DRIFTWOOD 10 "FIRE"

CONTRIBUTORS NOTES

(in their own words)

Terry Blackhawk was a finalist for the 2009 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and has work in Nimrod, Third Wednesday, US 1 Worksheets, and Driftwood's "Earth." She is included in When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women, published in 2009 by Autumn House Press.

Dorothy Brooks is a retired educator with degrees in art and in music, who began creative writing coursework several years ago at Lansing (MI) Community College.  She is a flutist and abstract expressionist painter, and spent a decade teaching on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.  While there she was part of Middlebury (VT) College's Bread Loaf Rural Teacher's Writing Program.

Patricia Clark is Poet-in-Residence and Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. Author of three volumes of poetry, Patricia*s newest book is She Walks into the Sea; Patricia's work has been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Slate, Stand, The Gettysburg Review, and many other literary magazines.

Maria Costantini was almost thirteen when she came with her family to the United States from her native town just south of Rome. She speaks of her heritage and immigrant experience in much of her writing, which has appeared in The MacGuffin, Peninsula Poets, NFPS Encore, Versedaily.com, and rencity.net, and others. Her work has won honors and prizes from the National and Michigan Poetry Societies, William Allen Creative Nonfiction, and Springfed Arts 2009 and 2010 prose contests. Maria has translated from Italian into English two books of poetry by Ada Negri (1870-1945):  The Book of Mara and Songs of the Island, both recently published by Italica Press, N.Y.

Marcia Davis is a freelance writer and blogger who is passionate about happy food. (If you’re curious, visit her blog at www.lifeisfare.wordpress.com.) She lives with her husband in Holland, Michigan, although she refuses to relinquish her Jersey girl roots, especially when pronouncing certain words. Kinship is her first published poem.

Diane Shipley DeCillis is published in Nimrod International Journal, Connecticut Review, CALYX, Evansville Review, Gastronomica, Gargoyle, Phoebe, Poet Lore, PMS, Puerto del Sol, Rattle, Spillway, North Atlantic Review, among others. She recently moved her gallery, The Print Gallery, from Southfield to Birmingham (MI) renaming it Lido Gallery & Gifts, where she features, artists, poetry and fiction readers.

Linda Nemec Foster is the author of nine collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk and Listen to the Landscape.  Her new book, Talking Diamonds, was published by New Issues Press in 2009 and was recently nominated for the American Book Award.  In 1997 Foster established the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College and is currently a member of the Series' programming committee.

Conrad Hilberry taught for many years, first at DePauw University and then at Kalamazoo College, literature and creative writing. He first sent out poems in the late '50's, when there was a lot less competition than there is now.  He's published a half dozen collections of poems. Recently Mayapple Press brought out This Awkward Art, a book that matches up poems of his with those of his daughter, Jane Hilberry, who teaches at Colorado College.

William Holm. I'm a writer in Holland, MI. My poem Life Still snuck into Driftwood Number 10. I'm really trying to be disciplined about writing for a change, so I write a poem every day and post it on my blog (www.billholm.wordpress.com).

David James teaches at Oakland Community College. His most recent book is She Dances Like Mussolini by March Street Press, 2009.

Judith Kerman has published eight books or chapbooks of  poetry. Her second book of translations of poetry, Praises & Offenses: Three Women Poets from the Dominican Republic, was published by BOA Editions in 2009. 

Vondalee Knoll sold her commercial real estate rental business and retired in 2004. Once a columnist and stringer for The Holland Sentinel, she is past winner of the Oldenberg Award for Poetry and the Snowbound Writer’s Contest. Vondalee lives with her four dogs in a little cottage near Lake Michigan.

Lucinda Sabino is a Michigan poet whose work treats longing and loss with humor and hope. Her chapbook We’re Coming Close was published last year by Pudding House Press. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Driftwood, The Bridge and PrePress: New Michigan Writers.

Mary Schoemehl Since 2004 I have studied creative writing with Dr. Dale Herder, Daniel Holt, Deidre Humphries, and Dennis Hinrichsen at Lansing Community College. My work has been published in Washington Square Review and show at (SCENE) Metrospace, downtown East Lansing. I love sharing my work with good family and friends, particularly my husband Don, and friend Kalli.

Luke Sprunger is a recent graduate of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He reads voraciously and draws on the inspiration provided by travels, weather, and the landscapes of West Michigan to aid his endeavors in fiction writing.  

Phillip Sterling's most recent collection of poetry is Abeyance, winner of the Frank Cat Chapbook Award in 2007.  A collection of short stories, titled In Which Brief Stories Are Told, will be published in 2011, as part of the Made In Michigan Series from Wayne State University Press.

Alison Swan's poems and prose have appeared in many publications, most recently, The Dunes Review, TriQuarterly, and the book The Saugatuck Dunes: Artists Respond to a Freshwater Landscape. She's the creator of the creative nonfiction collection, Freshwater: Women Writing on the Great Lakes (MichSU Press), named a Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. An award-winning environmental activist, she teaches in Western Michigan University's Environmental Studies Program.

Laurence Thomas is the Promethean firebrand who stokes the fires at Third Wednesday, literary arts journal.  When not doing that, he can be found lecturing in Arkansas, visiting poetry groups in Michigan, and spoiling his cat, Moritz.   

Carol Was is the Poetry Editor for The MacGuffin, and a member of Springfed-Arts – Metro Detroit Writers. Her poetry was nominated for Best New Poets, was read on Martha Stewart Living Radio, and has appeared in The Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, and Nimrod International Journal, among others.  

Jan Worth-Nelson lives in Flint, Michigan, where arsonists have burned down about 550 houses since May, triggering a persistent climate of gloomy despair and hope for something in the ashes.  She is interim director of UM - Flint's Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching.  Her Peace Corps novel, Night Blind, has a fire in it based on a real event in her oval, lashed-bamboo hut in 1977 in the Kingdom of Tonga.