COOOLD TURKEY WRITERS & ARTISTS 2023

ALLDER

Spencer Jean Allder is a queer and nonbinary writer, actor, and creator. Based in Montreal, they are passionate about using art to foster connection and community. Alder has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Windsor, where they had the pleasure and challenge to write, produce, direct, and star in a one-person play entitled Mother Mary. Alder has received an Excellence in Acting award from the National Theatre School Play Festival, and is currently a contributor at Yiara Magazine.

BARRETT

Virginia Barrett is a poet, writer, artist, editor, and educator. She earned her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco where she was poetry editor of Switchback. Her six books of poetry include Between Looking (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Crossing Haight—San Francisco poems (Jambu Press, 2018). Her prose has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, The Raven’s Perch, Awakenings and elsewhere. Lead designer for Light on the Walls of Life—a tribute anthology to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, (Jambu Press, 2022), she is also the editor of three poetry anthologies including OCCUPY SF—poems from the movement. She has taught poetry, creative writing, and visual art throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for over two decades, including in the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco. www.virginiabarrett.com

BARTOS

Heather Bartos’ essays have appeared in several publications, most recently in the tiny journal, Arboreal, and McNeese Review. She’s had flash fiction and micro fiction in The Baltimore Review, Orca, and Santa Barbara Literary Journal, and other publications, and short stories in Ponder Review, Bridge Eight, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and is working on a Master’s degree in English through the University of New Orleans. 

BERN

Alan Bern is a retired children’s librarian and cofounder with artist/printer Robert Woods of Lines & Faces, an illustrated poetry broadside press and publisher, linesandfaces.com, in the San Francisco Bay area. His work has recently appeared in Feral, Mediterranean Poetry, Slouching Beast Journal, Unearthed, Please See Me, and Mercurius. Alan was a runner up for The Raw Art Review’s The John H. Kim Memorial Short Fiction Prize for his story ‘The alleyway near the downtown library’; he won a medal from SouthWest Writers for his story ‘The Return of the Very Fierce Wolf of Gubbio to Assisi, 1943 CE [and now, 2013 CE]’; and his poem “Boxae” was first runner-up for the Raw Art Review’s first Mirabai Prize for Poetry, 2020. He was also a finalist in the NCWN’s 2019 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, and he won the Littoral Press Poetry Prize in 2015. Alan is the author of No no the saddest (Fithian Press), Waterwalking in Berkeley (Fithian Press), and greater distance and other poems (Lines & Faces). Alan performs with the dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together, composingtogether.org.

BRACE

Maggie D Brace, a life-long denizen of Maryland, teacher, gardener, basketball player, and author attended St. Mary’s College (where she met her soulmate) and Loyola University, Maryland. She has written ‘Tis Himself: The Tale of Finn MacCool and Grammy’s Glasses, and has multiple short works and poems in various anthologies. She remains a humble scrivener and avid reader.

CONELLY

William Conelly, after military service, took a master’s degree in English literature from UC Santa Barbara. Unrelated work in research and composition followed before he returned to academia in 2000, at Westfield State University, Massachusetts. Retired from teaching as a dual citizen, Conelly now resides with his wife in the West Midlands town of Warwick, England. His early verse appears under the title UNCONTESTED GROUNDS, Able Muse Publishers, and the Bumblebee Division of Olympia publishes a short collection of children’s poetry titled WEST OF BOSTON

DAS GUPTA

Sarah Das Gupta is a retired English teacher who has worked in UK, India and Tanzania.She now lives near Cambridge, UK.

She started writing last October after becoming bored while in hospital, after an accident.Her work has been published in magazines from US, UK, Canada, India, Mauritius and Croatia. She is interested in most subjects except football and computer games- her four grandsons are working on this!

FITZGERALD

Jane H. Fitzgerald Jane H Fitzgerald is a retired history teacher turned poet. She has written four books of poetry, including, Notes From the Undaunted, and has been featured in many print journals and online sites. A few of these are: Your Daily Poem, Isele Quarterly, Devil’s Party Press, Open Door Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, and more. Jane relates to all ages and diverse types of people, and hopes that her writing creates a bridge of understanding to others. She loves her family, friends, and working with colors in different dimensions. Jane lives in the sunny state of Florida. Find more of Fitzgerald’s poetry, and follow her.

FLEMING

Robert Fleming lives in Lewes, Delaware.   He retired from writing television comedy and game shows to literary writing.  Robert’s twists bring the reader to the limit to find truth.   Listeners heard Robert reading his Beat-Poetry in May at They-Call-Me-Mitch, an online reading series in San Francisco, CA; in April his play the 8th wonder had a casted reading at the Playwright’s Collective; and he co-hosts a local artist share at the Lewes, DE library.  Readers read his writing in publications in United States, Canada, and Australia.  Robert is a repeat contributor to Local Gems Press, Radical Fairy Diary, Devil’s Party Press, Failed-Haiku, Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild, Spilled-Ink Virginia, and Camp Rehoboth art shows.  This summer Robert will apply for an emerging artist grant with the Delaware Division of the Arts.  His poetry and word-art will be in Ethel Zine and Failbetter.  Follow Robert at https://www.facebook.com/robert.fleming.5030.

GANSHAW

John Ganshaw retired after 31 years in banking to follow his dream of owning a hotel in Southeast Asia.  This led to many new experiences enabling Ganshaw to see the world through a different lens, leading him to write his story through essays, poetry, and a yet unpublished memoir. Ganshaw’s work has appeared in Native Skin, Runamok Books/Growerly, Post Roe Alternatives, Empyrean Literary Magazine, OMQ, Open Door Magazine, SCARS poems and short stories, among others.  Nothing is as it seems, and experiences are meant to shape us not define us. Life has hope, truth, and adventure, all leading to stories that need to be written and told. @jeg2691963 Instagram – johnnygadventures63

GOLLADAY

Morgan Golladay has been intrigued with words all her life. Her poetry reflects this, and she uses illusion and allusion in her writing.  Much of her work focuses on her native Shenandoah Valley, as well as coastal Delaware. Golladay has worked with non-profits as a volunteer and staff member, been a librarian, a blood donor recruiter, and a customer service and purchasing agent for a residential water-well wholesaler.  Her watercolor and acrylic-collage paintings have won awards, and she is currently President of the Mispillion Art League in Milford, Delaware, where she currently lives. An emerging poet, her work has been published in the Broadkill Review.

HARVEY

Meredith Harvey is an English professor currently living on a small farm in Wisconsin. She has spent the past ten years focused on writing academic papers with long colon-filled titles that focused on settler colonialism and gender issues, but decided to begin to focus more on fiction starting in 2022. In her spare time, she reads books and wrangles ponies as well as her seven-year-old daughter. She’s happy to publish this piece with Instant Noodles as the first step in her effort to focus more on her fiction writing.

HAYDEN

Amanda Hayden (she/her) is Poet Laureate for Sinclair College and Professor (Humanities, Philosophy, and Religions) and has received several pedagogy awards, including the Interfaith Core Award (2018), Humanities Professor of the Year (2019), and League for Innovation Teaching Excellence (2020). Her eco-chapter, “Saunter Like Muir,” was recently published by Routledge (2022) and dozens of her poems have been featured in journals, reviews, and anthologies, both print and online.  Hayden lives with her family on a small and windy farm with three dogs, two cats, two goats, seven pigs, many chickens, and a duck named Dorothy.   Check her work out here: https://windychickenpoet.com/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/WindyChickenPoet.

HERTENSTEIN

Jane Hertenstein is a Pushcart nominee and the author of a middle-grade novel, Cloud of Witnesses and YA novel, Beyond Paradise. Her non-fiction Orphan Girl was widely reviewed and featured in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Book Section. Her work has been recognized by the New York Times. She’s an alum of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference waitstaff, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Amanda Davis Award, Wesleyan Writers’ Conference. Hertenstein is the recipient of multiple grants from the Illinois Arts Council and City of Chicago. Every year she rides her bike hundreds of miles and currently resides in the piney woods of Michigan. She teaches a workshop on Flash Memoir and can be found blogging at http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/ Her life motto is to Do Everything with your One Wild and Precious Life.

JAYNE

Serena Jayne was born under the sun sign of Leo, so is naturally a cat person. Her short fiction has appeared in The Arcanist, Daily Science Fiction, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Lost Balloon, Shotgun Honey, and other publications. Her short story collection, Necessary Evils, was published by Unnerving Books.

KAM SIU

Colleen Kam Siu is a poet and artist based in Southern Montana. Her poetry is currently inspired by seasonal cycles and shifts in nature that compel transformation. She aims to create a reflective space and still center where one’s own experience has space to expand. You can read more of her poetry via her weekly Substack, Sacred Mirror Poetry, and her recently released chapbook of poetry and paintings, Elements of Being. Her work has also appeared in the Evening Street Review, POETiCA Review, Fahmidan Journal, Two Hawks Quarterly, Witches Mag, and Cider Press Review. www.colleenkamsiu.com.

KEIN

Belinda Kein is an ex-pat New Yorker who now resides in southern California. A poet at heart, she brings her lyricism to flash fiction and creative nonfiction. Her short fiction has appeared in MER (Mom Egg Review) and three anthologies: The Spirit of Pregnancy, Into the Deep End and the 2022 DimeStories Anthology.
She has an MA in English from San Diego State University and an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She is currently at work on a collection of cross-genre flash pieces.

LUKER

Dave Luker’s work has appeared in The Metaworker, The Red Orge, WayWords , 13th Floor and other journals and newspapers. He is a poet and former educator now living in Colorado after time spent in Nebraska, San Francisco and Paris. He’s retired from a university career as well as teaching poetry to middle and high school students.

MARIL

Nadja Maril is a former magazine editor and journalist living in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine and her short stories and essays have been or will be published in several literary journals and anthologies including Scarlet Leaf Review, Storynews, Change Seven, Lunch Ticket, Raconteur, Thin Air, and Burning Love and Bleeding Hearts. She blogs weekly about writing and is close to completing her first novel. Additional credits include two reference books on American Antique Lighting, as well as two children’s books illustrated by her artist father, the late Herman Maril. 

MEYER

Nancy L. Meyer she/her is a 2020 Pushcart nominee,avid cyclist, community activistfrom the unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands of San Francisco.Publishedin many journals including: Laurel Review, Sugar House Review, Colorado Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Nebraska Poetry Society Open Contest,Halfway Down the Stairs.In 9 anthologies, including by Ageless Authors, Dang I Wish I Hadn’t Done That, Kneel Downe’s Stolen Indie, Tupelo Press, Open Hands, and Wising Up Press, Crossing Class. Recipient of a Hedgebrook Residency.

MOORE

Glenis Moore has been writing poetry since the first Covid lockdown and does her writing at night as she suffers from severe insomnia. When she is not writing poetry she makes beaded jewellery, reads, cycles and sometimes runs 10K races slowly. She lives just outside Cambridge in the flat expanse of the Fens.

MUSCATELLO

Leda Muscatello resides in an abandoned parsonage in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her inspirations include cheap red table wine, pretty rocks, thrift-store art, and the search for a perfect pen. Her work can be found in a variety of spaces, most recently published in Sequoia Speaks (Word Poppy Press).

RICKETTI

Michael Ricketti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lenapehoking. He lives in Nicosia, Cyprus where he works as a lecturer in English at Girne American University and serves at Kuruçeşme Projekt – a community education and art initiative. His work has been included in Welcomat, Vallum, Enclave, and Bluepepper.

RODRIGUEZ

Lisa Rodriguez is from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Due to the military, she currently lives in Tacoma, Washington with her husband who is in service and their daughter, Delilah. Although she is a military spouse, she still calls the South her home. She enjoys writing stories about everyday situations and people. When not writing, she likes spending time with her family, exercising, and traveling.

SMITH

Derek R. Smith (he/him) is a public health professional, Anishinaabe two-spirit, wanderer, namer of random dogs on the street, overuser of flowery metaphors, who finds it hard to not write poetry. Some like their poetry elegant, academic, fancy. The proud Midwestern style herein shared is not as such, as any given poem was probably composed in a Denny’s booth. He has poems pending 2023 publication in Great Lakes Review, ¡Pa’lante!, euphony, and Ignatian Literary Magazine. There is no space for distance here, in poetry, and isn’t that a beautiful thing?

STEVENSON

SAPP

Eugene Stevenson, son of immigrants, father of expatriates, lives in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Eisenhower Fellow, Pushcart nominee, & author of the chapbook, The Population of Dreams (Finishing Line Press 2022), his poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Delta Poetry Review, Galway Review, Hudson Review, Red Ogre Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, & Washington Square Review among others, & have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More at eugenestevenson.com

Gregg Sapp is a Pinnacle Award-winning author of the “Holidazed” series of satires, each of which is set centered around a different holiday. To date, there are six books in the series: New Year’s Eve, 1999, Halloween from the Other Side, The Christmas Donut Revolution, Upside Down Independence Day, Murder by Valentine Candy, and Thanksgiving, Thanksgotten, Thanksgone. Previous books include his dollar store epic, Dollarapalooza (Switchgrass Books, 2011) and Fresh News Straight from Heaven, which is based on the folklore of Johnny Appleseed (Evolved 2018). He has published short fiction in, among others, Kestrel, Parody, Waypoints, Defenstration, Marathon Review, Zodiac Review, Semaphore, Goat’s Milk, and Midwestern Gothic. Sapp writes full time and lives in Tumwater, WA.

SUPRANOWICZ

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, The Door Is a Jar, The Phoenix, and other journals. Supranowicz is also a published poet.

TALBOT

Ben Talbot is a logistics specialist who works remotely in Los Angeles, California. He belongs to a writing community online called Scribophile, where he can share his work with other writers. Talbot writes a bit of speculative and a bit of magical realism. He has work forthcoming in SPILLWORDS.

TEFFT

Marianne Tefft is a poet and voiceover reader who daylights as a Montessori teacher on the DutchCaribbean island of Sint Maarten. Over the past decade, her poems and children’s short stories have appeared in print and online journals and anthologies in North America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. She is a regular contributor to online Open Mic events, such as Inspired Poetry Corner (Toronto), Nuyorican Poets Café (New York) and Spoken World Online (Paris/Canada), and she has appeared onstage at poetry readings at Free Times Café (Toronto) and St. Martin Book Fair (Sint Maarten). She is the author of the 2022 poetry collections Full Moon Fire: Spoken Songs of Love and Moonchild: Poems for Moon Lovers, available via Amazon and other online book retailers.

WARD

Christian Ward is a UK-based writer who has recently appeared in Rappahannock Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Dewdrop, Dodging the Rain, The Seventh Quarry, Dipity Literary Magazine, Indian Periodical, and Streetcake Magazine. His first poetry collection, Intermission, is out now on Amazon.

WALKER

Nancy North Walker is an award-winning “second act” short fiction writer from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, who took up creative writing following a long career as a business communications executive in Chicago, New York, and New Jersey. She’s partial to speculative fiction, especially sci-fi, horror, and magical realism, but also dabbles in rom-com and contemporary fiction.  Her short stories have appeared in several mid-Atlantic anthologies and Devil’s Party Press’s (DPP’s) online literary magazine, Instant Noodles. Walker’s first horror story, Insecticide, which appeared in DPP’s Halloween Party ’21 anthology, won second place for single short stories in the 2022 National Communications Contest sponsored by the National Federation of Press Women. It also won first place in the 2022 Delaware Press Association’s Communications Contest.  Her sci-fi flash fiction story New Year’s 2044 With George, which appeared in DPP’s Instant Noodles, won second place in the same contest. Another of her sci-fi stories, The Companion, won a Judge’s Award in the 2021 Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest. It was published along with other contest winners by Cat & Mouse Press in their fall 2021 anthology, Beach Secrets.  Walker was a winner of the same short story contest in 2019 and was published in Cat & Mouse Press’s Beach Dreams.  Walker is currently working on a provocative sci-fi short story collection about the many unexpected ways advanced technology will change people’s lives in the coming decades. For more information about Walker see: nancynorthwalker.com.