Magnolia
A Florida Journal of Literary & Fine Arts
Upward Ramp
photo by Pat Allen
BIOS
Michael Hettich was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1953 and grew up in New York City and its suburbs. He has lived in upstate New York, Colorado, Northern Florida, Vermont and Miami, where he now lives with his family. He has published twelve books and chapbooks of poetry, and his work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies.
Michael Hettich is the winner of two Florida Individual Artists Fellowships. His book Flock and Shadow was selected as a national Book Sense Spring 2006 Top Ten Poetry Book and he received the Tales Prize for Swimmer Dreams in 2005. He is married to Colleen and has two children, Matthew and Caitlin. Michael's new chapbook, Many Loves, won the 2007 Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest. The book can be ordered at YellowJacketPress.org
Chad Prevost is author of the collections A Walking Cliché Coins a Phrase: Prose Poems, Letters and Microfictions (Plain View 2008), and Snapshots of the Perishing World (Cherry Grove 2006), and the chapbook Chasing the Gods (Pudding House 2007). Chad’s work has been included in the recent anthologies Bear Flag Republic: California Prose Poems and Poetics, Come Together: Poems of Peace and Protest, and Family Matters: Poems of our Families. Chad has co-edited two anthologies, most recently, Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes, and has served in various editorial capacities for The Chattahoochee Review, Five Points, New South, The Pedestal Magazine and Terminus Magazine. Chad has taught creative writing, composition and literature at Georgia State University, Georgia Perimeter College, Lee University and Dalton State College. He is Editor of C&R Press: www.crpress.org.
Roy Bentley poems have appeared in the Southern Review, Sou’wester, Pleiades, Shenandoah, North American Review, the Laurel Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Recently, he has had work published (or accepted for publication) in Sou’wester, North American Review, The Cortland Review, Magnolia and MARGIE—with “Famous Blue Raincoat” scheduled for publication in the American Literary Review.. His latest chapbook, The Idiot’s Guide to the Afterlife, is due out from Pudding House Publications in Columbus, Ohio. He lives in Stuart, Florida and will teach this fall at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
He has published two book-length collections of poetry—Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama Press, 1986) and Any One Man (Bottom Dog Books, 1992)—and won a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the NEA (2002). He is also a six-time winner of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship.
This year, he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in poetry by the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. A recent book (The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana) won the White Pine poetry prize and was published by White Pine Press in 2006.
Fredrick Zydek is the author of eight collections of poetry. T’Kopechuck: the Buckley Poems is forthcoming from Winthrop Press later this year. Formerly a professor of creative writing and theology at the University of Nebraska and later at the College of Saint Mary, he is now a gentleman farmer when he isn’t writing. He is the editor for Lone Willow Press. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Cimmaron Review, The Hollins Critic, New England Review, Nimrod, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Yankee, and others. He is the recipient of the Hart Crane Poetry Award, the Sarah Foley O'Loughlen Literary Award and others.
Lynn Strongin, born New York City, 1939, has lived in Canada the past thirty years but considers herself primarily an American poet. Her SPECTRAL FREEDOM: Selected Poetry, Prose & Criticism has just been recommended to the Pulitzer Prize Committee for nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in Letters. Her latest books are CAPE SEVENTY (Poems on turning 70) and STAR QUILT, a love-story. Forthcoming this autumn are COBALT HORSE and INDIGO: A Poet's Memoir.
Professor and sometimes rock drummer, David Nixon, lives in Coral Springs with wife and elementary school librarian, Mary Ann, and their multi-talented son, Colin. David started the creative writing program at Palm Beach Community College and has reviewed for several SF fan and trade magazines. He continues to conduct creative writing workshops on the Boca Raton campus and has shaped composition theory on panels touring cities from Boston to San Antonio. His most recent poem, “Corn,” appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Cold Mountain Review.
Eric D. Lehman is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and has previously published reviews, essays, fiction, and poetry in journals such as Red River Review, ken*again, Entelechy, Switchback, and here at Magnolia. His first book, Bridgeport: Tales From the Park City, has been published by The History Press, and his second, Hamden: Tales From the Sleeping Giant will be available in Spring 2010.
Sandy Scott is the assistant editor of Magnolia, continuing her fine work after several years at Artistry of Life. A recent graduate of St. Leo University, Sandy intends to pursue a graduate degree in creative writing. For several years, her humorous prose was a regular feature in the glossy periodical, Ocala Style Magazine. Sandy is the Coordinator of the Office of Professional Development at Central Florida Community College. She serves as line editor for the magazine as well as the graphics arts/artwork editor.
Dan McGavin studied drawing, painting, and print-making at Oxbow Summer School for the Arts, part of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has had works displayed and selected for auction. Dan studied photography with internationally noted photographer, Jack Wild, at the Boca Raton Art Museum School in Boca Raton, Florida, where he is currently enrolled in the Masters class.
Scott Brennan, a visual artist as well as a poet, lives in Miami, Florida. Recent work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Sewanee Review, The Literary Review, Notre Dame Review, Chicago Review, and The Carolina Quarterly.
James Aubright born in San Diego, California, and raised in several other states, lived the life of a military brat during his early years. Being something he was proud of, he chose to serve in the military himself. Through his travels he has become naturally inspired by the drama and pure beauty of the world around him. From the time he received his first camera as a gift from his mother at the age of ten, he has been aiming to capture the world in a way many fail to see or simply overlook. Furthermore, with his photographs he hopes to inspire others to seek, observe, and capture the naturally beautiful wonders in life that leave you in total awe and amazement; they’re all around you everyday.
Michele Wirt has been a part of the visual arts faculty at CFCC since 1990. Her Master in Fine Arts is from the University of Florida with a dual emphasis in Studio and Art History. She is a figure and portrait painter with influences from jazz, Asian art and American realists and is exploring the field of digital media. Her class approach is grounded in traditional and classical but with an eye toward creative experimentation and students' individual growth. She has exhibited locally as well as in Harlem, N.Y., and Florence, Italy
Pat Allen, photographer,
Though she currently works as a full-time costumer for a community theater, from early in life she loved literature, the idea of writing, and the attempt to catch something special in photographs. Some of her pictures and a poem or two appeared in the online magazine "Artistry of Life."