Contributors
Frank Reardon- Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Minot, North Dakota. Frank has published poetry and short stories in many reviews, journals and online zines. His first poetry collection, 'Interstate Chokehold', was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009 as well as his second poetry collection 'Nirvana Haymaker' in 2012. His third poetry collection 'Blood Music' was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2013. In 2014 Reardon published a chapbook with Dog On A Chain Press titled 'The Broken Halo Blues'. Check out his story in the current Bull Men’s Fiction and his new poetry chapbook from Epic Rites Press in October.
AJ Atwater- Atwater is a Minnesota/Manhattan abstract painter and literary fiction writer with stories forthcoming or published in Literary Orphans, PANK, Vestal Review, Crack the Spine, Heavy Feather Review, Barely South Review, The Gravity of the Thing, 50-Word Stories, KYSO Flash and others. ajatwater.com
Kent Frates- Kent F. Frates is an Oklahoma City attorney and the author of five books, an original screenplay and numerous magazine articles, which have appeared in True West, Oklahoma Monthly, and This Land. His most recent book “Oklahoma’s Most Notorious Cases” won the Ben Franklin Award, a national award presented by the Independent Book Publisher’s Association.
Ted A. Geltner- Ted Geltner is an award-winning writer, editor, and a journalism educator who specializes in biography, sports writing, and the history of sports journalism. His current project is Blood, Bone & Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews, which is the first full-length biography of the legendary novelist and journalist Harry Crews. Geltner got to know Crews while working as a reporter, writing numerous articles about the cantankerous author and about his colorful escapades. Geltner began the research on the biography in 2011, interviewing Crews many times, and conducting dozens of interviews with friends, colleagues and contemporaries of Crews, as well as examining the Crews archives at University of Georgia. Blood, Bone and Marrow was published by University of Georgia Press in May of 2016. Geltner earned his doctoral degree, focusing on journalism history at the University of Florida, where he was a teacher, student and researcher while working as an editor and feature writer for the Gainesville Sun. He has written extensively about sports journalism history, authoring articles and giving presentations on subjects such as the history of Sports Illustrated magazine and literary journalism in sports.
Lisa J. MacDonald- Lisa J. MacDonald has an MFA in Writing Fiction from Antioch University LA. Some of her stories have appeared in Women's World, Roar, Irreanteum, Nomos Review, Mahogany & Molasses, and Once Upon. She has published to date twenty-three books including, Silent Cries and The Superstitious Romance, an Amazon Bestseller under the pseudo name Anastasia Alexander.
A. Rooney- Andrew Rooney teaches graduate creative writing at Regis University in Denver. He is the author of three novels, The Fact of Suffering, based on his time in Nigeria, The Dictionary of Finds, a travel word-play novel that uses Webster's original dictionary, and The Moirologist in Passing, about a protagonist who becomes a keener for others and himself. He is also the author of a collection of stories, The Colorado Motet, published in 2005. Travels in Ekphrasia, a collaborative art/writing chapbook, was published in 2006. His novella, Fall of the Rock Dove, was published by Mint Hill Books/Main St. Rag in 2012. He recently completed a collection of short stories, The Lesser Madonnas. A. Rooney has worked on the railroad, in a slaughterhouse, as a bus driver, in a big loser corporation, and on newspapers and magazines. His short stories and some of his poetry have appeared in journals, magazines, anthologies, and collections, and they have won plenty of prizes, although not any really big ones.
Larry Thacker- Larry D. Thacker is a writer and artist from Tennessee. His stories can be found in past issues of The Still Journal, The Emancipator, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Better Than Starbucks, Vandalia Journal and Dime Show Review. His poetry can be found in more than ninety publications. He is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia, the poetry chapbooks Voice Hunting and Memory Train, and the forthcoming full collection, Drifting in Awe. He is taking his poetry/fiction MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College. www.larrydthacker.com
Dave Barrett- Dave Barrett lives and writes out of Missoula, Montana. His fiction has appeared most recently in Midwestern Gothic, Gravel, Cirque and Longshot Island. His vignette--RED OF 10,000-- years can be heard in Episode 86 of the No Extra Words podcast. He teaches writing at Missoula College and is at work on a new novel.
Tom Graves-Graves is the former editor of Rock & Roll Disc magazine and has written for numerous national publications including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Washington Post, American History magazine, The Oxford American, Musician, The New Leader, and others. He is a professor of English at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee. Tom Graves is the award-winning author of Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, the Blues Foundation's choice for book of the year in 2010. Crossroads is now available in an updated Second Edition and is also available as an ebook. Graves is acclaimed for the literary verve of his writing and his eclectic tastes and interests, which have ranged from cult icon Louise Brooks to the wild and largely hidden world of professional arm-wrestling. His popular ebook, My Afternoon With Louise Brooks, is about exactly that -- the afternoon he spent with the fascinating but very crotchety and reclusive Louise Brooks. Graves was the last interviewer ever allowed in the former silent film star's apartment and life.
Dinty W. Moore- Dinty lives in Athens, Ohio, the funkadelicious, hillbilly-hippie Appalachian epicenter of thelocally-grown, locally-consumed, goats-are-for-cheese, paw-paws-are-for-eatin’, artisanal-salsa, our-farmers-market-rocks-the-hills sub-culture, where he grows his own heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions, and teaches a crop of brilliant undergraduate and stunningly talented graduate students as director of Ohio University’s BA, MA, and PhD in Creative Writing program. He has been published in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, Crazyhorse, and Okey-Panky, among numerous other venues.
Larry Baker
Kathleen Galvin- Kathleen Galvin is a writer and documentary photographer completing an MFA in creative writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, UnLost Journal, and Xavier Review. She specializes in slow-rolling Georgia’s rural dirt roads, where there is always something interesting happening.
Patrick Michael Finn- Patrick Michael Finn is the author of the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich and the story collection From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet, named a Best Book of 2011 in GQ Magazine. He lives in Mesa, Arizona.
William R. Soldan- William R. Soldan grew up in and around the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two children, and has worked as many things, including factory machinist, maintenance man, vacuum cleaner salesman, bouncer, personal trainer, and most recently, English instructor. He received his BA in English Literature and his MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in publications such as New World Writing, Thuglit, Jellyfish Review, Kentucky Review, Elm Leaves Journal, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, and many others. You can find him on the various social media sites, if you’re so inclined.
Chris Iovenko- Chris Iovenko is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles with many documentary and narrative film credits. Iovenko’s award-winning dark comedy EASY SIX (Showtime) starred Jim Belushi and marked Iovenko’s feature writing and directing debut. Iovenko has also published fiction and non-fiction widely in such places as The Louisville Courier Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Spin and Details Magazine."Lucky Streak", his book length collection of short stories, was published by World Audience Publishing. Chrisiovenko.com
Jay Atkinson- Jay Atkinson is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, investigative journalist, and itinerant amateur athlete from Methuen, Mass. He is the author of two novels, a story collection, and five narrative nonfiction books. His nonfiction book, ICE TIME, was a Publisher’s Weekly notable book of the year in 2001, and LEGENDS OF WINTER HILL was on the Boston Globe bestseller list for several weeks in 2005. Atkinson’s narrative nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Men’s Health, Boston Globe and many other publications. A former two sport college athlete, Atkinson has competed in rugby for three decades and continues to play in exotic locales with the Vandals Rugby Club out of Los Angeles. He teaches journalism at Boston University. Jayatkinson.com
Adam Van Winkle-Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma on both sides of the Oklahoma-Texas border and currently resides with his wife and two dogs on a rural route in Southern Illinois. His writing has appeared in places like Cheap Pop!, Crack the Spine, Vignette Review, Steel Toe Review, Dirty Chai, and Pithead Chapel. He has new fiction forthcoming in Red Dirt Forum and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature as well. His debut novel, Abraham Anyhow, was published by Red Dirt Press in March 2017 and selected by The Southern Literary Review as the June 2017 Read of the Month and featured in Monkeybicycle's If My Book series in July 2017. An excerpt of the novel has also received a Pushcart Nomination. Its style has been compared to the likes of John Steinbeck and Billie Letts and Donald Ray Pollock among others.
Constance Beitzel- Constance Beitzel is former lead editor and writer for The Buzz Magazine, a weekly culture rag in Champaign, IL. Currently she is a PhD candidate studying American Literature and Women's Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Frank Reardon- Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Minot, North Dakota. Frank has published poetry and short stories in many reviews, journals and online zines. His first poetry collection, 'Interstate Chokehold', was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009 as well as his second poetry collection 'Nirvana Haymaker' in 2012. His third poetry collection 'Blood Music' was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2013. In 2014 Reardon published a chapbook with Dog On A Chain Press titled 'The Broken Halo Blues'. Check out his story in the current Bull Men’s Fiction and his new poetry chapbook from Epic Rites Press in October.
AJ Atwater- Atwater is a Minnesota/Manhattan abstract painter and literary fiction writer with stories forthcoming or published in Literary Orphans, PANK, Vestal Review, Crack the Spine, Heavy Feather Review, Barely South Review, The Gravity of the Thing, 50-Word Stories, KYSO Flash and others. ajatwater.com
Kent Frates- Kent F. Frates is an Oklahoma City attorney and the author of five books, an original screenplay and numerous magazine articles, which have appeared in True West, Oklahoma Monthly, and This Land. His most recent book “Oklahoma’s Most Notorious Cases” won the Ben Franklin Award, a national award presented by the Independent Book Publisher’s Association.
Ted A. Geltner- Ted Geltner is an award-winning writer, editor, and a journalism educator who specializes in biography, sports writing, and the history of sports journalism. His current project is Blood, Bone & Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews, which is the first full-length biography of the legendary novelist and journalist Harry Crews. Geltner got to know Crews while working as a reporter, writing numerous articles about the cantankerous author and about his colorful escapades. Geltner began the research on the biography in 2011, interviewing Crews many times, and conducting dozens of interviews with friends, colleagues and contemporaries of Crews, as well as examining the Crews archives at University of Georgia. Blood, Bone and Marrow was published by University of Georgia Press in May of 2016. Geltner earned his doctoral degree, focusing on journalism history at the University of Florida, where he was a teacher, student and researcher while working as an editor and feature writer for the Gainesville Sun. He has written extensively about sports journalism history, authoring articles and giving presentations on subjects such as the history of Sports Illustrated magazine and literary journalism in sports.
Lisa J. MacDonald- Lisa J. MacDonald has an MFA in Writing Fiction from Antioch University LA. Some of her stories have appeared in Women's World, Roar, Irreanteum, Nomos Review, Mahogany & Molasses, and Once Upon. She has published to date twenty-three books including, Silent Cries and The Superstitious Romance, an Amazon Bestseller under the pseudo name Anastasia Alexander.
A. Rooney- Andrew Rooney teaches graduate creative writing at Regis University in Denver. He is the author of three novels, The Fact of Suffering, based on his time in Nigeria, The Dictionary of Finds, a travel word-play novel that uses Webster's original dictionary, and The Moirologist in Passing, about a protagonist who becomes a keener for others and himself. He is also the author of a collection of stories, The Colorado Motet, published in 2005. Travels in Ekphrasia, a collaborative art/writing chapbook, was published in 2006. His novella, Fall of the Rock Dove, was published by Mint Hill Books/Main St. Rag in 2012. He recently completed a collection of short stories, The Lesser Madonnas. A. Rooney has worked on the railroad, in a slaughterhouse, as a bus driver, in a big loser corporation, and on newspapers and magazines. His short stories and some of his poetry have appeared in journals, magazines, anthologies, and collections, and they have won plenty of prizes, although not any really big ones.
Larry Thacker- Larry D. Thacker is a writer and artist from Tennessee. His stories can be found in past issues of The Still Journal, The Emancipator, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Better Than Starbucks, Vandalia Journal and Dime Show Review. His poetry can be found in more than ninety publications. He is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia, the poetry chapbooks Voice Hunting and Memory Train, and the forthcoming full collection, Drifting in Awe. He is taking his poetry/fiction MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College. www.larrydthacker.com
Dave Barrett- Dave Barrett lives and writes out of Missoula, Montana. His fiction has appeared most recently in Midwestern Gothic, Gravel, Cirque and Longshot Island. His vignette--RED OF 10,000-- years can be heard in Episode 86 of the No Extra Words podcast. He teaches writing at Missoula College and is at work on a new novel.
Tom Graves-Graves is the former editor of Rock & Roll Disc magazine and has written for numerous national publications including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Washington Post, American History magazine, The Oxford American, Musician, The New Leader, and others. He is a professor of English at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee. Tom Graves is the award-winning author of Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, the Blues Foundation's choice for book of the year in 2010. Crossroads is now available in an updated Second Edition and is also available as an ebook. Graves is acclaimed for the literary verve of his writing and his eclectic tastes and interests, which have ranged from cult icon Louise Brooks to the wild and largely hidden world of professional arm-wrestling. His popular ebook, My Afternoon With Louise Brooks, is about exactly that -- the afternoon he spent with the fascinating but very crotchety and reclusive Louise Brooks. Graves was the last interviewer ever allowed in the former silent film star's apartment and life.
Dinty W. Moore- Dinty lives in Athens, Ohio, the funkadelicious, hillbilly-hippie Appalachian epicenter of thelocally-grown, locally-consumed, goats-are-for-cheese, paw-paws-are-for-eatin’, artisanal-salsa, our-farmers-market-rocks-the-hills sub-culture, where he grows his own heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions, and teaches a crop of brilliant undergraduate and stunningly talented graduate students as director of Ohio University’s BA, MA, and PhD in Creative Writing program. He has been published in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, Crazyhorse, and Okey-Panky, among numerous other venues.
Larry Baker
Kathleen Galvin- Kathleen Galvin is a writer and documentary photographer completing an MFA in creative writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, UnLost Journal, and Xavier Review. She specializes in slow-rolling Georgia’s rural dirt roads, where there is always something interesting happening.
Patrick Michael Finn- Patrick Michael Finn is the author of the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich and the story collection From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet, named a Best Book of 2011 in GQ Magazine. He lives in Mesa, Arizona.
William R. Soldan- William R. Soldan grew up in and around the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two children, and has worked as many things, including factory machinist, maintenance man, vacuum cleaner salesman, bouncer, personal trainer, and most recently, English instructor. He received his BA in English Literature and his MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in publications such as New World Writing, Thuglit, Jellyfish Review, Kentucky Review, Elm Leaves Journal, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, and many others. You can find him on the various social media sites, if you’re so inclined.
Chris Iovenko- Chris Iovenko is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles with many documentary and narrative film credits. Iovenko’s award-winning dark comedy EASY SIX (Showtime) starred Jim Belushi and marked Iovenko’s feature writing and directing debut. Iovenko has also published fiction and non-fiction widely in such places as The Louisville Courier Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Spin and Details Magazine."Lucky Streak", his book length collection of short stories, was published by World Audience Publishing. Chrisiovenko.com
Jay Atkinson- Jay Atkinson is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, investigative journalist, and itinerant amateur athlete from Methuen, Mass. He is the author of two novels, a story collection, and five narrative nonfiction books. His nonfiction book, ICE TIME, was a Publisher’s Weekly notable book of the year in 2001, and LEGENDS OF WINTER HILL was on the Boston Globe bestseller list for several weeks in 2005. Atkinson’s narrative nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Men’s Health, Boston Globe and many other publications. A former two sport college athlete, Atkinson has competed in rugby for three decades and continues to play in exotic locales with the Vandals Rugby Club out of Los Angeles. He teaches journalism at Boston University. Jayatkinson.com
Adam Van Winkle-Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma on both sides of the Oklahoma-Texas border and currently resides with his wife and two dogs on a rural route in Southern Illinois. His writing has appeared in places like Cheap Pop!, Crack the Spine, Vignette Review, Steel Toe Review, Dirty Chai, and Pithead Chapel. He has new fiction forthcoming in Red Dirt Forum and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature as well. His debut novel, Abraham Anyhow, was published by Red Dirt Press in March 2017 and selected by The Southern Literary Review as the June 2017 Read of the Month and featured in Monkeybicycle's If My Book series in July 2017. An excerpt of the novel has also received a Pushcart Nomination. Its style has been compared to the likes of John Steinbeck and Billie Letts and Donald Ray Pollock among others.
Constance Beitzel- Constance Beitzel is former lead editor and writer for The Buzz Magazine, a weekly culture rag in Champaign, IL. Currently she is a PhD candidate studying American Literature and Women's Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.