Contributors: Spring 2011

Prairie Schooner, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Spring 2011)

Cover

“Villanelle.” Chromogenic-print with words by Soyoung Jung. © 2009 Corwin Levi.

Corwin Levi realized at a young age that the drawings in the notebook margins were as important as the notes on the rest of the page. He spent 2010 traveling the world for shows and residencies. He happily concluded the year in Nebraska City at the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts.

Prose

Stephen C. Behrendt teaches British Romantic-era literature and culture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. His most recent collection of poems is History.

Greg Hrbek is the author of The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly and a forthcoming collection of short stories, Destroy All Monsters, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Black Warrior Review, The 2007 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories, and The Best American Short Stories 2009.

John Lane teaches environmental studies at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His latest books are The Best of the Kudzu Telegraph, Circling Home, and Abandoned Quarry: New and Selected Poems.

Helen Elaine Lee is an associate professor in MIT‘s Writing and Humanistic Studies program. Her first novel, The Serpent’s Gift, was published by Atheneum, and her second novel, Water Marked, was published by Scribner. “Alphabet” is part of her next novel manuscript “Life Without,” which is about the lives of ten people who are incarcerated in two neighboring U.S. prisons. She has volunteered as a creative writing teacher at several Massachusetts prisons for the last nine years.

David Torrey Peters received an MFA from the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow. His work has been published in Epoch, Indiana Review, Fourth Genre, the Pinch, and Best Travel Writing.

Gregory Blake Smith‘s collection of short stories The Law of Miracles— from which “Punishment” is drawn—recently won the Juniper Prize and will appear in the spring of 2011 from the University of Massachusetts Press. He is the Lloyd P. Johnson Norwest Professor of English and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College.

Poetry

M. Shahid Alam‘s translations of Ghalib have appeared in Chicago Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kimera, and Salt River Review.

Gaylord Brewer founded and edits the journal Poems & Plays. His eighth book of poetry is Give Over, Graymalkin (Red Hen P). He teaches at Middle Tennessee State University.

Sigman Byrd is the author of Under the Wanderer’s Star (Marsh Hawk P) and has a new chapbook coming out soon with Finishing Line Press. He has recently published poems in American Literary Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, New Madrid, and Sou’wester.

Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess, published by Steel Toe Books. Her poems have been featured on NPR‘s The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily. Her new book, She Returns to the Floating World, is forthcoming from Kitsune Books in fall 2011.

Susan Gubernat‘s first book of poems, Flesh, won the Marianne Moore Prize and was published by Helicon Nine Press. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Cortland Review, Michigan Quarterly, and others. She is an associate professor at California State University, East Bay, where she and her students have launched a new national literary magazine, Arroyo Literary Review.

Lilah Hegnauer is the author of Dark Under Kiganda Stars from Ausable Press. She teaches in the English Department at James Madison University.

Benjamin Jackson‘s poems have appeared in New England Review, the Hudson Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. He currently teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at the Art Institute of California–San Francisco.

Roxane Beth Johnson is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her first book of poetry is Jubilee (Anhinga). Her work has also appeared in The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Georgia Review, Image, Callaloo, and elsewhere.

John Kinsella‘s most recent volume of poetry is Divine Comedy: Journeys through a Regional Geography (W. W. Norton) with a new volume, Disturbed Ground: Jam Tree Gully/Walden, due out with W.W. Norton in November 2011. His Activist Poetics: Anarchy in the Avon Valley is just out with Liverpool University Press.

Lance Larsen‘s most recent collection is Backyard Alchemy (U of Tampa P). His work appears widely and has been reprinted in Verse Daily, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Poetry 2009, and elsewhere. A professor at Brigham Young University, he has received an NEA fellowship and recently directed a study abroad theater program in London.

Carrie Meadows is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ Poetry Society of Virginia Award, a Best New Poets nomination, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and a Plainsongs Award. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in North American Review, Mid-American Review, Apalachee Review, and other publications.

Tyler Mills‘s poems received the Crab Orchard Review’s Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, the Third Coast Poetry Prize, and the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize. Her work is also forthcoming or has appeared in 32 Poems, AGNI, Georgia Review, New Letters, and elsewhere. She is pursuing a PhD in creative writing at the University of Illinois–Chicago.

David Roderick‘s first book of poems, Blue Colonial, was selected by Robert Pinsky as the winner of the APR/Honickman Prize. Recent work has appeared in Memorious, Poetry, Salt Hill, and 32 Poems.

Jeff Simpson grew up in southwest Oklahoma and received his MFA from Oklahoma State University. He is the founder and managing editor of the Fiddleback, an online arts and literature journal. His poems have recently appeared in Copper Nickel, Pinch, Harpur Palate, Nimrod, and others. His first book, Vertical Hold, will be published by Steel Toe Books in 2011.

Daniel Stewart teaches as part of the Writers in the Schools (WITS) pro-gram in Boise, Idaho, and in a GED program for the Boise School District. A collection of poems, The Imaginary World, was published by Wolf Peach Press. He has published poems in a variety of periodicals, including Puerto Del Sol, Rattle, Penthouse, and Prairie Schooner.

Toni Thomas‘s poems have appeared in many literary magazines here and abroad, including the minnesota review, Notre Dame Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, and in the Southern California Review as part of an Ann Stanford Poetry Award. Her chapbook Walking on Water will be published by Finishing Line Press in early 2011.

Lesley Wheeler‘s newest collection, Heterotopia, won the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. Her previous books include Heathen (C&R) and Voicing American Poetry (Cornell); her poems appear in Poetry, Blackbird, Slate, and other journals.

Susan Settlemyre Williams lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is the author of Ashes in Midair (Many Mountains Moving P) and a chapbook, Possession (Finishing Line P). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals, including Mississippi Review, 42opus, Shenandoah, and Sycamore Review.

Robert Wrigley‘s most recent book is Beautiful Country (Penguin 2010). A former Guggenheim and two-time NEA Fellow, he teaches in the graduate writing program at the University of Idaho.

Reviews

James Cihlar is the author of the poetry book Undoing (Little Pear Press) and chapbook Metaphysical Bailout (Pudding House Press), and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Mary, Rhino, Painted Bride Quarterly, Emprise Review, Verse Daily, and Forklift, Ohio. He is a visiting instructor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and Macalester College in St. Paul.

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, Professor of English, at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and editor in chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. His newest books are A History of Horror (Rutgers UP), Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia (Edinburgh UP /Rutgers UP), A Short History of Film (coauthored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster; Rutgers UP), and Film Talk (Rutgers UP).

Jessie Janeshek‘s first book of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris P), and she is the coeditor of the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG P). Her poetry and reviews appear in such print and online publications as Moria, Washington Square, Passages North, and Rougarou. She codirects a variety of creative writing workshops as community outreach in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area.

Jill McCabe Johnson is the director of Artsmith, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the arts. She is the recipient of the Paula Jones Gardiner Poetry Award from Floating Bridge Press and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry and fiction have been pub-lished in journals such as the Los Angeles Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and Harpur Palate.

Maurya Simon‘s ninth volume of poems, The Raindrop’s Gospel: The Trials of St. Jerome and St. Paula, was published in 2010. She has recent poems appearing in Ploughshares, West Branch, and the Gettysburg Review. She lives in the Angeles National Forest in southern California.

Jack Smith won the George Garrett Fiction Prize for his short novel Hog to Hog. He has published fiction in the Southern Review, Texas Review, North American Review, and other literary journals.

Marcus Smith is a recent Cinnamon Press finalist. His recent work has appeared in Ambit, PN Review, South Carolina Review, Texas Review, and Slant.