fwriction : review

Jack Allen (Fiction) studies creative writing and English literature at Concordia University in Montreal. While sometimes submitting his own stories to publications, he prefers working with writers to develop their talents and expose them to an audience. Jack is the fiction editor at The Void Magazine and has recently launched his own project, The Trapshot Archives, a small press that focuses on contemporary literary and visual arts. (Find an introduction to his short story, “La Dame du Lac,” here.)

Alison Barker’s (Fiction) writing has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Anemone Sidecar, Front Porch, and, forthcoming in dislocate. She lives in Louisiana.

Barry Basden (Poetry) lives in the Texas hill country but often dreams of German beer and an old apartment overlooking the Heidelberg castle. He’s been published here and there and edits Camroc Press Review.

Author and acclaimed translator Susan Bernofsky (Writer²), Chair of the PEN Translation Committee, has translated eighteen books, including six by the great Swiss-German modernist writer Robert Walser, as well as novels by Jenny Erpenbeck, Yoko Tawada, Hermann Hesse, Gregor von Rezzori and others. She received the 2006 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize and the 2012 Hermann Hesse Translation Prize as well as awards and fellowships from the NEH, the NEA, the PEN Translation Fund, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Lannan Foundation. She teaches in the MFA program at Queens College (CUNY) and blogs about translation at www.translationista.org.

Keith Birthday (Poetry) lived in Siberia, and some of the poetry published in fwriction : review is about how living there with limited Russian abilities was difficult. And, girls, too. He lives in Philadelphia. If you Google him, you can find his blog and email address.

Walter Bjorkman (Fiction) is a writer from Brooklyn, NY now residing in the mountains of Pennsylvania and is Associate Editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal. His poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Scrambler, Poets & Artists, THIS Literary Magazine, Connotation Press, Foliate Oak, Wilderness House Literary Review, A-Minor, Blue Print Review, Metazen and others. His collection of short stories, Elsie’s World, was published in January 2011.

Ann Bogle’s (Nonfiction—Fictionaut Issue) short stories have appeared in recent online publications including BLIP, Istanbul Literary Review, Metazen, Wordgathering, Whale Sound, Wigleaf, Big City Lit, and others. She is creative nonfiction and book reviews co-editor at Mad Hatters’ Review and fiction reader at Drunken Boat.A collection of her work called Country Without a Name is forthcoming from Argotist Ebooks in 2011.

Jack Bootle (Fiction) lives in London, England. His writing appears in Found Press and is forthcoming in Notes From The Underground. When he’s not writing, he makes TV shows. He has four webbed toes.

Matthew Boyd (Fiction) is the founder and editor of Staccato. You can read more of his work at Slice Magazine, Duck & Herring Co., and The Blotter. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and plays on a literary basketball team named Jane Air.

Bryanna A. Buchanan (Nonfiction—High School Writers’ Issue) is a high school senior in New York City. Additionally, she attends the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity program, where she has been often recognized for her creative writing. She and her professors love her puffy hair.

Cindy Caban (Fiction—High School Writers’ Issue) is a junior at Millennium High School. She lives in Williamsburg, a neighborhood that continues to change. She has Hispanic blood running through her veins and is very proud of it. She feels lucky to have discovered that she is passionate about writing. She loves to let myself go in writing and let words drip from her tongue. She loves to write poems and fiction, to create an image in her mind and write all her thoughts down. It’s her way of expressing and learning about herself. Her goal is to take her writing career further in the future and write a novel. She wants to be able to inspire other people by giving them hope and showing that if you work hard, you can make a difference in someone else’s life through your writing. Writing allows her to be herself. She loves to spend time with her family; she is an aunt to a two-year-old nephew who always makes her smile. This is her second year in Girls Write Now.

Myfanwy Collins (Fiction) lives and writes in Newbury, MA. For more information, please visit: http://www.myfanwycollins.com.

Sheldon Lee Compton (Fiction / Writer²) is the author of The Same Terrible Storm (Foxhead Books, 2012). He survives in Eastern Kentucky.

mensah demary (Fiction), whose prose has appeared in Up The Staircase, Monkeybicycle, Hippocampus Magazine, Used Furniture Review, and is forthcoming in Ginger Piglet and PANK Magazine, is co-founder & editor-in-chief of Specter Literary Magazine. mensah is also a regular contributor for PANK Magazine’s blog, Hippocampus, ArtFaccia,and Peripheral Surveys. mensah currently lives in southern New Jersey. For more information, please visit www.mensahdemary.com.

Born on the beautiful island of the Dominican Republic, Sharline Dominguez (Fiction—High School Writers’ Issue) came to reside in Brooklyn, NY in 1997, when she was only three years old, holding Papi’s hand in JFK Airport. She is currently a graduating senior at Brooklyn College Academy and will be attending Amherst College as a Quest Scholar next fall. Overly obsessed with detail and observing silently, she is often a wallflower. She considers writing her very own honor code, an ideology she follows because it keeps her sane. She thanks Sponsors for Educational Opportunity for helping her realize that her writing and, more importantly, voice deserve to be heard by others. After submitting a memoir piece to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards last year, she won a Regional Silver Key, but this year, she aims for gold. She is highly fond of the piano and its delicacy, though she cannot play it. As for her writing goals, she wants to double major in English and Latin American studies. Aware that the world changes every day and people fall in love, for now Sharline is pro-graffiti, stating, “It is an art form that deserves criticism, but respect, because behind the murals in alleyways and on chimneys, there are writers just like you and me.”

Róbert Gál (Poetry) is a Prague-based Slovak writer (1968). He’s the author of several books of philosophical aphorisms and the novels Krídlovanie and Agnómia (2006 and 2008, in Czech 2010). His texts are difficult to categorize by genre, but were included in many international magazines and anthologies. A selection of Gál’s aphorisms, together with his work Znaky a príznaky (2003) was also published as a book in English (Signs & Symptoms, Twisted Spoon Press 2003). An extensive excerpt from Agnómia was selected for the prestigious anthology Best European Fiction 2012 to be published by Dalkey Archive Press in the US this fall.

S.H. Gall (Fiction) writes flash fiction. His work can be found in such diverse markets as SmokeLong Quarterly, Word Riot, Metazen, Nanoism, Monkeybicycle, and decomP magazinE, to name a few. New work is forthcoming in Pure Slush and Verbumcavus. He is reviewed in Five Star Literary Stories, and unpublished pieces can be found on Fictionaut.

Roxane Gay’s (Fiction) writing appears or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Mid-American Review, Cream City Review, Annalemma, McSweeney’s (online), and others. She is the co-editor of PANK, an assistant professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, and can be found at http://www.roxanegay.com. Her first collection, Ayiti, will be released in 2011.

Howie Good (Poetry), a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011).

Stephen Hastings-King (Fiction) lives by a salt marsh in Essex, Massachusetts where he makes constraints, works with prepared piano and writes entertainments of various kinds. Some of his sound work is available at www.clairaudient.org.  His short fictions have appeared in Sleepingfish, Black Warrior Review, elimae, Ramshackle Review, Blue Fifth Review and elsewhere.

Stephanie Hernandez (Poetry—High School Writers’ Issue) is a high school senior in New York City. Additionally, she attends the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity program, where her art won an award and was featured in SEO’s premiere literary journal, The Day We Saved a Butterfly, in 2011. A recent Quest Scholar, Stephanie will attend Washington and Lee University in the fall.

Frank Hinton (Fiction) lives in Halifax and edits the daily fiction litzine metazen.ca. Frank has had fiction published in Lamination Colony, PANK, Kill Author, Wigleaf and a bunch of other great literary magazines. Frank’s chapbook I don’t respect female expression is soon to be released by Safety Third Enterprises.

Suzanne Marie Hopcroft (Poetry) is a PhD student in Comparative Literature who writes from New York City.  Suzanne’s fiction has previously appeared in magazines including>kill author, Foundling Review, and Moon Milk Review; her poetry is forthcoming in PANKand The Catalonian Review, among others. Suzanne also teaches composition at Hostos Community College in the Bronx and writes fiction reviews for various journals.  You can find more of her work at www.suzannemariewrites.com.

Julie Innis (Fiction) lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Post Road, Gargoyle, Blip Magazine, JMWW, and Pindeldyboz, among others.

Brett Elizabeth Jenkins (Poetry) lives in Minnesota with her husband and no children. She is the poetry editor at Stymie and blogs for Specter Magazine. Look for her poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, Potomac Review, PANK, and elsewhere. Visit her online at http://brettejenkins.blogspot.com.

David Kirby (Poetry) teaches English at Florida State University. The Times of London has called his Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll “a hymn to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” His latest poetry collection is Talking About Movies With Jesus, and there’s more information on www.davidkirby.com.

Jen Knox (Fiction) is a professor of English and Writing Center coordinator at San Antonio College. She is the author of To Begin Again (2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards winner, short story category), and her shorter works have appeared or are forthcoming in Annalemma, Eclectic Flash, Gargoyle, Narrative Magazine, Short Story America, Superstition Review and elsewhere. For more about Jen, visit her website here: http://www.jenknox.com.

Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé (Fiction) has two new chapbooks Between Pineapple and Parsley and Let Dinggedicht Speak, from Ronin Press and Silkworms Ink. Trained in book publishing at Stanford, with a theology masters in world religions from Harvard and fine arts masters in creative writing from Notre Dame, Desmond has edited more than ten books and co-produced three audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organizations. He also works in clay, his commemorative pieces housed in museums and private collections in India, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.

Len Kuntz (Fiction—Fictionaut Issue) is a writer from Washington State. His work appears widely in print and online at such places as Juked, Camroc Press Review, Anastomo, and also lenkuntz.blogspot.com.

Casey Lefante (Nonfiction) earned her MFA from The Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. Her fiction has appeared in Third Coast, Zone 3, and Slush Pile, and she was shortlisted for Gravity Fiction. She currently teaches at an all-girl high school in New Orleans, which just happens to be the best city in America. But perhaps she is biased.

Paul Lisicky (Fiction) is the author of Lawnboy and Famous Builder. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Five Points, Story Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Subtropics, and been widely anthologized. He has taught in the writing programs at Cornell University, NYU, Rutgers-Newark, and Sarah Lawrence. His novel, The Burning House, is just out. His collection of short prose, Unbuilt Projects, is forthcoming in Fall 2012. This spring, he’s the Visiting Writer in the MFA Program at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Anthony Luebbert (Fiction) has never been to space. His fiction has been published by Parcel, Quick Fiction, and New York Tyrant. He blogs at http://www.monkfishjowls.com.

Nicholas Mainieri (Nonfiction) lives in New Orleans. You can find his work in places like The Southern Review and Sou’wester, as well as online at Hobart and NOLAFugees.com. He still plans to be the only fighter pilot to ever start a Major League Baseball All-Star Game and own a pet dinosaur. Reach him at nmainieri@gmail.com if you feel the urge.

Sarah Malone’s (Fiction) fiction has appeared in Open City, The Awl, The Good Men Project, Atticus Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming this fall in Keyhole and PANK.

Kenny Mooney (Fiction) is a writer and musician from Glasgow, Scotland. He was born in Berlin just to be difficult. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Emprise Review, >kill author, Spilling Ink Review, Metazen, Fractured West and others. He also makes music as Novak. He blogs at This Is Dragline.

Ben Nardolilli (Poetry) currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, One Ghana One Voice, Caper Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, Super Arrow, Grey Sparrow Journal, Pear Noir, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and Yes Poetry. His chapbook, Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, has been published by Folded Word Press. He maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.

Kari Nguyen (Fiction) lives in New Hampshire with her husband, their baby girl, and a big, yellow dog. Her writing has been recognized by Glimmer Train, the Glass Woman Prize, the Binnacle, and New Hampshire Writers Magazine, and her recent fiction appears in Blink-Ink, Boston Literary Magazine, Istanbul Literary Review, Willows Wept Review, and elsewhere. She is the nonfiction editor at Stymie Magazine. You can find more of her work at http://karinguyen.wordpress.com/.

Jason Lee Norman (Fiction) is the co-founder and junior intern for the writing magazineWufniks. His short fiction has appeared in For Every Year, Wigleaf, and recently in Pure Slush and A-Minor. He lives, works, sleeps, and eats in Edmonton, Canada.

Emely Paulino (Fiction—High School Writers’ Issue) was born and lives in Queens, New York. Ever since she was in the third grade, her goal in life has been to become a writer. Throughout the years, she has found her niche in poetry and short fiction. Currently a junior at The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, she is in her third year at Girls Write Now. Through Girls Write Now, she grows as a writer and works with others who share a passion for the same thing. During her first year with GWN, she won a Gold Key from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. When she is not writing or observing things around her, she takes pictures on her film camera or spends time with people who inspire her to write. Sometimes, you will even find her up on stage improvising scenes with a group of friends.

Meg Pokrass (Fiction—Fictionaut Issue) is the author of Damn Sure Right (Press 53) and serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. She is an associate producer for “From Ghost Town to Havana” a documentary in progress by academy-award nominated filmmaker Eugene Corr. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in over one hundred online and print publications. Meg lives with her small family and seven animals in San Francisco.

Matt Potter (Fiction) is an Australian-born writer who lives between Australia and Germany (particularly Berlin), perhaps following the summer. Also a social worker and an English language teacher, Matt is inspired by the discipline of others and their sense of enjoyment, and wishes both would rub off on him. Matt has been published at The Glass Coin and A-Minor and will soon be published at Gloom Cupboard, Magnolia’s Press and Used Furniture Review. Matt contributes regularly to 52/250: A Year of Flash and the blog carnival >Language >Place, and less regularly to F3. You can find more of his work at his website, writing, and then some. Matt is also the founding editor of Pure Slush.

Shelagh Power-Chopra’s (Fiction) work appears or is forthcoming in Electric Lit’s Outlet Blog, Used Furniture Review, The Significant Objects Project, Metazen, Litsnack, and elsewhere.

Sam Rasnake’s (Fiction—Fictionaut Issue) works, receiving five Pushcart nominations, have appeared in OCHO, BLIP (formerly Mississippi Review), FRiGG, Poets / Artists, MiPOesias, A-Minor Magazine, BluePrintReview, and Big Muddy, as well as the anthologies Best of the Web 2009 (Dzanc Books), BOXCAR Poetry Review Anthology 2, and Dogzplot Flash Fiction 2011. His latest collections are Lessons in Morphology (GOSS183) and Inside a Broken Clock (Finishing Line Press).

Jerry Ratch (Poetry) has published twelve books of poetry, the novel Wild Dreams of Reality, and now the memoir, A Body Divided, the story of a one-armed boy growing up in a two-fisted world. His work can be purchased through the author’s website: www.jerryratch.com, by e-mail: jerry@jerryratch.com, as well as through Amazon.

Daniel Romo (Poetry) is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte, but represents the LBC. His poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Gargoyle, The Los Angeles Review, MiPOesias, Fogged Clarity, Scythe, and elsewhere. His first book of poetry, Romancing Gravity, is forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press. He’s currently looking for a home for a book of prose poems. More of his writing can be found at danielromo.wordpress.com.

Abby Rotstein (Fiction) teaches English in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has had work published in Word Riot, The Legendary, The Battered Suitcase and Foliate Oak. Tom Cruise is her biggest fan.

Pat Rushin’s (Drama) fiction has appeared in The North American Review, The North Atlantic Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Crescent Review, Zoetrope All-Story Extra,Quarterly West, Sudden Fiction, Indiana Review, American Literary Review, The King’s English, and elsewhere. His collection of stories, Puzzling through the News, was published by Galileo Press, and his screenplay, The Zero Theorem, is in development with The Zanuck Company. He is currently working on a book called The Middling Writer’s Revenge that he feels certain will put Simon & Schuster out of business once they publish it. He teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as a fiction editor for The Florida Review.

Emily Sarita (Fiction—High School Writers’ Issue) has lived in different parts of Brooklyn and Queens, but she was born in Brooklyn. She is a senior at NYCiSchool, which is located in SoHo. She lives in Williamsburg, where there is a park across the street from her apartment and nearly twenty minutes away from Delancey Street. She considers herself a writer because she feels that she is passionate when she writes, and she always has ideas. She will be reading or listening to music when, suddenly, a light bulb goes off in her head. She has to literally write down her idea or it won’t go away. She loves to write fiction because it gives her room to express herself and create her own world. Her goals as a writer are to be published someday, finish her stories, and write something personal about herself. She is in her third year at Girls Write Now, and “it has been amazing.”

Angelle Scott (Poetry) is an instructor of English and a Writing Center instructor at Dillard University in New Orleans. Her work has been published in The Written Wardrobe: Where Style & Story Collide,Black Magnolias Literary Journal, and elsewhere; she has work forthcoming in Callaloo and in Flywheel Magazine.

Neil Serven (Fiction) lives in western Massachusetts and works as a full-time lexicographer, a position that creates somewhat of a personal conflict of interest in that he is paid to determine and uphold the same usage standards that he later flouts in his own writing. Nobody has called him out on this yet. His fiction has appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of the Beloit Fiction Journal and the inaugural issue of Fictionaut Selects.

TrainWrite conductor Karen Eileen Sikola (Nonfiction) received her M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from California State University, Fresno, where she developed an appetite for deconstruction with an elite group of writer friends known as Team Mongoose. Her nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Front Porch, Monkeybicycle, Wufniks, and Pure Slush. She lives in Boston.

Adam Sivits (Fiction) is a retail slave/sometimes freelance writer who gave up writing on blogs recently for reasons neither he nor David Mamet can share. He has a metric fuck-ton of unfinished fiction pieces that, were they to somehow get finished, wouldn’t change the world in the slightest. Someday, he’ll write that screenplay about an aging middle relief pitcher struggling with mediocrity on the field and personal strife at home. Someday, he’ll sprout wings made of goldflake and fly to Saturn.

Marcus Speh (Fiction¹ / Fiction²) is a German writer who lives in Berlin. His short fiction has been published widely. He’s got a loving “Mother Burning” in his heart. “Candy” is flash fiction from his novel Gizella (forthcoming from Folded Word), centered on the historical figure of Gisela the Blessed (985-1065), first queen of Hungary and later abbess of Niedernburg nunnery near Passau. He’s the founder of the (by now merely) legendary Kaffe in Katmandu and blogs at marcusspeh.com.

Susan Tepper (Fiction—Fictionaut Issue) is co-author of the new novel What May Have Been: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G (Cervena Barva Press). She has also published a collection, Deer & Other Stories (Wilderness House Press, 2009). Susan writes the “Monday Chat” interview column on the Fictionaut blog.

Meg Tuite’s (Fiction / Writer²) writing has appeared in numerous journals including Berkeley Fiction Review, Epiphany, One, the Journal, Monkeybicycle and elimae. She is the fiction editor of The Santa Fe Literary Review and Connotation Press. She has a novel Domestic Apparition (2011, San Francisco Bay Press) and a chapbook, Disparate Pathos (2012, Monkey Puzzle Press). She has a monthly column, Exquisite Quartet, published at Used Furniture Review.

Igor Ursenco (Poetry) is a writer, playwright, philosopher and culture theorist, and polyglot freelancer. A member of the Writers’ Union of Republic of Moldova, Igor has eight works of various genre, between them a collection of stories titled S.T.E.P.; two books of trans-cultural essays, Teo-e-retikon and EgoBesTiaR; and an unusual array of movies scripts and theatre plays. He is a recipient of national and regional short story, essay, and poetry awards, including his presence in The Anthology of Maramureş Poetry from its Origins until 2009 and The Anthology of Short Transylvanian Fiction Today. In addition, Igor supervised two international anthologies: The Clause of the Most Favored Maramureş and Basarabia Contemporary Poetry and the recently released, A Zero Degree Alert in the Current Romanian Short Prose. He blogs at http://igorursenco.blogspot.com.

James Valvis (Fiction) is the author of How to Say Goodbye (Aortic Books 2011). His work has appeared in Anderbo, Arts & Letters, Coal City Review, LA Review, Nimrod, Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, River Styx, THIS, and is forthcoming in Adirondack Review, Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, Palimpsest, Slipstream, and others. His poetry has been featured in Verse Daily. His fiction has twice been a Million Writers Award Notable Story. He lives in Issaquah, Washington.

Robert Vaughan’s (Fiction—Fictionaut Issue) plays have been produced in N.Y.C., L.A., S.F., and Milwaukee where he resides. He leads two writing roundtables for Redbird- Redoak Studio. His prose and poetry is published in over 150 literary journals such as Elimae, Metazen and BlazeVOX. He is a fiction editor at JMWW magazine, and Thunderclap! Press. He co-hosts monthly Flash Fiction Fridays for WUWM’s Lake Effect. His blog can be found at: http://rgv7735.wordpress.com.

With reverence for stories as healing tools, Jen Violi (Fiction), MA, MFA, offers coaching and editing for writers in all phases of manuscript development, and facilitates workshops and retreats. Jen also creates and delivers Love Notes, inspiration and affirmation via old-fashioned mail. Jen’s debut novel, Putting Makeup on Dead People was published this past May. Learn more at www.jenvioli.com.

Kelcy Wilburn (Poetry) loves the USA women’s soccer team. She also loves poetry and music. Kelcy recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. Her work as appeared or is forthcoming in Big Lucks, Hobart, and Waccamaw, among other journals. She recently recorded her second album and is embarking on Midwestern and Southeastern US tours this year. Listen at kelcymae.com.

Sarayah Wright (Fiction—High School Writers’ Issue) is a tenth grader attending Benjamin N. Cardozo High School for its Law and Humanities Program. From an early age, she’s always loved telling stories and reading the works of Mark Twain and other classics. Influenced by her third grade teacher, she developed an appreciation for poetry and interest in creative writing when she was nine. As a scholar at the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity program, she continues to grow as a writer, citing her Critical Writing and Reading classes as constant sources of inspiration. Her favorite authors include Elizabeth Alexander, Michael Eric Dyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Maya Angelou, and Sandra Cisneros. At fifteen, she continues to write vignettes and poetry in her spare time, and she attributes her interest in writing to her mother and her teachers, who have collectively helped her become a more critical thinker. Sarayah pays especial homage to Elizabeth Alexander who, when meeting her at a Yale event, offered her the best advice: keep writing.

Melanie Yarbrough (Fiction) lives in Cambridge, MA. Her flash fiction has appeared in Ramshackle Review, Thunderclap! Magazine, and Microchondria, published by Harvard Bookstore. She contributes to Five by Five Hundred every Wednesday and sporadically updates her book blog, The Things They Read. She is currently working on a collection of short stories inspired by members of her family and building the courage to start her novel.