Contributor's Notes | Rougarou V. 1 No. 1

Maureen Alsop’s poems have recently appeared or are pending in various publications including: The Cortland Review, Barrow Street, Typo, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art and Texas Review. She is the winner of Harpur Palate’s 2007 Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry and Bitter Oleander’s 2007 Frances Locke Memorial Award for Poetry. Her first full collection of poetry, Apparition Wren, is pending publication this year from Main Street Rag; more information is available at: www.apparitionwren.com.

Craig Blais is an MFA candidate at Wichita State University and plans to graduate in December ’07. He has poems appearing in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Good Foot, Interim, Best New Poets 2007, and The Anthology of New England Writers 2008.

William Greenway’s seventh collection, Ascending Order (2003), won the 2004 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award, is from the University of Akron Press Poetry Series, also the publisher of I Have My Own Song For It: Modern Poems of Ohio (2002), which he co-edited with Elton Glaser.  His new full-length collection, Fishing at the End of the World, is from Word Press (2005), and a new chapbook, Twice Removed, is from Main Street Rag. His publications include Poetry, American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah.  He has also won the Helen and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award, the Larry Levis Editors’ Prize from Missouri Review, the Open Voice Poetry Award from The Writer’s Voice, the State Street Press Chapbook Competition, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and has been Georgia Author of the Year. He is also a distinguished professor of English at Youngstown State University.

Jen Hirt was the 2004 writer in residence at Bernheim arboretum, and she was the 2003 recipient of the Ohioana Library Grant.  She has a poem forth coming in Conduit. She earned her M.A. at Iowa State University in 2000 and her M.F.A. at the University of Idaho in 2004.  She lives in Harrisburg, PA and teaches writing at Penn. State Harrisburg.

Stephen-Paul Martin is a widely published author of poetry (Things, Invading Reagan, Until It Changes), fiction (Instead of Confusion, The Gothic Twilight) and nonfiction.  From 1980 to 1996 he edited Central Park Magazine in New York City.  He currently lives in the House of Seven Mammals.   

Matt McBride’s chapbook The Space Between Stars (Kent State University Press, 2007) won the Wick Chapbook contest. He holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University, where he is an instructor in the General Studies Writing Department. He is the recipient of a Devine Poetry Fellowship and has published poems in the Nut House, Ghoti, Chiron Review, Cooweescoowee, and others.

Nathan McClain’s poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Sojourn, Poet Lore, Redactions, The Eleventh Muse, Pebble Lake Review and elsewhere. He serves on the editorial staff for three candles journal. He currently lives and works in Southern California with his wife and three children.

Carolyn Mikulencak’s work has appeared in Stirring, Literal Latte, Ellipsis, and is anthologized in e2ink: The Best of Online Journals 2002. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and three sons. They visit the aquarium often.

Gail Peck is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Thirst from Main Street Rag. Her poems and essays have appeared in such journals as The Southern Review, Cimarron Review, Rattle, Greensboro Review, Brevity, and others. Her work has been anthologized widely, including Uncommon Place: An Anthology of Louisiana Writers, LSU Press.

Shelly Reed is the founding editor of Spire Press, and a native of Oklahoma. She currently lives by shuffling between the DC suburbs and New York City. Her poems have been published by many journals; a few if which are The Furnace Review, The Comstock Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Karamu, and 3ammagazine. She has published one chapbook, Explain This Blessing.

Catherine Pierce’s first full-length collection, Famous Last Words, won the 2007 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize and will be published by Saturnalia Books in January 2008. She is also the author of a chapbook, Animals of Habit (Kent State, 2004). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Slate, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, Blackbird, the anthology Best New Poets 2007 (Samovar, 2007), and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Mississippi State University.

Erin Elizabeth Smith is currently a PhD candidate at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi where she serves as the editor-in-chief of Stirring. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Third Coast, Crab Orchard, The Pinch, West Branch, Willow Springs, Bellingham Review, Cimarron Review, and RHINO among others. She is an alumna of the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets as well as Summer Literary Seminars’ program in St. Petersburg, Russia; She was also a 2006 Pushcart Prize nominee from Natural Bridge and a finalist for the Cider Press Review First Book Contest. Her book The Fear of Being Found is forthcoming from Three Candles Press.

Larissa Szporluk, Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Literature, is author of four books of poetry, Dark Sky Question (Beacon Press, 1998), winner of the Barnard Poetry Prize; Isolato (University of Iowa Press, 2000), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize;  The Wind, Master Cherry, the Wind, (Alice James Books, 2003); Embryos and Idiots (Tupelo Press, 2007). She has been published in Daedalus, Faultline, and Meridian, and more recently in American Poetry Review and Black Warrior Review. Her poems have been widely anthologized in Best American Poetry 1999 and 2001, Best of Beacon 1999, New American Voices, Young American Poets, and 20th Century American Poetry. She is a recipient of an NEA in Poetry for 2003-2004, and received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Award for Poetry, 2003-2004.

Robert Vivian is the author of Cold Snap As Yearning, a collection of meditative essays--and The Mover Of Bones, part I of The Tall Grass Trilogy. He also writes plays, many of which have been produced in NYC. He teaches literature and creative writing at Alma College in Michigan.

Julie Wallace, sometimes called a metaphysical punk poet, works in software support. She co-hosted a poetry slam and open mike in Athens, Georgia, wrote a play in second grade, and was poetry editor of a small literary magazine. She enjoys genealogy, memoir, and meditation. She lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, with her two cats, Jasmine and Ivan.