POETS
Katie Bickham's (Montgomery, Dublin, Missoula, Nunavik Region, Unnamed Hamlet) debut book of poetry, The Belle Mar, was selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize at Pleaides Press. Katie has also won The New Millenium Poetry Prize, The Missouri Review Editor's Prize, and has poems published or forthcoming in The New Guard, Rattle, Southern Quarterly, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, and elsewhere. Katie received her MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine and teaches creative writing at Bossier Parish Community College. She lives in Shreveport with her husband, son, and oddly-shaped shelter dogs. Katie can be reached through her website: katiebickham.net.
Chelsea Dingman’s (Self-Portrait As God..., How Humans Are Structured And Formed, Let The Night Come..., We Didn't Read The Fine Print, Re-Petetion) first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). In 2016-17, she also won The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize, The Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize, and Water-stone Review’s Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in Ninth Letter, The Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, Cincinnati Review, and Gulf Coast, among others. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
Jacqueline He (Supermarket In Between, Ballad of the Hulijing, Confessional, Dead Stag to Hunter, Ophelia, Mollusk Threnody) is a senior from the Harker School in San Jose, California. Her writing has been commended by Columbia College Chicago, Bennington College, Princeton University, and the National Young Arts Foundation. She has been nominated for Bettering American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize.
A 2017 New Jersey Council on the Arts poetry fellow, Nicole Rollender (Threshold With A Crown Of Bees, Lost Things Keep Appearing, Lamp Lighting, Fireworks, Holy Fools Day Litany) is the author of the poetry collection, Louder Than Everything You Love (Five Oaks Press), and the poetry chapbooks Arrangement of Desire, Absence of Stars(dancing girl press & studio), Ghost Tongue (Porkbelly Press), and Bone of My Bone, a winning manuscript in Blood Pudding Press’s 2015 Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New Poets, diode poetry journal, The Journal, Memorious, Ninth Letter, Word Riot and West Branch, among others. She’s associate editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal and the recipient of poetry prizes from CALYX Journal, Gigantic Sequins, Princemere Journal and Ruminate Magazine. She earned her MFA in poetry at the Pennsylvania State University. Visit her online: www.nicolerollender.com.
Emily Van Kley (Introduction 1, Dusk, Introduction 2, Dénouement) was raised in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, though she now lives with her partner in Olympia, Washington. Her first collection, The Cold and the Rust, was awarded the 2017 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize from Persea Press, and is forthcoming in March of 2018. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, Best New Poets, and Best American Poetry, among others.
Emily Viggiano Saland (The Semele Sequence I, II, III, IV, V) holds a BA in English and Classics from Cornell University and an MFA from George Mason University, where she was the Heritage Writing Fellow and Editor of Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from DIAGRAM, The Cincinnati Review, Smartish Pace, Mare Nostrum, Pear Noir!, Booth: A Journal, and The Seneca Review. She teaches at Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, NY.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Cole Caswell (Atmosphere, LA River Wild, Desert Portal, Ascending the Elk River, Diablo Wandering, Celestial Wayfinding) researches the remnants and patterns in our landscape that reflect contemporary strategies of survival. Through strata of observation, technology, subjectivity, and his surroundings, Caswell investigates geography and its impact on our perceived ability to survive. He uses traditional, historic, and digital photographic media—including tintypes, environmental data sets, and augmented sampling procedures—to investigate our present condition. Cole received an interdisciplinary M.F.A. from the Maine College of Art, and has been working, living, and traveling throughout the county in a nomadic format. At the present, he is exploring one's ability to subsist within our contemporary environment, while furthering his inquirers into emergent and experimental photographic processes, perspectives, and applications. His studio is located on Peaks Island off the coast of Maine. Learn more at colecaswell.com.
Sonja Dahl (Messages From The Sun, Messages From The Sun, Egress, Messages From The Sun, Egress) is a visual artist, writer, and Research Associate at the University of Oregon, Eugene. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and subsequently spent several years making research and collaborative projects in Indonesia as a Fulbright Fellow. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and her writing is published in both peer-reviewed journals and print-based and online arts publications. Her recent artwork and writing can be found at sonjakdahl.com.
Jovencio de la Paz (Egress, Egress) is an artist, writer, and educator. His work explores the intersection of textile processes such as weaving, dye, and stitchwork as they relate to broader concerns of language, histories of colonization, migrancy, ancient technology, and speculative futures. Interested in the ways transient or ephemeral experiences are embodied in material, de la Paz looks to how knowledge and experiences are transmitted through society in space and time, whether semiotically by language or haptically by made things. He is currently Assistant Professor and Curricular Head of Fibers at the University of Oregon. Jovencio received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2012, and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.
With elaborate research of textures and colours, Karine Léger's (Shallow Freeze, Dancing Sky, La Tombée de la Nuit, Dénouement) approach first involves the need to deconstruct in order to lay the foundations for an introspective reconstruction. Similar but independent forms come together, at times nearly touching, other times precariously balancing on one another or merging. It creates a contemplative space for the viewer to lose—or indeed find—themselves for a moment. Karine Léger lives and works in Montréal, Canada. Learn more at karineleger.ca.
Jovi Schnell's (Moon Seed, Rosaniline Mementa, The Late Bloomers, Push-Pull, Willow Wishes) nomadic adventures began in the Ozarks in Arkansas and found their way to Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles where she currently lives and works. Her paintings appear both on canvas and as large murals. In 2010 she also began to create site-specific large-scale commissioned works for the public realm. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in ‘92, and MFA with a focus on painting from UC Berkeley in 2017. Additionally, she has completed residencies at the De Ateliers in Amsterdam, NL, Skowhegan School of Art, and the McDowell Colony. In 2002 she received the Pollack-Krasner award for painting. Ms. Schnell’s work has been exhibited in many galleries and institutions including the Stedelijk Bureau Museum in Amsterdam, The Brooklyn Museum and The Berkeley Art Museum. Her work has received reviews in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Flash Art, and Art in America. Learn more at jovischnell.com.
Ashley Valmere (Bloody Stocks, River People, Yvette In Water, Embers, White Balloon) grew up in various locations and cultures, learning to use the camera as a way to explore undiscovered places or to build her own. Inspired by the outdoors and science fiction novels, Ashley seeks to portray the world around us in a way that questions our belief in the physical truth of things as they appear to be. Learn more at ashleyvalmere.com.
Jin Zhu (Endless, Picnic, Boundary, Spilled Fruit, Workbench, KZSU, Orange) is an artist who creates video and installation work focusing on the dynamics of settlement and dispossession in the history of the Americas. She also works with filmmakers and artists in the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project to record oral histories and video narratives of tenants threatened by eviction. In her work, home is a site of rootedness in place, as well as the epicenter of potential loss of community when threatened by displacement. Jin received her MFA from UC Berkeley and holds a BA in Art Practice from Stanford University. Her work has been shown at SFAC galleries, Southern Exposure, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Embark Gallery, BAMPFA, the Cantor Center for the Arts, Kala Institute, Berkeley Art Center, and Artist Television Access. Learn more at killeryellow.com.