Apr/May 2022

Tom Dooley co-founded Eclectica in 1996 and serves as its Managing and Fiction 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.

Evan Martin Richards is Eclectica's Poetry Editor. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and lives in Chicago. He received his MA in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University, where he worked as a writing tutor and facilitated creative writing and EdD candidate writing groups. His poetry has appeared in Poetry East and Eclectica. He has read fiction for Another Chicago Magazine and served as a poetry judge for the Golden Shovel Anthology Competition hosted by Roosevelt University. He works as an editor, both freelance and in the nonprofit management field.

Stuart Ross is Eclectica's Review Editor. A former Spotlight Author, his novel Jenny in Corona was published in 2019. He lives in Chicago. You can follow his work @myskypager.

Marko Fong is Eclectica's Nonfiction Coeditor. A former Spotlight Author, he lives in North Carolina with his wife, dog, and two cats. He's written fiction and non-fiction for many years, and publications include Solstice, Prick of the Spindle, RKVRY, and Volleyball Magazine.

Michael Aliprandini is a writer and editor living with his dog in a tiny mountainside village in Central Italy. His stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Journal, Olney Magazine, Counterclock, Queen Mob's Tea House, Litro, Masque & Spectacle, and elsewhere. "Year Zero" is the first story in a collection of interconnected stories and novellas.

Zachary FR Anderson is a journalist and fiction writer. He received his BA in Writing from California College of the Arts and will be working on his Masters at UCLA. He lives on Nisenan land, which is at the base of Gam Saan and is currently referred to as Sacramento. He is also a contributor for AsAmNews where he covers Pacific Islander communities.

Deya Bhattacharya is a freelance writer and former business development manager from India who started writing fiction during the Covid-19 lockdown. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Litro Magazine, Beloit Fiction Journal, Blackbird, Eclectica, The Write Launch, Prose Online, Button Eye Review, Blue Mesa Review, and Pendust Radio (as an audio dramatisation). Her work has received support from the 2021 Sewanee Writers' Conference and been nominated for a Best Of The Net award. She lives in Bangalore.

Andrew Bertaina has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Witness Magazine, The Normal School, Orion, and The Best American Poetry. He has an MFA from American University in Washington, DC, and his short story collection One Person Away From You (2021) won the Moon City Press Fiction Award (2020). About "The Train to Rome," he says, "This particular piece is relatively unique because I focused on elements of psychological realism, which was really the primary mode of fiction that I came to as an early reader. Lately, a lot of my work has included speculative elements, and I wanted to see how I could render a story using a realist bent."

John Brandon is this issue's Spotlight Author, as well as the author of four novels and a story collection, all published by McSweeney's. One of his books, Arkansas, was made into a movie of the same name, starring Vince Vaughn, Liam Hemsworth, and John Malkovich. He has served as the Grisham Fellow at University of Mississippi and as the Tickner Fellow at Gilman School in Baltimore. He now lives in Minnesota and teaches at Hamline University in St Paul.

Donna Dallas studied creative writing and philosophy at NYU's Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly. She is found in orror Sleaze Trash, Beatnik Cowboy, and The Opiate among many other publications. She published her first novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press. Her first chapbook, Smoke & Mirrors, will launch this fall with New York Quarterly. She serves on the editorial teams of Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

Barbara De Franceschi refers to herself as an arid zone poet living as she does in the Australian outback town of Broken Hill. Besides three collections of poetry, her work has been published widely in Australia, in other countries, online, and featured on national and regional radio.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of 16 poetry collections, most recently a child walks in the dark (Harbor Editions, December 2021). He is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the editor-in-chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the managing editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and children.

Rebecca Dempsey lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she writes short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, with recent works featured in Gyroscope Review, Ink Pantry, and Elsewhere Journal. She grew up in rural South Australia, and holds degrees from La Trobe University and Deakin University. She says, "Three Halves of a Dream" was born in a lightning flash, all at once, in one moment, coming together like a poem rarely does, then it was edited once, and submitted once, to its natural home, Eclectica Magazine."

James Flanagan is a philosophy graduate, a musician / song writer of many years and work professionally in social care in the UK. He is interested in the impact of technology and its various uses on our emotional and psychological relationship with each other and the world. He says, "'xxx' it is about how social media feeds into our economically informed view of life and relationships, the commodification of everything and it's effect on our aspirations, helpful or otherwise. It is very much influenced by Guy Debord's Society of Spectacle."

Peter Grandbois is the author of 13 books. His work has appeared in over 100 journals. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard and teaches at Denison University in Ohio.

R.W. Hartshorn is a nonbinary fiction writer and educator living on the Rensselaer Plateau.

Margaret Holmes has published stories in New Orleans Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Zone 3, Confrontation, Quiddity, and other magazines. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Thomas J. Hubschman is a regular contributor to Eclectica's Salon and is the author of Look at Me Now, My Bess, Billy Boy, Father Walther's Temptation, Song of the Mockingbird, and The Jew's Wife & Other Stories, as well as three science fiction novels. His work has appeared in New York Press, The Antigonish Review, The Blue Moon Review and many other publications. Two of his short stories were broadcast on the BBC World Service. He has also edited two anthologies of new writing from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and he was the founding editor of the pioneering online publication Gowanus. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, which remains his chief inspiration.

David Jalajel is this issue's Spotlight Runner-up and the author of Moon Ghazals (Beard of Bees Press, 2009), Cthulhu on Lesbos (Ahadada Books, 2011) and Rhyme & Refrain (University of the Western Cape, 2017). His work has appeared in a number of online and print journals, including Otoliths, Shampoo, experiential-experimental-literature, Recursive Angel, The New Post-Literate, and Gulf Coast. Poems in the “qasida” series have appeared in The Ghazal Page, Anti-, Lynx, Mizna, and Eclectica Magazine.

Katrina Kaye is a writer and educator seeking an audience for her ever-growing surplus of poetic meanderings. She hoards her previous published writings, links to publications, and additional information on her website. She is grateful to anyone who reads her work and in awe of those willing to share it.

Alice Lowe writes about life and language, food and family. Her essays have been published in more than 80 literary journals, this past year in Bacopa, Change Seven, Epiphany, Burningword, (mac)ro(mic), New World Writing, and Sport Literate. She recently won an essay contest at Eat, Darling, Eat, and her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays "Notables." Alice also has authored essays and reviews on Virginia Woolf's life and work and is a regular contributor at Blogging Woolf.org. She lives in San Diego, California, and is delighted to be appearing in Eclectica for the fourth time.

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York's rustic Hudson Valley, attended Notre Dame, practiced forensic science, and now lives in San Diego with his golden-doodle dog. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, New Verse News, Gyroscope, and Healing Muse.

Kat Meads is this issue's Spotlight Runner-up. She will publish her third essay collection, These Particular Women, in 2023.

John Riley is a former teacher who works in educational publishing. He has published fiction and poetry in Smokelong Quarterly, Mojave River Review, Ekphrastic Review, Connotation Press, Banyan Review, Better Than Starbucks, and many other journals and anthologies. EXOT Press will publish a book of his 100-word prose poems in 2022.

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam, and Healing Muse among others. She is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn't. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters' Journey in Photography and Poetry.

Beate Sigriddaughter lives in Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment), where she was poet laureate from 2017 to 2019. Her latest collections are short stories Dona Nobis Pacem (Unsolicited Press, December 2021) and poetry Wild Flowers (FutureCycle Press, February 2022). In her blog Writing In A Woman's Voice, she publishes other women's voices.

Ann Skea lives in Australia. She is the author of Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest (UNE Press, Australia) and has been contributing reviews to Eclectica Magazine since our very first issue back in October of 1996.

Jo Stein Jo Stein lives with her family in New York City. She is an MFA student in the creative writing program at City College.

 

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