Issue 3.1 Contributors

Roy Bentley has received fellowships from the NEA, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Pleiades, Blackbird, North American Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Books include “Boy in a Boat” (University of Alabama), “Any One Man” (Bottom Dog), “The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana” (White Pine), and “Starlight Taxi” (Lynx House). He’s taught creative writing and composition at universities and colleges throughout the Midwest and in Florida. These days, he teaches for Georgian Court University in New Jersey and lives near the Jersey Shore.

Judy Bolton-Fasman’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, Salon, 1966: A Journal of Creative Non-fiction, Brevity, Cognoscenti and other venues. She has also written a memoir, currently unpublished, entitled “The Ninety Day Wonder.” Judy lives and writes with her family outside of Boston.

Kayla Rae Candrilli is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama, and an associate editor for NANO Fiction and the Black Warrior Review. Candrilli was awarded first place in Vela Magazine’s non-fiction contest, and is published or forthcoming in Rattle, The Chattahoochee Review, Vinyl, CutBank, The Boiler, and others. You can read more of their work here.

Justin Carmickle holds a BA from Indiana University and MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. At VCU he taught courses in poetry and fiction writing and was Assistant Literary Editor at Blackbird. Formerly an editor at The Conium Review, his fiction has received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s New Writers Award and appears or is forthcoming in Louisiana Literature, Jonathan, Midwestern Gothic, and Mary: A Journal of New Writing. He is a PhD candidate in English at The University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, where he is an associate instructor of composition.

Tasha Cotter is the author of the poetry collections Some Churches (Gold Wake Press, 2013), That Bird Your Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Girl in the Cave (Tree Light Books, 2016). Winner of the 2015 Delphi Poetry Series, her work has appeared in journals such as Contrary Magazine, NANO fiction, and Booth. A contributor to Women in Clothes (Blue Rider Press, 2014), The Poets on Growth Anthology (Math Paper Press, 2015), and the 2017 Poet’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books), she makes her home in Lexington, Kentucky where she works in higher education.

Barbara Harroun is an Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University. Her most recent work is forthcoming or appearing in Per Contra Fiction, Fiction Southeast, Watershed Review, and Text Magazine. Her favorite creative endeavors are her awesome kids, Annaleigh and Jack. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she can be found walking her beloved dog, Banjo, or engaging in literacy activism and radical optimism. She blogs about all things mysterious with her friend Rebekah at here. She can be found here.

Jaap Kemp is a writer of fiction, plays, and poetry. His work can be found in Stolen Island, Cabildo Quarterly, Imminent Quarterly, and Breaking Fourth Plays and Press. An anthology of his work, “Gyrovagues,” is published through LeanPub. He currently lives and works in Minnesota, where his play “Saint Guillotine” was recently performed for the Minnesota Fringe Festival.

Michael Levan has work in recent or forthcoming issues of Iron Horse Literary Review, Hobart, Hunger Mountain, Indiana Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, Radar Poetry, Mid-American Review, and American Literary Review. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Saint Francis and writes reviews for American Microreviews and Interviews. He lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his wife, Molly, and children, Atticus and Dahlia.

David Nelson was born and raised in Michigan, where he earned his bachelors in creative writing from Albion College. He received his masters from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Most notably, his report on the ongoing identification process for Balkans war victims was published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and continues to be used as an educational resource by the International Commission on Missing Persons. “Tusk” is his first piece of published fiction. He lives in Chicago where he is currently at work on both a novel and true crime book.

Connor O’Neil is from Lancaster, PA. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. Recent work has appeared in Slate Magazine and Swarm Quarterly.

Karl Plank’s recent poetry has appeared in publications such as Notre Dame Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, New Madrid, Spiritus, Still, Exit 7, and Poetry Daily. A past winner of the Thomas Carter Prize (non-fiction, Shenandoah), he is the J.W. Cannon Professor of Religion at Davidson College.

Alex Pruteanu is author of novella Short Lean Cuts, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books, and So & So Books in Raleigh, NC. He is also author of Gears, a collection of stories from Independent Talent Group also available at the aforementioned retailers. He has published fiction in Guernica, [PANK], Specter Literary Magazine, The Prague Revue, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and others. His first novel The Sun Eaters is currently looking for a home with a publisher.

Christina Stoddard is the author of HIVE, which won the 2015 Brittingham Prize in Poetry (University of Wisconsin Press). Her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, storySouth, Tupelo Quarterly, DIAGRAM, and Spoon River Poetry Review. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Christina lives in Nashville, TN where she is the managing editor of an economics and decision theory journal. Visit her online here. and on Twitter at @belles_lettres.

L.B. Thomas is a writer and musician from a small town in Montana you’ve never heard of. His fiction has appeared in Crimespree Magazine, Theory Magazine, and Opsis Literary Arts Magazine.

Billy Wallace is an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Montana, where he also serves as Editor-in-Chief for CutBank Literary Magazine. He grew up in Ohio and Virginia, but spent most the last decade on the road, singing songs and making friends. Sometimes enemies. He writes stories about the folks he’s met and the adventures he’s had.