New Millennium Writings
Issue 23 — 2014
The “Joan of Arc” Issue
Awards XLV (Winter 2012-13)
Awards XLVI (Summer 2013)
— NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS —
Devreaux Baker has published three books of poetry. She is the recipient of a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Poetry Award for her book, Red Willow People. She is a MacDowell Fellow, a Hawthornden Castle Fellow, and a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellow. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she has been awarded the Hawaii Council on Humanities International Poetry Prize. She has taught writing workshops in France, Scotland, Mexico and the United States, and has participated in California Poets in the Schools.
JoAnn Balingit’s poem, “The Struggle,” appears in Words for House Story (WordTech Editions, 2013). Forage (Wings Press, 2011) was awarded the Whitebird Chapbook Prize. She’s had poems in Best New Poets, Poets/Artists, Salt Hill and Verse Daily. She serves as Delaware’s Poet Laureate and teaches poetry in schools and for non-profit organizations.
KB Ballentine is a poet living in Signal Mountain, TN. Learn more at kbballentine.com.
Judith Barrington has published three poetry collections, most recently Horses and the Human Soul, and two chapbooks: Postcard from the Bottom of the Sea and Lost Lands (winner of the Robin Becker Chapbook Award). Her fourth collection, The Conversation, will be published in 2015 by Salmon Press.
Michelle Bonczek is the author of The Art of the Nipple (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2013). She holds a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University, mentors for The Poet’s Billow (thepoetsbillow.org), and teaches writing in Syracuse, NY.
Sylvia Bowman, retired from teaching in Texas, writes fiction and poetry in Port Townsend, WA. Several poems have appeared in the journal Ekphrasis, and a collection, We Met, Once Before, was published in early 2014.
Carolyn Breedlove is a poet living in Natchitoches, LA.
Alexis Williams Carr is Publisher and Managing Editor of New Millennium Writings. She took the literary journal over in 2013 and, as an English Literature degree-holder, understands how fortunate she is to get to “live the literary life,” surrounded by the creations of established and emerging authors. Helping to recognize and reward these voices is her greatest joy.
George David Clark’s most recent poems can be found in new issues of Alaska Quarterly Review, The Believer, Narrative, Pleiades, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. He teaches poetry at Valparaiso University, is the editor of 32 Poems, and lives in Indiana with his wife and their two young children.
James Cooper, Ph.D., is a psychologist in Sacramento, CA. His writing “explores the densities” between what is felt, remembered and imagined, giving natural imagery a powerful voice in the mix. His work has appeared in Oberon, Subliminal Interiors, Flutter Poetry Journal, and The Sun (Reader’s Write).
Stephen Coyne’s short stories have appeared in many literary journals including The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, The New England Review, The North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and others. His story, “Hunting Country,” was chosen by Ann Tyler for inclusion in Best of the South II from Algonquin Books.
Rafaella Del Bourgo’s poems have been widely published. Awards include the 2003 Lullwater Prize; first place in the 2007, 2008 and 2013 Maggi Meyer Poetry Competition; the 2010 Alan Ginsberg Poetry Award, and the 2012 Paumanok Prize. She lives in Berkeley.
Anne Damrosch lives in Burlington, VT. Her poems have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Willard and Maple, Down East Magazine, and the upcoming issue of Nimrod. Her chapbook, Entering the Story, was published by Finishing Line Press, in 2012. She is working on a novel.
Linda Nemec Foster has published nine collections of poems including Amber Necklace from Gdansk (finalist for the Ohio Book Award) and Talking Diamonds (selected by ForeWord Magazine as a finalist for the Book of the Year Award). Her collaboration with Hungarian musician Laszlo Slomovits was released on the CD, Cry of Freedom, in 2013.
Janet Foster studied literature at Scripps College in Claremont, CA, and French literature at La Sorbonne, Paris, France. She has published articles and book reviews in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Francisco Review of Books and Furious Fictions, among other publications. Her poetry has appeared in Enhance magazine, The San Diego Poetry Annual, and on the Bluestocking Books website.
Dan Gemmer’s background “is an amalgamation.” He is now retired from the Pennsylvania Older Adult Protective Services Department. Before that, he was a department store manager, farmer, college student, factory worker and Army sergeant serving in the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam. He has no formal fiction writing training, but during his time with the Older Adult office “did an enormous amount of case note documentation” which had to be “detailed, descriptive, narrative, accurate and brief.”
Benjamin Goldberg lives with his wife outside Washington, D.C. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Southeast Review, South Dakota Review, Raleigh Review, Terrain.org, MAYDAY Magazine and elsewhere. He was a finalist for the 2012 Gearhart Poetry Prize and the 2013 Third Coast Poetry Prize.
Janlori Goldman is a poet, teacher and civil rights activist. Her first manuscript was a finalist for the Alice James Kinereth Gensler Award, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and Crab Orchard Press’s Open Competition. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and volunteers as a writing mentor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Jonathan Greenhause, winner of Prism Review’s 2012-2013 Poetry Prize and finalist in the 2013 Gearhart Poetry Contest from The Southeast Review, has poetry forthcoming in The Great American Poetry Show, The Malahat Review (CAN), The Next Review (UK), and The William and Mary Review, among others. “He and his wife are being raised by their one-year-old, Benjamin Seneca.”
Emily Hipchen is a Fulbright scholar, the editor of Adoption & Culture, and one of the editors of a/b: Autobiography Studies. Her essays, short stories and poems have appeared in Fourth Genre, Northwest Review, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor at The University of West Georgia.
Jim Hudson is a physician, retired from the faculty of the Medical College of Georgia, and has been writing poetry for about ten years. He enjoys exploring interactions with the natural world.
Doris Ivie relishes her retirement from a lifetime of “professing,” reads broadly, cultivates “choiceless awareness,” teaches an online personal growth course, and values above all other experiences her three “sits” with the Dalai Lama. Doris co-edited two East Tennessee regional literary anthologies, Breathing the Same Air and A Tapestry of Voices.
Marilyn E. Johnston is author of two books of poetry, Weight of the Angel and Silk Fist Songs, both issued by Antrim House Books. In 2001, her chapbook, Against Disappearance, was published as Finalist for the annual Poetry Prize of Redgreene Press, Pittsburgh. Her work has received six Pushcart Prize nominations and has appeared in numerous journals, including South Carolina Review and Poet Lore. She works in the Bloomfield Public Libraries, directing a popular reading series there for Connecticut poets.
Peter Kent lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. He has published poems in Cimarron Review, Sixfold and For Poetry. His work also has received a high commendation in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition.
C. Ann Kodra, an independent editor in Knoxville, TN, has poems and short stories published or pending in Blueline, Gingerbread House, Memoir Journal, MOTIF, New Millennium Writings, Now & Then, Prime Mincer, Yemassee, RHINO, Still: The Journal and others. She has served as a guest poetry editor for The Medulla Review.
Mary Emma Koles won the 2012 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize judged by Angela Ball, and was chosen for the 2009 Gerald Stern Poetry Prize by Joan Larkin. She was recently nominated for Best New Poets 2013, and her work has been published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review and The Dirty Napkin. “Her greatest loves are rap and olives.”
Krista Lukas is the author of a poetry collection, Fans of My Unconscious (Black Rock Press, 2013). Her poems have been featured in The Writer’s Almanac and The Best American Poetry 2006. She enjoys the bathtub and other contemplative spaces, even when the subject of her contemplation is a painful one.
Susan Maeder is a writer and actor living on the North Coast of California and in Southern France. She is the author of a book of poems, White Song (Pot Shard Press) and two one-woman plays, Black Tulips and Singing Back.
Eileen Malone’s poetry has been published in over 500 literary journals and anthologies. Her award-winning collection, Letters with Taloned Claws was published by Poets Corner Press (Sacramento) and her book of poetry, I Should Have Given Them Water was published by Ragged Sky Press (Princeton). She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize.
Bernard Mann’s poetry has been published in Ardent, New Millennium Writings, Poetica, Poetry Superhighway, Voices Israel, and WinningWriters.com, as well as in anthologies: Tom Howard 2013, Cyclamens & Swords 2013, Ardent 2010, Di-Verse-City 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2008; and Poetography 1992. His fiction includes Sea Change and Least Heard Sounds, short stories, and a novel-in-progress. Nonfiction includes Rivers in the City, a volume on waterfronts in Europe and the U.S.
Dr. Barbara Mossberg is “a performer and playwright of poetry. Dedicated to poetry in the civic ethos,” she hosts the weekly hour, Poetry Slow Down (KRXA 540AM, podcast BarbaraMossberg.com), and serves as Poet in Residence for the City of Pacific Grove, CA. She is an award-winning professor and literary critic whose book on Emily Dickinson, When A Writer Is A Daughter, was named Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. She is Professor at California State University Monterey Bay, President Emerita at Goddard College, and affiliated faculty and scholar at several universities. As a Fulbright professor and U.S. Scholar in Residence for the U.S. State Department, she has lectured on poetry in more than 20 countries and throughout the U.S., from Yosemite National Park to Phi Beta Kappa and the International Emily Dickinson Society.
Lisa Mullenneaux is a Manhattan-based poet and journalist. Her first poetry collection, Painters and Poets, is available from Penington Press. She has published several nonfiction books and maintains the blog, paintersandpoets.com. Her poems have appeared in Stone Canoe, The Summerset Review, The Fourth River, Global City Review, and several online journals.
Amy Nawrocki is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Four Blue Eggs, finalist for the 2013 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut, and teaches at the University of Bridgeport.
Alexis Paige’s work appears or is forthcoming in Fourth Genre, The Rumpus, Pithead Chapel, Ragazine and 14 Hills. Honors include a Pushcart Prize nomination and a feature on “Freshly Pressed.” Twice a top-ten finalist in the Glamour Magazine essay contest, Paige is a nonfiction student in the Stonecoast MFA program.
Veronica Patterson’s poetry collections include How to Make a Terrarium (Cleveland State University, 1987), Swan, What Shores? (NYU Press Poetry Prize, 2000), Thresh & Hold (Gell Poetry Prize, 2009), & it had rained (CW Books, 2013), and two chapbooks—This Is the Strange Part (Pudding House, 2002), and Maneuvers (Finishing Line, 2013).
Liza Porter received the 2009 Mary Ann Campau Memorial Poetry Fellowship from the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Her poetry and essays have appeared in anthologies and in The MacGuffin, The Progressive, AGNI, Diner, Cimarron Review, Barrow Street, Hotel Amerika, Pedestal Magazine and others. Porter’s personal essay, “In Plainview” (Cimarron Review 2005) was listed as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2006.
Bart Rawlinson received the 2013 William Matthews Poetry Prize. He was awarded the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, the Robert Browning Prize for Dramatic Monologue, and the Eugene Ruggles Poetry Prize, among other awards. His work has appeared in the Santa Clara Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Ink and other literary magazines. He teaches writing at Mendocino College in Northern California.
Susanna Rich, poet and songwriter, is an Emmy Award nominee and Fulbright Fellow. Founding producer and principal performer of Wild Nights Productions, LLC, Susanna tours ashes, ashes: A Poet Responds to the Holocaust; Television Daddy; and Shakespeare’s *itches: The Poetry Musical. Visit her at wildnightsproductions.com and becauseicanteach.blogspot.com.
Carey Russell is currently pursuing an MFA at Columbia University where she works in Donor Relations. Her work has recently appeared in Barnstorm, Sixfold (2nd Place 2013 Poetry Contest), American Athenaeum, and the Cumberland River Review (New Best Poets 2014 nominee).
Becky Dennison Sakellariou’s passions in both her poetry and life are “language, music, the heart, landscapes, bodies, skin, breath, figs, olives, babies, smells and tastes.” She has published in numerous journals and has three books out, The Importance of Bone, What Shall I Cry? and Earth Listening. Learn more at beckysakellariou.com.
Abby Shepherd is a recent graduate of Eckerd College where she majored in both Creative Writing and Literature. Her previous publications include the poems, “The Magnolia Bar” and “Fat Daughter” in Tommagazine as well as “Hazard Nights” and “Ignes Andros” in The Eckerd Review. She currently resides in Knoxville, TN, with her fiance.
David Sloan’s debut poetry collection, The Irresistible In-Between (Deerbrook Editions), was recently published. His poetry has appeared in The Broome Review, The Café Review, The Naugatuck River Review, and Passager, among others. He received the 2012 Betsy Sholl and Maine Literary awards, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Eleanor St. James, a poet from Poulsbo, WA, “is also an educator who incorporates her love of art and sense of history into her writing.” Her work has appeared in numerous art and literary magazines. “Falling Into Love” is her second honorable mention in NMW.
Laura Still is a poet, playwright, writer and teller of local history stories for her tour business, Knoxville Walking Tours. Her poetry collection, Guardians, was released in 2009 by Celtic Cat Publishing and was followed in 2010 by Acts of the Apostles, Vol. I, a book of children’s plays, in 2010.
Brenda Stumpf received her BFA from California State University Long Beach. For over 14 years, she has owned and served as Creative Director of Prime8 Interactive where her leadership and creative vision resulted in award-winning designs for international clientele. Expanding her creative vision into photography, she has developed a reputation as one of the premiere underwater photographers in the United States.
Shelby Thomas is an undergrad student at the University of Maine. “Somehow, her poems keep getting published.”
H. Boris Timberg: “H is for Herb, my grandfather on my mother’s side. He was a grammar maestro, a veteran, and a vice principal. I’m a teacher, a writer, and a father of two. My father loves Entenmann’s doughnuts, walking with my mom, and sitting in the steam room. This story is his.”
Milla van der Have, born in 1975, wrote her first poem at 16, during a physics class. “She has been writing ever since. A few years ago she switched to writing in English, both prose and poetry.” Milla lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Timothy Walsh’s most recent poetry collection is When the World Was Rear-Wheel Drive: New Jersey Poems (Main Street Rag Publishing). His awards include the Grand Prize in the Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition and the Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize from North American Review. He is the author of a book of literary criticism, The Dark Matter of Words: Absence, Unknowing, and Emptiness in Literature (Southern Illinois University Press). Find more at timothyawalsh.com.
Anne Weiss, “a Portlandia resident,” is an internationally touring poet and a singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, workshop leader, community activist, gardener, and rabble rouser. She was Allen Ginsberg’s teaching assistant and piano teacher while at Naropa in 1981, and coincidentally received an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award decades later. She has six CDs and a book of poetry. Learn more at anneweiss.com.
Jennifer Wheelock’s work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including River Styx, Garbanzo, North Atlantic Review, Atlanta Review, The Peralta Press, Comstock Review, The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, and the online journal, Blaze. Her poem, “Feeding Francis Bacon” appears in Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem: A Guide to Writing Poetry, in the chapter on formal verse. She lives in Atlanta, GA, and works as a writer at Emory University.