POETS
A writer and book artist, Kristy Bowen (from exquisite damage: a midwest gothic 1, 2) is the author of a number of chapbook, zine, and artist book projects, as well as several full-length hybrid poetry/prose collections, including Salvage (Black Lawrence Press, 2016) and Major Characters In Minor Films (Sundress Publications, 2015). She lives in Chicago where she runs dancing girl press & studio.
Christos Kalli (Night-Prayer), born in Cyprus, is currently studying American Literature at the University of Cambridge. His poetry has been translated into French, shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize (2017), named a finalist for The Ellis Award (2018), and nominated for Best New Poets (2018). His chapbook INT. NIGHT was a finalist for the Sutra Press Chapbook Contest (2017). His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from the American Journal of Poetry, the Adroit Journal, the Los Angeles Review, the minnesota review, PANK, The Hollins Critic, Harpur Palate, the National Poetry Review, and Dunes Review, among others. He is a Poetry Reader at/for the Adroit Journal. Visit him at christoskalli.com.
Dante Di Stefano (What The Sunlight In An Andrew Wyeth Painting Said) is the author of two poetry collections: Love Is a Stone Endlessly in Flight (Brighthorse Books, 2016) and Ill Angels (Etruscan Press, 2019). Along with María Isabel Álvarez, he is the co-editor of the anthology Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America (NYQ Books, 2018).
Jeff Ewing's (Mutt, Trout Spawn In White Clouds) poems, stories, and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Willow Springs, Sugar House Review, Crazyhorse, Saint Ann's Review, Lake Effect, and Penn Review, among others. His debut short story collection, The Middle Ground, will be published by Into the Void Press in February, 2019. He lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and daughter.
Ella Flores (Asparagus Clouds (Asperitas), Tx13) is an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University and an associate poetry editor for Passages North. Ella has recent and forthcoming publications at RHINO Poetry, Puerto Del Sol, Plume Poetry, and Barely South Review.
Jenny Grassl (of loungewear) was raised in Pennsylvania and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems appeared most recently in the Boston Review 2018 annual poetry contest, runner-up prize selected by Mary Jo Bang, also in the anthology: Humanagerie, Eibonvale Press, UK, Ocean State Review, and Rogue Agent. Her poems are forthcoming in: Rhino Poetry, Phantom Drift, Radar Poetry, and Massachusetts Review.
Danielle Pieratti's (Autumn) work has appeared in The Paris Review, Sixth Finch, Rhino, Boston Review, and Cream City Review. Her first book, Fugitives, was published by Lost Horse Press in 2016 and won the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry in 2017. She is the author of two chapbooks: By the Dog Star (Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press), the 2005 winner of the Edda Chapbook Competition for Women, and The Post, the Cage, the Palisade, published by Dancing Girl Press in 2015. She lives in Connecticut.
2017 NJ Council on the Arts Poetry Fellow, Nicole Rollender (Littlest Bones) is the author of the poetry collection Louder Than Everything You Love (Five Oaks Press) and four poetry chapbooks. She has won poetry prizes from Gigantic Sequins, CALYX Journal, Princemere Journal, and Ruminate Magazine. Her work also appears in Alaska Quarterly Review, Best New Poets, The Journal, and Ninth Letter. Nicole is managing editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal and holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania State University.
Matthew Sumpter (Ars Poetica With Inflatable Pool-Toy Dinosaur) is author of Public Land (University of Tampa Press, 2018), which won the Anita Claire Scharf Award. His poems have previously appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, and Best New Poets 2014, and his fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train. Winner of the Crab Orchard Review Special Issues Feature Award and the Zocalo Public Square Poetry Prize. His work has also been featured on Poetry Daily. He currently teaches academic and creative writing at Rutgers University, where he is Coordinator of the Livingston Writing Center and an Assistant Director of the Writing Program.
Arto Vaun (Instruction No. 1) is a poet, musician, and academic, originally from Boston. Arto’s book-length poem, Capillarity, was published by Carcanet Press. Arto’s work has appeared in Barrow Street, Meridian, PN Review, and other journals, as well as in various anthologies like the 2010 Forward Book of Poetry (Faber). Currently, Arto lives in Armenia as the the Director of the Center for Creative Writing at the American University of Armenia. Arto also the founding editor of Locomotive, a journal of international writing.
John Whalen (Home For The Reenactment) has published a book of poetry, Caliban, from Lost Horse Press and two chapbooks, In Honor of the Spigot and Above the Pear Trees which won the 2014 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. John’s poetry has appeared in VQR, The Gettysburg Review, EPOCH, Willow Springs, Cutbank, and Puerto del Sol.
John Sibley Williams (Symptoms of Manhood, Cicadas in Winter) is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. A fourteen-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, The 46er Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Visual Artists
Chloe Barreau (Fragmented) is a multidisciplinary artist from Hong Kong. She enjoys exploring the movement of the masses, how we are contained, and how our containment increases our tendency to order our environment. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Stanford Art Gallery and published in The Adroit Journal. Chloe is currently a sophomore at Stanford University studying Computer Science and Art Practice. Learn more at chloebarreau.github.io and mugidolls.com.
Matthew Bergey (The Sun) is a painter from Maryland. Educated in Providence, Rhode Island, with a BFA Painting from RISD, he is 22 years old, 149 pounds, 6'2" with short dark brown hair and round glasses. He can be found digitally on www.MBergey.com and physically walking around Benefit St. anytime from 10AM to 1AM.
Sarah Detweiler (Cover Art, Mental Load #2, Habitat #1) is a Philadelphia area-based mixed media painter whose most recent works incorporate embroidery with watercolor, gouache and oil paints. She has a BFA from the University of Delaware in Visual Communications and a Masters in Art Therapy from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited in group and solo shows in various locations including New York City, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Sarah's art centers around themes of feminism, female empowerment, and the human experience. Prints of Sarah's art are available through her Etsy store, SD Artifacts: www.SDArtifacts.etsy.com.
Born in South Korea, Mi Ju (Blue Sheep, Mother, Bigger Than You #1) received her BFA in painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute. Mi went on to earn her MFA in painting and drawing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She has shown in group and solo exhibitions in Seoul, San Francisco, San Diego, Copenhagen and New York. Mi’s work was recently acquired by the Fredrick R. Weisman Foundation of Los Angeles. Mi currently lives and works in NYC. Learn more at mijumiju.com.
Pamela Lawton (Mai Tai Sun) is a United States Fulbright Scholar for 2019-20. Her grant research will take place in Siena, Italy. She has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including one-person exhibitions at the Galeria Nacional in San Jose, Costa Rica; The Conde Nast Building, NY; 180 Maiden Lane, NY; The Atrium Gallery, NY; and the Galeria Isabel Ignacio in Seville, Spain. Group exhibitions featuring her work include Pierogi Gallery, NYC; Sideshow Gallery, NYC; Tibor De Nagy Gallery, NYC; The Artists’ Museum, Lodz, Poland; and the Emmanuel Heller Gallery, Tel Aviv. Lawton is currently an Artist-In-Residence (AIR) at Chashama, NYC, and has been an AIR at the World Trade Center through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Collaborations with poets include Sweet-voiced [mutilated] Papyrus, Anne Waldman (Spyuyten Duyvil Press, 2015), Walking After Midnight, Bill Kushner (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2011), and A Place In the Sun, Lewis Warsh (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2010). Interviews featuring her one-person exhibitions were featured on NY 1 News in November 2009 and November 2011. She received a BA from Bennington College in visual arts and an MFA in painting from the City College in New York and Scuola Lorenzo De Medici in Florence, Italy. While a faculty member at New School University, she created a study abroad art program in Sri Lanka. She teaches at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is on the faculty of Manhattanville College.
Sara Lightning (Distraction #4) is a painter from Denver, Colorado, currently living and working in Budapest, Hungary. Her paintings primarily focus on the figure in various states of abstraction, often collapsing pictorial space between the figure and the environment. Her approaches range from creating visual intersections between people and architecture to using patterns as a grounding device against which gestural iterations of the figure are overlaid. More at saralightning.com or on instagram @saralightningart.
Robert Minervini (Contemplating The Moon) is an artist living in Oakland, California. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his BFA from Tyler School of Art. He has exhibited nationally including with Hirschl & Adler Modern, Edward Cella Gallery, Rena Bransten Gallery, the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. He has participated in artist in residence programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Headlands Center of the Arts. His work has been reviewed in the LA Times, Modern Painters, and the San Francisco Chronicle. More at robertminervini.com or on instagram @robert_minervini.
Tema Stauffer (Field of Sad Trees, Furgary Shacks) is a photographer whose work examines the social, economic, and psychological landscape of American spaces. Her work has been exhibited at Sasha Wolf, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, and Jen Bekman galleries in New York City, as well as galleries and institutions internationally, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. In 2010, she was awarded an AOL 25 for 25 Grant for innovation in the arts for her combined work as an artist, curator, and writer. She was a finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013; she was also the recipient of the 2012 Women in Photography – LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant and a 2014 Workspace Residency for her documentary portrait series, Paterson, depicting residents of Paterson, New Jersey during the years following the American economic crisis. She received her BA from Oberlin College and her Master’s degree in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stauffer is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography (LTA) at Concordia University in Montreal. Learn more at temastauffer.com.