Stonecrop 02
Contributors' Notes
John Barrie — I am an emerging writer from Boise, Idaho, and an undergraduate at Boise State, where I am currently a slush pile reader on The Idaho Review. My micro fiction has been published in the Boise Weekly and College of Western Idaho's former literary journal, Basalt, now called Stonecrop Magazine.
Reporter, photographic and visual artist, Guilherme Bergamini is Brazilian and graduated in Journalism. For more than two decades, he has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art offers. The works of the artist dialogue between memory and social political criticism. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 21 countries. guilhermebergamini.com.
Jennifer Brown studied creative writing at the University of Maryland and University of Houston and has published poetry and essays in such magazines as New Letters, American Literary Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Colorado Review. She spent several years teaching college and high-school English, living on the campus of a boarding school, and teaching creative writing in summer programs. In 2018, she won the Linda Flowers Literary Award from the NC Humanities Council; the winning essay is forthcoming in North Carolina Literary Review in 2019. She also has poems forthcoming in IthacaLit.
Sinejan Kiliç Buchina is an artist, grad student, and visual educator. She received her B.F.A. in Art Education from Marmara University in 2006, then completed the Isms in the 20th Century course in London in 2009. Further, she was selected as a resident curator at the Node Center in Berlin in 2012 and is currently finishing her MA in Art History and Museum Studies at City College of New York. thesinejan.com.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet. Recipient of the 2018 Robert Muroff Poetry Award, she got her MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University. Her poems, fiction and translations have been published in Full of Crow Press, Ambit Magazine, HeadStuff, Waxwing and elsewhere. Her collection “The Flavor of the Other” is scheduled for publication in 2019 with Dos Madres Press.
Lianne Collins — I am currently a student at Boise State University, seeking a degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in Linguistics. I am a tutor at College of Western Idaho, and my work appears in Stonecrop Magazine.
Carol Dines — Several stories from a new collection have recently been published. The story, “Almost,” was published in the winter issue of Ploughshares. Three stories, “The Dog,” “Distance of Closeness” and “Disappearances” have been finalists in Narrative’s winter and spring fiction contests. “Distance of Closeness” and “The Dog” have both been published in Narrative. The story, “Ice Bells” was published in the winter issue of the Worcester Review. I have also published two novels for young adults, Best Friends Tell the Best Lies (Delacorte); The Queen’s Soprano (Harcourt) and a collection of short stories for young adults, Talk to Me (Delacorte). In addition, I have published poems and stories in Bellingham Review, Great River Review, Colorado North Review, Calliope, and in anthologies Somebody’s Speaking My Language, Voices of the Land, and Love and Lust. I am the recipient of the Judy Blume Award and have also received Minnesota and Wisconsin State Artist Fellowships.
Federico Federici (1974) is a physicist, a translator and a writer. He lives between Berlin and the Ligurian Apennines. His works have appeared in 3:AM Magazine, Magma Poetry, Le Monde Diplomatique, Raum, Sand, Trafika Europe, and others. Among his books: the long poem in English and German “Requiem auf einer Stele” (2017) and the asemic album “Liner notes for a Pithecanthropus Erectus sketchbook” with a foreword by SJ Fowler. In 2017, he was awarded the Lorenzo Montano Prize for prose. Website: http://federicofederici.net. Archives: http://leserpent.wordpress.com.
Thom Garzone has been writing poetry altogether for 30 years, and has been getting published since 1995. Thom has 8 chapbooks of poems, and earned a BA from Boise State in 2007. Thom has been working on numerous volumes of fiction about his experiences growing up in New York City, and coming of age in California.
Ben Hall received his MA in English from Austin Peay University and currently writes and teaches English in South Korea. His essays have previously appeared in The Cobalt Review and Contraposition Magazine, and his poetry has appeared in The Manhattanville Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, The Bangalore Review, Fearful Critters, and others.
Susan Heeger — A Los Angeles writer, I have covered gardens, design, food and interesting people for numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. Recent essays of mine (part of a collection-in-progress about my mother) have appeared in O Magazine and Catamaran, and a third is upcoming in Crab Orchard Review. I had a short story in the Autumn issue of the Maine Review, and another story is currently featured on the Streetlight Voices podcast. Some of my other writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House Open Bar and the Virginia Quarterly Review.
My name is Michael Hower. I am a 39 year old photographer from Central Pennsylvania where I reside with my wife and my two boys. My experience with digital photography began six years ago. Over that time, I have amassed a resumé of over a hundred exhibitions and publications. My work has been featured in shows at the Biggs Museum of Art, DE; Masur Museum of Art, LA; Pennsylvania State Museum, PA and Marshall University, WV. www.michaelhowerphotography.com and Instagram @michaelhowerphotography.
B.H. James’s first novel, Parnucklian for Chocolate, was a finalist for the 2014 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction. He is the co-author of Method to the Madness: A Common Core Guide to Creating Critical Thinkers through the Study of Literature, and he teaches high school English in Northern California, where he lives with his wife and two sons. www.bhjames.com.
My name is Kendra Mattson, I am a full time student at College of Western Idaho. I will be graduating with an associates in Studio Art this May, and will continue on to Boise State University to major in Graphic Design. Photography is a newfound passion of mine, and I strive to capture images from unique perspectives. I hope to continue to grow my skills and knowledge around the arts and to continue doing what I love. Instagram @kendraroophotography.
Matt Naylor — I live and sell donuts in North Carolina. Previous work has been published in Hobart.
Michelle Nordin-Mills is a photography enthusiast raised in the Boise area, and has watched her community grow for 44 years. Along with the population growth in the area comes aesthetic changes as well, so while Michelle enjoys photographing animals and landscapes in natural settings, she also appreciates the beauty of repetition in natural landscapes mixed with patterns of architecture. She is spontaneous with her photographs, preferring to set out without a plan. A desire to document life and history motivates her to get out and see what awaits her.
Elaine Olund writes, designs and creates art in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her stories and poems have appeared in Peregrine, Flyway, Bartleby Snopes, Black Demin Lit, Turk’s Head Review, among others. Find her art and reflections at elaineolund.com.
Kimberly Rivers is a Business Systems Analyst who has happily landed in Kent, Ohio. She once owned a scented paper company, which has supplied her with marvelous-smelling bookmarks for life. She is currently studying creative writing at Kent State University.
Ryan Shek — In 2014, I graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in journalism and creative writing. I’ve worked as a journalist, was raised by farmers, and am now an MFA candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Joseph Sigurdson is a writer who now lives in Mississippi because the winters in Buffalo are actually that bad.
Raised in the American Midwest in what was once known as The German Triangle, Josef “Jupp” Soetebier’s work explores what effect his Deutsch heritage, ancestral family, and the mythology of his peoples have had on memory and the way he perceives and goes about the world. Mr. Soetebier received his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Florida in 1988 and taught drawing at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. He was an original member of the South Florida Art Center and later worked as a decorative painter in New York City and Los Angeles. He currently resides in Northern California with his wife and two Leonberger dogs. He also maintains a working studio in Los Angeles.
Ashlee Vanliew — I am an English/Creative Writing major at CWI and a professional content writer. I have published a text-based choose-your-ownadventure-game for sale as an app as well as creative nonfiction in local and nationwide magazines.
B.A. Van Sise is an internationally-known photographer and the author of the visual poetry anthology “Children of Grass.” His visual and written work has previously appeared in the New York Times, Village Voice, Washington Post and Buzzfeed, as well as major museum exhibitions throughout the United States. www.bavansise.com.
Lucy Walker is a Vermont poet currently studying for her MFA in Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She’s previously been published in Vantage Point, Blue Earth Review, and Off the Coast.
A jiujitsu-crazed poet, writer, editor and photographer, Jen Wieber writes stories to connect the extraordinary of the everyday life. Jen practically lives on the jiu-jitsu mat with her husband and three daughters, and is the reigning champion of the 1989 Tuesday night Hula Hoop Contest at the Puyallup Fair. www.jenwieber.com and @jenwieber_writer.
Mitch Wieland is the author of the novels Willy Slater’s Lane and God’s Dogs. Willy Slater’s Lane received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, and was optioned for a film. Named Idaho Book of the Year, God’s Dogs was featured in the annual Best of the West prize anthology, and was a top finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Award. Wieland’s short stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, Tri Quarterly, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Story Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, among other publications. Wieland is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship, a Boise State University Arts and Humanities Fellowship, and two Literature Fellowships from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. He is currently finishing a novel set in Japan in the aftermath of Fukushima. A co-founder of the MFA program in creative writing at Boise State University, Wieland was its director for ten years. Currently in his twenty-second year at Boise State, he serves as the founding editor of the award-winning Idaho Review, and teaches MFA and BFA classes in fiction writing and publishing/editing.
Storyfort Micro Fiction 2019 Judge — As featured in The New York Times, Reema Zaman is an award-winning author, speaker, and actress, and the 2018 Oregon Literary Arts Writer of Color Fellow. Born in Bangladesh, raised in Thailand, and presently residing in Oregon, she holds a double BA in Gender Studies and Theater from Skidmore College. Her wildly acclaimed memoir I Am Yours was released February 5, 2019. Beloved by all communities, all ages, all genders, I Am Yours has already been adopted into the curriculum for several high schools through an Innovation Grant from the Oregon Department of Eduction.