: An Afternoon of Poetry and Improvised Music, held annually in Wichita, Kansas. Since the onset of the pandemic, he has read in many online forums across the country. He can usually be found at SpoFest three Tuesdays every month. Recordings of some of his work are forthcoming in The Writers Place first audio book. A native Kansan, Dean has been a professional musician, and worked at The Dallas Morning News. He lives in Augusta, Kansas.
Marc DiPaolo is an Associate Professor of English at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, treasurer of the Working-Class Studies Association, and Secretary of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. He published the autobiographical novel Fake Italian (Bordighera Press) in 2021. DiPaolo has also written the academic books Fire and Snow: Climate Fiction from the Inklings to Game of Thrones (2018) and War, Politics, and Superheroes (2011). His media interviews include appearances on NPR, BBC4, and AMC’s documentary Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics (2017).
Richard Dixon is a retired high-school Special Education teacher and tennis coach. He has had his poetry, fiction and non-fiction published in Dragon Poet Review, Conclave, Crosstimbers, Westview, Red Earth Review, Red River Review, Red Earth Forum, Oklahoma Today, Walt’s Corner of the Long Islander, HARD CRACKERS, 3 Woody Guthrie anthologies in 2011, 2013 and 2017 as well as Clash By Night, an anthology of poems related to the breakthrough 1979 album by the Clash, London Calling. He has been a featured reader at Full Circle Bookstore, the Depot in Norman, OK, the Benedict St. Marketplace and Lunch Box in Shawnee, OK. He has also read his work at Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, OK, Chikaskia Literary Festival in Tonkawa, OK. and the annual Woody Guthrie readings in Oklahoma City, Okemah and Tulsa, OK. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, Leaving Home (2017).
Woodstok Farley, aka Michael Dooley, is an assistant professor at Tarleton State University—Stephenville, Texas. Having wandered from south Florida to Oklahoma, then to Texas, Woodstok delights in telling tales from sandals to socks. His first collection of short stories entitled As the Wave Rose: Florida Tales and Other Wandering Stories, published by Fine Dog Press, displays his deep yearning to return to the seacoast. Woodstok's second collection of short stories set mainly in the southwest continues the tales of this wandering beach-bum longing for his home.
Not quite life-ready, Maureen DuRant works as a librarian for Lawton Public Schools at the newly conceived Life Ready Center. Additionally, she teaches communications for Cameron University and she fixes clocks. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Queen’s University in Charlotte while she tried to find herself. Press 53 published her first collection of poetry, Skirmishes on the Okie-Irish Border, April Fool's Day, 2020. Really. Other publications include poetry in Crosstimbers, Red River Review, Westview, and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology as well as a postcard history of West Point published by Arcadia Press.
Chris Ellery, from San Angelo, Texas, is author of five poetry collections, including Canticles of the Body and Elder Tree. His work has appeared recently in Christian Century, The Sufi Journal, Crosswinds, and Blue Hole. He is a frequent contributor to texaspoetryasignment.org. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has received the X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, and the Betsy Colquitt Award.
Todd Fuller is co-editor of Level Land and serves as curator of the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of 60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: the (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse (Holy Cow! Press) and To the Disappearance (Mongrel Empire Press). Recent work has been anthologized in Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush (the Poetry of Oklahoma), the Beat Generation Anthology, Release Me, the Spirits of Greenwood Speak, and The Eloquent Poem.
Alan Gann facilitates after-school programming and writing workshops for under-served youth for which he wrote DaVerse Works, a performance poetry curriculum. Multiple Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominee, Alan is the author of three volumes of poetry: Better Ways to See (Assure Press), That’s Entertainment (Lamar University Literary Press), and Adventures of the Clumsy Juggler (Ink Brush Press). His nonexistent spare time is spent bird watching, biking and otherwise enjoying the outdoors.
Inspired equally by her upbringing on the plains of Oklahoma and time spent exploring the high desert of New Mexico, Ky George uses essay, fiction, and even a little poetry to explore the intimate relationships between the land and its people. A queer femme reared in the Bible Belt, she seeks to tell stories of radical inclusion in unexpected spaces. Ky is a graduate of the Red Earth MFA and has had work published in The Oklahoma Review and Insurrection.
Andrew Geyer’s ninth book is the story cycle Lesser Mountains (Lamar University Press, 2019). A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and recently selected for induction into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, he currently serves as fiction editor for Concho River Review.
Lyman Grant is a poet and writer currently living in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is married and the father of three sons. In addition to two textbooks and four edited books, he has published one chapbook and six volumes of poems. The most recent, Old Men on Tuesday Afternoons (2017) and Found Poems and Weather Reports (2020), are published by Alamo Bay Press. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently in Writing Texas, Concho River Review, Soul x Southwest, Endlessly Rocking, Texas Poetry Calendar, We Are Residents Here, Unlocking the Word, and Five Friends Sunday Afternoons. He taught for 40 years at Austin Community College (Austin, Texas) and retired after serving as Dean of Arts and Humanities and as Interim Dean of Communications.
Mary B. Gray was born and raised in Lawton, OK and received her Bachelor of Arts in both Journalism and English Writing, as well her Master of Public Administration (MPA), from the University of Oklahoma and her Master of Fine Arts from Oklahoma City University. Mary has taken part in Short Order Poems and The Ralph Ellison creative writing workshops. Previous public readings include the 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Celebration, Society of Urban Poet presentations in 2019 and 2020 as well as the Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series in October 2019. Her work has been published in Ain’t Nobody That Can Sing Like Me: New Oklahoma Writing, Territory Magazine and For the Sonorous.
Michael Howarth holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a Ph.D. in Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Louisiana Lafayette. He is a Professor of English at Missouri Southern State University where he teaches Children’s Literature and Film Studies in addition to directing the Honors Program. He is the author of two critical texts, Under the Bed, Creeping: Psychoanalyzing the Gothic in Children’s Literature and Movies to See before You Graduate from High School. He is also the author of Fair Weather Ninjas, a young adult novel. His newest book, a gothic historical novel titled A Still and Awful Red, was published in 2021.
Ann Howells, transplanted from Maryland to Texas in 1979, where she edited Illya’s Honey poetry journal for eighteen years, both in print and online. She is active in several workshop groups. Her most recent books are: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) about the Chesapeake Bay watermen’s culture, and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020) persona poems primarily in the voice of Vincent Van Gogh. Two of her early chapbooks were published through contests: Black Crow in Flight, as Editor’s Choice in Main Street Rag’s 2007 competition and Softly Beating Wings as 2017 William D. Barney winner (Blackbead Books). Ann’s work appears in many small press and university journals.
Maryann Hurtt is fascinated by the strange tension between beauty and a harsh world. Now retired after thirty years working as a hospice RN, her chapbook, River, (Kelsay Books, 2016) explores issues of resiliency. pain, and beauty. Once Upon a Tar Creek: Mining for Voices (Turning Plow Press) was published in 2021, Tar Creek has been called the “worst environmental disaster no one has heard of” and she is passionate that its story is remembered. She is currently working on a collection tentatively titled Of Peonies and Murderous Doings. This past year, Hurtt was a featured reader at the Chikaskia Literary Festival, received A Best of the Net nomination, (“Agent Orange and Orchids”) and won Cornerstone Press’s Portage Poetry Series Prize. (“My Grandfather Tells a Story of Outlaws and Flowers”)
Jessica Isaacs is the founder and co-editor of Dragon Poet Review, an online literary journal. Her book, Deep August (Village Books Press), received the 2015 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. Her poems appear in various publications, including Speak Your Mind, Oklahoma Today, and The Ekphrastic Review. She teaches writing and humanities courses at Seminole State College.
Originally from the hilly corner of Ohio, Mark Allen Jenkins’s poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Pine Hills Review, Gargoyle, minnesota review, River Styx, South Dakota Review, Every River on Earth: Writing from Appalachian Ohio, and Still: The Journal. He completed a PhD in Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas and currently teaches in Houston.
Markham Johnson's book of poetry, Dear Dreamland, will be published by Lamar University Press in May. His previous book, Collecting the Light, was published by the University Press of Florida, and a chapbook, selected by Philip Levine, was published by the South Florida Poetry Review. In 2016, Johnson won the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry from Nimrod. Recent publications include: Coal Hill Review, Consequence Magazine, Comstock Review, English Journal, Nine Mile Magazine, Sport Literate, and Greenwood One Hundred. He received an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College.
Hank Jones backpacked the world in his youth hoping to find a poet within until lack of funds prompted him to seek a job at his alma mater, Tarleton State University. He planned to stay a year or two and get back on the road, but twenty-one years later, he is an assistant professor at the same university. To keep his creative spirit alive, and to hone his facility with the written word, he enrolled in the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University from which graduated in 2019. His poetry has been published in Cybersoleil: A Literary Journal, Voices de la Luna, Dragon Poet Review, the Concho River Review, and Red River Review. He’s also contributed poems to The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology from Lamar University Literary Press, Speak Your Mind: Poems of Protest & Resistance, published by Village Books Press, the Stone Renga Anthology from Tale Feathers Press, and most recently Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush (The Poetry of Oklahoma), edited by Ron Wallace. His first book of poetry, Too Late for Manly Hands, was published by Turning Plow Press in 2021. He now lives in a beautiful house overlooking Lake Keystone with his wife, Julie Chappell, and drives six hours to teach his courses at Tarleton.
Living what could be charitably called a nomadic life, Paul Juhasz was born in western New Jersey, grew up just outside New Haven, Connecticut, and has spent appreciable chunks of his life in the plains of central Illinois, in the upper hill country of Texas, and in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. Most recently seduced by the spirit of the red earth, he now lives in Oklahoma City. He has worked at an Amazon fulfillment center, manned a junk truck, and driven for Uber, material he’s drawn on for his poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. His work has appeared in several literary journals, most recently Red Earth Review, Poetry Quarterly, Oklahoma Review and Concho River Review. He is also author of two books—Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, a mock journal covering his six-month stint in an Amazon warehouse, and Ronin, a collection of (mostly) prose poems—both published by Fine Dog Press.
Haesong Kwon was born in Incheon, Korea and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was eight. He has a few degrees, one of which is an MFA in Poetry from The University of Massachusetts Amherst. His books include Many Have Fallen (Chapbook: Cutbank Books) and The People’s Field (Southeast Missouri State University). He teaches at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, KY.
Heather Levy is a born and bred Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program for creative writing. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including CrimeReads and NAILED Magazine. The New York Times called her debut Walking Through Needles “a spellbinding novel at the nexus of power, desire, and abuse that portends a bright future” and the L.A. Times called it “a standout for its frank but sensitive exploration of trauma and desire.” She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, two kids, and three murderous cats. Follow her on Twitter and IG @heatherllevy.
Huichun (Amy) Liang is a Chinese writer and translator, and she is a Chinese Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia. She is the author of her poetry collection: autumn, presencing, co-author (with Zhanjing) of Chinese Idioms and co-translator (with Steven Schroeder) of Small (poetry by Li Nan), and of other anthologies of poetry translation. Her writing has appeared on a variety of Chinese media. Her translation appears in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine(Hong Kong), Sichuan Literature, Rhino and some other anthologies of Chinese and English bilingual poetry translation. Her poems, Loneliness and Translator have been in the shortlists respectfully in the Flushing Poetry Festival, 2018 and International Flushing Poetry Festival, 2019. Her prose (essay)- “ A Rhapsody of Autumn” (Chinese) received a honorable mention in the Twenty Eight Sino Literature Essay Contest for 2020-2021. Huichun received the 2016 Purple Chalk Teaching award of the College of Arts and Science in MU. She was an editor and reporter at the China National Radio from1985 to 1988. She received a special award for reporting on the terrible forest fire on Da-Xing-An Mountain in 1987 from the All-China Journalists Association and was the co-winner of the 1987 Annual News Editing prize of the China National Radio.
Jordan Mackey has a BA in English from Cameron University, and in completing her MFA at Lindenwood University in Creative Writing. She has become more involved in Creative Writing since she started to teach the minds of young Oklahomans, and is ecstatic to continue her education on the subject matter. She hopes that her writing is a source of insight and guidance for those struggling with the same demons she once did as a child. She has had a variety of nonfiction and poetry published in The Iconoclast, The Gold Mine, The Rose, Liminal Women's Anthology, and the 580 Monthly.
Daniel Marroquin teaches high school English in Killeen, TX and was featured in the Harker Heights Herald as staff member of the month (March, 2018). His collected journalism can be found at Nondoc.com, a political journal in Oklahoma City. He graduated from The University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism and mass communication. He was a recipient of a Creative Projects Grant from The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition for his documentary short subject ‘Skywriters.’
Sharon Edge Martin has been published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Family Circle, Malpais Review, Oklahoma Today, Outside, True West, and three Wood Guthrie Anthologies. Her work is included in Michael Bugeja’s The Art and Craft of Poetry, and she has been a regular contributor to the Oklahoma Observer for more than a dozen years. She is the author of a picture book, Froggy Bottom Blues, and two books from Village Books Press—a poetry collection, Not a Prodigal, and a book of essays, I’ve Got the Blues: Looking for Justice in a Red State. She is currently at work on a novel in verse
Abigale Mazzo is currently a PhD candidate in English Language and Literature at the University of Tulsa and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University. Her work has appeared in The Gold Mine, The Oklahoma Review, Jelly Bucket, and 580 Monthly. She is an Oklahoma native that loves to write about the Midwest and the people and traditions of the area. Abigale enjoys traveling, trying new things, and spending time with her husband and dogs.
Bill McCloud is a poetry editor for the Right Hand Pointing literary journal and is the poetry reviewer for Vietnam Veterans of America. His poetry book, The Smell of the Light (Balkan Press), reached #1 on The Oklahoman’s “Oklahoma Bestsellers List.” His poems have appeared in Oklahoma Today and the Oklahoma English Journal, are taught in classes at the University School of Milwaukee, WI, and discussed in a Creative Writing class at the University of Tulsa. He is a faculty member of William Bernhardt’s WriterCon, presenting sessions on writing and publishing poetry. Bernhardt’s Balkan Press will be publishing McCloud’s second full-length poetry book, A Charming Little Hurt.
A graduate of St. John's College and of the George Mason University MFA Program, Gary Worth Moody has worked as a forest fire fighter, a farrier, a cowboy, and as a construction manager building a town for coal miners in Siberia’s Kuzbass Region. His poems have appeared in myriad journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the anthologies, Cabin Fever: Poets at Joaquin Miller’s Cabin, 1984-2001 (Word Works Press) and Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos Press). He is the author of Hazards of Grace (Red Mountain Press, 2012), Occoquan (Red Mountain Press, 2015) shortlisted for the international Rubery Book Award in poetry. Gary’s 3rd manuscript, The Burnings (3:A Taos Press, 2019) was chosen as a co-winner of the 2020 New Mexico / Arizona Book Award in Poetry. He is currently developing a 4th manuscript with working title This Feral Light. A falconer, Gary lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the artist and writer Oriana Rodman, Handsome the Dachshund, Beauty the grulla dog, and Fuego the Red-tail hawk.
Phil Morgan is an Oklahoma poet, novelist, biographer, and literary critic. Phil and his wife, painter and sculptor Kate Arnott Morgan, live and work on Morgan’s Mulberry Grove Farm. They utilize agroforestry techniques on the farm, celebrating its 115th anniversary this year, located in the Chickasaw Nation near Blanchard town. Phil publishes under his full given name, Phillip Carroll Morgan, and is currently working with editors from White Dog Press who intend to publish in 2022 the sequel to his 2015 novel entitled Anompolichi, the Wordmaster. His most recent publications were the essay, “Love Can Build a Bridge, the Choctaw Gift of 1847,” and the poem, “Postcards from Moundville.” Both appeared in Famine Pots: The Choctaw-Irish Gift Exchange, 1847-Present, published by Michigan State University Press in 2020.
John Graves Morris, Professor of English at Cameron University, is the author of Noise and Stories, a collection published by Plain View Press in 2008. His second poetry manuscript, The County Seat of Wanting So Many Things, is a homeless child still in search of a foster publisher. His poems have appeared in The Chariton Review, The Concho River Review, The Red River Review, The Red Earth Review, Jelly Bucket, Westview, and other publications. He lives in Lawton.
Christopher Murphy received his MFA from The University of Arkansas and teaches creative writing at Northeastern State University. He reads for Nimrod International Journal and serves on the board for the Oklahoma Humanities Council. His work has been published at Gulf Coast (online), This Land, Jellyfish Review, Necessary Fiction, and decomP among others. He has a collection of flash fiction, Burning All the Time, from Mongrel Empire Press.
Tom Murphy is the 2021-2022 Corpus Christi Poet Laureate. Murphy’s books: Snake Woman Moon (2021), Pearl (2020), American History (2017), co-edited Stone Renga (2017). Murphy’s CDs Live from Del Mar College (2015), and Slams from the Pit (2014). tommurphywriter.com
Benjamin Myers was the 2015-2016 Poet Laureate of the State of Oklahoma and is the author of three books of poetry: Black Sunday (Lamar University Press, 2018), Lapse Americana (New York Quarterly Books, 2013) and Elegy for Trains (Village Books Press, 2010). His poems may be read in The Yale Review, Rattle, 32 Poems, Image, Nimrod and other literary journals. He is a winner of the Oklahoma Book Award and a recipient of the Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference. Myers lives with his wife and three children in Chandler, Oklahoma, and is the Crouch-Mathis Professor of Literature at Oklahoma Baptist University. His first book of non-fiction, A Poetics of Orthodoxy, was recently published by Cascade Books.
Vivian Finley Nida is the author of From Circus Town, USA (Village Books Press). She is a Songs of Eretz Poetry Review Frequent Contributor, a University of Oklahoma Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series poet, a Woody Guthrie poet, and a Scissortail Creative Writing Festival presenter. With a B.A.and M.S. from Oklahoma State University, she taught English and Creative Writing until retirement. She continues to serve as a Teacher/Consultant with the University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Writing Project. Since its inception in 1997, she has been a member of the advisory committee of Oklahoma City University’s Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature. In 2021, her poetry won second place in the OKC Writers, Inc. contest and 3rd in Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry’s professional contest. Her work appears in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Oklahoma Humanities magazine, Conclave 2018: The Trickster’s Song, Dragon Poet Review, Illya’s Honey, River Poets Journal, and elsewhere.
Neal Ostman’s poetry has appeared in various journals, anthologies and e-zines including: artsDFW guide; Cattlemen & Cadillacs; ComradesUK.com; Electric Acorn, Dublin, Ireland; The Fort Worth Poet; Lotuseaters.net; Lllya’s Honey; New Texas 2001; Pierian Springs; Poems Niederngasse; Poetry Pacific; Red River Review, Under the Streets and Bridges, and Wired Art from Wired Hearts. His poetry readings have been well received at many venues in Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, and other cities in his travels. Neal has taught writing and poetry seminars at the OU Short Course on Professional Writing and Texas Writers’ Conferences, respectively. In addition to poetry, his published credits include, humor and op-ed columns, and business articles. Neal is a member of the Dallas Poets Community and The Poetry Society of Texas. He lives in Colleyville, Texas.
Shaun Perkins is the founder/director of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals, newspapers, magazines and books. Her detective novel in verse, The Book with the Beacon Lights, was published by Bacone College’s Indian University Press. Perkins is a storyteller and webmaster for the Territory Tellers, a Teaching Artist with the Oklahoma Arts Council, and a podcast host of Wacky Poem Life and Okie Noir.
Brady Peterson lives near Belton, Texas. He is the author of Glued to the Earth, Between Stations, Dust, From an Upstairs Window, and García Lorca is Somewhere in Produce. His latest book, At the Edge of Town, was released last fall to much applause. Paul Juhasz says he liked it.
Keely Record lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Received an MFA from the Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program at Oklahoma City University. She serves on the editorial board of Nimrod International Journal. Her poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica and Bamboo Hut.
Gary Reddin grew up among the cicada songs and tornado sirens of Southwest Oklahoma. His writing was born out of these dissonant sounds. His work has appeared in Stoneboat, The Razor, Marathon Lit Review, The Windmill, and elsewhere. He can be found online as @andrewreddin on Twitter. He can also be reached by email at andrewreddin@gmail.com.
The poems, reviews, and essays of Carol Coffee Reposa have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, The Texas Observer, Southwestern American Literature, The Valparaiso Review, and other journals and anthologies. Author of five books of poetry – At the Border: Winter Lights, The Green Room, Facts of Life, Underground Musicians, and New and Selected Poems 2018 – Reposa was a finalist in The Malahat Review Long Poem Contest (1988), winner of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Poetry Contest (1992), and winner of the San Antonio Public Library Arts & Letters Award (2015). She also has received five Pushcart Prize nominations in addition to three Fulbright-Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the editorial staff at Voices de la Luna, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.
Sally Rhoades, a former Capital reporter in Albany, N.Y., began writing poetry in the late 1980’s. This year she participated in writing "A Poem a Day" with a reading this past December. She was featured in The Trolley, a Writer Institute on-line journal. She has been the guest of "Poetry Spoken Here" – a podcast directed by interviewer/poet Charlie Rossiter. Her poems have appeared in Misfit Magazine, edited by Alan Catlin. She has also been published in Dragon Poetry Review, 2, Elegant Rage, a poetic tribute honoring the centennial of Woody Guthrie, the Highwatermark Salo[o]n performance series by Stockpot flats, Up the River, by Albany Poets and in Peerglass, an anthology of Hudson Valley peer groups. She is also a performance artist and performs regularly in NYC.
Rob Roensch is the author of the story collection The Wildflowers of Baltimore (Salt, 2012) and the short novel The World and the Zoo (Outpost19, 2020). He teaches at Oklahoma City University and directs the Red Earth MFA.
Molly Sizer is a retired rural sociologist living in southwest Oklahoma. She spends most of her time walking in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge, and occasionally writes poetry. She’s presented her words to Lawton’s Third Saturday readings, Duncan’s Reading Down the Plains, the 2018 Woody Guthrie Poetry Readings and the 2019 Scissortail Festival. Her work has been published in Westview and The Oklahoma Review.
Christopher Stephen Soden received his MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in January of 2005. He teaches craft, theory, genre and literature. He writes poetry, plays, literary, film and theatre critique for sharpcritic.com and EdgeDallas. Christopher’s poetry collection, Closer was released by Rebel Satori Press on June 14th, 2011. He received a Full Fellowship to Lambda Literary's Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices in August 2010. His performance piece: Queer Anarchy received The Dallas Voice's Award for Best Stage Performance. Water and A Christmas Wish were staged at Bishop Arts and Radio Flyer and Every Day is Christmas. In Heaven. at Nouveau 47. Other honors include: Distinguished Poets of Dallas, Poetry Society of America's Poetry in Motion Series, Founding Member, President and President Emeritus of The Dallas Poets Community. His work has appeared in: Rattle, The Cortland Review, 1111, Peculiar, Briar’s Lit, Typishly, F(r)iction, G & L Review, Chelsea Station, Glitterwolf, Collective Brightness, A Face to Meet the Faces, Resilience, Ganymede Poets: One, Gay City 2, The Café Review, The Texas Observer, Sentence, Borderlands, Off the Rocks, The James White Review, The New Writer, Velvet Mafia, Poetry Super Highway, Gertrude, Touch of Eros, Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians, Windy City Times, ArLiJo, Best Texas Writing 2.
Denise Tolan's work has been included in places such as The Best Small Fictions 2018, The Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post, Hobart, Atlas and Alice, and Lunch Ticket. Denise was a finalist for both the 2019 and 2018 International Literary Awards: Penelope Niven Prize in Nonfiction and a finalist in 2018 and 2019 for the Diane Wood’s Memorial Award for Nonfiction. Her work was also longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 and nominated for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2020 and Best of the Net 2021.
Ron Wallace is an Oklahoma native and currently an adjunct instructor of English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of nine books of poetry, five of which have been finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards. Renegade and Other Poems was the 2018 winner of the Oklahoma Book Award. Wallace has been a Pushcart Prize nominee and has recently been published in Oklahoma Today, Concho River Review, Red Earth Review, Oklahoma Humanities Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Borderlands, and a number of other magazines and journals. He has just finished editing Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush, a collection of Oklahoma Poetry.
Sarah Webb is the former poetry editor of Crosstimbers, an interdisciplinary journal from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Her poetry collections Red Riding Hood's Sister (virtual artists collective, 2018) and Black (virtual artists collective, 2013) were finalists for the Oklahoma Book Award and Black for the Writers' League of Texas Book Award. She is a co-editor for the Zen arts magazine Just This and co-leader of an ongoing writing group for Zen and Writing.
Ann E. Weisman has produced three collections of poetry and one CD of her collaborations with musicians. Her most recent publications are Speak Your Mind, the 2019 Woody Guthrie Anthology; the 2021 Fixed and Free Poetry Anthology; and the upcoming New Mexico Poetry Anthology. Her poem, "I Can Be Like Water," was awarded first place in the professional category in the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry (ROMP) 2019 Water Poem Contest. In February of 2020, she created and curated a poetry & visual art exhibition and reading, We Are All Related, at Liggett Studio in Tulsa. She retired as the Deputy Director of New Mexico Arts in 2014 and now lives in Tulsa along the river with her husband, Charles King.
Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue,a writer from Fort Worth, Texas, has published over 100 poems in a number of venues, including The Texas Observer, California Quarterly, Borderlands, Poetry Motel, Barbaric Yawp, and two anthologies of Texas poetry.He was a juried poet at The Houston Poetry Fest in 1994. In 2004, his chapbook was a semi-finalist in a Winnow Press contest. That same chapbook earned a finalist designation for a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. Also, it was twice a finalist for Dallas Poets Community chapbook contest. In April 2011, he was a featured poet at their First Friday Reading. Last fall Hungry Buzzard Press published a collection of his poems entitled What I Did Not Tell You.
Cullen Whisenhunt is a graduate of Oklahoma City University's Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program, and his work has been published in Ninth Letter, Atlas Poetica 40, Red River Review, and Dragon Poet Review, among other journals. His debut chapbook, Among the Trees, was published by Fine Dog Press in 2021.
Bertha Wise is a retired Professor of English at Oklahoma City Community College. She earned a BS in English Education and MA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma (UC0). Originally from central New York State, she found her way to Oklahoma over thirty years ago through a circuitous route, having also lived in such diverse locations as Arizona, New Hampshire, California, and South Carolina in the U.S. and Tachikawa, Japan. Several of her poems have been published in various college and university literary journals including Baraza (at UCO), Redbud (at OSU-OKC), Pegasus (at Rose State College), Absolute (at OCCC) and Dragon Poet Review. She was a caregiver to her late husband, but she looks forward to the future potential to travel more and write more poems. Her first chapbook, published in 2020, is titled First Truth.
Clarence Wolfshohl is professor emeritus at William Woods University. Since his first publication in The Road Apple Review, he has been active in the small press as writer and publisher for over fifty years, publishing poetry and non-fiction in many journals, both print and online, including New Texas, San Pedro River Review, Agave, Cape Rock, and New Letters. Among his publications are the e-chapbook Scattering Ashes (Virtual Artists Collective, 2016), the chapbook Holy Toledo (El Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), Queries and Wonderments (El Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), and Armadillos & Groundhogs in late 2019. Wolfshohl lives in the suburbs of Toledo, Missouri, with his cat.
Sharon Edge Martin has been published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Family Circle, Malpais Review, Oklahoma Today, Outside, True West, and three Wood Guthrie Anthologies. Her work is included in Michael Bugeja’s The Art and Craft of Poetry, and she has been a regular contributor to the Oklahoma Observer for more than a dozen years. She is the author of a picture book, Froggy Bottom Blues, and two books from Village Books Press—a poetry collection, Not a Prodigal, and a book of essays, I’ve Got the Blues: Looking for Justice in a Red State. She is currently at work on a novel in verse
Abigale Mazzo is currently a PhD candidate in English Language and Literature at the University of Tulsa and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University. Her work has appeared in The Gold Mine, The Oklahoma Review, Jelly Bucket, and 580 Monthly. She is an Oklahoma native that loves to write about the Midwest and the people and traditions of the area. Abigale enjoys traveling, trying new things, and spending time with her husband and dogs.
Bill McCloud is a poetry editor for the Right Hand Pointing literary journal and is the poetry reviewer for Vietnam Veterans of America. His poetry book, The Smell of the Light (Balkan Press), reached #1 on The Oklahoman’s “Oklahoma Bestsellers List.” His poems have appeared in Oklahoma Today and the Oklahoma English Journal, are taught in classes at the University School of Milwaukee, WI, and discussed in a Creative Writing class at the University of Tulsa. He is a faculty member of William Bernhardt’s WriterCon, presenting sessions on writing and publishing poetry. Bernhardt’s Balkan Press will be publishing McCloud’s second full-length poetry book, A Charming Little Hurt.
A graduate of St. John's College and of the George Mason University MFA Program, Gary Worth Moody has worked as a forest fire fighter, a farrier, a cowboy, and as a construction manager building a town for coal miners in Siberia’s Kuzbass Region. His poems have appeared in myriad journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the anthologies, Cabin Fever: Poets at Joaquin Miller’s Cabin, 1984-2001 (Word Works Press) and Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos Press). He is the author of Hazards of Grace (Red Mountain Press, 2012), Occoquan (Red Mountain Press, 2015) shortlisted for the international Rubery Book Award in poetry. Gary’s 3rd manuscript, The Burnings (3:A Taos Press, 2019) was chosen as a co-winner of the 2020 New Mexico / Arizona Book Award in Poetry. He is currently developing a 4th manuscript with working title This Feral Light. A falconer, Gary lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with the artist and writer Oriana Rodman, Handsome the Dachshund, Beauty the grulla dog, and Fuego the Red-tail hawk.
Phil Morgan is an Oklahoma poet, novelist, biographer, and literary critic. Phil and his wife, painter and sculptor Kate Arnott Morgan, live and work on Morgan’s Mulberry Grove Farm. They utilize agroforestry techniques on the farm, celebrating its 115th anniversary this year, located in the Chickasaw Nation near Blanchard town. Phil publishes under his full given name, Phillip Carroll Morgan, and is currently working with editors from White Dog Press who intend to publish in 2022 the sequel to his 2015 novel entitled Anompolichi, the Wordmaster. His most recent publications were the essay, “Love Can Build a Bridge, the Choctaw Gift of 1847,” and the poem, “Postcards from Moundville.” Both appeared in Famine Pots: The Choctaw-Irish Gift Exchange, 1847-Present, published by Michigan State University Press in 2020.
John Graves Morris, Professor of English at Cameron University, is the author of Noise and Stories, a collection published by Plain View Press in 2008. His second poetry manuscript, The County Seat of Wanting So Many Things, is a homeless child still in search of a foster publisher. His poems have appeared in The Chariton Review, The Concho River Review, The Red River Review, The Red Earth Review, Jelly Bucket, Westview, and other publications. He lives in Lawton.
Christopher Murphy received his MFA from The University of Arkansas and teaches creative writing at Northeastern State University. He reads for Nimrod International Journal and serves on the board for the Oklahoma Humanities Council. His work has been published at Gulf Coast (online), This Land, Jellyfish Review, Necessary Fiction, and decomP among others. He has a collection of flash fiction, Burning All the Time, from Mongrel Empire Press.
Tom Murphy is the 2021-2022 Corpus Christi Poet Laureate. Murphy’s books: Snake Woman Moon (2021), Pearl (2020), American History (2017), co-edited Stone Renga (2017). Murphy’s CDs Live from Del Mar College (2015), and Slams from the Pit (2014). tommurphywriter.com
Benjamin Myers was the 2015-2016 Poet Laureate of the State of Oklahoma and is the author of three books of poetry: Black Sunday (Lamar University Press, 2018), Lapse Americana (New York Quarterly Books, 2013) and Elegy for Trains (Village Books Press, 2010). His poems may be read in The Yale Review, Rattle, 32 Poems, Image, Nimrod and other literary journals. He is a winner of the Oklahoma Book Award and a recipient of the Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference. Myers lives with his wife and three children in Chandler, Oklahoma, and is the Crouch-Mathis Professor of Literature at Oklahoma Baptist University. His first book of non-fiction, A Poetics of Orthodoxy, was recently published by Cascade Books.
Vivian Finley Nida is the author of From Circus Town, USA (Village Books Press). She is a Songs of Eretz Poetry Review Frequent Contributor, a University of Oklahoma Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series poet, a Woody Guthrie poet, and a Scissortail Creative Writing Festival presenter. With a B.A.and M.S. from Oklahoma State University, she taught English and Creative Writing until retirement. She continues to serve as a Teacher/Consultant with the University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Writing Project. Since its inception in 1997, she has been a member of the advisory committee of Oklahoma City University’s Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature. In 2021, her poetry won second place in the OKC Writers, Inc. contest and 3rd in Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry’s professional contest. Her work appears in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Oklahoma Humanities magazine, Conclave 2018: The Trickster’s Song, Dragon Poet Review, Illya’s Honey, River Poets Journal, and elsewhere.
Neal Ostman’s poetry has appeared in various journals, anthologies and e-zines including: artsDFW guide; Cattlemen & Cadillacs; ComradesUK.com; Electric Acorn, Dublin, Ireland; The Fort Worth Poet; Lotuseaters.net; Lllya’s Honey; New Texas 2001; Pierian Springs; Poems Niederngasse; Poetry Pacific; Red River Review, Under the Streets and Bridges, and Wired Art from Wired Hearts. His poetry readings have been well received at many venues in Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, and other cities in his travels. Neal has taught writing and poetry seminars at the OU Short Course on Professional Writing and Texas Writers’ Conferences, respectively. In addition to poetry, his published credits include, humor and op-ed columns, and business articles. Neal is a member of the Dallas Poets Community and The Poetry Society of Texas. He lives in Colleyville, Texas.
Shaun Perkins is the founder/director of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals, newspapers, magazines and books. Her detective novel in verse, The Book with the Beacon Lights, was published by Bacone College’s Indian University Press. Perkins is a storyteller and webmaster for the Territory Tellers, a Teaching Artist with the Oklahoma Arts Council, and a podcast host of Wacky Poem Life and Okie Noir.
Brady Peterson lives near Belton, Texas. He is the author of Glued to the Earth, Between Stations, Dust, From an Upstairs Window, and García Lorca is Somewhere in Produce. His latest book, At the Edge of Town, was released last fall to much applause. Paul Juhasz says he liked it.
Keely Record lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Received an MFA from the Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program at Oklahoma City University. She serves on the editorial board of Nimrod International Journal. Her poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica and Bamboo Hut.
Gary Reddin grew up among the cicada songs and tornado sirens of Southwest Oklahoma. His writing was born out of these dissonant sounds. His work has appeared in Stoneboat, The Razor, Marathon Lit Review, The Windmill, and elsewhere. He can be found online as @andrewreddin on Twitter. He can also be reached by email at andrewreddin@gmail.com.
The poems, reviews, and essays of Carol Coffee Reposa have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, The Texas Observer, Southwestern American Literature, The Valparaiso Review, and other journals and anthologies. Author of five books of poetry – At the Border: Winter Lights, The Green Room, Facts of Life, Underground Musicians, and New and Selected Poems 2018 – Reposa was a finalist in The Malahat Review Long Poem Contest (1988), winner of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Poetry Contest (1992), and winner of the San Antonio Public Library Arts & Letters Award (2015). She also has received five Pushcart Prize nominations in addition to three Fulbright-Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the editorial staff at Voices de la Luna, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.
Sally Rhoades, a former Capital reporter in Albany, N.Y., began writing poetry in the late 1980’s. This year she participated in writing "A Poem a Day" with a reading this past December. She was featured in The Trolley, a Writer Institute on-line journal. She has been the guest of "Poetry Spoken Here" – a podcast directed by interviewer/poet Charlie Rossiter. Her poems have appeared in Misfit Magazine, edited by Alan Catlin. She has also been published in Dragon Poetry Review, 2, Elegant Rage, a poetic tribute honoring the centennial of Woody Guthrie, the Highwatermark Salo[o]n performance series by Stockpot flats, Up the River, by Albany Poets and in Peerglass, an anthology of Hudson Valley peer groups. She is also a performance artist and performs regularly in NYC.
Rob Roensch is the author of the story collection The Wildflowers of Baltimore (Salt, 2012) and the short novel The World and the Zoo (Outpost19, 2020). He teaches at Oklahoma City University and directs the Red Earth MFA.
Molly Sizer is a retired rural sociologist living in southwest Oklahoma. She spends most of her time walking in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge, and occasionally writes poetry. She’s presented her words to Lawton’s Third Saturday readings, Duncan’s Reading Down the Plains, the 2018 Woody Guthrie Poetry Readings and the 2019 Scissortail Festival. Her work has been published in Westview and The Oklahoma Review.
Christopher Stephen Soden received his MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts in January of 2005. He teaches craft, theory, genre and literature. He writes poetry, plays, literary, film and theatre critique for sharpcritic.com and EdgeDallas. Christopher’s poetry collection, Closer was released by Rebel Satori Press on June 14th, 2011. He received a Full Fellowship to Lambda Literary's Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices in August 2010. His performance piece: Queer Anarchy received The Dallas Voice's Award for Best Stage Performance. Water and A Christmas Wish were staged at Bishop Arts and Radio Flyer and Every Day is Christmas. In Heaven. at Nouveau 47. Other honors include: Distinguished Poets of Dallas, Poetry Society of America's Poetry in Motion Series, Founding Member, President and President Emeritus of The Dallas Poets Community. His work has appeared in: Rattle, The Cortland Review, 1111, Peculiar, Briar’s Lit, Typishly, F(r)iction, G & L Review, Chelsea Station, Glitterwolf, Collective Brightness, A Face to Meet the Faces, Resilience, Ganymede Poets: One, Gay City 2, The Café Review, The Texas Observer, Sentence, Borderlands, Off the Rocks, The James White Review, The New Writer, Velvet Mafia, Poetry Super Highway, Gertrude, Touch of Eros, Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians, Windy City Times, ArLiJo, Best Texas Writing 2.
Denise Tolan's work has been included in places such as The Best Small Fictions 2018, The Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post, Hobart, Atlas and Alice, and Lunch Ticket. Denise was a finalist for both the 2019 and 2018 International Literary Awards: Penelope Niven Prize in Nonfiction and a finalist in 2018 and 2019 for the Diane Wood’s Memorial Award for Nonfiction. Her work was also longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 and nominated for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2020 and Best of the Net 2021.
Ron Wallace is an Oklahoma native and currently an adjunct instructor of English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of nine books of poetry, five of which have been finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards. Renegade and Other Poems was the 2018 winner of the Oklahoma Book Award. Wallace has been a Pushcart Prize nominee and has recently been published in Oklahoma Today, Concho River Review, Red Earth Review, Oklahoma Humanities Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Borderlands, and a number of other magazines and journals. He has just finished editing Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush, a collection of Oklahoma Poetry.
Sarah Webb is the former poetry editor of Crosstimbers, an interdisciplinary journal from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Her poetry collections Red Riding Hood's Sister (virtual artists collective, 2018) and Black (virtual artists collective, 2013) were finalists for the Oklahoma Book Award and Black for the Writers' League of Texas Book Award. She is a co-editor for the Zen arts magazine Just This and co-leader of an ongoing writing group for Zen and Writing.
Ann E. Weisman has produced three collections of poetry and one CD of her collaborations with musicians. Her most recent publications are Speak Your Mind, the 2019 Woody Guthrie Anthology; the 2021 Fixed and Free Poetry Anthology; and the upcoming New Mexico Poetry Anthology. Her poem, "I Can Be Like Water," was awarded first place in the professional category in the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry (ROMP) 2019 Water Poem Contest. In February of 2020, she created and curated a poetry & visual art exhibition and reading, We Are All Related, at Liggett Studio in Tulsa. She retired as the Deputy Director of New Mexico Arts in 2014 and now lives in Tulsa along the river with her husband, Charles King.
Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue,a writer from Fort Worth, Texas, has published over 100 poems in a number of venues, including The Texas Observer, California Quarterly, Borderlands, Poetry Motel, Barbaric Yawp, and two anthologies of Texas poetry.He was a juried poet at The Houston Poetry Fest in 1994. In 2004, his chapbook was a semi-finalist in a Winnow Press contest. That same chapbook earned a finalist designation for a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. Also, it was twice a finalist for Dallas Poets Community chapbook contest. In April 2011, he was a featured poet at their First Friday Reading. Last fall Hungry Buzzard Press published a collection of his poems entitled What I Did Not Tell You.
Cullen Whisenhunt is a graduate of Oklahoma City University's Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program, and his work has been published in Ninth Letter, Atlas Poetica 40, Red River Review, and Dragon Poet Review, among other journals. His debut chapbook, Among the Trees, was published by Fine Dog Press in 2021.
Bertha Wise is a retired Professor of English at Oklahoma City Community College. She earned a BS in English Education and MA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma (UC0). Originally from central New York State, she found her way to Oklahoma over thirty years ago through a circuitous route, having also lived in such diverse locations as Arizona, New Hampshire, California, and South Carolina in the U.S. and Tachikawa, Japan. Several of her poems have been published in various college and university literary journals including Baraza (at UCO), Redbud (at OSU-OKC), Pegasus (at Rose State College), Absolute (at OCCC) and Dragon Poet Review. She was a caregiver to her late husband, but she looks forward to the future potential to travel more and write more poems. Her first chapbook, published in 2020, is titled First Truth.
Clarence Wolfshohl is professor emeritus at William Woods University. Since his first publication in The Road Apple Review, he has been active in the small press as writer and publisher for over fifty years, publishing poetry and non-fiction in many journals, both print and online, including New Texas, San Pedro River Review, Agave, Cape Rock, and New Letters. Among his publications are the e-chapbook Scattering Ashes (Virtual Artists Collective, 2016), the chapbook Holy Toledo (El Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), Queries and Wonderments (El Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), and Armadillos & Groundhogs in late 2019. Wolfshohl lives in the suburbs of Toledo, Missouri, with his cat.
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