Christopher Ankney’s work can be found in current issues of Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Journal, The Louisville Review, and Nashville Review, and in recent issues of Fourteen Hills, Gulf Coast, Hunger Mountain, and Prairie Schooner. His manuscript, the river’s backward sky, was a finalist for the 2011 Robert Dana Prize at Anhinga Press and both the 2011 Crab Orchard First Book Contest and Open Competition. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, their son Robin, and their Italian Greyhound, Izzie.

Bill Beverly teaches at Trinity University in DC. He is, with John Poch and Deborah Ager, the editor of Old Flame: From the First 10 Years of 32 Poems Magazine, forthcoming in late 2012 from WordFarm. His fiction appears in Mississippi Review, Indy Men's Magazine, Big Lucks, and elsewhere.

Emily Bright's chapbook Glances Back was published by Pudding House Press, and she has had individual poems appear in such literary journals and anthologies as Other Voices International, North American Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude. She holds a BA in English from Williams College and an MFA in poetry from the University of Minnesota.

Corey Campbell’s short fiction has appeared in Anderbo, Gulf Stream Online, The Coachella Review, New Southerner, The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology, and Staccato. Her story “Everyday Things” was performed at the New Short Fiction Series in Los Angeles. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers, Ms. Campbell now lives in Phoenix, AZ and is working on her first collection of stories.

Christina Cook is the author of Lake Effect (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, Crab Orchard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Cimarron Review, among other journals. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a contributing editor for Inertia Magazine and Cerise Press. Christina is the senior writer for the president of Dartmouth College.

Edward Doyle-Gillespie is a writer and poet from Baltimore, Maryland. An erstwhile teacher of history and literature, he currently makes his living as a police officer. His work has been published in the USA, Canada, and the UK.

Rebecca Foust’s books include All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song (2009 Many Mountains Moving Book Prize, nominated for the 2012 Poets’ Prize) and God, Seed (2011 Foreword Book of the Year Award). A new manuscript, California Dreaming, is a finalist for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize. Her recent poems appear in Hudson Review, Notre Dame Review, Sewanee Review, and Woman’s Review of Books.

Adam Love is from Salt Lake City, UT. His poems have appeared or are upcoming in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, MiPoesias, and Salt Lake City Weekly. He performs his poetry live with guitarist Patrick Kenny—a project titled "The Red Summer." In July 2012, Love graduated from Vermont College. He has a kitten named Whiskey and loves and lives in the outdoors of Utah.

Thorpe Moeckel’s most recent book, Venison: a poem, was published in 2010 by Etruscan Press. Other works include Odd Botany (Silverfish Review Press, 2002) and Making a Map of the River (Iris Press, 2008). He teaches in the writing program at Hollins University.

Bryan Narendorf lives in Philadelphia.

Abby Norwood grew up just across the Mississippi from St. Louis, and she’s only recently begun to prod her memories of this haunting region for what it can offer her fiction—memories of summer drives through the bottoms, looking out over the flood plain from the bluffs, and visiting the small town of Valmeyer while it was still submerged during the Great Flood. Abby’s fiction has also appeared in such publications as The Dirty Napkin and Midwestern Gothic, and she is Editor-in-Chief of Mixed Fruit.

F. Daniel Rzicznek’s collections and chapbooks of poetry include Vine River Hermitage (Cooper Dillon Books, 2012), Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2009), Neck of the World (Utah State University Press, 2007), and Cloud Tablets (Kent State University Press, 2006). Also co-editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press 2010), Rzicznek teaches writing at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Emma Sovich edits Black Warrior Review and attends the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Alabama. She makes, writes, edits, and bakes in a house in a graveyard, and blogs about it at graveyardhouse.com. Her work can be found in or forthcoming from [PANK], Broadsided, Lines + Stars, and others.

Sarah Stanton grew up in Perth, Western Australia. Halfway through university, she abandoned a promising career in not having much of a career when she transferred from an opera performance course into a Chinese language major, having fallen for the Middle Kingdom more or less overnight. Three years, two exchange programs and one potential firework accident later, she has settled in Beijing as a freelance translator and editor specialising in contemporary literature. As a writer, she has been published in a variety of magazines and indie projects, including Clarkesworld, Voiceworks, Hunger Mountain, Asian Cha Journal and dotdotdash. She is a recipient of the Talus Prize and was recently shortlisted for the James White Award. She blogs at theduckopera.com and tweets @theduckopera.

Julie Stielstra’s previous writing has appeared in Zahir Tales, the Potomac Review, New Plains Review, Copperfield Review, and the Tribune newspapers of Chicago and Great Bend, Kansas. She lives mostly in the Chicago area, but spends part of every year in rural Kansas.

Ralph Tejeda Wilson teaches in the Master of Arts in Professional Writing Program at Kennesaw State University. His book of poems, A Black Bridge, was published by the University of Nevada Press (2001). He has published poems in Georgia Review, New England Review, Three Rivers Poetry, Quarterly West, North American Review, and other literary journals.

 

Conte is:

Adam Tavel, Editor

Robert Lieberman, Editor

Eric Anderson, Contributing Editor

Special thanks to Andy Hefner for his groovy design template.

 

issue design by Robert Lieberman

 

Volume 8, Issue 1

©2012 the Conte Online staff

 

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

All original works are Copyrighted (©2012) by their respective authors. Authors retain all rights and privileges associated with their work as delineated in our blanket copyright policy, and reprinting, copying, or reproducing in any fashion any of the works contained in this issue without the creator's express consent is strictly prohibited. For information on contacting any of the authors featured in this issue, please email poetry@conteonline.net or prose@conteonline.net.

 

Iffy...it’s all looking very iffy tonight.