Contributors' Notes: Issue Eight (Spring 1999)

About the Artist: James Deeb is a Chicago-based artist who has been producing and exhibiting paintings and monotypes for over ten years. He received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University at South Bend in 1988 and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Western Michigan University in 1994. In 1995, he was the recipient of the Walter Enz Award. James has shown his work in numerous competitive, group, and solo exhibitions. His most recent one person exhibition, "Toxic Life," ran from April until June of 1998 at The South Bend Regional Museum of Art in South bend, Indiana. Currently, his work is featured on the Radio Free Necropolis Internet Gallery at: www.intentscp.com/necropolis/index.htm

Artist's Statement: In my art, I emphasize the subjective and expressive qualities of each image. Although I usually work representationally, I am not interested in communicating a narrative. I want my work to be able to repeatedly affect the viewer over a long period of time. When I paint, I use pure colors and thick textures to emphasize the surface of the canvas. At the same time, I use strong perspective devices to suggest a deep space. I believe that both of these seemingly contradictory approaches co-existing in a work of art, together with the appropriate choice of imagery, create a synthesis that goes beyond the sum of its component parts. The aim of this synthesis is to entice the viewer into contemplating the image while delaying the viewer from reaching a quick interpretation. If successful, the work can then become a jumping off point to a broader and more meaningful perceptual experience.

Edward Bartok-Baratta worked for eight years with homeless men in Boston's Combat Zone and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in Artful Dodge, Harvard Review, The Laurel Review, Manoa, The Massachusetts Review, The Seattle Review, and The Spoon River Poetry Review.

Ian Brand's poetry has appeared in periodicals including American Literary Review, The Manhattan Review, and Passages North. He received his MFA from Vermont College.

Bonnie Campbell recently received her MFA from Western Michigan University. "Gorilla Girl" is part of Campbell's collection Women & Other Animals, the winner of the 1998 AWP prize for short fiction, to be published this fall by the University of Massachusetts Press.

Bryan Charles grew up in Galesburg, Michigan and attended Western Michigan University. He recently moved to Brooklyn, New York.

Holly Clark received her MFA from Bowling Green State University.

William Coleman's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, and Image.

Deborah Cummins is the author of From the Road it Looks Like Paradise, a chapbook of poems, and is the recipient of James B. Michener and Donald Barthelme fellowships. Her work has recently appeared in journals including New England Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Laurel Review.

Jim Daniels' most recent book of poems, Blessing the House, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1997. He also edited the anthology, Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race, published by Wayne State University Press in 1995.

Nick Flynn's first book of poems, Some Ether, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press. He livesin Brooklyn, New York.

Todd Fuller's work has recently appeared in American Literary Review, Hawaii Review, and Elysian Fields Quarterly; work is forthcoming in The Spoon River Poetry Review. He is a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University, where he is an associate editor for the Cimarron Review.

Mark Jarman's latest collection of poetry, Questions for Ecclesiastes, won the Leonore Marshall Poetry Prize for 1998 and was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also co-editor of Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism and co-author of The Reaper Essays. His book of essays, The Secret of Poetry, is forthcoming from Story Line Press, as is his next collection of poetry, Unholy Sonnets. He teaches at Vanderbilt University.

Allison Eir Jenks's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Hollins Critic, New Orleans Review, Poet Lore, Hawaii Review, and Parnassus. Twenty of her poems are included in an Introduction Series by Windows Publications in Cavan, Ireland (October, 1998). She is a Lecturer of English at Lamar University in Texas.

Peter Johnson has two new books: Pretty Happy!, a book of prose poems (White Pine Press, 1997); and I'm a Man, winner of the Rain Crow Press Fiction Chapbook contest. A chapbook of prose poems, Love Poems for the Millennium, is forthcoming from Quale Press.

Kristin Kovacic is a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, and a recent fellow of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her work has appeared in journals including Carolina Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Cimarron Review, and Gulf Stream.

Susan Landgraf is a writer and photographer. Her poems have appeared in The Laurel Review, Nimrod, Ploughshares, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Greenfield Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and Paintbrush. She has received the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry from Nimrod and an Academy of American Poets Award.

Philip Levine's collection of poems, The Simple Truth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. Two of his books have won National Book Awards: Ashes in 1980, and What Work Is in 1991. Levine's books have received two National Book Critic Circle Awards and the Lenore Marshall Award. In 1997 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His new book, The Mercy, will be published by Knopf in 1999.

Malena Morling's poems have appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, Countermeasures, Boulevard, Marlboro Review, and Mudfish. Her first book, Ocean Avenue, was selected by Philip Levine for the New Issues Press Poetry Prize in 1998, and will be published by New Issues Press in March 1999.

Erica Pedersen is pursuing her MFA at Eastern Washington University. Her work has appeared in The Brownstone Review, Illya's Honey, and tight. She likes to eat at the same time as her canaries are eating.

Todd Robert Petersen is a PhD candidate in creative writing and critical theory at Oklahoma State University where he is also a fiction editor for the Cimarron Review. His poems, stories, and reviews appear in Mid-American Review, Pleiades, Dialogue, Sunstone, and other small journals.

Betsy Sholl's most recent book is Don't Explain (University of Wisconsin Press, 1997). She teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the MFA Program at Vermont College. She lives with her family in Portland, Maine.

Kelly Simon's work has appeared in The Quarterly, Ploughshares, Ellery Queen, The Washington Post, The Santa Clara Review, Traveler's Tales (Hong Kong, Food, and Italy), NPR, and upcoming volumes of The Norton Anthology and Alaska Quarterly Review. She received the 1998 Lowell Thomas Silver Medal for travel writing. Weldon Press has published her Thai cookbook.

Myrna Stone's work has appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Green Mountains Review, and other periodicals. She has received an Individual Artist's Fellowship in poetry from the Ohio Arts Council. Her collection entitled The Art of Loss will be published by Michigan State University Press in 2000.

Charles Harper Webb is a rock singer turned psychotherapist and Professor of English at CSU, Long Beach. His book Reading the Water (Northeastern University Press) won the 1997 Morse Poetry Prize, and the 1998 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He received a 1998 Whiting Writer's Award.

Chris Weidenbach's poems have appeared recently in Cimarron Review, LitRag, Burning Cloud Review, and Monster, as well as previously in Third Coast. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arizona.

Dallas Wiebe's stories and poems have appeared in many journals, including The Paris Review, North American Review, Epoch, and Fiction International. He has published two novels, three books of short stories, and a book of poems. A founder and editor of Cincinnati Poetry Review through the first twenty-four issues, he is currently at work on a collection of short stories entitled Slapsticks.

Leslie Williams' work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, American Literary Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Poet Lore. She has degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia and lives in Chicago.

Leonore Wilson teaches creative writing at Napa Valley College. Her work has appeared in Poet and Critic, Quarterly West, The Laurel Review, and The California Quarterly.

Nance Van Winckel is the author of three collections of poems: Bad Girl, with Hawk; The Dirt; and After a Spell. She has also published two collections of short stories, Limited Lifetime Warranty and Quake. She has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as a Washington State Artists Trust Literary Award. She is a professor in the graduate creative writing program at Eastern Washington University.

David Zauhar lives in Chicago and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, Sulfur, Chiron Review, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly