Willy Conley
A Shrub Grows in Phoenix

Willy Conley - A Shrub Grows in Phoenix

Visual
This is what I call a “watergraph” -- a term I invented that came from taking photographs of water reflections that have been turned upside-down. Depending on environmental factors like the wind,… Read more »
Richie Siegel
Arch

Richie Siegel - Arch

Visual
Simply put, my eye is drawn to repetition. Lines are the basic element of everything in the world, but they are often disguised. A good photographer, I believe, can take photos in a way that… Read more »
Jon Lance Bacon
Beach People

Jon Lance Bacon - Beach People

Visual
Art may represent the imposition of order on random experience, but I try to capture moments when everything falls into place – and the world seems to have an order of its own. Whether this makes me… Read more »
Charlie Bondhus
Built Fire

Charlie Bondhus - Built Fire

Poetry
Charlie Bondhus has published two books of poetry—What We Have Learned to Love, which won Brickhouse Books's 2008-2009 Stonewall Competition, and How the Boy Might See It (Pecan Grove Press, 2009)… Read more »
Jonathan Travelstead
Dream of Car Wreck and Failed Extrication

Jonathan Travelstead - Dream of Car Wreck and Failed Extrication

Poetry
Jonathan Travelstead served in the Air Force National Guard for six years as a firefighter and currently works as a fulltime firefighter for the city of Murphysboro as he is finishing his MFA at… Read more »
Sonya Huber
Glass Beads

Sonya Huber - Glass Beads

Creative Nonfiction
Sonya Huber is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir (2010), finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year, and Opa Nobody (2008), shortlisted for the… Read more »
Liz Robbins
heat

Liz Robbins - heat

Poetry
Liz Robbins' second full collection, Play Button, won the 2010 Cider Press Review Book Award, judged by Patricia Smith. Her chapbook, Girls Turned Like Dials, won the 2012 YellowJacket Press Prize and… Read more »
Jennifer Fandel
Heat Wave

Jennifer Fandel - Heat Wave

Contest - Honorable Mention
Jennifer Fandel’s poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Midwestern Gothic, Little Patuxent Review, Natural Bridge, Calyx, and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology… Read more »
Moira Egan
Hot Flash Sonnet

Moira Egan - Hot Flash Sonnet

Contest - 2nd Place
Moira Egan's poetry collections are Cleave (WWPH 2004); Bar Napkin Sonnets (The Ledge 2009); La Seta della Cravatta/The Silk of the Tie (Edizioni l'Obliquo 2009); and Spin (Entasis Press, 2010, for… Read more »
darlene anita scott
How to Keep a Secret

darlene anita scott - How to Keep a Secret

Poetry
darlene anita scott shares the role of “baby of the family” with a twin sister who found her fifth grade journal and laughed. Loud. While sharing its contents with their three sisters. scott has… Read more »
John Martino
I Can Feel the Heat Closing In

John Martino - I Can Feel the Heat Closing In

Visual
Convinced that the camera does not replicate reality so much as revolutionize it, I aim to make black-and-white, street-style photographs that function as works of fiction; that suggest and entertain,… Read more »
Doris Ferleger
Instead of Angels

Doris Ferleger - Instead of Angels

Poetry
Doris Ferleger, Ph.D., is a prizewinning poet whose debut book of poetry, Big Silences in a Year of Rain (available through the publisher, Main Street Rag, 2010), was a finalist for the Alice James… Read more »
Leslie F. Miller
intersection

Leslie F. Miller - intersection

Poetry
Leslie F. Miller likes to break things and put them back together in a random, yet tasteful, order. A writer, photographer, mosaicist, and graphic designer, she is the author of the nonfiction book… Read more »
Gerard Beirne
Meditation #21 Nothing Is The Matter

Gerard Beirne - Meditation #21 Nothing Is The Matter

Poetry
Gerard Beirne is an Irish writer now living in Canada where he teaches at the University of New Brunswick and is a Fiction Editor with The Fiddlehead. His most recent collection of poetry Games of… Read more »
Leslie Jill Patterson
Mirage

Leslie Jill Patterson - Mirage

Creative Nonfiction
Jill Patterson teaches in the creative writing program at Texas Tech University. Her prose and poetry have appeared most recently in Texas Monthly, Creative Nonfiction, Cave Wall, The Ledge,… Read more »
Rusty Kjarvik
Mountain Reflection on Cyclical Wordplay

Rusty Kjarvik - Mountain Reflection on Cyclical Wordplay

Visual
Rusty Kjarvik is an emerging writer who has begun to embark on a career path as a creative writer only within the past year. He currently has one print publication of poetry in The Poetic Pinup Revue… Read more »
Susan Gabrielle
Newton's Third Law

Susan Gabrielle - Newton's Third Law

Creative Nonfiction
Susan Gabrielle's work has been published or is forthcoming in The Christian Science Monitor, Heyday, TheBatShat, San Francisco Peace and Hope, and Bethlehem Writers, and she was a finalist in the… Read more »
Leslie Tucker
Packing Heat

Leslie Tucker - Packing Heat

Creative Nonfiction
Leslie Tucker, a Detroit escapee, lives on the side of a South Carolina mountain and refuses to divulge its exact location. She is an avid hiker and zip liner, a dedicated yogi, an ACBL Life Master in… Read more »
Vincent Scarpa
Painting Jorge’s Daughter

Vincent Scarpa - Painting Jorge’s Daughter

Fiction
Vincent Scarpa recently graduated with a BFA in writing from Emerson College. His stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in New Madrid Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Monkeybicycle, and… Read more »
James Valvis
Samaritan

James Valvis - Samaritan

Creative Nonfiction
James Valvis is the author of How to Say Goodbye (Aortic Books, 2011). His writing can be found in many journals, including Anderbo, Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, Juked, LA Review, Nimrod, Pedestal… Read more »
Ann Cwiklinski
Selkie

Ann Cwiklinski - Selkie

Contest - 1st Place
Ann Cwiklinski won first place in the WITF/Central PA Magazine writing contest in 2009 and 2011; her stories, “Dulce Domum” and “Girl’s Song,” were published in that magazine. She previously… Read more »
Slangston Hughes
The Devil's Cleansing

Slangston Hughes - The Devil's Cleansing

Born in and influenced by the HipHop era, yet at the same time always acknowledging the foundations laid down by fore runners and trail blazers such as Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott Heron,… Read more »
Claudia Cortese
The field curdles

Claudia Cortese - The field curdles

Contest - 3rd Place
Claudia Cortese’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New Poets 2011, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM, and Kenyon Review Online, among others. Cortese recently completed her first book of… Read more »
Kevin Adler
The Place I was Before

Kevin Adler - The Place I was Before

Fiction
Kevin Adler grew up in Auburn, Maine. His fiction has appeared in The Brooklyn Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Confrontation, Badlands, and others. He is currently a PhD candidate in creative… Read more »
Grace Cavalieri
The Portrait

Grace Cavalieri - The Portrait

Poetry
Grace Cavalieri’s newest publications are a chapbook, Gotta Go Now, 2012 and a novella in verse, Millie’s Sunshine Tiki Villas, 2011 (both by Casa Menendez.) She’s the author of 16 books and… Read more »
Sid Gold
Wild Dog

Sid Gold - Wild Dog

Poetry
Sid Gold's two books are Working Vocabulary (Washington Writers' Publishing House) and The Year of the Dog Throwers (Broadkill River Press). His poems have appeared in journals such the Potomac… Read more »

Built Fire

Charlie Bondhus

Attracted
by the perpendicularity
of flames
and art’s yellow glow
I have come

to the crossed slats,
where fire mutters
free verse.

How can I
resist the crackle
calling from the brick concave

the metal mouth
with its gleaming potential
its bright invitations
its endless appetite
for paper?

Countered, an accompanying photo.

Photo: "Countered" by Kevin Hinkle
Read more »