Contributor Bios – February 2017
Nathanael S. Absher is a painter and an artist but not an idealist. He makes paintings referencing the language of the Baroque and occasionally the present – presuming them beautiful – while his life partner, Blu the cat, watches. He values the sacred but reveres the profane. Since graduating from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011 he has spent most of his time making coffee and watching people, but he is always wondering.
Maya Alexandri is a novelist and short story writer. Her novel, The Celebration Husband, was published in the UK in 2015. Her short fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Stockholm Review of Literature, Fabula Argentea, Thrice Fiction, and Adelaide. In addition, she is an organizer of the Amplified Cactus performance art series in Baltimore, Maryland. She has lived in China, India, and Kenya, and has worked as a lawyer, UN consultant, blues-rock singer, and EMT. Current writing projects include a novel and a cycle of linked short stories. For more information, see www.mayaalexandri.com.
Marlayna Demond is a semi-recent graduate from UMBC, and is a photographer both for her alma mater and for her own business. While taking photographs professionally was always the dream, now, taking photos for herself & for creativity’s sake is always in the back of her mind. Marlayna can also be found exploring new cities, or just catching up with friends at coffee shops. See more of her work at marlaynaphotography.com.
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred eighty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Actual Air) said of Dodds’ work: “These are very good poems. For moments I could even feel the old feelings when I read them.” Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.
See more of Joy Etukudo‘s work at aritemmanuela.com.
Linda Franklin, artist/writer/video maker/oldster used to write and illustrate books on collecting, and diaries/scrapbooks for ‘tweens. Nom-de-plumerai include Barkinglips, Ninda Dumont, and her full name, Linda Campbell Franklin. Tired of filing cabinets she writes out of her head now. http://www.barkinglips.blogspot.com/ and http://onehundredthingsfrommemory.blogspot.com/ are two sites. Linda also formed a FB page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Baltimorewrites/ to spread writing glee and news.
Dina Riddle lives in Austin, TX with her husband, Ryan and dog, Jet. Dina is a graphic designer but in her spare time paints and does calligraphy.
Crystal Snoddon is a Canadian writer who loves play with words when not working in a more prosaic field. She is supported by a forgiving family who rarely mention the burnt offerings laid out on the dinner table. Previous poetry may be found in Communicator’s League, Rat’s Ass Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Quarterday Review, among others.
Taunja Thomson’s poetry has most recently appeared in Half-Baked’s It Must Be Heartbreaking. Two of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards: “Seahorse and Moon” in 2005 and “I Walked Out in January” in 2016. She has co-authored a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry which has recently been accepted for publication and has a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWriter. A worshiper of nature, her summers are filled with water gardening, and her winters are spent obsessively feeding the birds and other wildlife that appear in her one-acre slice of heaven, a field.
Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has been in Poetry Quarterly, The Commonline Journal, 3am magazine, Crack the Spine, Word Riot, 48th Street Press, and many other places. He is a 2016 Pushcart Prize Nominee.
LuAnn Zubak is an artist who lives at Artist’s Housing, Inc., a co-op in Baltimore city. LuAnn grew up in western Pennsylvania on a farm, where she also worked at the family general store. She studied studio art and Art History at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and has a Master’s Degree in drawing and painting from the University of Maryland, College Park. She often uses her collection of vintage photographs as source material for her drawings and mixed-media works.
