Contributors

Emily Bernard is an undergraduate student at Carleton College. She studies English literature and has been published in The Brewery Journal, as well as several on-campus publications.

Brian R. Bland is a retired Associated Press Radio correspondent whose own adventures have included coverage of the Gulf War in 1991 along with fires, floods, school shootings and other disasters. A Vietnam veteran, the University of Illinois graduate freelances and is working on a book about his career.

Naomy Caballero was born in El Salvador and now lives in Los Angeles. She has attended Santa Monica College, and is a regular at the Write-Away writers group in that beautiful beach city. Although she has written hundreds of poems and a few short stories, this is her first publication. Stay tuned!

Sharon Chmielarz’s books of poetry include The Sky Is Great, The Sky Is Blue, available from Whistling Shade. In another life she was a cat. Sharon is the recipient of the 2012 Jane Kenyon Award from Water~Stone Review.

Philip Dacey, the winner of three Pushcart Prizes, is the author of eleven books, most recently Mosquito Operas: New and Selected Short Poems (Rain Mountain Press, 2010) and Vertebrae Rosaries: 50 Sonnets (Red Dragonfly Press, 2008) and including whole collections about Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Eakins, and New York City. His twelfth collection, Gimme Five, won the Blue Light Press 2012 Book Award and will appear in 2013. He recently moved from Manhattan's Upper West Side to Minneapolis.

Norita Dittberner-Jax is a poet and essayist whose work has been widely published. She is one of the poets in Thirty-Three Minnesota Poets; Whistling Shade published her third collection, The Watch. After teaching English for Saint Paul Public Schools, she went back to school herself and is graduating this spring from Hamline University with an MFA. Muffin, the dog in her poem, is the only pet she ever had. RIP.

Phillip A. Ellis is a freelance critic, poet and scholar. His chapbooks, The Flayed Man and Symptoms Positive and Negative, are available. He is working on a collection for Diminuendo Press. Another has been accepted by Hippocampus Press. He is the editor of Melaleuca.

Mike Finley is a Pushcart winner, and author over 200 books of various kinds, and 100 provocative videos. His latest work is the book Suffering Cats, available for download on http://issuu.com/mike_finley. In recognition of this work, Mike was awarded the 2010 KPV Kerouac Award, a lifetime achievement honor. In his spare time Mike edits LIEF Magazine.

John Flynn is retired from the theater, which is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. He writes (clothed) and fascinates on the vast grassland west of us.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, C.B. Heinemann's articles and stories have appeared in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Fate, One Million Stories, Whistling Fire, Storyteller, The Battered Suitcase and Danse Macabre. He has been a professional musician all his life.

Robert Hendlish is an educator and this is his first publication. He is also in desperate need of help from Cesar Millan with his Border Collie mix mutt.

J. P. Johnson is a freelance writer and realtor. He is in the process of writing a novel.

Susan Morrissey has lived in eight states and three countries, in her early years as an army brat and later because she'd built the momentum. She is presently retired and writes in Lancaster, PA.

Kelsey O'Kelley is a college student studying English at the University of Illinois, and her work has appeared in Cicada Magazine, The Prairie Light Review, and Ramblings. In her spare time, Kelsey works at a library, writes for the Sun Day newspaper, and drinks green tea.

John-Ivan Palmer’s literary work has appeared in Pushcart Prizes, Exquisite Corpse, Nth Position, Other Voices, Book Happy, Your Flesh Quarterly, and Rain Taxi. He is author of the novel Motels of Burning Madness. More info at John-IvanPalmer.com.

Tony Rauch is an Architect and Urban Designer living in Minneapolis. He has three collections of funky, jazzy, dreamy stories published, most recently Eyeballs Growing All Over Me ... Again. He’s been interviewed by the Prague Post and reviewed in the MIT paper The Tech, among many other venues.

Justin Teerlinck is an occupational therapy graduate student in the Portland, Oregon area, where he is learning how to place his writing skills and sense of the absurd in service to people with disabilities. His response to most standardized test questions is, "Meow don't know this theoretical construct. Meow try again please?"

Georgann Turner lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. She is an affiliate of Amherst Writers and Artists and leads Writing as a Healing Art workshops. Her work has been published in many literary magazines, and her poetry was chosen by Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council for their 2012 annual Poetry Corners contest. She was a Pacific Northwest Writers Association literary contest finalist in 2012. She has six children, three of whom are adopted and is currently working on a book about adoption.

Joel Van Valin is the publisher of Whistling Shade. His fiction has most recently appeared in the ezine Into the Willows. He is routinely woken up at 3:30 a.m. by a mischievous ginger tabby cat named Sir Percival.

Haden Verble flies too much and is the author of a handful of published short stories and another handful of unpublished novels. She can be contacted at kyberkshire@aol.com.