Belinda Subraman Presents

SKYE JACKSON was born and raised in New Orleans. She holds an English degree from LSU and a degree in law from Mississippi College School of Law. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop where she serves as Associate Poetry Editor of Bayou Magazine. Her work has appeared in the Delta Literary Journal and Thought Catalog. Her chapbook A Faster Grave was published in May 2019 from Antenna Press. BENJAMIN ALESHIRE travels the world as a poet-for-hire, composing poems for strangers on a manual typewriter. His work has been featured recently in The Times UK, Iowa Review, Boston Review, and on television in the US, China, and Spain. An excerpt of his novel, 'Poet for Hire: Kismet of a 21st Century Troubadour' is forthcoming in LitHub. Ben was a Breadloaf waiter in 2016, and serves as assistant poetry editor for the Green Mountains Review. He lives in New Orleans. www.poetforhire.org

Dee Sunshine is an artist, poet, yoga teacher, massage therapist, spiritual healer and new age hobo. After a brief foray in the Default World he sold up and hit the road. That was back in 2006. Since then he has spent the bulk of his time in India and Thailand, following the twisted, rugged and strange path of a tantric yogi. Dee is the author of three poetry collections - The Bad Seed (Stride, 1998), Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels (Bluechrome, 2004), and Visions Of The Drowning Man (Skylight Press, 2012). He edited the charity poetry anthology, The Book Of Hopes And Dreams (Bluechrome, 2006). He edited The AA Independent Press Guide (1998-2011). His website is at www.thunderburst.co.uk and his Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/Sunshine.Visions

Vince Gotera writes poems and stories, as well as the occasional creative nonfiction or critical article. His books include the three poetry collections — FIGHTING KITE, GHOST WARS, and DRAGONFLY — as well as the critical study RADICAL VISIONS: POETRY BY VIETNAM VETERANS. Vince has been a Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa since 1995. He has also taught at Indiana University, Humboldt State University, Grinnell College, and Wartburg College. He also frequently teaches creative writing at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival sponsored by the University of Iowa. Vince earned an MFA in poetry writing and a PhD in English from Indiana University. Other institutions where he has studied include Stanford University and San Francisco State University, where he earned his BA and MA, respectively. Since 2000, Vince has been Editor of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, originally established in 1815, the longest-lived literary magazine in the US. He was also Associate Editor of the LITERARY MAGAZINE REVIEW (1995-2001) and Poetry Editor of ASIAN AMERICA: JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND THE ARTS (1991-1993). Gotera has won international, national, and local awards for his writing and teaching. In 2004, Gotera won the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, an international award sponsored by the journal Our Own Voice. His national awards include a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts (1993), The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from The Madison Review (1988), the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in poetry (1988), and an Academy of American Poets Prize (1988). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. At the University of Northern Iowa, Gotera won a Faculty Excellence Award from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (2006). Try these links to learn more: http://vincegotera.blogspot.com http://facebook.com/vince.gotera.poet http://www.filedby.com/author/vince_gotera/357779/

Tantra Bensko plays toward Lucidity in many ways, and has presented some methods and results through formats such as her writing, in a genre she calls Lucid Fiction. She has traveled across the country for decades doing healings, which she learned to do at a distance at 12. Her music, art, acting, Tantra Yoga teaching, and hypnosis combine play, spontaneous movement and sound, writing without pre-composition, and also expansion of the self, as well as a kind of feral wildness, and absurdist humor. Two new books are recently out, The Cabinet of What You Don't See (ISMs Press) and Lucid Fiction (Night Publishing.) http://lucidmembrane.weebly.com/ Lucid Membrane addresses all levels of the self, from zany realism to explosively meditative. Three stories are hidden within it, one of which speaks directly to the subconscious to nudge it to become more Lucid, able to see truth, through manipulation, and illusion. Readers can put the password found in the book into the website's Secret Womb, and find even more of the book, in new, participatory forms.

HENRY DENANDER was born in 1952 and lives in Stockholm, Sweden and on Hydra Island in Greece. For over 25 years he has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry. He is also the editor of Kamini Press. Henry Denander’s books are I know What She Will Say (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2003), Weeks Like This (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2005), Bring Down The Sun (ArtBureau, 2005), The Poetry of Mr. Blue (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2007), The Loulaki Bar (Miskwabik Press, 2009), His first poem was published in 1999 and now he’s had over two hundred poems and many illustrations published in small press magazines and on the web. He’s been published mainly in America but also in places like Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, India and the UK. He has a website with poetry and art at http://www.henrydenander.com. He is also a fine artist.

Mystical K and Magical B Discuss How to Live a Better Life in Harsh Times

Learn how a grade school dropout earns two Masters degrees and becomes an English teacher, an exciting performance poet and great catalyst in the poetry community. Hear BL's personal stories of his time with Alan Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. Learn about BL's other influences including but not limited to the Alamo, The Wizard of Oz, Frank Sinatra and Godzilla.

Peggy was inspired to begin the Afghan Women’s Project after meeting with a delegation of Afghan women who passed through Austin, Texas during the fall of 2002. The strength, humor and resiliency of these women was contrary to the media image of Afghan women as helpless victims. It inspired Peggy to create The Afghan Women’s Project in order to share this side of Afghan women with western audiences. This project’s goal, seeking out wisdom and sources of strength from women who have experienced such repression and hardship, is one of the ways Peggy can merge her love of photography with her interest in human psychology as well as concretely benefit both Afghan women and the viewers. Peggy traveled to Afghanistan in August and September of 2003, returning with photographs and interviews of 40 women. They are of various ages and come from differing social classes, ethnic groups and areas of the country. Currently, 23 of the women form an exhibit that also includes their biographies and excerpts from their interviews. Since that time, she has interviewed Malalai Joya, the member of Parliament who stood up the first day it was in session to declare “how can we have a democracy when there are warlords and criminals in the government?” In July of ‘09, she interviewed Nasreen, one of the organizers of the demonstration against the marital rape provisions of the Haraza Family Law. Use of the exhibit, Afghan Women, Portraits and Stories, is available to organizations worldwide that wish raise awareness about Afghan Women. Additionally, Peggy offers three different slide shows: Spirit of Afghanistan, showing Afghanistan in general and her observations there, Women of Afghanistan which focuses on the lives and stories of individual women, half of whom are not included in the exhibit. Spirit of Afghanistan for Photojournalists expands Spirit of Afghanistan to cover what it takes to put together a project, tells stories about the photographs and gives tips on working in foreign countries.

Omaha native Lars Erickson based The Pi Symphony on the digits of , the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The melody uses the first 32 digits of Pi (pi=3.14159265358979323846264338327950 ...), "e", and the cycle of fifths. The first eight digits represent notes in a scale and become the melody's foundation (think "1-2-3, do re me.") Erickson combined a lifelong passion for music with a fascination for computers to produce innovations in both areas. Proficient in orchestration and a self-taught jazz pianist, Erickson has recorded five CDs and music for ads, documentaries and films. The Omaha Symphony, numerous local artists and clarinetist Richard Stolzmann / Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra have used his arrangements. A summa cum laude graduate, he earned an Engineering Physics degree from UNO and worked as computer programmer and software development manager for seven years, patenting a document translation software. Erickson and his wife Lisa have four children and three of them currently join him in "the Burt Street Individuals," a jazz combo that performs throughout the midwest and in the metro Omaha area. Visit Lars' website http://pisymphony.com

Leon is a performance artist from Cd. Juárez, Mexico. He has been working on creating vehicles where poetry and multimedia art collide for almost ten years, with a specific concentration on video and poetry, his two main media. For a 6 minute sampling of one of his recent events visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqdJsZP8Xvo To learn more about Leon and to see more of his performances visit his website http://leondelarosa.org To learn more about Unlikely Stories, one of the oldest literary and multi-media ezines visit: http://unlikelystories.org

William Al-Sharif is a British humanist intellectual and author of many works including "Christianity, Islam and Secular Criticism," "Rethinking Quranic Studies," "Islamism: Religion and Ideology," "Men and Ideas," "The Dearest Quest," "Asian Papers," and "Ireland: A History. He is currently associated with the University of Glasgow and lives in Scotland. He is Director of Jerusalem Publications. William was born in Palestine and grew up in Kuwait. He speaks English, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, French and Spanish.

Mark Schwartz is an accomplished shoe designer and artist. He has been designing shoes for over 20 years for some of the biggest names in our industry. Born in New York City, Mark has traveled the world gaining inspiration for his ideas from artist Andy Warhol, who Mark beneficially watched at work and knew for two years. Warhol encouraged and helped Schwartz cultivate his artistic renderings of shoes while Schwartz was working for Roger Vivier as an assistant designer and creative director. Mark Schwartz is now pioneering a new shade of talent within his work by exploring the grace and eclecticism of footwear as works of art. www.highheeledart.blogspot.com

Larissa Shmailo's new collection of poetry is In Paran (BlazeVOX [books] 2009). Larissa is the winner of the 2009 New Century Music Awards for spoken word with jazz, electronica, and rock; her poetry CDs are Exorcism (SongCrew 2008) and The No-Net World (SongCrew 2006). Larissa's translation of the Russian transrational opera Victory over the Sun is part of the collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Hirsshorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art. She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Barrow Street, Rattapallax, and Fulcrum.

David N. Moolten is the author of three books of poetry, Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, and Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005). The manuscript for a third book, Primitive Mood recently won the T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press, with publication anticipated in the fall of 2009. Poems by David Moolten have appeared in Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southwest Review, and Epoch, among other journals and reviews. His work has been widely anthologized and his honors include a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. Moolten, a physician specializing in transfusion medicine, was educated at Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He lives, writes, and practices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Moolten can be contacted by email at [email protected]

Peter Buffett, a well-established composer/producer, has released his third vocal album, IMAGINARY KINGDOM. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett began his career in San Francisco writing music for commercials. He has eight released albums on Narada, Epic and Hollywood labels as well as six releases on his own label - including the EMMY award winning CD, Ojibwe. Buffett also composed and produced the score for the Duncan Group production of WISCONSIN – AN AMERICAN PORTRAIT, a regional EMMY award winner. Highlights of his film and television work include the Fire Dance scene in the Oscar winning film Dances With Wolves, and the score for 500 Nations, the eight-hour miniseries for CBS produced by Kevin Costner. Buffett's theatrical production, Spirit – The Seventh Fire, originally launched as a successful PBS pledge event, was located on the National Mall for the Smithsonian's opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. As co-chairman of the NoVo Foundation, Buffett helps guide the strategic plan that he and his wife Jennifer will implement with a small dedicated staff over the coming years. http://peterbuffett.com http://youtube.com/isound1

Jill wrote Transformative Power In Sound: Intelligence, Health and Energy Through the Magic of Music, and lectures throughout the U.S. on this topic. She has numerous CDs out, with healing and transforming energy. Also, visit Jill's cyber gallery of art, fluid and evoking paintings and prints. www.jillswingsoflight.com http://myspace.com/jillswingsoflight http://newagehealingmusic.blogspot.com

Mark Yakich is an author and professor in the Department of English at Loyola University. His collection of poems Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross was one of five winners of The National Poetry Series in 2003. Another collection, The Making of Collateral Beauty, won the Snowbound Chapbook Award and was published by Tupelo Press in 2006. His most recent collection is The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin Poets, 2008).

ATTENTION. DEFICIT. DISORDER. is a book. It's a novel. It's a story about how difficult it is to find meaning in the Information Age. It's a contemporary rendition of the classic coming of age novel. It features a man who wants to shave his head for reasons he can't explain. It features a really old man and a really young prostitute. It features a big desert, a charming mentally disabled man, and some hardcore spelunking. If you so desire, you can order it online at: amazon.com Barnes & Noble Powell's Borders BookSense ....Or at any other online bookseller. Otherwise you can pick it up at your local bookstore. Or you can steal it.

Cliff Kindy has spent parts of several years on peacemaking trips to Iraq. He is a member of CPT which places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world at the invitation of local peace and human rights workers. CPT embraces the vision of unarmed intervention waged by committed peacemakers ready to risk injury and death in bold attempts to transform lethal conflict through the nonviolent power of truth and love.

Diagnosed with advanced colon cancer on her birthday in 2005, Sylvia Thompson discovered the healing power of creative writing through her illness. She teaches meditation, Reiki, Chakra and Color Therapy and takes part in a women's Kabbalah study group in her community. Her book "In the Garden of Illness I sit by the Well of Hope" is available through SHADOW POETRY or you may have a special expanded version printed just for you through LULU. For more samples of Sylvia's poetry go to Author's Den. Her book is also available at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com Check out her web site at http://myspace.com/thompsonpoetry

C.J. Sage edits The National Poetry Review (www.nationalpoetryreview.com). Her poems appear in Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Ploughshares, POOL, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Threepenny Review, et cetera. Previous books include Let's Not Sleep, And We The Creatures, Field Notes on Contemporary Literature, and Odyssea. CJ is a Realtor specializing in beach homes.

J. P. Dancing Bear is the author of Conflicted Light (SalmonPoetry, 2008), Gacela of Narcissus City (Main Street Rag, 2006), Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004) and What Language (Slipstream, 2002). His poems have been published in Shenandoah, Poetry International, New Orleans Review, National Poetry Review, Marlboro Review, Mississippi Review, diode, Natural Bridge, Verse Daily and many others. His translations of Nicaraguan poet, Blanca Castellón, have been published in Malboro Review, International Poetry Review and the upcoming issue of Bitter Oleander (Fall, 2008). He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal, the owner/editor of Dream Horse Press, and the host of "Out of Our Minds" a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP.

Ravi Shankar is Associate Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Central Connecticut State University and founding editor of the international online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat . He has published a book of poems, Instrumentality (Cherry Grove, 2004), named a finalist for the 2005 Connecticut Book Awards, and along with Reb Livingston, a collaborative chapbook, Wanton Textiles (No Tell Books, 2006). His creative and critical work has previously appeared in such publications as The Paris Review, Fulcrum, McSweeney's, the AWP Writer's Chronicle, Scribner’s Best American Erotic Poems from 1800 to the Present, among many others. He has taught at Queens College, University of New Haven, and Columbia University, where he received his MFA in Poetry. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR and Wesleyan Radio and read his work in many places, including the Asia Society, St. Mark's Poetry Project and the National Arts Club. He currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Connecticut Center for the Book, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, is the co-editor of Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co.)

Tony Barnstone is Associate Professor of creative writing at Whittier College. His first book of poetry, Impure, a finalist for the Walt Whitman Prize, the National Poetry Series Prize, and the White Pine Prize, appeared with the UP of Florida in June 1999. His chapbook of poems, Naked Magic, appeared in 2002 with Main Street Rag Press. Other books include Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry (Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1993), Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Selected Poems of Wang Wei (Hanover: UP of New England, 1991), The Art of Writing: Teachings of Chinese Masters (Boston: Shambhala, 1996), and a number of textbooks, most recently The Literatures of Asia and The Literatures of the Middle East (Prentice Hall). His poetry, translations, essays on poetics, and fiction have appeared in dozens of American literary journals, from APR to Agni. He has won an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council, as well as many national poetry awards. A few of his other books are The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry (Anchor, 2003) and a number of textbooks for Prentice Hall, including The Pleasures of Poetry: An Introduction (2005), World Literature (two volumes, 2003), and Modern Poetry: An Anthology with Contexts (2004).

Frances Mai-Ling is pioneering the genre of Alternative-Classical music; taking classical piano to new level giving it a fresh sound of the traditional and the current trend of rock, pop, alternative. Creating a new genre that is powerful, for people of all ages can enjoy. Since 2001, she has taken her creation of Alternative-Classical merging the sparkling qualities of classical music with the emotional melodic style of many generes, all within an intimate setting of Mai-Ling and her music.

John Amen is the author of two collections of poetry: Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press 2003) and More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications 2005), and has released one folk/folk rock CD, All I’ll Never Need (Cool Midget 2004). His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including, most recently, Rattle, The New York Quarterly, The International Poetry Review, Gargoyle, and Blood to Remember. He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. His second CD, Ridiculous Empire, was just released (Spring 2008) and is now available for purchase. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit the award-winning literary bimonthly, The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com).

Yes, and she's great at all three and had a famous father to boot. Listen to find out more!

New Grey Whistle Test" (nugreywhistletest.co.uk) by David Hudson All the way from New York this guy oozes credibility and coolness, he has a new album out now called 'Poems'... All the lyrics and poems on his new album were written entirely in the UK, a collection of inspirations and thoughts that our country had on an 'American in London'....and beyond.

Playwright, novelist and theatre director, Joe Martin's works comprise an international, searching, formal exploration into the border regions between the spiritual cosmos and the political world. He is the recipient of various grants and awards as a writer and director--including a Fulbright Senior Fellowship in Theatre, and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, among others. In 2002 Martin was selected as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Theatre. Also active as a translator of drama from Swedish, Norwegian and Spanish, he has translated many works of August Strindberg, as well as Jens Bjorneboe, and Juan Tovar. A director and dramaturg of over fifty stage productions in the US, Canada and Europe, his choices have included both originals and classic works: The Ghost Sonata (Washington 1988), Parabola: Tales of the Wise and the Idiots (Washington, 1990), Anatole's Lover (Washington 1991), Woyzeck (1993), The Match Girl's SNOW QUEEN (Washington 1995), Three Plays by Brecht: The Wedding/The Chalk Cross/The Beggar (with Zeljko Djukic, 1997), Rumi's MATHNAVI (Washington and New York, 1998-2001), and Jose Rivera's Marisol (Bucharest, 2002). He is a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts and Studies, Johns Hopkins University; & Creative Writing at George Washington University.

Dr. Kronenfeld is both a scholar and a poet (as well as a more occasional writer of fiction, memoir, essays and reviews). She has taught English Literature at the University of California, Irvine, the University of California, Riverside and Purdue University. She has published over a dozen articles on Renaissance and other literary topics in various journals. Her in-depth historical-cultural-linguistic study, King Lear and the Naked Truth: Rethinking the Language of Religion and Resistance was published by Duke University Press in 1998. Because of it, Dr. Kronenfeld was named one of the two recipients of the University of California, Riverside, 1996-97 non-Senate Distinguished Researcher Award. In midlife, Judy Kronenfeld turned back to her childhood love of writing poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous magazines such as Natural Bridge, The Portland Review, Passages North, Poetry International, Chariton Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Manhattan Poetry Review, The Evansville Review, The Mississippi Valley Review, The Louisville Review, The MacGuffin, Hiram Poetry Review, Snake Nation Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Pedestal, Barnwood, The Women's Review of Books, Calyx and Cimarron Review.. She is the author of two chapbooks, Disappeared Down Dark Wells and Still Falling (Inevitable Press, 2000), and Ghost Nurseries (Finishing Line, 2005), and two full-length collections, Shadow of Wings (Bellflower, 1991) and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, which won the 2007 Annual Litchfield Review Book Award in the poetry category, and will be published in 2008 by the Litchfield Review Press.

David Biespiel was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1964 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He has degrees from Boston University and the University of Maryland. A former NCAA scholarship diver who competed in the United States National Diving Championships, he continues to coach national, international and Olympic-caliber divers. The recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland Arts Council and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Biespiel has taught at several colleges, including Stanford University. He now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is Director and Writer-in-Residence of The Attic Writers’ Workshop and also teaches at Oregon State University. Biespiel’s second book of poems, Wild Civility, was published in 2003 by University of Washington Press in a new series edited by Linda Bierds. His first book of poems, Shattering Air, was published by BOA Editions in 1996. He writes a monthly poetry column for The Oregonian and edits the recently revived Poetry Northwest, once revered as the longest-running poetry-only journal in the United States, and now back in print in a new format.

Brian had been working on a book of poetry when he attended a Lucinda Williams concert where, between songs, her father Miller Williams read his poetry. Brian thought that Andy and Renee might be the perfect choice to do something similar. The folk/rock duo had carved a niche for themselves in Los Angeles as one of the few acts playing over 200 local and out-of-town dates per year either as a duo, with their band Hard Rain, at their annual Bob Dylan Birthday Party (now in its 17th year), or recreating The Band’s legendary Last Waltz concert. Andy and Renee paired their folk/rock music sensibilities and vast catalogue of favorite tunes and originals with Brian’s poetry. “We began to place songs within the context of the poems to weave themes in and around each piece to create a kind of conversation,” states Brian. This unique performance concept resulted in an Evening of Music & Poetry performed monthly since January 2007 at various venues in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Brian graduated from Harvard University and putting his writing on hold, moved to California to start a career in real estate. When his wife introduced him to yoga several years ago, Brian rediscovered his love of poetry and started writing again. Since then his poems have been featured in Gentle Strength Quarterly and several issues of Yogi Times Magazine. Andy Hill is a student of the folk and rock classics and has won several songwriting awards, including for “Two Trains,” one of the featured songs on Midnight Tea. In 2005 Renee Safier’s blues and jazz vocal chops won the Telluride Blues Festival’s Acoustic Blues Competition. Midnight Tea and Driving With Dante are also available through midnightteapoetry.com and other selected outlets.

Buffett's full-bodied electronic sound and rock-influenced accessibility make his music a congenial transition between the lighter pop instrumentals that have flooded the market and artists who are pushing the boundaries of modern electronic music with more challenging fare. The Nebraska-born pianist went to Stanford University, where he converted his Bay Area apartment into an efficient recording studio that provides soundtracks for numerous advertising, television, and film companies. Upon hearing of Kevin Costner's plans to create the movie Dances with Wolves, Buffett sent the actor a copy of his album One by One, which featured several cuts inspired by the plight of Native Americans. Costner was impressed enough to use some of Buffett's music in the film. Buffett's four Narada recordings combine a flair for drama and cinematic-style electronic orchestrations with his interest in Native American cultures. His later albums feature a progressively more prominent use of acoustic timbres, both sampled and authentic. ~ Linda Kohanov, All Music Guide (This podcast was originally posted in the Fall of 2006.)

From Bryan's Bio: “Born Manchester. Educated Bolton School and King’s College. Cambridge. Degree in English. At The Times as Financial News Editor and Deputy Arts Editor from 1976 to 1984. Freelance journalist ever since. Three times won Feature Writer of the Year and twice commended in the British Press Awards. Have contributed to, among others, Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, The Tablet, New York Times, Vanity Fair etc. I am currently a special feature writer, commentator, reviewer and columnist for The Sunday Times. My books are: The Culture Club: Crisis in the Arts, Richard Rogers: a biography, The Pleasures of Peace: Art and Imagination in Postwar Britain, Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man, The First Church of the New Millennium: a novel, Brave New Worlds: Genetics and the Human Experience (winner of a medical writing prize whose name I cannot remember); Aliens: Why They Are Here and How to Live forever or Die Trying. I have lectured, debated or taught numerous universities, including Boston, St Andrews, Glasgow, Leeds, Cambridge, Oxford, Trinity College, Dublin, London, Liverpool John Moores, Architectural Association, Glasgow School of Architecture and I have been a fellow of the World Economic Forum.”.

Equally masterful at poetry, fiction, and the essay, Kelly Cherry has published eleven works of poetry, eight of fiction, five of nonfiction, and two dramatic translations. Her collection Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2007. Some of her works include: The Globe and the Brain: On Place in Fiction (Chapbook, 2006); History, Passion, Freedom, Death, and Hope: Prose about Poetry (2005); In the Wink of an Eye, a novel (reissued, 2004); Welsh Table Talk: Poems (2004); We Can Still Be Friends, a novel (2003); My Life and Dr. Joyce Brothers: A Novel in Stories (2002); Rising Venus: Poems (2002); Relativity: A Point of View: Poems (reissued, 2000); An Other Woman, a Poem (Chapbook, 2000); The Society of Friends: Stories (1999); The Poem, an Essay (Chapbook, 1999); Augusta Played, a novel (reissued, 1998); Death and Transfiguration: Poems (1997); Writing the World, Essays about Writing and the Writing Life (1995); Lovers and Agnostics: Poems (reissued, 1995); God's Loud Hand: Poems (1993); The Exiled Heart, an Autobiographical Narrative (1991); and Natural Theology: Poems (1988). Also in print are her translations of Sophocles' Antigone (1999) and Seneca's Octavia (1995). Her fiction has been represented in Best American Short Stories, The Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and The Pushcart Prize Stories.

Didi Menendez is a Cuban-born American artist and author. She is also the publisher for MiPoesias, http://www.mipoesias.com ,OCHO and Oranges & Sardines. Her series The American Poet Portraits is gaining momentum. http://americanpoets.blogspot.com/ Her latest book of poetry is WHEN I SAID GOODBYE released by BLAZEVOX.

Internationally renowned as a performance poet, Patricia Smith is four-time national individual champion of the notorious and wildly popular poetry slam, an energized competition where poets are judged on the content and performance of their work. She is also regarded as one of the few performance poets whose work translates effortlessly to the page. Indeed, the Small Press Review declares, "Smith writes the way Tina Turner sings." Smith's most recent collection, Teahouse of the Almighty , was chosen by Ed Sanders for the 2005 National Poetry Series, and was published by Coffee House Press in 2006. Her three previous books of poetry are, Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland Books), and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha). She has won the prestigious Carl Sandburg Award, as well as a literary award from the Illinois Arts Council and an honorary degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In 2006, she was inducted into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, putting her in the company of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, and others. She was featured in the nationally-released film "Slamnation", and was a featured poet on the award-winning HBO series "Def Poetry Jam." Smith has shared the stage with Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, Joyce Carol Oates, Allen Ginsburg, Walter Mosley, Ntozake Shange, Gwendolyn Brooks, Galway Kinnell and Viggo Morgensen. An author of prose as well poetry, Smith wrote Africans in America (Harcourt Brace), a chronicle of slavery in this country and the companion volume to the groundbreaking four-part PBS series.

Peter Krok is the editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal and serves as the humanities/poetry director of the Manayunk Art Center where he has coordinated a literary series since 1990. His poems have appeared in more than seventy publications including the Yearbook of American Poetry, America, Midwest Quarterly, Poet Lore, Potomac Review, and in 2005 his poem "10 PM At a Philadelphia Recreation Center" was included in Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (published by Penn State University). His book Looking For An Eye was published by the Foothills Press.

Maurya Simon is the author of The Enchanted Room and Days of Awe (Copper Canyon Press, 1986, 1989), Speaking in Tongues (Gibbs Smith, 1990), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and The Golden Labyrinth (University of Missouri Press, 1995). A fifth volume, A Brief History of Punctuation, was published in a limited edition by the fine letter-press book publisher, Sutton Hoo Press, in 2002. Simon’s sixth volume, Ghost Orchid (Red Hen Press, 2004) was nominated for a 2004 National Book Award in Poetry. A new, limited edition, letter-press collection of ekphrastic poems, WEAVERS, based on the paintings of Los Angeles artist Baila Goldenthal, was published by Blackbird Press in October 2005, and Simon’s eighth volume of poems, Cartographies, was published 2007. Simon was the recipient of a 2002 Visiting Artist Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, a 1999-2000 NEA Fellowship in poetry, a University Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Celia B. Wagner and Lucille Medwick Memorial Awards from the Poetry Society of America, and a Fulbright/Indo-American Fellowship in Bangalore, South India. Simon has been a fellow at Hawthornden Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, and at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby, Sweden, as well as a lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Grand Street, Agni, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, the New England Review, and in more than forty anthologies.

Bogen’s real poetry writing adventure did not begin till she was 47 when she took a poetry workshop run by Doug Anderson. That was followed by summer seminars at The Catskill Poetry Workshop, The Frost Place, Ropewalk and Bread Loaf. Her poems and reviews appear widely in journals including Shenandoah, The Gettysburg Review,The Georgia Review, Margie, Poetry International, and Field. Her work has been featured twice on Poetry Daily and twice on Verse Daily. One of her poems has been chosen by Poetry Daily for inclusion in their new hardcopy anthology. Her chapbook, Living by the Children’s Cemetery, was chosen by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2002 ByLine Press Competition and her full-length collection, Landscape with Silos, was a National Poetry Series finalist in 2004 and won the 2005 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize (judged by Betty Adcock). Landscape with Silos, was released by Texas Review Press in August 2006. She runs free writing workshops in her home.

Fleda Brown was born in Columbia, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She earned her Ph.D. in English (specialty in American Literature) from the University of Arkansas, and in 1978 she joined the faculty of the University of Delaware English Department, where she founded the Poets in the Schools Program, which she directed for more than twelve years. Her books, essays, and individual poems have won many awards. Her sixth collection of poems, Reunion (2007), was the winner of the Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin. She has read and lectured in secondary schools, retirement communities, libraries, bookstores, a prison for delinquent adolescents, Rotary Clubs, AAUWs, and many universities and colleges, from Oxford University, London, to small liberal arts colleges. She has slept in a bunkhouse and has read with cowboy poets in North Dakota, and she has read for the Governor of Delaware and for the Delaware Legislature. She served as poet laureate of Delaware from 2001-2007, when she retired from the University of Delaware and moved to Traverse City, Michigan. She teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and she spends summers with her husband, also a retired English professor, at their cottage on a small lake in northern Michigan. Between them, they have four children and ten grandchildren.

E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist. He is a board member of The Writer’s Center and editor of its Poet Lore magazine. The author of several collections of poems, his last book How We Sleep On The Nights We Don’t Make Love (Curbstone Press, 2004) was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist (and number one on our 2004 list of Books to begin your Poeducation now). Mr. Miller received the 1995 O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize, given by the Folger Shakespeare Library for both teaching and writing excellence. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Emory & Henry College. In 2003 his memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), was selected by DC WE READ for its one book, one city program sponsored by the D.C. Public Libraries. In 2004, Mr. Miller was awarded a Fulbright to visit Israel. Poets & Writers presented him with the 2007 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. Mr. Miller is often heard on National Public Radio (NPR).

Dick Bakken began performing his poetry without a manuscript in 1972 and within a year was collaborating with dancers at innovative performance and spoken word poetry events. From 1975 to 1980 he crisscrossed the country giving readings and performances until, during a tour of the Southwest, he settled in Bisbee, Arizona where he still lives. Dick Bakken was the director of Heart of Carlos Spoken Arts, Jump the Border!, and the Bisbee Poetry Festival. He was also poetry editor at The Bisbee News. Dick Bakken's poetry has been published in over 200 periodicals and anthologies, eight books, on two audio cassettes, and two video cassettes. He has won numerous awards and grants, and continues to tour, working with musicians, mimes, painters, sculptors, photographers, and filmmakers. Dick Bakken is "one of the few poets in America whose reputation, a substantial one, rests almost solely on his public readings which are lyrical, dramatic, liturgical and celebratory all at once," wrote Christopher Howell, owner of Lynx House Press.

Jerry was trained in art, however. “I went to school for three years at Rockland Community College and the State University of New Paltz, both in New York. One day, the one teacher who believed in me and saw how committed I was as an artist said to me, ‘What are you doing here? Why don’t you just go out and do it?’ He said the one thing that I knew I needed to do, but was afraid to. Even though I had almost completed my degree program, when he said this to me, I walked straight out the door, never to return. I do have an A.A. degree, for those interested in my minimal credentials.” At age 29, he set out to discover the rock-bottom truth of his life. For years he questioned the limits of his creative life as a studio painter. After destroying all of his art and giving away everything he owned, Jerry began a life of unconditional trust, allowing life to provide all that was needed. He lived this way for over 10 years and then moved to the state of Washington, where he married Marilyn Strong and produced a large new body of art. Jerry was approached by the publisher at Sentient Publications and asked to write a book about those years, which he agreed to do. The book was completed in 4 months and titled, "The Inspired Heart," published by Sentient Publications in the Fall of 2002. He and Marilyn have finished an extensive booksigning and lecture tour. (Read sample chapters and foreword by Thomas Moore.) Marilyn and Jerry’s charming Whidbey Island home is now filled with his unique sculptures and paintings. He also built a 40-foot meditation tower, the Flaming Stupa, on his property. A video of Jerry’s life and work, In the Hands of Alchemy, is available from Parabola. Jerry is available for film showings, speaking engagements, and workshops with his wife—singer and adult education teacher, Marilyn Strong. Jerry, Marilyn, and the Flaming Stupa are featured in a chapter of a new book called, "Holy Personal: Looking for Small Private Places of Worship" by Laura Chester, with photos by Dona Demari, and foreword by Thomas Moore (Indiana University Press).

Lyn Lifshin has written more than 100 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A., and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. She has given more than 700 readings across the U.S.A. and has appeared at Dartmouth and Skidmore colleges, Cornell University, the Shakespeare Library, Whitney Museum, and Huntington Library. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lifshin has earned the distinction "Queen of the Small Presses." She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart, and Ed Sanders has seen her as "a modern Emily Dickinson."

In 1999, Rus started posting poetry onto online forums. In 2003, he began his column Poetry & Poets in Rags, a Tuesday night weekly that is carried by the InterBoard Poetry Community (IBPC), part of the Web Del Sol site, at http://www.webdelsol.com/IBPC/wire_rags.htm. For the past two years, he has published a companion blog at http://poetryandpoetsinrags.blogspot.com. Poetry & Poets in Rags is essentially a clearing house of links on current poetry articles, keeping the online poetry world informed, connected, represented, and hopefully growing in influence. He blogs his own writings and poetry selections at Clattery MacHinery on Poetry, where his most popular article has been Alley War Poetry: http://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/alley-war-poetry. His writing has appeared in online publications such as Aught, Melic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Ideology, and recently in the anthology Best of Cafe†Cafeâ€, Summer 2007. For the past two years, he has been scheduling and inviting the esteemed judges for IBPC's monthly and annual contests. His efforts are for positive change through poetry, and his commitment is to the world community of poets, and specifically online poets, those who participate at the workshops (http://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/25-online-poetry-forums-and-workshops), and those who foster the growth of poetry on and through the web.

Photo by www.feastoffools.net Pop-culture journalist Gregg Shapiro’s interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional LGBT publications and websites. His poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous outlets including literary journals such as Beltway, modern words, Bloom, White Crane Journal, Blithe House Quarterly, Mipoesias, and the anthologies Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body (Paycock Press), Queer Quarterly 2007 ( and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival), Blood to Remember. His collection of poems, Protection, will be published in January 2008 by Gival Press. He lives in Chicago with his life-partner Rick and their dogs, Dusty and k.d.

Raised in Marietta, Georgia, Royal became a local singing sensation at Savannah, Georgia's Bamboo Ranch in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the 1965 Top Ten pop hit "Down in the Boondocks," which, along with the singles "I Knew You When" (Top 20, 1965) and "Hush" (1967), were written and produced by Joe South. His 1969 single, "Cherry Hill Park," peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. During the 1980s, Royal scored a comeback with several Top 10 country hits, including "Tell It Like It Is," "Burned Like a Rocket," and "I'll Pin a Note on Your Pillow." When his rejuvenated career as a country music hitmaker quieted down, he followed up with bookings throughout the 1990s in large country music bars and became a successful act on that circuit. And, he is still making music. His latest release is “Going By Daydreams.” Check http://BillyJoeRoyal.com for more info. Also you could check any of the several million entries on any search engine to learn more about this legendary performer,

Jonathan Penton is the editor of www.UnlikelyStories.org. He is the author of three chapbooks of poetry: Last Chap (Vergin' Press, 2004), Blood and Salsa (self-published, 2006) and Painting Rust (self-published, 2006).

Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns, gave a voice to ordinary life and was himself as much an inspiration as his poetry. Burns profound belief in the worth of every human being, no matter who they are or what their origins was the most inspiring aspect of the man. He may have endured grinding poverty for most of his short life, but he did not allow hardship to destroy his future. Nearly 250 years after his birth, the greatest tribute we can pay Robert Burns is to adopt his worldview and recognize that every child is exceptional no matter where they are from or what their circumstances. Janice Hale-Hobby is an El Paso poet and writer. You can sample her writing and read her bio at http://JaniceHaleHobby.com