BIOGRAPHIES

Daniel Baig, Russell Crowe’s Stereo  

Daniel Baig is a writer based out of San Diego, California who focuses on writing about trying to understand one's place in the world--no matter how big or small that world may be. He is currently developing short stories that draw inspiration from his past travels and time spent abroad but he is also fascinated by science and what it could mean for our future. Daniel is an avid hiker and a lifelong learner driven by his natural curiosity and willingness to try and fail at as many things as possible.        

David Alan Graham, Cigar Box

David Graham is writer and educator living in Lubbock Texas with his wife, kids, and tortoise. He teaches writing at Texas Tech University. He received his MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He mostly writes fiction, plays, memoir and oddball creative non-fiction. He has had plays produced in Denver, Colorado and Portland, Maine and his work has been published both online and in print, including Bombay Gin, Third Street Writers: Beach Reads, the Vegetable Lamb and EscapistMagazine.com. His short story The Ceiling Piece has been translated into Japanese and published by Kenkyusha Co.

Daniel Acosta, Memories of a Mexican Boy Growing up in El Paso: A Death in the Alley

Dan Acosta is a first-generation Mexican American, whose mother and grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator, who retired in 2019 at age 74.  He plans to write about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in white America.  He will focus on personal vignettes about his education and career.

Rebecca Papin, Full Circle

Rebecca is an agented writer, represented by Julie Gwinn at The Seymour Agency. Her debut novel, THE QUEEN CAME HOME, is currently on submission.

Hillary Gordon,  How To Pick Blueberries When You're Single

Hillary Gordon lives in Ojai, California. She works in FM radio and is in the process of completing her MFA in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured in Seventeen Magazine, Anvil and Lyre, The Harbinger and The Island Fox. 

Andrea Mauk, Slipping

Andrea Mauk is currently working on her MFA thesis in Creative Writing at Mount St. Mary's University. She also works in real estate and on housing and preservation issues facing the South and Central Los Angeles communities. Her writing has been published in La Bloga, Hinchas de Poesia, Mujeres de Maiz 'Zine, and in the anthologies Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press,) Sonadores: We Came to Dream (Canto Hondo/DeepSong Books) and Our Spirit, Our Reality: Celebrating Our Stories (Wheatmark Press.)

Maggie Nerz Iribarne, Three Women, One Key

Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 53, living her writing dream in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. She writes about teenagers, witches, the very old, bats, cats, priests/nuns, cleaning ladies, runaways, struggling teachers, and neighborhood ghosts, among many other things. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com.

Wilson Koewing, Donnie

Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His work has recently appeared in Pembroke Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Wigleaf, New World Writing, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and Maudlin House. His debut story collection "Jaded" is forthcoming from Main Street Rag/Mint Hill Books. 

Andrea Lithgow, Waiting

Andrea Lithgow is from northern Utah and since moving away over twenty years ago, has been on the hunt for the perfect town, finally settling in Asheville, NC with her adoring dog, Booda. She received her bachelor’s degree on full scholarship at UC Berkeley while running her burgeoning ceramic jewelry business, Dandy Jewelry. Now pursuing her lifelong dream of being a writer, Andrea is currently working on her master’s degree at Mount Saint Mary’s University and plans to publish her autobiographical novel shortly after graduation of December 2023.

Christa Walker, Scrapbook

Christa Walker recently completed the MFA program in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary's University. She lives in Los Angeles.

Marina Castillo, Crown of the Phoenix

Marina Castillo is a Hispanic writer from Los Angeles. Her short film script, “Show the Way,” was a quarterfinalist in the We Screenplay Shorts Contest in 2021. She recently returned from a study abroad program in Peru, where she wrote a travel chronicle, “Peru Held the Key,” which is now published on the certificate website for the Latin American-Latinx Creative Studies Program at Mount Saint Mary’s University. Currently, she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary’s University and working on a collection of short stories. 

Jean Noel Ruhland, Snakes

Jean Noel Ruhland's poem Amerikaner was published in the Spring 2022 edition of this journal (see additional bio there).  She has been an actress and playwright in New York and Los Angeles.  For inquiries regarding future productions and development, please email lolahaswings@gmail.com.  Jean just completed her MFA at Mount Saint Mary's University with a collection of poetry titled Scatter!, Brain: Resilience.

Claudia Duran, Noche De Boda

Claudia Duran currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Her poem entitled, Querida Tequila, was featured in Snorted the Moon and Doused the Sun: An Addiction Anthology. She has been a guest poet and writer with The Los Angeles Poet Society, Chicanas Cholas y Chisme in East LA, and La Palabra. Duran is currently a Creative Writing Instructor at the California School of the Arts and is earning her MFA in Creative Writing at Mount St. Mary's University.

Rebecca Graham Forde, The Birthday Party

Rebecca is an Executive Producer/showrunner in non-fiction television, having produced for Netflix, Discovery Channel, OWN, and CBS, amongst others. In 2018 Rebecca founded GRANDI STORIE, Inc., a production company to develop “great stories” in film, television, and new media.  Having started her career in Boston producing commercials for brand giants Chevrolet, Fidelity Investments, and Pizzeria Uno, Rebecca is a former Vice-President of the Producers Guild of America, a former TV Academy Executive Peer Group committee member, and a Partner at the SIE Society, a trade organization for Social Impact Entertainment across multiple genres. She is proud to have recently completed her Masters in Creative Writing at Mount St. Mary’s University.

Francis Johann Verdote, Run-On and On

Francis Johann Verdote lives in Los Angeles, where he writes poetry.  His poems have appeared in Cultural Weekly, Better Than Starbucks, Statement Magazine, and The Rush.  He has earned an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles.

Michelle Morouse, Why am I here?

Michelle Morouse is a Detroit area pediatrician. Her flash fiction and poetry has appeared recently, or is forthcoming, in Midwest Review, Prose Online, Kestrel, Best Microfiction 2022, Touchstone Literary Magazine, Faultline Journal of Arts and Letters, Litro, Unbroken, and Paterson Literary Review. She serves on the board of Detroit Working Writers.

Diane de Anda, The Perfect Environment 

Diane de Anda, Ph.D., a retired UCLA professor and third generation Latina, has edited four books on multicultural populations and published numerous articles in scholarly journals, along with short stories, poetry, and essays in Rosebud, Straylight, Storyteller, Pacific Review, Bilingual Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Presence, Ruminate, Third Wednesday and others, thirteen children’s books (plus 2 in press) which have won multiple awards, satires on a regular basis in Humor Times, and a collection of 40 flash fiction stories, L.A. Flash.

Marigo Stathis,  The Waving Witch

Cognitive neuroscientist by day, creative disrupter by night, Marigo Stathis weaponizes the written word to excavate the controversial bones that women, families, and societies often bury.  When she's not doing science or writing, she sings in spaces occupied by cats, protects vulnerable populations (elders and children), and makes concoctions from the harvests of her small elderberry orchard. Her work has appeared in 34th Parallel, Abbey, The Baltimore City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, Bear Creek Haiku, Facedown, FanStory, The Keeping Room, Lite Journal of Satire and Creativity, The Loch Raven Review, The Sometimes and several anthologies. Displaced Dolls and Oviducts (The Finishing Line Press), her first book of creative writing, will be published during the summer solstice of 2023. 

Charles Haddox, St. Anthony’s Bazaar

Charles Haddox lives in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and has family roots in both countries. His work has appeared in a number of journals including Chicago Quarterly Review, The Normal School, Folio, and Stonecoast Review. charleshaddox.wordpress.com

Renu Chopra, The Grocery Store

Renu Chopra is a student in an MFA program at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, California. Retired from the world of information technology where she worked for large corporations such as Andersen Consulting and Nestle, USA. Renu now enjoys her children and grandchildren while pursuing writing and painting.   

Renu was published in the Ocotillo Review in June of 2022 and in India Se, an online travel magazine. 

Evan Schmitt, The Good Rat

Evan is a writer, creative director, and instructor working in Los Angeles and Nashville. She has a background in comedy from The Second City in Chicago and holds a BA in Writing and Producing for Television from Columbia College Chicago. Her lecture, "How to Write Female Characters," has been presented at Columbia University in New York.

Louise Dolan, The Walleye

Louise A. Dolan is recently retired from North Carolina State University after teaching Spanish Language and Culture for more than three decades. She is currently a candidate for the MFA in Creative Writing at Mt. St. Mary University in Los Angeles. Recent publications include creative non-fiction in Persimmon Tree, also fiction and non-fiction in the anthology Scattered Covered and Smothered; The Urban Hiker, Stories in First Voice; and several poems in “The Windover Literary and Arts Magazine,” and “The Rush Literary Magazine.” She cherishes her three children, three grandchildren, and three siblings scattered across the country, and dear friends in Raleigh and L.A.

Edward Supranowicz, Featured Artist

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet.