Jul/Aug 2007

Tom Dooley co-founded Eclectica in 1996 and serves as its Managing Editor. In the 12 years between earning a BA in English literature from the University of Chicago and a MPA in municipal management from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he taught middle and high school English in Alaska, Arizona, and Wisconsin, amassing fond memories, dubious experiences, and debt. Two careers post-teaching later, he now creates spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides for the man by day, edits Eclectica by night, and feels very grateful for the blessings he has received—chief among them being married to the sweetest gal and the best poet he knows. He and said gal reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with enough rescued lapdogs to field a diminutive Iditarod racing team and the empty-nest echoes of two amazing Haitian-American children who have flown the coop.

Colleen Mondor is Eclectica's Review Editor. She also reviews for Bookslut, the Voices of NOLA, and Booklist. Short story excerpts from her novel on Alaskan aviation have recently appeared in failbetter and Storyglossia. She maintains a daily blog on all things literary (and sometimes not) at her site, Chasingray.com.

Elizabeth P. Glixman is Eclectica's Interview Editor. Her fiction and poetry have appeared online and in print in Wicked Alice, In Posse Review, 3 A.M. Magazine, Tough Times Companion, a publication of The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Her Circle Ezine, Frigg, and Velvet Avalanche, an anthology of erotic poetry. Besides Eclectica, her author interviews, articles, book reviews, and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Whole Life Times, Spirit of Change, Hadassah Magazine, and the anthologies Chocolate for A Woman's Soul II and Cup of Comfort For Women. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: A White Girl Lynching (Pudding House Publications, 2008), Cowboy Writes a Letter & Other Love Poems (Pudding House Publications, 2010), and The Wonder of It All (Alternating Current, 2012). Elizabeth's story, "Mother's Bony Behind," was chosen one of the notable online stories of 2006 by the Million Writers Award. Elizabeth is an animal lover, and she has a blog devoted to shelter animals, especially those at kill shelters.

Jennifer Finstrom has been the Poetry Editor of Eclectica since the fall issue of 2005. This is her final issue in that capacity. A former Spotlight Author, she teaches in the First-Year Writing Program, tutors in writing, and facilitates writing groups at DePaul University. Recent publications include Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Escape Into Life, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, and NEAT. For Silver Birch Press, she has work appearing in The Great Gatsby Anthology, the Alice in Wonderland Anthology, and in Ides: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks.

Pamela Mackey is Eclectica's Copy Editor. She teaches English at a community college in central New York. Earlier in her career, she wrote feature stories for newspapers, including The New York Times. Even earlier, she was a researcher and editor in the magazine industry, holding staff positions at LOOK and Saturday Review magazines. She writes poetry and is the mother of a gifted young novelist.

Aditya Ananth lives in Bombay, India. He majored in English Literature from the University of Bombay and works as a content developer in an e-Learning firm. The poems in this issue are part of a sequence of poems titled "Dream Cycle." Other poems from this sequence have been published in The Adirondack Review and Apples & Oranges.

Arlene Ang lives in Spinea, Italy. She is the author of The Desecration of Doves (iUniverse, 2005). This is her twelfth appearance in Eclectica. She has also appeared in In Posse Review, Magma, Rattle, Six Little Things, Smiths Knoll, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She received the 2006 Frogmore Poetry Prize and serves as a poetry editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1.

Ike Anya is a Nigerian public healh physician and writer currently based in the United Kingdom. Founding Secretary of the Abuja Literary Society, he is coeditor of The Weaverbird Collection of New Nigerian Writing to be published by Farafina this year. His poetry, essays, and short fiction have been published in the UK, Nigeria, America, and India and can be found online at the provided link. He is also coauthor of the Nigeria Health Watch blog.

Bob Bradshaw is a programmer living in Redwood City, CA. He is a big fan of the Rolling Stones. Recent work of his can be found at Tattoo Highway, Apple Valley Review, Blue Fifth Review, Slow Trains, Boston Literary Magazine, and Mannequin Envy.

Kris Broughton has had stories published in Carve, Exquisite Corpse, 3AM Magazine, and Mipoesias. He received a Pushcart nomination in 2004. Originally from South Carolina, Kris lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he toils ceaselessly in the mortgage industry. He is at work on a contemporary novel about "brown men thinking real hard." He says, "At some point in a good story (hopefully, near the beginning) the words rise up from the page, wrap a metaphorical arm around the reader, and make him a co-conspirator."

Elizabeth Bruno lives and works in Wisconsin, where she recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin Parkside with a B.A. in English. She says she has a beautiful, energetic little boy named Uriah and a fiance named Sam who is the love of her life. She also has two quirky cats named Frida and Calmness. She and her family just bought their first house, and she feels especially excited because she finally has a space where she can write without disruption. Her previous publications include Lily, Stirring, The Potomac, and Eclectica.

Sam Byfield was born in Newcastle, Australia, in 1981. His first chapbook, From the Middle Kingdom, is available through Pudding House Press (US). He has been published or is forthcoming in print and online magazines including Meridian, Diner, The Outside Voices Anthology 2008, The Pedestal Magazine, Foam-e, The Avatar Review, Eclectica, and many others. His piece "Street Scene," published in Eclectica, made the Finalist list for the 2006 Sundress Best of the Net competition. He is an editorial assistant at Lily Lit Review.

Mary Beth Caschetta was a finalist for the Iowa Review Fiction Award this year. Among other honors, she has received the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, the W.K. Rose Foundation Fellowship and the Seattle Review Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Small Spiral Notebook, Mississippi Review, Bloom, Blithe House Quarterly, and Red Rock Review, among others. She is the author of a short story collection, which Ms. Magazine called "a spectacular collection of women and girls, fugitives and ghosts, invalids and activists... a sensitive and telling portrait of contemporary American life." She lives in Massachusetts.

Andrew Coburn lives in Andover, Massachusetts.æHe has written 12 novels, three made into French films. His work has been translated into 13 languages. He recently returned to writing short stories. "Gemma" was inspired by a lovely woman with a classically beautifulæRoman nose.

Michelle Beth Cronk lives in Southern California with her husband and two young children. She has been published online in Loch Raven Review, elimae, Tryst, and Scorched Earth.

Barbara De Franceschi is an Australian poet who lives in Broken Hill, a small mining town in outback New South Wales. When not writing poetry or committed to family and business, Barbara involves herself in community work. She was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2002 for her achievements in the area of multiculturalism. Her poetry has appeared in various literary journals Australia-wide and online in the USA and Switzerland. Barbara is an adventuress writer who is continuously trying to find new ways and forms to present her work; she has experimented with sound and musical composition to enhance her recitals, with stimulating results. Her first collection, Lavender Blood, was published in 2004, and the manuscript for a second collection is well under way. Barbara is a member of the performance group "The Silver Tongued Ferals" and performs at caravan parks, arts festivals, etc., and has read her poetry live to air on ABC Radio on a number of occasions.

Cy Dillon lives in the Virginia mountains on a farm that has been in his family for six generations. A veteran college librarian, he is fiction editor of the Nantahala Review and co-editor of Virginia Libraries, which is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. Dillon's poetry can be found online in Eclectica, Maverick Magazine, and Red River Review.

Nelson L. Eshleman grew up in small towns in Western Canada and also lived for seven years in Hong Kong. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Southern Ocean Review, Adirondack Review, Asia Literary Review, SN Review, Offcourse Literary Journal, Elimae, 3:AM Magazine, Milk Magazine, Brittle Star, Fifteen Project, and Upstairs at Duroc.

Joachim Frank is a German-born scientist and writer living in Albany, New York, since 1975. He took writing classes with William Kennedy, Steven Millhauser, Eugene Garber, and Jayne Ann Philipps. He has published several short stories and prose poems in Lost and Found Times, The Agent, Inkblot, Heidelberg Review, Groundswell, Peer Glass, and Open Mic, and online in elimae, 3711 Atlantic, Cezanne’s Carrot, Brilliant, The Noneuclidean Cafe, and Raving Dove. He wrote three novels, still unpublished. Some of his poems have appeared in the online journal Offcourse. He has also shown photography in regional exhibits. A portfolio of his photographs can be found at Pedro Meyer’s international photogallery, zonezero.com. "Astilbe bis Bismarck" is an excerpt of a larger piece, as yet untitled, that explores how his world view was formed in post-war Germany by reading a comprehensive, authoritative, yet thoroughly outdated 20-volume encyclopedia.

Michaela A. Gabriel lives in Vienna, Austria, where she assists adults in acquiring computer and English skills and gets together with the muse as often as possible. She has been published in English, German, Italian, and Polish, both online and in print, most recently in Bent Pin Quarterly, Juked, and Redactions. Her first chapbook, apples for adam, is available from FootHills Publishing, and her collection the secret meanings of greek letters will be published by Dancing Girl Press in October 2007. When she is not writing, she is reading, listening to music, watching movies, blogging, communicating with friends, taking photos or travelling--usually several of these at the same time.

Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006.) Poems from the book were featured on NPR's The Writers Almanac, Verse Daily, and will appear in the 2007 edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Her interviews and reviews have appeared in American Book Review, In Posse Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Calyx. She is an editor at Crab Creek Review.

Neil Grimmett has had over fifty short stories published in the UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, India, and the USA, where he has appeared in Fiction, The Yale Review, DoubleTake, and The Southern Review. He has appeared online in Blackbird, Tatlin's Tower, Web Del Sol, In Posse Review, m.a.g., Word Riot, Blue Moon Review, 3AM, Gangway, and others, and he has made the storySouth Million Writers Notable Short Story list for the last two years. In addition, he has won the Write On poetry award, the Oppenheim John Downes Award three times, and two major British Arts Council bursaries. He is a member of the US branch of PEN, and his first novel, The Bestowing Sun, came out last year to strong reviews.

William Reese Hamilton is this issue's Spotlight Author. He lives in Choroni, a small fishing village on the coast of Venezuela, butted up against a mountainous cloud forest, in a region that produces the finest cacao in the world. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, The North American Review, Puerto del Sol, Night Train Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, In Posse Review, Ink Pot/Lit Pot, Smokelong Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has found his paradise and is studying it, warts and all.

Janie Hofmann is a poet who hails from Vancouver, BC. A love of animals, a good shot of expresso, and exploring dusty old bookstores are among her passions. She likes to experiment with the eerie and dark, especially in poetry. Her work has been accepted by more than twenty journals including Chantarelle's Notebook, Aoife's Kiss, and Word Riot.

Thomas J. Hubschman is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon, the author of the novel Billy Boy (Savvy Press), and the publisher of Gowanus, an ezine for authors in and from the so-called Third World. He is also editor of The Best of Gowanus: New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean (Gowanus Books). His short stories, articles and reviews have appeared in The Blue Moon Review, Morpo Review, New York Press, on the BBC World Service and in numerous other print and online publications.

Daniel Hudon is originally from Canada. Now he teaches science to humanities students at Boston University. "Another Night..." comes from a six-month trip he took through S.E. Asia and India after his Ph.D. Other stories from this trip have been published in Descant, The New Quarterly, Grain, The Antigonish Review, and other Canadian literary magazines. Additional work is appearing or will appear in Cezanne's Carrot, Neon, and Bayou Magazine.

Niranjana Iyer is a writer from Ottawa, Canada, whose work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Smithsonian Magazine, and SmokeLong Quarterly, amongst other venues. Her blog is called "Brown Paper" (see link).

Liesl Jobson is a South African writer and musician. She has appeared in The Southern Review, The Mississippi Review, Snow*vigate, elimae, Noö Journal, and LICHEN as well as numerous South African journals. She won the 2005 POWA Women's Writing Poetry Competition, the 2006 Ernst Van Heerden Award from the University of the Witwatersrand, and the 2006 Faye Goldie Award from the South African Writers' Circle. She is the poetry editor at Mad Hatters' Review. Her anthology of short-short fiction, 100 Papers, will be published by Botsotso this year.

Joseph Kerschbaum lives in Bloomington, Indiana. His latest chapbook, Dead Stars Have No Graves, was published by Pathwise Press in April, 2006. Recently he received funding from the Indiana Arts Commission and the NEA to complete his next ch apbook, How I Lost My Arm.

J. Elyse Kihlstrom is a transcriber/editor from the Washington, DC, area who freelances when she gets the chance. She expects to complete her M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University in May 2008. She has three poems appearing in the July issue of Wicked Alice.

A.S. King has recently returned from Ireland, where she spent twelve years dividing her time between self-sufficiency, teaching literacy to adults, and writing. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Natural Bridge, Washington Square, The Arabesques Review, Amarillo Bay, and Underground Voices (upcoming). Excerpts from her most recent novel, Why People Take Pictures, have been featured on The Huffington Post and iVillage. She now lives in rural Pennsylvania. Learn more at her website.

Monika Lange is a naturalized American citizen, a new fiction writer and a former research scientist, with numerous publications in scientific journals. In addition to the harrowing memoir presented here, she has published historical essays, and fragments of her fiction were published in the Autumn and Winter 2001 editions of The Copperfield Review; personal essays appeared in the January 2002 issue of the Reader's Digest's Polish Edition. She was born and raised in Poland, moved to Iran in 1977 and to the US in 1985. She is fluent in Polish, English, Farsi, and French. She has completed two novels and a collection of short stories.

Scott Malby lives and writes from Coos Bay, Oregon.

Ada Mantine is a biologist who studies Buddhism and writes fiction in New York City.

Alissa Nutting has appeared in Swink, Southeast Review, Playgirl Magazine, Ecotone, Versal, and is forthcoming in an anthology from Tin House Books. Her essays have been published in Alabama Heritage Magazine and the anthology Chick Ink. She is Editor of the Black Warrior Review literary journal and is at work on a novel.

Bojan Pavlovic is a Canadian author with roots in Bosnia-Hercegovina. He was born in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia, in 1979, and immigrated to Canada in 1992, where he now lives and works in Toronto. He has written a number of short story collections and poetry compilations. Most of his works deal with themes of history and historicity, the role of myth in national consciousness, topics of nationalism, of war and of identity. His first novel, Newcomers, Temporaries, was published in 2006. He has won a number of literary awards, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2004 and 2005 for his short-story work.

Gilbert Wesley Purdy has published poetry, prose and translation in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), Eclectica, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. His Hyperlinked Online Bibliography appears in the pages of The Catalyzer Journal.

Jessy Randall appeared in the January/February 2006 issue of Eclectica with her essay "The Mathematics of Motherhood." Her first full-length collection of poems, A Day in Boyland, is now out from Ghost Road Press.

Oliver Rice has received the Theodore Roethke Prize and was twice featured on Poetry Daily. His poems appear in three recent anthologies: Ohio Review's New and Selected, Bedford/St. Martin's Introduction to Literature, and Random House/Billy Collins' 180 More, also available on a Library of Congress Web site.

Nicholas Ripatrazone writes and teaches in New Jersey. Recent work has appeared in Thieves Jargon, The Duck & Herring Co. Pocket Field Guide, and Chronogram. He is writing a novel set in southern Texas about brothers, rabid coyotes, AWOL leathernecks, and Saint Ignatius.

J.D. Riso has appeared, or is forthcoming, in numerous and diverse publications, including Identity Theory and Smokelong Quarterly. Her first novel, BLUE, was published in 2006 by Murphy's Law Press.

Jesslyn Roebuck is originally from New York but now lives in Madison, Wisconson, where she volunteers as the Social Justice Editor for the website IdentityTheory.com. She is also the founding editor of Plankton, an online magazine dedicated to art and literature. Her poems have been featured in The Chronogram, The Marquis Literary Magazine, and some other small poetry journals.

Penelope Scambly Schott has always loved words. Her newest book, A is for Anne: Mistress Hutchinson Disturbs the Commonwealth, is a verse biography of Anne Hutchinson who spoke too much and too well and was therefore expelled from Boston by the Puritan fathers in 1638. Previous narratives include Penelope: The Story of the Half-Scalped Woman and The Pest Maiden: A Story of Lobotomy. Lyric collections include The Perfect Mother, Baiting the Void, and, forthcoming, May the Generations Die in the Right Order. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Maryanne Snell spends most of her time taking care of her beautiful new baby daughter. In the rare times when said daughter is sleeping, Maryanne attempts to cram in all the reading, writing, and reviewing to which she previously had hours to devote. During that limited time, she is working on a mystery novel set in the 1920s.

Steven Schutzman is a playwright and fiction writer, the author of seven published books and of numerous stories and plays published or forthcoming in literary journals, including The Pushcart Prize, TriQuarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, Post Road, Cafe Irreal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Third Coast, and the new anthology, The Art of the One-Act. He has written many plays that have been produced at various theatres around the country. Actors, producers,agents and others interested in finding out how to obtain copies and rights to his dramatic work are invited to contact him.

Ann Skealives in Australia. She is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia).

Carolyn Srygley-Moore resides in upstate New York and is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars in Baltimore, where she won awards for her poetry. She was recently (December, 2006) nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has appeared in The Antioch Review, The Pennsylvania Review, Three Candles Journal, Void Magazine, Stirring, Lily Literary Review, and other journals, with work forthcoming in the anti-war anthology Cost of Freedom.

Ray Templeton is a former Spotlight Author. A Scottish writer and musician living in St. Albans, England, his poetry, short fiction, writings on music, etc., have appeared in a wide range of both print and online journals, including Magma, Iota, Eclectica, Poems Niederngasse, Thieves Jargon, The New Verse News, The Argotist, Musical Traditions, and Antithesis Common. He is a member of the editorial board of Blues & Rhythm Magazine.

Anuradha Vijayakrishnan lives in Chennai, India, with her husband and daughter. She has degrees in Engineering and Management, works for a bank, and has a passion for music and Indian classical dances. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in New Writing 14 (Granta), Stony Thursday Anthology, MuseIndia, The King's English, Bare Root Review, Desilit, Eclectica, The Pedestal Magazine, and Orbis. One of her poems made the final shortlist of the 2006 Euphoria poetry contest. She is working on a novel and enjoying every minute of it.

Mary E. Whitsell was born and raised in California, but has spent over half of her life in other places. Her work has appeared in Eclectica, Mother Verse Magazine, and Flashquake. Mary lived and worked in Japan as a teacher, rewriter and translator for seventeen years. She is writing a novel about expatriates in Japan.

Kajsa Wiberg is a freelance writer, translator, and a former horse trainer. Her work has appeared in The River Walk Journal, Long Story Short, and Insolent Rudder. She has traveled all over the world and studied in three different countries. She lives in Cardiff, California, where she's at work on her second novel.

Molara Wood is a Nigerian writer living in London, England. As an Arts journalist and essayist, she has written widely on arts and culture in the Nigerian/African media. Her work has been featured in Eclectica, In Posse Review, Mindfire Renewed, Chimurenga, and on the BBC. Molara recently guest-edited an issue of Farafina Magazine, a Lagos-based journal to which she is a regular contributor.

 

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