Sly Alley is a writer of poetry and short-fiction whose debut collection of poems titled Strong Medicine (Village Books Press, 2016) won the 2017 Oklahoma Book Award for poetry. He writes on a vintage Royal typewriter in a fortified shack in Tecumseh, Oklahoma.
Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s received the American Book Award, Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared in Nimrod, Tin House, World Literature Today, AGNI, and elsewhere. Askew’s novel Prize for the Fire, about Early Modern English writer Anne Askew, was a finalist for the 2023 Oklahoma Book Award. Her newest collection of stories, The Hungry & The Haunted, is published by Belle Point Press.
Paul Austin has acted and directed On and Off Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, summer stock, and regional theatres around the nation, as well as acting for television and film. Late Night Conspiracies, a collection of his writings was performed with jazz ensemble at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, where he is a long time member. He has taught acting at Sarah Lawrence College and at his own theatre and studio in New York City. He has written for and about the theatre in essays, poetry and plays. His work has appeared in such publications as This Land, Sugar Mule, Newport Review and Oklahoma Review. He’s currently working on two other collections In Praise of Actors and Persons of Influence. His newest collection of poems titled Mother and Son from Turning Plow Press is available in the lobby.
Susan Ayres is a poet, lawyer, and translator from the Spanish. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in a wide variety of literary and scholarly journals, such as The South Carolina Review, Valparaiso Review, and Lily Poetry Review. She holds an MFA in creative writing with a concentration in translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and teaches at Texas A&M University School of Law. Her chapbooks are Walk Like the Bird Flies (Finishing Line, 2023) and Red Cardinal, White Snow (Main Street Rag, 2024). She lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Visit www.psusanayres.com.
Cody Baggerly is an Oklahoma poet. His work has been featured in three volumes of East Central University’s literary journal, where he also edited one volume. He has previously been featured in the Rising Phoenix Review, Dublin California Poetry Walk, Wingless Dreamer, Alien Buddha, and the NoSleep Podcast. He has also presented his poetry at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, the Woody Guthrie Festival, and he is the host of the First Monday Open-Mic held at Kind Origin in Ada, Okla.
Alan Berecka read at the second Scissortail Festival and hasn’t missed one since. He is grateful for the friends and adventures the festival has given him, especially his brother of another mother Ken Hada. Berecka is a retired librarian, who lives in Sinton, Texas, with his congenial wife Alice and ornery Belgian Shepherd Ophelia. His sixth full collection, Atlas Sighs: Selected and New Poem was published in 2024 by Turning Plow Press. From 2017-2019, he served as the first poet laureate of Corpus Christi.
Paul Bowers lives with his family 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 Ten Acres of the Universe (2022).
Joey Brown holds a Master of Arts in Fiction Writing and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies (Creative Writing, Professional Writing, and American Literature) from the University of Oklahoma. She taught a variety of professional writing courses at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri, from 2000-2024. She has authored two poetry collections: The Feral Love Poems (Hungry Buzzard Press) and Oklahomaography (Mongrel Empire Press). Her poems and prose have appeared in The Red Earth Review, Plainsong, Concho River Review, The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Tulsa Review, Oklahoma Review, The San Pedro River Review, and other journals. She’s reading from her current poetry collection-in-progress, Turn Out the Lights: Poems from Busted Oklahoma.
Nathan Brown is an author, songwriter, and award-winning poet who doesn’t live anywhere in particular. He holds a PhD in English and Journalism from the University of Oklahoma. He served as Poet Laureate for the State of Oklahoma in 2013/14. Nathan has published over 25 books. Most recent is his new memoir, The Fallen Autumn: The Birth of a Vagabond – Book 2. Karma Crisis: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Oklahoma Book Award. His earlier book, Two Tables Over, won the Oklahoma Book Award. His latest album of all original songs, The Streets of San Miguel, features Paul Simon’s accordionist, Joel Guzman and international fiddle champion, Warren Hood.
Corbett Buchly’s poems have appeared in over 30 journals, including SLAB, Rio Grande Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Barrow Street, and the Poetry Society of Texas Book of the year 2024 and 2025. He is an alumnus of Texas Christian University and the professional writing program at the University of Southern California. He currently resides in Northeast Texas with his wife and two children. You can find him online at buchly.com.
Tina Carlson is the author of three full-length
collections of poetry: Ground, Wind, This Body (UNM
Press, 2017), We Are Meant to Carry Water (3: A Taos Press), a
collaboration with 2 other NM poets, and A Guide to Tongue Tie Surgery
(UNM Press, 2023) which won the NM/AZ book award for poetry. Her chapbook, Obsidian,
was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2024. She is an editor of the online
journal Unbroken.
Before retiring from academic life in 2018, Julie Chappell published six books of scholarship and a collection of her original poetry, Faultlines: One Woman’s Shifting Boundaries (Village Books Press, 2013). Since retiring, she has published two more collections of poetry—Mad Habits of a Life (Lamar University Literary Press, 2019), which was nominated for the Paterson Prize in 2020, and As I Pirouette Away (Turning Plow Press, 2021). Additionally, she has penned two collections of short stories— Homecoming and Other Mythic Tales (Fine Dog Press, 2021) and Contrary Qualities of Elements (Fine Dog Press, 2023). Her fourth collection of poetry, Watermarks, will be published by Turning Plow Press in early Spring 2025. In progress are a memoir, The Jail/house Rocked; and a scholarly tome entitled, Nuns on the Run: The Dissolution of Women’s Lives, 1536-1540. In March 2024, she read as one of four representatives of Oklahoma poets for a worldwide poetry Zoom created for Poets Building Bridges, hosted by George Wallace and the Walt Whitman Birthplace. She lives on Lake Keystone in northeastern Oklahoma with her poet husband, Hank Jones, and their four cats.
Wendy Dunmeyer’s full-length collection, My Grandmother’s Last Letter, was published by Lamar University Literary Press. Her poetry has been selected as a finalist for the Morton Marr Poetry Prize; has received honorable mention in NDSU’s Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Chapbook Contest; and has appeared in Measure, Natural Bridge, The Oklahoma Review, Cumberland River Review, and elsewhere. She currently is working on two chapbook collections and two children’s books.
Luke Fredette has been fascinated with the non-Western world since he was a child in the Central Valley of California, reading travel guides for Tibet and Bhutan, and he has sought to mediate between these two not-so-separate worlds in the form of his fiction ever since. He received an MA in Writing Popular Fiction from Edinburgh Napier University in 2022, and an MA in English from Idaho State University in 2024. He teaches English in Creative Writing at the University and Science of the Arts of Oklahoma.
Todd Fuller is curator of the
Western History Collections, University Libraries, University of Oklahoma. He
is the author of two books, 60 Feet Six
Inches and Other Distances from Home: the (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse
(2002) and To the Disappearance
(2015). In 2022, he co-edited Level Land:
Poems For and About the I35 Corridor
with Crag Hill. He co-wrote the sitcom pilot, Cross X Stitches, with his wife, Randi LeClair, and which won the
Series Fest Storytellers Imitative in 2023.
Ky George is a poet, essayist, and proud member of the Okie diaspora, living and working in the high desert of New Mexico. Their work explores the relationship between the land, her people, and whatever else is out there in the great beyond. Ky is a graduate of the Red Earth MFA, and has previously been published in The Red Mesa Review, The Oklahoma Review, Insurrection, and Lesbians are Miracles.
Andrew Geyer’s latest book is Southern Voices: Fifty Contemporary Poets, an anthology he co-edited with Tom Mack. He has a long list of editorial credits, including co-editing the award-winning composite anthology A Shared Voice. Honors for Geyer’s fiction include an IPPY, an INDIE, and two Spur Awards. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the South Carolina Academy of Authors Literary Hall of Fame, he currently serves as English Department Chair at the University of South Carolina Aiken and Managing Editor of The Petrigru Review.
Kristen Grace is a journalist for 405 Magazine and a graduate of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program. Her recent collection of poetry, The Skull Tree, was published in 2024 with Literati Press. Kristen also teaches writing workshops at Palomar Family Justice Center and Literati Creative Writing Center.
Joshua Grasso is a professor of English at East Central University, where he has taught classes for the past 18 years in everything from Batman to Beowulf—and beyond! He has a PhD from Miami University and specializes in 18th and 19th century British literature, but also has a deep fondness for Shakespeare, fantasy/science fiction, and comic books. His stories have appeared in books, magazines, and websites in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, and were published most recently in Allegory, On Spec Magazine, Androids & Dragons, and Fabula Argentea.
Melissa Heath-Lee has a Master of Arts degree from
Texas A&M University-Commerce and has been writing since she got her first
all-caps typewriter at age six. More recently, she has written plays that have
been produced in the Oklahoma and Texas region and has written for various
newspapers. Her poems, short stories, and blogs have been published in journals
like; TriQuarterly, The Mayo Review, Green Eggs and Hamlet, and Forge.
Her writing has been awarded by several organizations, including: the Oklahoma
Writers Federation, the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry, the Richardson Texas
Public Library, and the Southeastern Oklahoma Public Library System. She is a
member of McAlester’s McSherry Writers and the Latimer County Arts Council’s
Poetry Committee. A fifth generation Oklahoman, she lives in Red Oak with her
husband.
Crag Hill is poet and teacher educator at the University of Oklahoma. Hill has co-edited Level Land: Poems For and About the I35 Corridor (Lamar University Press, 2022) and The Last Vispo Anthology (Fantagraphics, 2012), a project that documents the art of word/image as it prepares to pivot off the page as digital tools begin to dominate production. His most recent poetry collection was 7 x 7. (Otoliths, 2010). He is also the co-cordinator of the long-running poetry series, The Mark Allen Everett Poetry Reading Series in Norman.
Michael
Howarth is a Professor of English at Missouri Southern State
University where he also serves as the Director of the Honors Program.
His short stories and essays have appeared in such publications as The
Tulsa Review, Concho River Review, Cybersoleil Literary
Journal, Cave Region Review, and
Farmhouse Magazine. 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 the young adult novel Fair Weather Ninjas and the gothic historical novel A Still and Awful Red.
Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Recent books include: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). Two of her chapbooks were published through contests: Black Crow in Flight, Editor’s Choice –Main Street Rag, 2007 and Softly Beating Wings, 2017 William D. Barney winner (Blackbead Books). Ann’s work appears in many small press and university journals here and abroad. She is a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.
Cindy Huyser’s work has been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, San Pedro River Review, Switchgrass Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, and has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her debut poetry collection, Cartography, is forthcoming from 3: A Taos Press in early 2025. Her chapbook, Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems (Blue Horse Press, 2014) was named co-winner of the 2014 Blue Horse Press Poetry Chapbook Contest. Huyser co-edited Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Dos Gatos Press, 2016), which was a finalist for the Will Rogers Medallion Award in 2017, and several editions of the Texas Poetry Calendar (Dos Gatos Press, and Kallisto-Gaia Press). She has been a juried and featured reader at the Houston Poetry Fest, a featured reader for Houston’s Public Poetry series, and a Special Guest poet at the Austin International Poetry Festival. She holds a B. A.in English from Tri-State University (now Trine University), an M. S. in Computer Science from Texas State University-San Marcos, and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University.
Quinn Carver Johnson (they/them) is a poet and teaching artist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They are the author of The Perfect Bastard (Curbstone Books, 2023), winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ+ Poetry. Their work has also appeared in World Literature Today, Rappahannock Review, Right Hand Pointing, Cimarron Review, Red Earth Review, and elsewhere. Carver Johnson is the guest services manager of the Bob Dylan Center and a curator for the Woody Guthrie Center. They are the host of People's Poetry, a reading series dedicated to protest poetics.
R Dean Johnson is the author of a story collection, Delicate Men (Alternative Book), and a novel, Californium (Plume-Penguin). His essays and stories have appeared in Ascent, Cimarron Review, Permafrost, New Orleans Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, the writer Julie Hensley, and their children. A professor at Eastern Kentucky University, he directs their low-res MFA in creative writing program, Bluegrass Writers Studio.
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-four 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 he 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; Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush (The Poetry of Oklahoma), edited by Ron Wallace; and The Working Man’s Hand: Celebrating Woody Guthrie, Poems of Protest and Resistance (Fine Dog Press, 2023). 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.
Paul Juhasz is a Pushcart nominated author of five books: Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, a mock journal chronicling his seven-month term as a Picker at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; As If Place Matters, a collection of short fiction; and three collections of poetry: Ronin: Mostly Prose Poems, a finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award, The Inner Life of Comics, and The Fires of Heraclitus. He served as curator for the Woody Guthrie Poets from 2020-2024 and currently lives in Oklahoma City.
Ashley Korpela will be graduating in May from Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA in Creative Writing, with a focus on memoir and creative non-fiction. She is currently working on submitting essays from her thesis, Cardboard Boxes, for publication. She lives in Oklahoma City, where she works full-time at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences campus as the Director of Admissions for the College of Allied Health. She holds a Master of Education in Adult and Higher Education from the University of Oklahoma. In her spare time she also works at Literati Press, a creators-led literary community located in the historic Paseo Arts District. Here Ashley is a book concierge in the bookshop, resident memoirist, and coordinates workshops and events for the in-store Creative Writing Center.
Chloe LaFevers is a graduate from Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program and an East Central University alumnus. Her work has been published in ECU’s annual literary journal, Originals, and has also won third place in East Central University's Paul Hughes Memorial Writing Award and the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival's Undergraduate Writing Contest. She is currently an adjunct instructor at ECU teaching Freshman Composition.
Heather Levy is a born and bred Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program for creative writing. The New York Times called her Anthony-nominated debut, Walking Through Needles, “a spellbinding novel at the nexus of power, desire, and abuse that portends a bright future,” and the Los Angeles Times called it “a standout for its frank but sensitive exploration of trauma and desire.” Publisher's Weekly says her thriller Hurt for Me "delivers both heat and heart." Her novels focus on sexuality and complex women. Levy lives in Oklahoma with her husband, two kids, and three murderous cats. Readers can follow her on IG @heatherllevy and find updates on her website at heatherlevywriter.com
Gianna Loboda is a recent graduate of East Central University. In her time at ECU, she served as an editor for the 2023 edition of the student publication Originals, and won 3rd place in the 2023 Scissortail Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest. Her work has been published in several editions of Originals, and her insightful review of Dr. Ken Hada’s book Persimmon Sunday can be found on his website. She is a dreamer often lost in the pages of classic literature and fantastical realms. Inspired by the poetic musings of Sappho and Mary Oliver.
Sharon Edge Martin writes poetry and prose. She has published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Family Circle, Oklahoma Today, Outside, True West, Malpais Review, and other magazines. Her work is included in anthologies and literary texts, including Michael Bugeja’s The Art and Craft of Poetry. She is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer, and she hosts a monthly poetry reading at Tidewater Winery in Drumright. Sharon’s books include a poetry collection, Not a Prodigal, a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, a book of essays, I’ve Got the Blues: Looking for Justice in a Red State, and a picture book, Froggy Bottom Blues.
Bill McCloud is an associate poetry editor for the Right Hand Pointing literary journal and is the poetry reviewer for Vietnam Veterans of America. His second poetry collection, The Error Of The Stars, was published in late 2024 by Silence Dogood Books, an imprint of Sewell Publishing. His earlier poetry book, The Smell of the Light (Balkan Press), reached #1 on The Oklahoman’s “Oklahoma Bestsellers” list. His poetry has appeared in Oklahoma Today and the Oklahoma English Journal, and is taught at the University School of Milwaukee, WI, the University of Tulsa, and at the Air Force Academy. In 2023 he won three poetry contests with three different poems. In 2024 he was presented the Excellence In the Arts Award by Vietnam Veterans of America.
David Meischen is the author of Nopalito, Texas: Stories (University of New Mexico Press, 2024) and Caliche Road Poems (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024). Anyone’s Son, from 3: A Taos Press, won Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2020. A Pushcart honoree, with a personal essay in Pushcart Prize XLII, David is cofounder and Managing Editor of Dos Gatos Press. He lives in Albuquerque, NM with his husband—also his co-publisher and co-editor—Scott Wiggerman.
Jeanetta Calhoun Mish’s most recent poetry collection is What I Learned at the War (West End Press, 2016). Her 2009 poetry collection, Work Is Love Made Visible (West End Press) won an Oklahoma Book Award, a Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies such as The Eloquent Poem, edited by Elise Paschen, and Level Land: Poems for and About the I-35 Corridor. Oklahomeland, an essay collection, was published by Lamar University Press in 2015. Recently published essays include one on Oklahoma Black poet Josie Craig Berry in Great Plains Quarterly and one in Unpapered,a collection of essays by unenrolled people of Native descent (University of Nebraska Press). Mish regularly writes book reviews for World Literature Today and has guest edited two issues of the journal, one on North American Indigenous writing and one on international working-class literature. She served as Oklahoma State Poet Laureate from 2017-2020 and, in 2019, Mish was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Dr. Mish teaches creative writing and literature for The Red Earth MFA @ Oklahoma City University and the MFA program at the University of Arkansas Monticello.
Phillip Carroll Morgan has authored or co-authored eleven books in several different genres since 2006, when his award-winning first volume of poetry, The Fork-in-the-Road Indian Poetry Store, was published by Salt Publishing in Cambridge, UK, as part of their Indigenous American Poets series. He has also authored or co-authored books of biography, history, literary criticism, and most recently, fiction. He contributed an essay to Famine Pots: The Choctaw–Irish Gift Exchange, 1847–Present (Michigan State U Press, 2020), and his second novel, The Lost River, Wordmaster II, was released in 2022 by White Dog Press. Morgan is planning to publish in 2025 his second comprehensive collection of poetry.
John Graves Morris, Professor of English at Cameron University, is the author of Noise and Stories, a full-length collection published in 2008. He has revised the manuscript of a second collection, The County Seat of Wanting So Many Things and is currently circulating it in hopes of securing a publisher. He is putting together the manuscript for a third collection, tentatively entitled The Strongest Song, and he is also assembling the manuscript of a chapbook, tentatively entitled Whatever Flies: The Auction Poems. Soon he hopes to have all three manuscripts circulating in the hope, feathered or not, that he might have a new book before he dies. His poems have most recently appeared in Isele Magazine. He lives in Lawton.
Christopher Murphy is a Professor of Creative Writing at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, OK. His work has been published at Gulf Coast, This Land, The New Territory, and Necessary Fiction among others. He has a collection of flash fiction, Burning All the Time, from Mongrel Empire Press and a fiction chapbook, Rites, from USPOCO Books. His forthcoming collection, Territories, will be published by Belle Point Press.
Tom Murphy is a road poet and the 2021-2022 Corpus Christi Poet Laureate and the Langdon Review’s 2022 Writer-In-Residence. Murphy’s books: When I Wear Bob Kaufman’s Eyes (2022), Snake Woman Moon (2021), Pearl (2020), American History (2017), and co-edited Stone Renga (2017). https://tommurphywriter.com
Benjamin Myers is a former poet laureate of Oklahoma. He is the author of four books of poetry and of three books of non-fiction. His stories may be read in The South Carolina Review, The Windhover, and The Muleskinner Journal. He has published poems in The Yale Review, Image, Rattle, Nimrod, and many other journals. Myers teaches at Oklahoma Baptist University, where he directs the Great Books Honors Program. He lives in Chandler, OK, and is a contributing editor for Front Porch Republic. His most recent books are The Family Book of Martyrs (poems) and Ambiguity and Belonging (essays).
Ashley Oakes grew up in Grove, Oklahoma and now lives in Tulsa where she works as an academic tutor. Some of her poems have appeared in Westview, Claw+Blossom, Meetinghouse, Unstamatic, Pink Panther Magazine, Last Leaves and elsewhere. In 2023 she was a finalist for the Patricia Cleary Miller Award For Poetry at New Letters Magazine.
Luri Owen is part of the English faculty at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, NM. She has written poetry since high school and has published in regional anthologies. She began writing about food in her first job as a college graduate when she became the Society and Entertainment Editor at The Independent in Gallup, NM, where she discovered the writing of Craig Claiborne and Jane Brody. She is also a Reiki II practitioner and a Veriditias Certified Labyrinth Facilitator.
Benjamin Payne graduated with his Bachelor's of Arts in English from East Central University in May of 2024. He currently teaches 9th and 10th grade English at Harding Charter Prep High School in Oklahoma City. He has been published in ECU's literary journal "Originals", and has been a featured reader at Kind Origin's Open Mic, The Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, and The South Central Modern Language Association's annual convention.
Steven M. Pedersen has an MA in English and a PhD in composition, rhetoric, and technical writing. His work can be found in Rhetoric Review, The Kenneth Burke Journal, the Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas, and The Oklahoman. He currently lives in Ada, Oklahoma, where he teaches writing at East Central University. Dog Days is his first book of poetry published by Fine Dog Press.
Shaun Perkins is the founder/director of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry in Locust Grove. She is a teaching artist with the Oklahoma Arts Council, webmaster for the state storytelling organization Territory Tellers, and co-host of the Wacky Poem Life Podcast. Her books can be found at PoemLife.org. Her most recent book is nonfiction, Cocktails, Coquettes & Cigarettes: Perry Mason Concoctions, published by Bear Manor Media.
Brady Peterson lives near Belton, Texas where for twenty-nine years he worked building houses and teaching rhetoric. He is the author of Glued to the Earth, Between Stations, Dust, From an Upstairs Window, García Lorca Is Somewhere in Produce, and At the Edge of Town.
Keely Record lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, received an MFA from the Red Earth Creative Writing MFA program at Oklahoma City University. She served on the editorial board of Nimrod International Journal. Her poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica and Bamboo Hut.
Linda Neal Reising, a native of Oklahoma and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has been published in numerous journals, including The Southern Indiana Review, Comstock Review, and Nimrod. Reising’s work has also appeared in a number of anthologies, including Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (Harper/Collins) and Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Press). She was named the winner of the 2012 Writer’s Digest Poetry Competition, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. In 2024, she was named the Official Eclipse Poet of Indiana. Her chapbook, Re-Writing Family History (Finishing Line Press), was a finalist for the 2015 Oklahoma Book Award, as well as winner of the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation Book Prize. The Keeping (Finishing Line Press), her first full-length book of poetry, won the Kops-Fetherling Phoenix Award for Best New Voice in Poetry. Her second full-length collection, Stone Roses (Kelsay Books), was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award and the WILLA Award, as well as winning the Eric Hoffer Award and the Western Heritage Wrangler Book Award. VIVIA—The Legend of Vivia Thomas: A Novelette in Poems (Kelsay Books), was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, the American Book Fest Award, the International Book Award, and the Person of the Year Book Award. It won the Feathered Quill Award, the Literary Global Award for Poetry and Novelette, the Bookfest Award, and the Human Relations Book Award for Adventure Poetry and Director’s Choice. Reising’s chapbook, Perpetual Astonishment, won the Beyond Words Chapbook Competition and was published in 2024. Navigation, her sixth book of poetry, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her first collection of short stories, Cigar Box of Loss: Stories from Route 66, is forthcoming from Belle Point Press.
Sally Rhoades received her MA in English/ Creative Writing from the University of Albany in 1995. This past year she has been published in Misfit Magazine, Calling All Poets, Whitman Anthology and read at the Woody Guthrie festival in Tulsa. She was part of A Poem A Day, and a Broadside, curated by the Adirondack Center for Writing, placed in Malone N.Y. She was a featured reader at DAC, Downtown Artist Center, as part of Poets born in Malone. She, also, had her piece Summertime published in True North, words and images from New York’s North Country. She has been featured on Charlie Rossiter’s podcast Poetry Spoken Here and interviewed by Andrea Cunliffe for the Hudson Mohawk Magazine at WOOC105.3 FM, a Sanctuary for Independent Media. She is published in Unlocking The Word, Dragon Poet’s Review, 2, Elegant Rage, a poetic tribute honoring the centennial of Woody Guthrie, The Highwatermark Salo[o]n performance series by Stockport Flats, Up the River and in Peerglass, an anthology of Hudson Valley peer groups and has two chapbooks and has finished a first book of poems, Taking Time.
Jim Roberts is the author of Of Fathers & Gods, his debut short story collection published by Belle Point Press. He grew up in rural East Texas and after college lived and worked briefly in Houston before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1980s to pursue a business career. Now a full-time writer, he splits his time between Ohio and Texas. His writing has appeared in Prime Number Magazine, Reckon Review, Rappahannock Review, Snake Nation Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and ArLiJo-The Arlington Literary Journal. Jim’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice named to the finalist list for the Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Award.
Rob Roensch is the author of a story collection, The Wildflowers of Baltimore (Salt, 2012), a novella, The World and the Zoo (Outpost19, 2020) and a novel, In the Morning, The City is the Prairie (Belle Point Press, 2023). His stories were included in the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Stories of 2018 and Best Small Fictions 2023 and listed as Distinguished Stories in the 2015 and 2022 Best American Short Stories. He teaches at Oklahoma City University.
Zachary Scalzo (he/they) is a queer writer, translator, and theatremaker. They are currently Artist in Residence in the English Department at the University of Central Oklahoma, and he can be found at azachofalltrades.com and on Instagram at @zjscalzo. His theatrical work has been developed and performed both in the United States and in Canada, and their poetry has appeared in journals including Dear Poetry, Ghost City Review, and & Change. They were also the winner of Frontier Poetry's 2024 Nature & Place Contest with his poem “Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly."
Molly Sizer is a retired rural sociologist living in southwest Oklahoma. She spends much of her time at the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge, and occasionally writes poetry. She enjoys presenting her words at open mics and poetry readings around the state, including the Woody Guthrie Poetry Readings and the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. She has poems published in several anthologies, as well as Westview and The Oklahoma Review. Her chapbook manuscript is in search of a publisher.
Constance Squires is the author of three novels and a short story collection, including the recently released Low April Sun. Her short fiction and non-fiction appear in the Atlantic, Guernica, Painted Bride Quarterly and other magazines. Winner of the Oklahoma Book Award for fiction, she teaches Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Don Stinson is the author of two previous poetry collections, Flatline Horizon (Mongrel Empire Press, 2018) and Hunger (Turning Plow Press, 2020). His individual poems have appeared in the Concho River Review, Riverrun, and other small lit journals. His third collection, Carousel of Illusions, is scheduled for publication by Turning Plow in the spring or summer of 2025. Stinson attended Carl Albert State College and then earned degrees from Northeastern State University (BA, MA) and Oklahoma State University (PhD). He taught writing, speech, humanities, and literature classes for many years at NSU, OSU, and Northern Oklahoma College. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Pam, in Moore, OK.
Bob Sykora is the author of the chapbook I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography (Nostrovia! 2016) and the forthcoming collection Utopians in Love (Game Over Books 2025). A graduate of the UMass Boston MFA program, he teaches at community college, edits with Garden Party Collective, co-hosts The Line Break podcast, and curates the KC Poetry Calendar. He can be found online at bobsykora.com and @bob_sykora_.
Stephanie Theban is a writer of stories, mostly for young people, and poetry for all ages. Her picture book, Alfred, the story of moose who is shunned by dance students, was published by Doodle & Peck Publishing. Three of her poems were included in the anthology, The Working Man's Hand.
Wade Thompson is an assistant professor of English and ordained Zen Buddhist priest at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
Denise Tolan's work has been included in places such as The Best Small Fictions, The Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post, The Penn Review, Blue Mountain Review, Atlas and Alice, and Lunch Ticket. Her memoir, Italian Blood, was named a finalist for the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Prize and a Reader's Choice Award.
Jessica
Turcat teaches for the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies
program at Oklahoma State University. Her book Hunger House won
the 2023 Saguaro Poetry Prize by Kallisto Gaia Press. Her latest work has
appeared in the Brill anthology Women Who Write Animals: Female
Literary Representations of the More-Than-Human World as well as San
Diego Poetry Annual, Indiana Review, and Rewilding
Anthology: Poems for the Environment. She draws inspiration for her
creative writing from her studies focused on body politics, feminist mothering,
and women's literature.
Ron Wallace is an Oklahoma native and currently an adjunct instructor of Literature, Composition, and Fiction Writing at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of ten books of poetry, five of which have been finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards with Renegade and Other Poems winning the 2018 Award. Wallace has been a multiple “Pushcart Prize” nominee and has recently been published in Oklahoma Today, Concho River Review, Oklahoma Humanities Magazine, San Pedro River Review, and a number of other magazines and journals. Wallace also edited Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush, a collection of Oklahoma Poetry and has written his first novel A Secret Lies in New Orleans which was a finalist in fiction in the 2022 Oklahoma Book Awards.
Mark Walling has
been teaching at East Central University since 1987 and is currently the
Interim Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. He is the
author of the short story collection I
Can See Everything From Here
(Turning Plow Press).
Sarah Webb first encountered Rock on a ledge by Lake Buchanan in the Texas Hill Country, where she lives. She has told the stories of other essential beings--Raven, Vulture, Bear--in her poetry collections Black and Red Riding Hood's Sister (virtual artists collective, 2013 and 2018) and when she came upon a massive stone with pebbled lips and shell eyes, she knew she had found another. Sarah is the former poetry editor of Crosstimbers, the interdisciplinary journal of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, and co-founder of Just This and its associated writing community, Just This:Zen and Writing. Sarah can be reached at bluebirdsw.blogspot.com
Cullen Whisenhunt is a graduate of Oklahoma City University's Red Earth MFA program whose poetry has been included in a variety of journals. He has published two chapbooks of poetry with Fine Dog Press, Among the Trees (2021) and Childish Thing (2023), and a full-length collection with Turning Plow Press, Until Air Itself Is Tinted (2024). He is also a contributing editor for the blog Archive Serendipities, where he researches early-20th century Oklahoma poets. He currently teaches English at Eastern Oklahoma State College in McAlester, where he works with the McAlester Public Library Poetry Club and other area arts organizations. He also co-hosts (with Ron Wallace) monthly Poetry on Lost Street readings in Durant.
Woodstok Farley (aka Michael Dooley) is a former beach bum from South Florida living on the edge of West Texas 25 miles north of the nearest Walmart and seven miles south of the town of Gordon. Now instead of waves, reefs, and cypress-filled swamps, he lives on land full of mesquite, cactus, and a longhorn steer named Tip. He also shares the land with his beautiful bride of 40+ years, a dog named Tallahassee, and a cat who comes when you whistle. Woodstok says he’s been writing all his life; it’s just that he used to do it with a paintbrush and a canvas. Telling crazy stories of beaches, swamps, and life on the road, his friends said he should write this stuff down. So, he did. The result was his first collection entitled As the Wave Rose: Florida Tales and Other Wandering Stories, published by Fine Dog Press. His second collection, also by Fine Dog Press, tells of his wanderings among the hills of Oklahoma entitled, The Water Stop Saloon: More Wandering Tales. Currently, Woodstok has just completed a noir novel set in his hometown entitled The Judas Coins.
Stanton Yeakley lives and writes in the Bible Belt, where he works as an attorney and cares for a 150-year-old house. He has been previously published in BarBar magazine, BULL, Evening Street Review, Haunted Waters Press, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, New Plains Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others.
Zhenya Yevtushenko might be the only poet to have performed at the Library of Congress and Tulsa’s Mercury Lounge. He has worked as a food service roustabout, a substitute teacher, a funeral home consultant, a poet, and a workshop facilitator. He aspires to become a public-school teacher. His work has been published in The Guardian, Right Hand Pointing, and The Tulsa Review, and nominated for Best of the Net by eMerge Magazine. He owes his inspiration to his family and to the love of his life, Olivia.
John M. Yozzo, a retired professor of English,
resides in Tulsa. A native of Ponca City, OK, Yozzo was graduated from the U of
Tulsa and taught college English over 34 years in Tulsa OK, Birmingham AL, and
Ada, OK. Yozzo is the author of 3 books of poems, Only Wonder (2017), Echoes
and Omens (2019), and Rhythm of the Years (2023) through
Village Books Press. Yozzo enjoys biking, especially along the less traveled
sections of the Katy Trail in Missouri, and kayaking on Oklahoma lakes and the
Elk River in southwest Missouri.
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