Issue Forty-Nine: August 2013
Jonathan Callahan's first book, The Consummation of Dirk, won Starcherone Press's 8th Prize for Innovative Fiction and was just released in April. His writing has appeared several times here in The Collagist and can also be found in Pank, The Millions, Fiction Writers Review, Unsaid, Witness, The Lifted Brow, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. He grew up in Hawaii and currently lives in Queens.
Morris Collins's first novel Horse Latitudes is out this August. Other fiction and poetry has recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from Pleiades, Gulf Coast, The Chattahoochee Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Nimrod among others. He received his MFA in fiction from Penn State in 2008 and he lives and teaches in Boston.
Lori Wald Compton's fiction and nonfiction has been published or is forthcoming in Phone-Fiction, Lilith, Mid-American Review, Rubbertop Review, and Lumina. She is an instructor in the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at CWRU and devotedly tutors Cleveland public school students in reading competence. Lori shares her meditation journey at slowbreathsoftheart.com.
Stevie Edwards is a Michigander but currently resides in Ithaca, NY, where she is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Cornell University. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing 2012), has recently received the Devil's Kitchen Reading Award and the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Bronze Prize for Poetry. Her latest chapbook, Atomic Girl, is forthcoming from Tired Hearts Press. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Rattle, Indiana Review, PANK, Devil's Lake, Aim for the Head: an Anthology of Zombie Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine.
Brian Evenson is the author of many books of fiction, most recently the story collection Windeye and the novel Immobility. In 2009 he also published the novel Last Days (which won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009) and the story collection Fugue State, both of which were on Time Out New York's top books of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an IHG Award. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Slovenian. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he teaches in Brown University's Literary Arts Program. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, and others. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship.
Amanda Goldblatt is the author of Catalpa: This Is Not True (The Cupboard). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in FENCE, American Short Fiction, Matchbook, NANO Fiction, and other places. She is currently at work on a novel. More information at amandagoldblatt.com.
Tina May Hall is a fiction writer who loves monsters, fairy tales, and dark chocolate. Her collection of short stories, The Physics of Imaginary Objects, won the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her stories have appeared in 3rd Bed, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, Descant, The Collagist, and other journals. She lives in a creaky old house populated by coal-black mice and cocoa-pilfering ghosts.
Evelyn Hampton is the author of Discomfort, a collection of stories that will be published by Ellipsis Press in 2014.
David Hollander is the author of the novel L.I.E. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous forums, including McSweeney’s, Agni, Post Road, The New York Times Magazine, Poets & Writers, Unsaid, and previous issues of The Collagist. His work has been adapted for film and frequently anthologized, notably in Best American Fantasy. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, where he is revered as a God.
Kristen Iskandrian lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Her work has been published in Tin House and many other places.
Tara Ison is the author of the novels Rockaway, The List, and A Child Out of Alcatraz. For more info, see http://www.taraison.com.
Robert Kloss is the author of The Alligators of Abraham and The Desert Places (with Amber Sparks and illustrated by Matt Kish), forthcoming from Curbside Splendor.
Philip Kobylarz lives in the East Bay of San Francisco. Recent work of his appears or will appear in Tampa Review, Apt, Santa Fe Literary Review, New American Writing, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Salzburg Review, and has appeared in Best American Poetry. His book, rues, has recently been published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco. His short story collection and essay/memoire/philosophical travelogue are forthcoming.
Brian Kubarycz live in Salt Lake City, where he teaches Intellectual Traditions for the Honors College of The University of Utah. His work has appeared in The Quarterly, Puerto Del Sol, Black Warrior Review, Unsaid, Gigantic, PANK, and other literary venues.
Robert Lopez is the author of two novels, Part of the World and Kamby Bolongo Mean River and a story collection, Asunder.
Josh MacIvor-Andersen is a contributor to magazines such as Geez, Sojourners, Prism, and National Geographic/Glimpse. His personal essays have appeared in Arts and Letters, Gulf Coast, The Paris Review Daily, and Fourth Genre, among others. He has won multiple awards and Pushcart nominations for his essays and reporting, and a Tennessee Tree Climbing Championship for climbing faster than his big brother, Aaron, or "The Former Champion," as he was quickly known. Josh teaches nonfiction, journalism, mythology and good books at Northern Michigan University.
Nathan McClain lives and works in Los Angeles. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Quarterly West, Nimrod, The Journal, Toad, Linebreak, and Best New Poets 2010. A recipient of scholarships from Vermont Studio Center and the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, he is currently an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College.
Sarah Norek lives and works in Oregon. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cupboard, Juked Magazine,Wigleaf, previous issues of The Collagist, and elsewhere, and can also be found on the bottles of Harris Bridge Vineyard dessert wines. Her work has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she’s currently arranging a story collection and finishing up a novella.
A native of California, Diana Khoi Nguyen is a recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Key West Literary Seminar. She's also received a Pushcart Prize nomination and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Diana's poems appear or are forthcoming in Pool Poetry, Memorious, Poetry, and elsewhere.
James Orbesen is a writer and adjunct living in Chicago. His writing has appeared in Salon, Midwestern Gothic, Jacobin, The New Humanism, Bookslut, 215 Ink's Ignition anthology, and elsewhere. Work is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, Gadfly ONLINE, and Cosmic Outlaws: Coming of Age after the End of Nature.
Kate Petersen is a Stegner fellow at Stanford University, and holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Crazyhorse, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She is at work on a novel and a book of stories.
Audra Puchalski is from Michigan. Her work has been published in PANK, elimae, Network Awesome Magazine, and Kill Author. She blogs about poetics, collects animated gifs of cute animals acting like famous poets, and shares poetry tips at skunkdoilypoetics.tumblr.com.
Amber Sparks is the author of the short story collection May We Shed These Human Bodies, and the co-author, with Robert Kloss, of the upcoming The Desert Places.
Justin Thurman earned his Ph.D. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he studied contemporary American literature, rhetoric, and writing studies. He currently teaches writing at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His fiction and scholarship have appeared or are forthcoming in WOE: Writing on the Edge, Ekleksographia, Monday Night, Stymie: A Journal of Literature and Sport, and Fiddleblack among others.
John Dermot Woods is the author of the comics collection Activities (Publishing Genius) and two previous illustrated novels. He and Lincoln Michel published their funny animal comic, Animals in Midlife Crises, at The Rumpus. His is a founder of the online literary journal Action, Yes. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and is a professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College.
Kate Wyer lives in Baltimore. Her writing has appeared in Wigleaf, Unsaid, <kill author, PANK, Exquisite Corpse, and past issues of The Collagist. She attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania on a fellowship from Fence. Wyer has completed a novella and is at work on a second. She is employed in the public mental health system of Maryland.