Contributors' Notes
Bobbi Altreuter has a Bachelor of Arts in English from UW-Stevens Point, works as an Administrative Assistant at Figi's in Marshfield, and lives in Auburndale.
C.B. Anderson has a long-standing poetic connection to Wisconsin. One of his first published poems appeared in The Neovictorian/Cochlea (now The Deronda Review), which is edited in Madison, and he has been a frequent contributor to this venerable formal-friendly print journal ever since.
Ann Arntson is a member of the Stone Kettle Poets and spends her quality time writing and reading poetry in Monona, Wisconsin and Idlewild, Door County.
For eleven years Linda Aschbrenner edited and published the poetry journal Free Verse (now Verse Wisconsin). In 2001, Aschbrenner founded Marsh River Editions, a publisher of poetry chapbooks.
Peter Austin’s poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the USA, Canada, the UK and several other countries. His first collection, A Many-Splendored Thing, was published in July 2010. As well as poetry, he writes plays, and his musical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows has enjoyed four productions. Sadly, he cannot claim any connection to Wisconsin, even geographical, because although Ontario is close to it, Michigan comes in between.
Judith Barisonzi has been a Wisconsin resident since 1966, and she now lives among the lakes and woods of northwest Wisconsin. Semi-retired from teaching English at the University of Wisconsin Colleges, she gives workshops in creative writing and memoir writing, participates in several local writing groups, and publishes poems in local and national magazines.
Ruth Bavetta's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, North American Review, Nerve Cowboy, and Atlanta Review, among others. In 2001 she visited near Rhinelander and discovered that the Big Woods of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Wisconsin look nothing like the redwood forests of California. It took a serious wrench of the mind’s eye to get that cabin into the proper landscape—green, leafy and crammed with growth.
Phyllis Beckman left Illinois in 2007. Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1940, she is back where she belongs. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, The La Crosse Women Writers’ Group, a couple of Buddhist groups, the La Crosse Unitarian Universalist Fellowship… she quotes poetry… a lot.
Guy R. Beining has had six poetry books and 25 chapbooks published over the years, and appeared in seven anthologies. He is in the Contemporary Authors Autobiography series, Vol. 30, 1998 (Gale Research). He is also in the Dictionary of the Avant Gardes, 2nd Ed., 2000. Recent publications include chain, epiphany, perspective (Germany), New Orleans Review, and The New Review of Literature.
F.J. Bergmann is living in Wisconsin for the fourth or fifth time. She dwells in what is shown as Leeds Center on the Wisconsin map but has no other official existence, in the Poynette postal delivery area (Arlington is across the road), and, it turns out, in the DeForest school district. A good deal of her time is spent in Madison.
James Bettendorf is a retired math teacher who has written poetry for years. His poems have appeared in various places, including Free Verse. His other Wisconsin connection is a sister who lives in Amery.
Toby Bielawski is a Bay Area writer and teaches English at Las Positas College; poem publication credits include Alehouse, Tilt-A-Whirl, The Wanderlust Review, and Beyond Definition from Manic D Press. As for WI connection, she spent a month in a writer's residency program at Vermont Studio Center with Wisconsin poet Robin Smith Chapman.
Mark Blaeuer’s poems and translations have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Barefoot Muse, Blue Unicorn, The Dark Horse, Ezra, The Flea, Nimrod, Pudding Magazine, Umbrella, and many others. His connections to Wisconsin are admittedly thin, but he did visit Milwaukee once, when he was considering grad school at UW-Milwaukee, back in the late 1970s.
Danielle Blasko is a Detroit native who has been enjoying life on an east coast beach for the past three years. She edits The Feline Muse Literary Blogzine, and her poetry has most recently appeared in The Legendary, Escarp, Short, Fast, and Deadly, Gutter Eloquence Magazine and The Moose & Pussy Magazine. Her reviews have been published in The Centrifugal Eye and Gutter Eloquence Magazine. Her only links to Wisconsin are her roots in the Midwest and her one dearly beloved poet friend who lives in Madison.
Sue Blaustein works as a food safety inspector. Her writing has appeared in Wisconsin Academy Review, Wisconsin People and Ideas, New Delta Review and Isotope - A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and has been a featured reader at Woodland Pattern.
Peter Branson lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire, England. A former teacher and lecturer, he now organizes writing workshops. Over the last four years he has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals in Britain. He has also had poems published in USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand.
Born in Flint, MI, raised in the Detroit area, and ripening in California since the fall of 1992, John F. Buckley lives and works in Orange County with his wife, teaching at local colleges and chasing the poetic dragon. His work has been published in a few places, one of which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize.
Sarah Busse is a co-editor of Verse Wisconsin. Her third chapbook, Gaugin in California, is forthcoming from Desperado Press in 2011.
Born in Monroe, Emery Campbell graduated from UW-Madison. He is the author of a book of poems and translations published in 2005. His poetry has won many prizes at state and national levels.
John L. Campbell started free-lance writing for business and trade magazines in 1995. His book, Writing in Retirement, explains his evolution into fiction and poetry along with the profiles of thirteen other writers-in-retirement. His latest poetry chapbook is entitled Backstreet Voyeur.
Fern G. Z. Carr is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, lawyer and teacher. She composes poetry in five languages and has been published extensively world-wide including countries as far abroad as India, Finland, South Africa and New Zealand. The Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate has recently selected her poem, “I Am”, as Poem of the Month for Canada. For more information, please visit Carr’s website at www.ferngzcarr.com.
Sherry Chandler’s collection, Weaving a New Eden, persona and formal poems in the voices of women featured in the history of her home state, Kentucky, will be released in March by Wind Publications. Look for her work in Kestrel, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Soundzine. She blogs at http://www.sherrychandler.com/ Chandler lived in Chicago for six years during the 70s during which time she is sorry to say she never once traveled over into Wisconsin. She is, however, a Facebook friend of former WI poet laureate Marilyn Taylor.
Kosrof Chantikian is the author of two books of poems—Prophecies & Transformations and Imaginations & Self-Discoveries, and the editor of Octavio Paz: Homage to the Poet, and The Other Shore: 100 Poems by Rafael Alberti. He was poet-in-residence at the San Francisco Public Library, and the editor of KOSMOS: A Journal of Poetry, and was general editor of the KOSMOS Modern Poets in Translation Series. He’s received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the San Francisco Foundation. The Future Overthrown, a new collection of his poems, is in process.
Chloe Clark grew up in north central Wisconsin and is currently a creative writing major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She’s had poems published in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Halfway Down the Stairs, Sliver of Stone, and a previous issue of Verse Wisconsin.
Naomi Cohn’s writing has appeared in Water~Stone, Fourth River, Disclosure, Fish Stories, and around St. Paul, Minnesota, as part of that city’s sidewalk poetry project. Recognition of her work includes grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and VSA Arts Minnesota, as well as numerous residencies, including one at Edenfred in Madison in 2009.
Geoff Collins tries to write the types of poems he likes to read, poems that are understandable, have decent rhythm and sound, and aren’t afraid of meaning and emotion. Recently his poems have appeared in Blue Earth Review, Whitefish Review, and Tigers Eye Journal.
Ginny Lowe Connors is an English teacher in West Hartford, Connecticut. She has never been to Wisconsin, but is very fond of cheese. The author of Barbarians in the Kitchen (Antrim House Books, 2005), a chapbook, Under the Porch (Hill-Stead Museum, 2010), and editor of three poetry collections, she has won numerous awards for her poetry, including Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Competition Prize and the 2010 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize.
Brendan Constantine’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, Field, Rattle and other journals. His second collection of poems, Birthday Girl (With Possum), is forthcoming from Write Bloody Press. He is poet in residence at The Windward School and Loyola Marymount University Extension. In addition to this, he regularly offers workshops in hospitals, foster & eldercare centers, and shelters for the homeless.
Barbara Crooker’s newest book is More (C&R Press, 2010). Her poems appear in a variety of literary journals and many anthologies, including Good Poems for Hard Times (Garrison Keillor, ed., Viking Penguin) and the Bedford Introduction to Literature. Although Pennsylvania's license plate says “You Have a Friend in PA,” she’s happy to have many friends in WI.
Philip Dacey is the author of eleven full-length books of poems, the latest Mosquito Operas: New and Selected Short Poems (Rain Mountain Press, 2010). His awards include three Pushcart Prizes, a Discovery Award from the New York YM-YWHA’s Poetry Center, and various fellowships. His website is www.philipdacey.com. Over the years, he has given readings of his work in many places/schools in Wisconsin, most recently at the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland College. He lived for 35 years across the border in Minnesota before moving to New York City in 2004.
C. Dahlen lives in Siren, WI. His short stories, columns, and poetry have appeared in The Wisconsin Review, The Anglican Theological Journal, Play It Again, The Woodsman, The Dachshund Club of America Quarterly,The Lyric,The Road Not Taken; A Journal of Formal Poetry. More of his poetry may be found on the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poetry website. Click on Poet Pages.
Janann Dawkins' work has appeared in publications such as decomP, Existere, Mezzo Cammin, Ouroboros Review & Two Review, among others. Leadfoot Press published her chapbook Micropleasure in 2008. A graduate of Grinnell College with a B.A. in American Studies & twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she resides in Ann Arbor, MI.
Elizabeth Devore is an English professor at Kent State University Ashtabula with an M.A. from New Mexico Highlands University. Until she was 15, she spent occasional summers visiting family in Wisconsin. The most memorable summers involved playing hide and seek in her great-grandmother’s corn fields and exploring the swallow-filled barn at her great aunt Ruthie’s house.
Charlotte Digregorio has published over 250 poems in various forms. Her work has been translated into four languages and exhibited in public places, including Cornell University’s Mann Library. She is the author of four non-fiction books.
CX Dillhunt was born in Green Bay and grew up in De Pere in a big house on the Fox River as one of twelve children. His mother was a great letter writer; it’s still one of his favorite forms. Currently he’s an assistant editor for Hummingbird: Magazine of the Short Poem, and he served as co-editor of the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar: 2006. He teaches elementary school writer’s workshops and is the lead instructor for Elderhostel’s The Writer in You at Green Lake. He has a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He was named a Commended Poet by the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission in 2010.
Cathy Douglas was born in California but has lived in Madison for the last twenty years. She works in a metaphysical shop near campus and owns a house on the east side, where she keeps her husband, two sons and three cats. She’s pretty well adjusted, other than a writing habit and a craving for kumquats.
Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens! is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poetry has most recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Centrifugal Eye, The Chimaera, The Flea, 14 by 14, Lucid Rhythms, Soundzine, Thema, Verse Wisconsin, Umbrella, and Yankee Dog.
Kathleen Eull holds a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has served as an advisory editor for Emergency Press and her work has appeared in The Emergency Almanac, Echoes, KNOCK and pith. In addition, an interview with New York based poet Scott Zieher appears in his second book IMPATIENCE (Emergency Press, 2009). Kathleen currently serves as the Co-Chair & Event Coordinator for the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books.
James Finnegan has published poems in Ploughshares, Poetry East, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review & other literary magazines. In 2001 he started an internet discussion list called New-Poetry. He blogs aphoristic ars poetica at ursprache (http://ursprache.blogspot.com).
Yvette Viets Flaten’s great-grandfather homesteaded in Barron County, Wisconsin in the years immediately following the Civil War, and those roots have proven fascinatingly strong as she researches the location of his 160 acres.
Max Garland is a former rural letter carrier from western Kentucky, and the author of two books of poetry, The Postal Confessions, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry, and Hunger Wide as Heaven, which won the Cleveland State Poetry Center Open Competition in 2006. His poems and stories have appeared widely. He has received an NEA Fellowship for Poetry, a Michener Fiction Fellowship, a Bush Literary Fellowship, and fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board in both poetry and fiction. He lives and teaches in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Evan Glasson lives in Arlington, MA. His poems have appeared most recently in Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and Barrow Street. He co-edits the online poetry journal, LEVELER. Years ago, when teaching at a New England boarding school, he had a student all the way from Wisconsin in his English class.
Joey Goodall's poetry has previously appeared and/or is forthcoming in Verse Wisconsin, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Puffin Circus. He currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Brent Goodman is an internet creative professional living in Rhinelander, WI. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently The Brother Swimming Beneath Me (2009 Black Lawrence Press). His work has appeared in Poetry, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Cimarron Review, Puerto Del Sol, Diagram, Barn Owl Review, Zone 3, and elsewhere.
Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the California Sierra. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Her latest book Walking with Elihu: poems on Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith is available on Amazon. Connection to Wisconsin: a cousin in Wonnewoc, and in 1989 she helped instruct at a SAR dog school in Osceola.
Ray Greenblatt lives and writes in Exton, Pennsylvania.
Sara Greenslit works as a small animal veterinarian in Madison. She earned an MFA from Penn State and a DVM from the UW. FC2 is publishing her second novel in 2011, As If a Bird Flew By Me. Her first novel came out from Starcherone, The Blue of Her Body.
Laura Gail Grohe lives in Greenfield Massachusetts, and her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Poetic Medicine, protestpoems.org, and Contemporary World Literature. Having begun her undergraduate career in 1986, this spring she will be receiving her B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts.
Greg Grube is a writer and dancer living in Madison, WI. Apart from being a flamboyant Aries, working itinerantly as a Pilates teacher, and lusting after notions of contemporaneity, he is the proud owner of Vladimir Blue, a rambunctious Brittany Spaniel.
Shane D. Hanson is a life-long Wisconsin resident. He currently works in the insurance field.
Tim Hawkins has lived and traveled widely, working as a journalist, technical writer, and teacher in international schools. He currently lives in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. – a short ferry trip across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, where he visits when he can. His writing has appeared most recently in The Flea, Lucid Rhythms, The Pedestal Magazine, Shot Glass Journal and Underground Voices, and is forthcoming in Blueline, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Midwest Quarterly, and 13 Miles from Cleveland.
Rebecca Hazelton attended The University of Notre Dame for her MFA in poetry, and completed her Ph.D. at Florida State University, under the direction of David Kirby. She is the Jay C. and Ruth Hall Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Creative Writing Institute and teaches writing there. She has been nominated for a Pushcart and for Best New Poets 2010, and has been a finalist in several book prizes.
Charles Hughes retired recently from the law firm where he worked for many years. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, the Sewanee Theological Review, the Iron Horse Literary Review, America, and the 2010 poetry anthology of the Georgia Poetry Society, The Reach of Song. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife. They and their sons have enjoyed many family vacations in the Hayward area.
Karla Huston is the author of six chapbooks of poetry, most recently, An Inventory of Lost Things (Centennial Press, 2009). Her poems, reviews and interviews have been published widely.
Joan Wiese Johannes was born near Horicon Marsh. Her poems have been widely published and won numerous awards. Her chapbook Sensible Shoes was the 2009 winner of the John and Miriam Morris Memorial Chapbook Contest sponsored by the Alabama Poetry Society. She lives in Port Edwards with her poet husband Jeffrey.
Paul Julien lives in La Crosse, WI.
Erin Keane has strained her eyes to see Wisconsin from the Michigan side of the great lake. In high school, she visited Milwaukee on a school trip and learned how warm and delicious Miller beer can smell during the brewing phase. She lives in Louisville, where she writes for The Courier-Journal and teaches in the National University MFA program. She is the author of two collections of poetry, The Gravity Soundtrack and Death-Defying Acts.
Dion Kempthorne was once a linebacker on Wisconsin’s 1963 Rose Bowl team. After serving as professor of English in the UW Colleges and CEO/Dean at UW-Richland, he has retired to the woods of Richland County, where he spends his days reading, writing, and making firewood. His poems have appeared in the Wisconsin Academy Review, Wisconsin People & Ideas, Verbatim, The Capitola Review, and other places.
Athena Kildegaard lives in western Minnesota. Her books are Rare Momentum, a series of fibonaccis, and Bodies of Light (forthcoming), both from Red Dragonfly Press. In her first year of marriage she lived in southern Minnesota and her husband in Chicago, and they traveled many times across Wisconsin full of eagerness.
Michael Kriesel is a poetry reviewer for Small Press Review and his reviews have appeared in Library Journal. He has won both the WFOP Muse Prize and the Lorine Niedecker Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He’s been nominated for nine Pushcart Prizes. Books include Chasing Saturday Night (Marsh River Editions); Feeding My Heart To The Wind and Moths Mail The House (sunnyoutside press); and Soul Noir (Platonic 3way Press).
John Krumberger’s first collection of poems was published in 2008 by Backwaters Press, titled The Language of Rain and Wind. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and works as a psychologist in private practice in St. Paul.
David W. Landrum’s poetry has appeared widely in such journals as The Dark Horse, Evansville Review, The Blind Man's Rainbow and The Formalist. He edits the on-line poetry journal, Lucid Rhythms, www.lucidrhythms.com. Years ago he went to Owatonna to visit a friend who attended a small Bible college there. As a prank, some local kids painted the two old WWI cannons sitting in front of the school pink. Everyone at the school was aghast and disgusted, but he thought it was rather funny.
Peggy Landsman's work has been published in many online and print literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo, is available from FootHills Publishing. Her out-of-print romance novel, Passion's Professor, which she wrote under the pen name Samantha Rhodes, is now available on her web site. She lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets. Visit http://peggylandsman.com.
Estella Lauteris Professor Emerita at UW-Oshkosh and lives in the Door Peninsula. Her first chapbook, Pressing a Life Together By Hand (2007) appeared in the New Women’s Voices series from Finishing Line Press, and was nominated for two Pushcart prizes. The Essential Rudder: North Channel Poems was released by FLP in 2008.
Norman Leer is professor emeritus of English at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He has published a critical study of the novels of Ford Madox Ford, a chapbook and two books of his own poetry: I Dream My Father in a Song (Mellen Poetry Press, 1992) and Second Lining (Mellen Poetry Press, 1997). His poems and articles have appeared widely. He retired to Madison with his wife in 2007.
John Lehman is the founder of Rosebud Magazine and the literary editor of Wisconsin People & Ideas.
Jef Leisgang writes poetry and fiction, and currently helps out editor Rod Clark with special acquisitions at Rosebud Magazine. He manages a bookstore in Madison, is the father of two wonderful children, Chance and Gemma, and is the spouse of one lovely editor, Nancy.
MaryEllen Letarte’s father was born in Pepin, WI. He matriculated at the University of Wisconsin until WWII. Her sister Christine graduated from Marquette University and lived most of her adult life in Wisconsin. MaryEllen lives and writes in Lunenburg, MA where she’s developed and now directs the Louise Bogan Chapter of the Massachusetts State Poetry Society. The grandmother in this poem was from Wisconsin.
Mitch L’Herault is a musician and writer and has lived in Verona for the last 30 years. His wife and two children sit comfortably atop his priority list, followed in no particular order by: music, reading, writing, politics, upland game birds, cooking for friends, mastering the button accordion and locally brewed Wisconsin ales. Mitch admires writing that embodies a love of place. His place is a small cottage on a little lake in the big woods of northern Wisconsin.
Lyn Lifshin has published over 120 books and edited four anthologies. Her most recent books include The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian (Texas Review Press), Another Woman Who Looks Like Me (Black Sparrow, Godine), and Cold Comfort. Her web site is www.lynlifshin.com.
Barbara Lightner began writing incidental poetry in law school to escape the tension and boredom of death by law, and has since taught creative writing, poetry, and other literary forms. She has been published in works by Grey Fox Press, IOBA, Wisconsin Light and others; her poetry has appeared, or will appear, in the Table Rock Review, New Verse News, Come Be a Memoirist, the Zocala Press’ chapbook series, and the feminist anthology Letters to the World.
Melissa Lindstrum was born in Milwaukee and lived there most of her life. Though she’s spent the last four years in other time zones, she is back in Wisconsin, working and eating lots of cheese in Madison.
Marie Loeffler is a Wisconsin poet, violinist, and private violin instructor who spends most of her free time practicing, writing, reading, and creating. Her poetry publications are current or forthcoming in Echoes, the WFOP Spring 2010 Museletter, and the 2011 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar.
Amit Majmudar’s first book, 0°,0° [Zero Degrees, Zero Degrees], (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly Books, 2009) was a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award. His second manuscript, Heaven and Earth, won the 2011 Donald Justice Award. His first novella, Azazil, was serialized recently in The Kenyon Review over three issues. His first novel, Partitions, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan in 2011. His poetry has been featured on Poetry Daily several times and has appeared in Poetry magazine and The Best American Poetry 2007.
Charlotte Mandel's seventh book of poetry ROCK VEIN SKY (Midmarch Arts Press) was listed as a Best Poetry Book Read for Fall 2008 by Montserrat Review. She attended the Modernist Studies Association at UW-Madison, and visited the historic State House, walking distance from her hotel. Her published critical essays include a series of articles on the role of cinema in the life and work of poet H.D. Please visit her website at: www.charlottemandel.com.
Jesse Manser grew up in Middleton, attended UW-Milwaukee, recently graduating with a degree in Journalism, and continues to work, write and live on the city's eastside. He is grateful and honored to have his poetry published in Verse Wisconsin. Other work of his can be found at the Shepherd Express online poetry column, available at www.expressmilwaukee.com.
James Scannell McCormick holds a doctorate in creative writing-poetry from Western Michigan University. His works have appeared in CutBank, The Lucid Stone, SLANT, Rattapallax, and most recently in Unsplendid. He’s been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. He currently lives and teaches in Rochester, Minnesota.
Lisa McDougal is originally from Chicago, but moved to Wisconsin because she fell in love with the state after her first visit here at 10 years old. Her writings include novels, poems, short stories and essays. She also writes in a journal and she has a blog: http://asilsblog.blogspot.com/.
Wisconsin has always been special to Linda Back McKay. When she was little, there were all those glorious summers at Uncle Albert’s farm in Chippewa Falls. Now it’s riding a red (the color of roses and fine cabernets) Harley-Davidson along the river through Stockholm, Maiden Rock and Pepin. She is author of several poetry collections and the groundbreaking book, Shadow Mothers: Stories of Adoption and Reunion, which was inspiration for the play, Watermelon Hill, produced by a professional theater.
Gwyn McVay grew up on the Northern Great Plains and has actually seen the mating dance of the Greater Prairie-chicken, which oddly makes no appearance in her two chapbooks of poems or full-length collection, Ordinary Beans (Pecan Grove Press, 2007). Recent essays and reviews have turned up in Gently Read Literature and Wild Violet. She currently teaches writing at Temple University.
Richard Merelman writes poems because language is the only medium through which he can hope to achieve beautiful expression. Poems of his have appeared in Main Street Rag and Measure. Recent poems have appeared in Bumble Jacket Miscellany and Verse Wisconsin. He taught political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison until 2001.
Julie L. Moore is the author of Slipping Out of Bloom (WordTech Editions) and the chapbook, Election Day (Finishing Line Press). Moore is a Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the Rosine Offen Memorial Award from the Free Lunch Arts Alliance in Illinois, the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize from Ruminate, and the Judson Jerome Poetry Scholarship from the Antioch Writers' Workshop. Learn more about her work at www.julielmoore.com.
Robert B. Moreland was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He has published two books of poetry with Karen M. Miner (Eternal not Immortal, 2005 and Postcards from Baghdad, 2008) and in the South Dakota Review and Towards the Light. He resides near Carol Beach on Lake Michigan and the Chiwaukee Prairie.
Richard W. Moyer is 78 years old. He obtained his AB in English at Harvard College in 1953; his MH from University of Richmond in 1976; and an MA in English from Temple University in 2000. His poems are widely published, and he has one chapbook and one book of selected poems to his credit.
James B. Nicola has had over a hundred poems appear in a score of publications including Tar River, the Texas Review, The Lyric, and Nimrod. A stage director by profession, his book Playing the Audience won a CHOICE Award. He also won the Dana Literary Award for poetry, was nominated for a Rhysling Award, and was the featured poet at the New Formalist in 2010.
W.J. Nunnery was born in Madison and has lived there his entire life. His work has appeared in The North Central Review, Xenith Online and Postcard Shorts. Currently he is a creative writing student at Concordia University St. Paul.
Mary O’Dell’s knowledge of Wisconsin consists merely of her best friend’s husband’s dentist, who lives somewhere there, and whom they visited some years ago. But it does sound like a lovely, clean place to live.
A former U.S. Army interrogator, Martin Ott currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children, and still finds himself asking a lot of questions. He has published poetry and fiction in nearly 100 publications, including two Pushcart Prize nominations, and has optioned three screenplays. Details at www.martinott.org.
With brief sojourns in other places Helen Padway’s first act and more than likely her last will be in Wisconsin. Second act involved writing and acting in television and radio productions, with intermission for marriage and children. Act three is sheer poetry—writing and reading. She is part of the cast of “The Sparks” and the “Hartford Avenue Poets,” both critiquing groups provide support and wisdom.
Kenneth Pobo has a new online chapbook called Fitting Parts (Philistine Press). A second chapbook, Tea on Burning Glass, will soon be published by Tandava Poetry Press. He lived in Wisconsin for six years as a graduate student attending the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Now, he and his partner vacation in Wisconsin’s Vilas County every spring.
Transplanted from Cincinnati over 30 years ago, Jean Preston lives with her husband, Tom, and her Scottish Terrier, Maggie. She holds an MFA from the Stonecoast Writing Program. By day, she directs the Writing Center at Carthage College and teaches as an adjunct professor. By night, she writes and performs with a duo called Women of an UN-Certain Age. She has been published in Centrique, Pleiades, and The Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering.
Harlan Richards grew up on the west side of Madison and earned his bachelors degree in business administration from UW-Platteville. He has had poems accepted for publication in Love’s Chance Magazine and Shepherd. He currently lives in the Great North Woods.
Moira Richards lives in South Africa and hangs out here:http://www.darlingtonrichards.com and here: http://www.redroom.com/author/moira-richards.
Charles P. Ries’s narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes. Most recently he was interviewed by Jane Crown for Blog Radio (www.janecrown.com—click on archived shows at the bottom of the page). http://www.literati.net/Ries/
Jenna Rindo lives with her husband, five children, a flock of Shetland Sheep, Rhode Island Red hens and other less domesticated creatures in rural WI. She teaches English to Hmong, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Arabic students. Her poems have recently appeared in Shenandoah, Wisconsin Poets Calendar and the American Journal of Nursing.
Lou Roach, former social worker and psychotherapist, lives in Poynette. Her poems have appeared in a number of small press publications, including Main Street Rag, Free Verse and others. She has written two books of poetry, A Different Muse and For Now. She continues to do free-lance writing, although poetry is her favorite thing to do.
Margaret Rozga is a lifelong resident of Wisconsin. Her book Two Hundred Nights and One Dayfeatures poems about the 1967-68 open housing marches in Milwaukee and was named an outstanding achievement in poetry for 2009 by the Wisconsin Library Association.
Chuck Rybak is a professor of creative writing and literature at UW-Green Bay. He is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent being Tongue and Groove which was published by Main Street Rag. Chuck lives in Green Bay with his wife and two daughters.
Kay N. Sanders’ work has appeared in Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, Wisconsin Academy Review, Free Verse, Fox Cry Review and in a number of local, regional and national church venues. Her chapbook, That Red Dirt Road, was published by Parallel Press in 2010. She lives in Oshkosh, where she draws inspiration from her own backyard at the edge of the woods.
G. A. Scheinoha thought about becoming a private detective, later, a bounty hunter. He never imagined he’d follow in his father’s tracks: a series of blue collar jobs. Where their lives differed was instead of marriage and family, he wrote a million words over thirty years, some of which have recently appeared in Avocet, Bellowing Ark, Bracelet Charm, Echoes, Floyd County Moonshine and Verse Wisconsin.
Robert Schuler has been trying to write for fifty years. His fifteenth collection of poems, The Book of Jeweled Visions, has recently been published by Tom Montag’s MWPH Books, PO Box 8, Fairwater, WI 53931. Price: $12.50 plus $1.50 postage.
David Sklar’s publications include poetry in Wormwood Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Bull Spec; short fiction in such publications as Strange Horizons, Cabinet des Fees, and Triangulation: End of the Rainbow; and the short novel Shadow of the Antlered Bird from Drollerie Press. He is currently coediting the Drollerie Press anthology Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic.
Scot Slaby earned his M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and his work has appeared in Umbrella’s Bumbershoot Annual and in Unsplendid 2.3. While he’s never been to Wisconsin, his brother-in-law's extensive family hails from LaCrosse.
Noel Sloboda lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company. He is the author of the poetry collection Shell Games (sunnyoutside, 2008) and the chapbooks Stages (sunnyoutside, 2010) and Of Things Passed (Finishing Line Press, 2010).
Sheryl Slocum lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she teaches English as a Second Language, studies linguistics, and writes-reads-hears poetry as often as possible.
Lester Smith is a blue-collar boy turned writer. He has been employed as a short-order cook, sheet-metal worker, welder, licensed practical nurse, game designer, javascript instructor, webmaster, and—most recently—researcher and poet for an educational publishing house. He also serves as the current president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Les subscribes to Salman Rushdie’s idea that “A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”
Kate Sontag’s recent work appears in Prairie Schooner, Seattle Review, Verse Wisconsin,
EXPRESS milwaukee.com, and Snakeskin Poetry Web Zine. Her work has been featured in Valparaiso Poetry Review and appeared in anthologies such as Boomer Girls, Are You Experienced?, and Sweeping Beauty (U. of Iowa). She is co-editor of After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf) and teaches at Ripon College.
Nadine S. St. Louis authored two books, Zebra (Marsh River Editions, 2008) and Weird Sisters (Wolfsong, 2000). Her poems appeared in journals and anthologies, including ByLine, Free Verse, Kalliope, and A Peace of the Valley, and in collaborative shows, including Wisconsin’s Epidemic Peace Imagery Exhibit. She was one of the founders of the Chippewa Valley Book Festival, just completing its 10th year.
Judy Swann lives in gorgeous Ithaca, NY in a small house painted in Frida Kahlo colors. Her poetry has appeared in Lilliput Review, Verse Wisconsin, Soundzine and other places both in print and online. She is an Iowan who often visited Wisconsin in her youth.
Richard Swanson lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he reads, gardens, and writes. His previous volume was Men in the Nude in Socks (Fireweed, 2006). His latest book is Not Quite Eden (Fireweed Press).
Bruce Taylor's latest collection is Pity the World: Poems Selected and New. Professor Emeritus at UW-Eau Clair, his work has appeared in such places as Able Muse, The Chicago Review, The Columbia Review, Light, The Nation, The New York Quarterly, and Poetry.
Marilyn L. Taylor served as the Poet Laureate of Wisconsin for 2009 and 2010. Her award-winning poems have appeared in dozens of anthologies and journals, including Poetry, The American Scholar, Measure, Valparaiso Review, and The Formalist. Her sixth and latest collection, titled Going Wrong, was published by Parallel Press in July of 2009. She is also a Contributing Editor for The Writer magazine, where her articles on poetic craft appear bimonthly.
Chris Taylor is a technical writer in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was born and never quite escaped. Her poems have appeared in elimae, The Madison Review, DoubleShiny, and Wisconsin People and Ideas, among others.
Len Tews was a biology professor in UW-Oshkosh for 32 years. Upon retirement, he moved to Seattle for 12 years. In the past two years he has moved back to Wisconsin. His poetry has been published widely.
Don Thackrey likes Wisconsin so much that he has asked his wife to launch his cremation ashes into the West Wind, which will carry him to, and sprinkle him over, that great state.
Jari Thymian’s poetry has appeared in Simply Haiku, Ekphrasis, The Christian Science Monitor, Margie Review, Pedestal, Alehouse, and previously in Verse Wisconsin. jarithymian.com
Jeanie Tomasko is a home health nurse who loves to write, take walks, and birdwatch and thinks everything is prettier in fall. She is the author of a forthcoming chapbook, Tricks of Light, (Parallel Press, 2011).
James Toupin is a retired government lawyer, raised in San Francisco, who lives in Washington. His pieces have appeared in numerous print and online journals. His connection with Wisconsin is ancestral: his great-grandfather was born in Eau Claire. His father grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, so James’s knowledge of Wisconsin consists largely of the visits he paid to Superior during trips to visit his grandparents.
Wendy Vardaman, author of Obstructed View (Fireweed Press 2009), is co-editor of Verse Wisconsin. Visit wendyvardaman.com.
Susan Vespoli lives in a cabin in the Prescott National Forest. She received her MFA in poetry from Antioch University L.A. in December 2010. Her work has been published online and in print at Monsoon Voices, The Artists’ Page of Naturally Speaking, Threshold and OVS Magazine. Her poem “He Lusts after Librarians” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Lisa Vihos worked for twenty years as an art museum educator and is now the Director of Alumni Relations at Lakeland College. Her poems have appeared previously in Verse Wisconsin, and in Free Verse, Lakefire, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Seems, and Big Muddy. She is an associate editor of a new literary journal, Stoneboat, which made its debut in October, 2010. She resides in Sheboygan with her 12-year-old son.
Timothy Walsh’s awards include the Grand Prize in the Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Competition and the Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize from North American Review. He authored a book of literary criticism, The Dark Matter of Words: Absence, Unknowing, and Emptiness in Literature and two chapbooks, Wild Apples (Parallel) and Blue Lace Colander (Marsh River). He is an Assistant Dean at UW-Madison.
Marine Robert Warden is a retired physician. His most recent publications are Canticle III and Finding Beauty (both Bellowing Ark Press) and Beyond the Straits (Presa Press, 2010, 2nd ed.).
Tad Phippen Wente lives with her surfer husband and teaches creative writing at The Étude High School in Sheboygan. Her work has been animated for Poetry Everywhere and also appears in Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar: 2010.
Lesley Wheeler’s new collection, Heterotopia, won the 2010 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. Other books include Heathen (C&R, 2009) and Voicing American Poetry (Cornell, 2008), and poems appear in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Slate, and elsewhere. She teaches at Washington and Lee University, but she knows several cool people from Wisconsin. Once she visited Madison, where her eyelashes promptly froze.
Gail White is the author of Easy Marks (David Robert Books), a finalist for the Poets’ Prize in 2008. She co-edited the anthology The Muse Strikes Back, which has been reissued by Story Line Press. She is also the subject of Julie Kane’s essay “Getting Serious About Gail White’s Light Verse,” which appeared in an early issue of Mezzo Cammin. She has visited Sheboygan, the Bratwurst Capital of the World.
Kelley White’s work has been widely published in numerous journals including Exquisite Corpse, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle and the Journal of the American Medical Association and in chapbooks and full-length collections, most recently Toxic Environment from Boston Poet Press. She has also received several honors, including a 2008 grant for poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Marilyn Windau was nurtured on Big Bend farms, in raspberry patches in Fremont, by blue gills from Green Lake and books in Madison. Graduating from UW- Madison, she married a civil engineer from Wauwatosa and raised three daughters in Appleton and Sheboygan Falls. She teaches art to elementary school children in Oostburg.
Valerie Wohlfeld’s poetry book Woman with Wing Removed, was published October 2010 by Truman State University Press. Her first book Thinking the World Visible was chosen by James Dickey for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. She has been widely published and anthologized.
Judy Wucherer has had poems published in WFOP calendars and Museletters and recently was honored to be chosen to be a part of the One Vision Event, a celebration of “ekphrastic” poetry and art, held at the Oconomowoc Art Center.
Charles Wyatt has poems recently in The Beloit Poetry Journal and Alaska Quarterly Review. He was also principal flutist in the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County for 25 years.
