Janet Bowdan teaches English at Western New England University. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, The Rewilding Anthology, River Heron Review and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Poetry Daily and Best American Poetry 2000. She likes poems that sneak intelligence into imagery. She likes poems that make her see aspects of the world in a new light. She likes poems. She loves to read. She lives in Northampton with her husband, their son, and a book-nibbling chinchilla.

The cover for the Soring/Summer 2023 issue is "Landscape with Viola, Violin and Piano," 44 X 36" in memory of composer Lewis Spratlan.

"Lew and I have watched and listened to each other's painting/music since 1972, attending each other's exhibitions and concerts over decades. The idea to compose improvisationally from each other's work; Lew jumped on board first. Music moves in a linear way and painting, even though it takes months to make whole, is seen in one single moment. Lew's music incites visual responses from which I continue to paint. Good thing I have a perfect visual memory!!!!!"

Exhibitions include the Art-in-Embassies Program in D.C. sending her paintings to Cape Verde, Guatemala, Malta, and Caracas; the Divinity Center at Yale University, the Bowery Gallery in NYC, Hillyer Gallery at Smith College, the Contemporary Arts Museum at University of Massachusetts; the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, “The Painting Center” (Chelsea), NYC, The Provincetown Art Museum, The Julian Scott Memorial Gallery of Johnson State College, Vermont. Teaching positions include RI School of Design, U of Minnesota, Brown University, Dartmouth College and U of Honduras. Grants include the Pollock-Krasner Award three times, a Kittredge Fund Grant from Harvard University, a George Sugarman Foundation Grant Award, two Artists’ Fellowships, NYC, and The Haven Foundation Award, Maine. I taught painting through the American University (D.C.) in Umbria, Italy; also, @ The New York Studio School, and at The Vermont Studio Center 1991-present; Lorna Ritz was “cultural ambassador” through the International Residency Program from the Augusta Savage Gallery at U.Mass, to work with artists in South Africa.

www.lornaritz.com

Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area native, where she invented a secret language with her brother. She has work forthcoming or published in Lily Poetry Review, Pirene's Fountain, The Shore, Sheila-Na-Gig, Sky Island Journal, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among others. Affiliated with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon, with the anthology Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women's Poetry and her own group Ekphrastic Writers, she holds an MFA from Mills College. She has featured in the Lily Poetry Review Salon and has been nominated for Best of the Net.

Sandra Fees is the author of The Temporary Vase of Hands (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She served a term as Berks County, Pennsylvania, Poet Laureate (2016-2018), and is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Poets Reading the News, and Chiron Review, among others. She holds a master’s degree in English Literature from Syracuse University and a doctor of ministry from Lancaster Theological Seminary. She resides in South Central Pennsylvania; she enjoys long walks near water and is a practitioner of Sivananda yoga.

Almeria Esmurria recently graduated Western New England University with a major in Creative Writing. She was the recipient of the Max Y. Litman English Prize in April 2024. Her preferred genres for reading and writing are LGBTQ+ contemporary fiction, romance, and fantasy. Two of her favorite poems are ii (“I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming”) from Adrienne Rich’s Twenty-One Love Poems, and "The Vulture and the Body" in Ada Limon’s The Carrying. When she isn’t developing her works-in-progress, she will be found with a Nintendo Switch controller in hand or amidst her growing collection of Squishmallows.

Having recently received her Associate of Arts from Holyoke Community College, Isabella is finishing her Bachelor’s at Amherst College in the fall. An avid reader, her interests span across a number of genres. Some of her favorite books include Ocean Vuong's On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, and Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. She likes writing that reflects–works that cast light upon not only the author’s, but her own experiences.

She received the George A. Mahan Award for Creative Writing at her first college, Washington and Lee University.

Cassidy Mylonakis graduated with a B.A. in English and is currently a law student at Western New England University. She spends her spare time writing science fiction. Her favorite poem is Emily Dickinson’s “The Brain—is Wider than the Sky—”; her favorite short story is Joy Williams’ “Honored Guest.”

Anthony Ramos is a High School Senior born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is an avid gamer and writer, using his spare time to enjoy good times with friends or craft some sort of interesting story or idea.

When it comes to poems, he often leans towards those with darker, more macabre stories. His favorite story of all time comes from Tsugumi Ohba's Death Note due to its exciting game of cat and mouse between Light Yagami and Detective L Lawliet. Like all good stories, this puts readers on the edge of their seats, keeping them interested while also creating a feeling of unease. It makes the reader think, hesitate, wondering if they are ready for what’s next, and enjoy the thrill. Stories are works of art to many people and in that sense, Anthony Ramos wants to be an artist.