About Our Contributors

Julian Bernick has been published in print in L'Ouverture, 100 Words, Word Outta Buffalo, and Poetry Motel. and online in 42opus and Whimperbang.  He lives and works in Minneap­olis.  

William Blomstedt is a migratory beekeeper who has lived in five different countries in as many years. He writes fiction, travel pieces and is a columnist for The American Bee Jour­nal. He currently takes off his boots in Black Springs, New South Wales, Australia.

Paula Cappa is a published short story author, novelist, and freelance copy editor. Her short fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Every Day Fiction, Fiction365, Twilight Times Ezine, and in anthologies Human Writes Literary Journal and Mystery Time. Her debut novel Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural launched in October 2012. The Daz­zling Darkness, her second novel, won the Gothic Readers Book Club Choice Award for outstanding fiction.  She writes a weekly fiction blog about classic short stories, Reading Fic­tion, Tales of Terror, on her Web site  http://paulacappa.wordpress.com/    

Sharon Chmielarz’s latest two books are Calling (Loonfeather Press) which was a finalist for the INDIE Book Awards,  2011, and The Sky Is Great, the Sky Is Blue (Whistling Shade Press).  You can hear her read on www.sharonchmielarz.com.  She’s the happy recipient of the 2012 Jane Kenyon Prize.

Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis. She teaches needlepoint classes for the Minneapolis school district and writing classes at The Loft  Literary Center. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Worcester Review, Broken Pencil, and Slipstream, and she is the recipient of the 2011 Sam Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her most recent published books are Walking Twin Cities and Notenlesen für Dummies Das Pocket­buch.

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.

Alice Duggan cares for gardens, public and private, and writes poems.  Her work has been published in Water~Stone Review, Sleetmagazine.com, Plainsongs and Blue Earth Review.  A Brittle Thing, her first chapbook, was published in 2012 by Greenfuse Press of Colorado.

Daniel Gabriel's published work includes a novel, Twice a False Messiah (Florida Academic Press), a short story collection, Tales From the Tinker's Dam (Whistling Shade Press), and over 200 stories and articles. He is also a lifelong vagabond traveler who has taken camelback, tramp freighter and third class train through over 100 countries. He holds an MA in Cross-Cultural Studies and is currently Arts Program Director for COMPAS.

Born in South Dakota and educated at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota, Margaret Hasse makes her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is author of four collections of poetry, including the forthcoming Earth's Appetite. Her poems have been published in anthologies such as Where One Voice Ends, Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry and in journals such as WaterStone, Poetry East, and Poet Lore. Awards include fel­lowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Loft-McKnight.

Zeke Jarvis is an Associate Professor at Eureka College and a faculty member at Univer­sity of Phoenix. His work has appeared in 2 Bridges, Petrichor Machine and Bitter Oleander, among other places.

David McLean is from Wales but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there with part­ner, dog and cats. In addition to six chapbooks, McLean is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Cadaver’s Dance (Whistling Shade Press, 2008), Pushing Lemmings (Erbacce Press, 2009), and Laughing at Funerals (Epic Rites Press, 2010). His first novel Henrietta Remembers is coming shortly. More information about David McLean can be found at his blog http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com.

Cassandra Metcalfe is a recent honors graduate in English Literature from Simon Fraser University.

Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitch­cock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologies Good Poems, American Places, Hunger Enough, and Line Drives. His chapbook, Three Visitors has recently been published by Negative Capability Press. Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, is forthcoming from Folded Words Press.

Kevin O'Rourke also writes as T.K. O'Rourke. Kevin worked on the barges on the Missis­sippi River for a generation, won the Scottish International Open Poetry Competition twice, received the 2013 KVP Jack Kerouac Award, teaches sustainable gardening and outdoor survival skills to street kids, and counsels violent men. His street poems have been archived in the Givens Collection at the Elmer Anderson Library at the University of Minnesota.

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?"

Joel Van Valin is the publisher of Whistling Shade. His fiction most recently appeared in Six Three Whiskey. He has never seen a ghost.

Joanna M. Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty-five years. Her middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, was published by Clar­ity House Press; and her poetry collection, A Summer Father, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary.

Marie Sheppard Williams is a Minneapolis writer and poet.  She has been awarded many prizes for her work. Her poetry has been published in Poetry East, The Sun Magazine, Ted Kooser's newspaper column, and previously in Whistling Shade.