3 4 t h P a r a l l e l


ISSUE 02
		Rod Stewart has been writing poetry since early childhood and for the past 25 years he has also had an avid interest in photography. He studied biology at Acadia University and was employed by the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries in various marine projects. He works now in the Biology Department at Dalhousie University. He lives in the seaside town of Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada.

		Aaron Burch is the editor of Hobart and sometimes writes short fictions (recently: Quick Fiction 10 & 11, Opium 4, elimae, Smokelong Quarterly).

		Dorothee Lang is the editor of BluePrintReview, an experimental online journal, and author of Masala Moments, a travel novel about India. She lives in the South of Germany and takes regular trips through the real as well as the virtual world and collects moments in oil on copper. Currently, she also engages in time traveling—through a collaborative project she initiated, an utopic novel written by seven writers from five continents.

		Al Balmer studied photography for three years in the early eighties before his interest in lighting took him into magical dark places known as theatres where he spent the next 15 years or so backstage as a lighting designer and stage manager. In 2001 Al gave up theatre to have more time to be creative and is currently rediscovering writing poetry and photography.

		Leslie Joseph is a freelance writer who contributes regularly to Popmatters.com and writes for several other websites and zines. She has a short stories in Alyson Books anthologies and in EditRed's upcoming anthology, City Smells. Her poetry is published in Flutter Poetry Journal.

		Teddy Totimeh is a 33-year old medical worker in Ghana. He lives with his wife in a small hospital precinct in Accra, the capital of this West African nation. This is his first short story in a magazine, but he has previously published poetry. He likes reading, scrabble, and music.

		Ruth Knipe tells us she is a recorder of memories, transcribing to preserve, diaries, letters, family histories and documents. At Writer’s Blog she practices descriptive writing and character creation under the handle easywriter. She has been published under the pen-name Mary Ann McNeil in Otto #2 and the 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology. Email Ruth.

		Mitra is a Malaysian born poet who looks for beauty in the mundane and lives in a complex, often conflicting state of mind. She tells us she can be found grumbling, mumbling, working up the corporate ladder, listening to music, or lazing in front of the TV, when not writing. She has the tendency of finding wisdom by accident and dispensing advice without taking any. She takes pride in being lost and then finding her way through insecurities to hopefully one day having her own book of poems published and enjoying a final sunset by the beach. Mitra’s first published work was Orderly Women in Nerve House, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin print quarterly.

		Rosemary Mosco is a Toronto resident who has been running birdandmoon.com for three years in her spare time. She likes bird watching, electronic music, the anime Kino no Tabi, and cashews.

		Michael Ferrari says that as a young boy he always dreamed of getting a potbelly and eating a whole pizza in one sitting. He accomplished that goal by the age of 8. These days, Ferrari lives in Conshohocken, PA, and spends his time writing for a variety of magazines and websites, binging and watching Entourage way more than anybody should. His first novel is Assault On The Senses.

		Jeff Esterholm’s writing has previously appeared in Acorn Whistle, Nerve Cowboy, Thema, and Planet Detroit. He was placed in short story competitions sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy Review and Madison Magazine, and in 2006 he was selected as a finalist in Hunger Mountain’s Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize.

		Joseph Goosey, 21, says he’s convinced there is something more out there aside from business finance. He has two cats and loves a redhead. Recent poetry has or will be published in one way or another in Word Riot, Neon, Remark, The Round Table Review, Locust and a few others.

		Lydia Riley, a proud native of Kansas City, Missouri, divides her time into delicious wedges of writing, drinking, and screaming at the television. Currently unemployed, she is waiting for word of waitress positions at the Waffle House with bated breath. Wanna warm-up, cowpoke?

		Jane M. Bratton is a runner-up in EditRed’s City Smells competition, and her essay Homecoming will be published in their anthology. She has been a guest columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Jane and her family live in Kentucky.

		Zayra Yves is the author of Empty as Nirvana and is published in Alehouse Press, The Zimbabwe Situation, Panhandler Quarterly, Eyes of the Poet, IITM, Astropoetica, Poetry Life & Times.

		Nora C Gruenberg is a 30-year-old wife and mother who lives in Chicago's southwest suburbs. She had to go to college and grad school to figure out the only thing she really wants to do for a living is writing.

		Brian Gonzalez writes experimental fiction, alternative poetry, flash fiction, and cut-up haiku. He has been a featured author on the ezine The Beat. His favorite 20th century authors are William S. Burroughs and James Joyce.

		Rosie Sandler’s creative non-fiction piece Under My Feet is in the first print issue of The Local Writer, and her flash Journey will appear in the next Slingink Shorts anthology. She has been shortlisted for competitions in Essentials magazine and the Essex Chronicle newspaper.

		Julia Press-Simmons is a Star Trek/Star Wars junkie with a healthy addiction to the open mic. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family. She is working on her first novel and she also write plays and short stories about dragons. She loves dragons.

		David Kemp lives in Northern Minnesota, where he enjoys the company of his longsuffering girlfriend and their three children, the piney confines of his ten-acre slice of paradise, and coffee.

		Verdi E Mathis is an HR specialist with the Federal Government. She is a widow and the mother of three young men, and resides in Capitol Heights, MD. She is seeking publication of her first novel.

		Damien Dread says people think he writes dark poetry but he feels he writes honest poetry. He has published a book called The God of Slime and Spit.

		Suzanne Jubenville is a cultural musicologist, choral director, liturgist, and singer who has performed and recorded with many well-known early music ensembles. Music is her livelihood, but writing is her passion. Suzanne is a native Californian who lives in New England with her husband, stepson, and elderly cat.

		RJ Williams was born in Haiti. She lived in Panama as a little girl and moved to New York City in her early teens. She enjoys reading and long walks, and she is exploring her passion for writing. She lives in California with her two children and loves to laugh.

		Robert Louis Bartlett’s recent fiction and poetry have been published in print and online in the US and Canada. His short script A Sort Of Delivery is presently under consideration by two independent film companies in Los Angeles, and he is currently working on a collection of short stories. He lives in Arizona and works as technical documents writer for a home-design firm. Bartlett’s writing has been published in print in Canada’s Storyteller Magazine and Atheneum; on the web his fiction has been featured at Facets, FictionWarehouse, The Spillway Review, The GroundZero Literary Project, and the photojournal Reality X.

		Louis J Harris lives and works in Germiston, South Africa. His novel Revival is about a gay literary detective. Authors who have influenced his writing include John Steinbeck and the early works of Morris West.

		Kim Kolarich is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer from Chicago. She is working on a collection of short stories and a full-length play. A graduate from Columbia College, she trained as an actor with the Steven Ivcich Professional Studio in Chicago, and studied playwriting at the Chicago Dramatists. Kim spent several years in Los Angeles where she acted in theater, television, and film.

		Frank Haberle works for a counseling program for young people from low-income communities, and is the Board Chair of the NY Writers Coalition, a community organization that provides creative writing opportunities for disenfranchised New Yorkers. Haberle’s stories have been published in The Angler, Cantaraville, Broken Bridge Review, Adirondack Review, Hot Metal Press, Melic Review, Johnny America, Taj Mahal Review, Smokelog Quarterly, SN Review and 21 Stars Review. His book reviews have appeared in the KGB Bar Literary Magazine.

		Matthew Ward lives and writes in the Australian east coast city of Newcastle, where, he says, everyone looks happy, especially when they’re squinting into the sun. In 2004, his story, Jake With A Snarly Smile On His Chops—a tale that questioned the existence of God and championed the ampersand—was published as a novella by Independence Jones. n late 2006 World Audience published his short story anthology, Her Mouth Looked Like a Cat’s Bum. His short stories have appeared in several magazines, printed as well as online. He created Skive Magazine, now in its frenetic fifth year.

		Lee Kern, a 26-year-old freelancer living in eastern Pennsylvania, first realized he enjoyed writing at the age of eight when he wrote a story for his elementary class. The assignment was four sentences, but he insisted on six pages. The story was about a video game character, and since then he’s grown into his own as a literary, science-fiction and a fantasy writer. Influenced by the works of Ernest Hemingway, Robert Jordan, and George Orwell, he constantly works to keep his style both sparse and interesting. He writes while listening to themusic of Bear McCreary and Within Temptation. He is reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

		Matthew Abuelo made a name for himself as an anti-war/activist poet when he was banned from a coffee house on Long Island in 2003 for reading poetry which criticized the invasion of Iraq. Born in 1975 he was raised in a military family, relocating many times during childhood from Oklahoma to Germany to Washington State. He has won numerous awards including the Editor's Choice award from the National Library of Poetry. He lives in Manhattan and works as a media analyst. His political blogs appear on blogit.com. His newest poetry collection is Organic Hotels.

		John Arthur Pegg, born in 1976, claims he is one naughty, twisted writer. His stories sometimes border on the grotesque, slightly macabre side, sometimes on the bizarre, light side. He sleeps exactly six hours a night with a notebook and pen always within reach.

		Sean Merrigan is website editor for EditRed. He says he is half-Welsh, half-Irish, and born in Zimbabwe. He arrived in London at the age of 8, and has been a Catholic altar-boy, a gentleman’s outfitter, and a musician. He once played drums in a sex-cult, though only on a part-time basis. “Last year I was paid a substantial amount of money by a large and acquisitive UK book retailer to go away and not work for them any more,” he says. “This suited me fine thanks very much. I have spent the intervening time writing and staring moodily out of windows.”

		Sarah Tuttle is an undergraduate in Environmental Studies and English. Tuttle has been published in two issues of Flutter Poetry Journal, and her school literary journal. She has a poem forthcoming in Ibbetson Street.

		Corey Mesler has been a book reviewer, fiction editor, university press sales rep, grant committee judge, father and son. With his wife he owns Burke’s Book Store, Memphis, Tennessee.

		Craig Wesley cites the grittiness of Charles Bukowski as well as film directors Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino as major influences in his work. Music, skateboarding, bachelorhood, and growing up on the West Coast are the basis of his work.

		Robert K Omura lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he practices law. He holds a BA in psychology and MA in history from the University of Calgary, and a LLB from Dalhousie University. He recently returned to his love of writing after a 15-year hiatus. He is active in education, law reform, the environment, and the outdoors. Omura’s fiction and poetry has been published in The Arabesques Review, Barnstorm, The Rose and Thorn, Poems Niederngasse, edifice WRECKED and blue skies poetry.

		Arash Farzaneh moved from Vancouver, Canada, to various places in Mexico, where he lives now with his wife and cat. He has a Master’s Degree in French literature, knows five languages, and is teaching languages at a Mexican university. He says he writes because it is closely tied with his being. Farzaneh’s work has been published in Dark Reveries, Raving Dove, Inscribed, Double Dare Press, The Arabesque Literary Print, Map Magazine, The Truth Magazine, and soon to be published in Bewildering Stories.

		JA Tyler is founding editor of Mud Luscious. His short fiction recently received several editorial nominations for the 2007 StorySouth Million Writers Award. His work is published in Inscribed, The Houston Literary Review, Ghoti, Syntax, Ramble Underground, Sein und Werden, Thieves Jargon, and Underground Voices. .

		Cathy Delaleu is a Haitian-American writer, poet, and artist from Brooklyn by way of California. She has written a collection of poems, Wrapping Thoughts Beneath Emotive Rain, and her work has been published in Essence Magazine and several online poetry sites. She is writing a novel due out next year, Hurricane Between Island Kisses. For more information on her artwork and poems visit her website or her blog.

		Tom Gant was born in Yorkshire, England, and lives now by the Humber Estuary, where he is studying for an MA in English and Creative Writing. Like all writers, Gant is working on a novel and he says he hopes to have it rejected across the UK publishing board some time before Christmas this year. Gant’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in Edit Red’s 2006 short story anthology Small Voices, Big Confessions, Citizen 32 magazine, and innumerable ezines. He won the Writer’s Choice award on Edit Red with his poem, terminal.

		Tim Kenny, tiring of London life, returned to his Lancashire roots in the hope the soil proved more conducive to his work. A Classics graduate, much influenced by the Hellenistic poets, he harbors a fondness for the erudite and innovative, the sharp, flashing and textured, and seeks to hone his craft accordingly. He has recent poetry cooking in Medusa's Kitchen and flash fiction forthcoming in Literary Fever, and he is the creator of the literary website Hecale.

		Laura LeHew says her poetry knows its shape from its inception. “I begin in total silence, during the witching hours, in the dark with nothing but the glowing monitor. LeHew’s poems have been published or will be soon in such journals as Alehouse Press, Arabesques Review, Pank, Pearl Magazine, PMS, Third Wednesday, and Tiger’s Eye. She received her MFA in writing from CCA, a writing residency from Soapstone, and interned for CALYX Journal.

		Ken Rodgers lives, teaches, and writes in Boise, Idaho. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco. A combat veteran of the Vietnam War, Ken says his writing seems to loop back often to his military experiences. Ken’s poems and short stories have most recently appeared in Switchback, Ascent Aspirations, VerbSap, Roman Candles, Fiction Attic, and Tiny Lights.

		Nancy Gauquier lives in central coastal California. She says: “I wrote The Number 15 Bus when I was living in San Francisco. Everything in it has happened to me, but not on the same day.” Her stories have appeared in Takahe, Open Minds Quarterly, and online at Pindeldyboz.

		Ashley Callender lives in Launceston, Tasmania. His writing and his family keep him pretty busy. “I like to write drabbles because they teach me to cut the crap,” he says. “I am home-schooling one of my children. Time will tell if this is a good thing.”