Masthead: meet the editors
about Defenestrationism.net: Books and Bonafides

We ask our authors for a photo in her, his, or other’s favorite chair– resulting in some quite intimate portraits, if non-glossy and noncommercial.

So, basically, win-win.

the Art of Throwing People Out Windows

Paul-Newell Reaves is a poet and educator from Washington, D.C.    His poems have appeared in Dirty Chai Magazine, and extensively online, including  at thegimletmagazine.com , misfitsmiscellany.wordpress.com , and at defenestrationism.net , where he reads for twice annual contests.

His critical works have been published in SZ Magazine, RefWorks, on chamberfour.com , and a chapter forthcoming from Routledge Press

Michelle Matthees lives and writes in Duluth, Minnesota. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s MFA program in Creative
Writing. Recent work of Michelle’s can be found in PANK, The Prose Poem Project, Cider Press Review, 22 Magazine, Proof, Memorious, Anderbo, Defenestrationism.net , 5 Quarterly, Humber Pie, Specs, Third Wednesday, Paradise Review, Sou’wester, Thrice Fiction, and on the radio at KAXE: http://www.kaxe.org/programs/the-beat.aspx .

Robert E. Petras is a graduate of West Liberty State University and a resident of Toronto, Ohio.  His poetry and fiction have appeared in more than 160 publications including Parody, Your Daily Poem, Speech Bubble Magazine, State of the Imagination and Decades Review.  His defenestration addiction occurred at an early age when he began flinging cigarette butts and beer bottles from his bedroom in his parents’ home and gradually progressed to a point in which he is tossing out bowling bowls and rubber dolls.

Gale Acuff  has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank, and now works for the Sichuan University for Nationalities, Guza, Sichuan, PR China.

Suvi Mahonen and Luke Waldrip are a husband and wife team, expecting their first child in June of 2013. Suvi holds a Master’s degree in Writing and Literature from Deakin University and has worked as a journalist in Australia and Canada. Luke is an OBGYN who enjoys writing, travel and photography in what little spare time he has. Together they recently published a featured short story in Ars Medica, a journal that explores the interface between the arts and medicine. They live in the tropical Whitsundays in Australia.  http://www.redbubble.com/people/suvimahonen

Anonymous despises all persons and things Californian, but occasionally manages to consider it home.  Bankrupting his first adult at the tender age of 13, he has looted and ransacked up and down the West Coast in sheep-skin loafers.  His ideal relationship is perfectly captured in Scarlett from Love is a Dog from Hell.  He enjoys long walks by the beach, and collects vials of the tears of his enemies.

Complex Fairy Tales

D. Glover holds a degree in Graphic Design from Brooklyn School of Design.

He is an artist and writer, and takes no guff.

Paul-Newell Reaves is a poet and educator from Washington, D.C.    His critical works have been published in SZ Magazine, RefWorks, on chamberfour.com , and a chapter forthcoming from Routledge Press.

His poems have appeared in Dirty Chai Magazine, and extensively online, including thegimletmagazine.com , misfitsmiscellany.wordpress.com , and at defenestrationism.net , where he reads for twice annual contests.

R. El, Moorish American, living in the land of the occupied, seeks freedom through literature, especially etemology.  As kin with the animal world, R. El seeks to communicate with all.  False love, incomprehensible responsibility, these fuel his noble spirit.

When little, Kaley would curl up next to her father and listen to him read aloud.  Together, they would read Little House on the Prairie, Nancy Drew, and Harry Potter. This bedtime ritual cemented Kaley’s love of reading and eventually her passion for writing.  As a native Floridian, Kaley’s other hobbies include boating, scuba diving, and traveling. Recently, she has begun writing short stories for children in hopes of inspiring the same early love of reading that she experienced. “To Catch a Prince” is her first story published.

Freya Jackson is a young writer who suffers from depression, and is trying to write through it. She has previously been published in Empty Oaks and Writing Maps.

Heavy metal lover and cricket tragic, D.A. Cairns lives on the south coast of New South Wales where he works as an English language teacher and writes stories in his very limited spare time. He has had over 50 short stories published (but who’s counting right?) He blogs at Square pegshttp://dacairns.blogspot.com.au and has authored four novels, Devolution, Loathe Your Neighbor, Ashmore Grief, and A Muddy Red River which is available now from Rogue Phoenix Press.

Katharyn Howd Machan, Professor of Writing at Ithaca College, holds degrees from the College of Saint Rose, the University of Iowa, and Northwestern University. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines (Nimrod, Yankee, The MacGuffin, Snake Nation Review, Hanging Loose, Dogwood, Runes, Slipstream, Beloit Poetry Journal, South Coast Poetry Journal, Hollins Critic, The Salmon, West Branch, Seneca Review, Louisiana Literature, etc.) and anthologies/ textbooks (The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Poetry: An Introduction, Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now, Sound and Sense, Writing Poems, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience, etc.), and in 32 collections, most recently Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox (Finishing Line Press, 2014), H (Gribble Press, 2014), Belly Words: Poems of Dance (Split Oak Press, 2009), When She’s Asked to Think of Colors (Palettes & Quills Press, 2009), and The Professor Poems (The Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2008). In 2002 she was named the first poet laureate of Tompkins County, New York.  Her poem “Tess Clarion: Redwing, 1888” received the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize from the University of Southern California (judge Dana Gioia) and Kent State University awarded her poem “Gingerbread” the Luna Negra Prize. In 2012 she edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology for Split Oak Press. In 2014 Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox appeared from Finishing Line Press, as first runner-up in their 2013 chapbook competition.

1961. Birth. A good year for Bobs . . .

The first thing that you need to know is that this guy is a Geek. Not the chicken-head–consuming type, nor one of those that sports a pocket protector, thick glasses, and a book bag greater than his own body weight. He is the Universal Geek. Einstein and Lincoln were Geeks—and how about that Bill Gates? Such exalted company is not Bob’s: We recognize the famous Geeks because they are famous. Saying that Ritchie is a Geek like Steve Johnson is a Geek is meaningless. Fame imparts no Geekhood; Geekhood brings no fame. The world is full of Geeks, misfits, misanthropes. Often misunderstood or ignored, many are beautiful, creative, brilliant (maybe not on the level of Einstein). Some are just geeks.

Hailing from California, Bob Ritchie now lives in Puerto Rico. He has a fantastic wife and as many as five kids. Editing, yeah, teaching, sure, some translating. Ritchie (as his wife calls him) is a musician who is fortunate enough to have collaborated with Jon Anderson, a particular favorite. Bob (as he calls himself) is also a writer of stories and has written several things that might even be good. His work has appeared inUnlikely 2.0,Small Print Magazine,Prick of the Spindle, and other forums; two of his stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize.Neither won. Oh well. You’d think that, being a geek and all, he would have had an in.

Sohail Dahdal is a digital storyteller and an award winning multimedia artist. Sohail multimedia work, documentaries and short stories challenge the traditional form of storytelling and reframe it as a digital protest and a message for social change. Sohail is also a professor of media at the American University of Sharjah.

Edward Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. Have had over seventy stories and poems published thus far, as well as two books, a collection of my fairy and folk tales and a mystery/horror novella.

L.S. Sharrow spends a lot of time pondering the complexity of the universe and the nature of sons and grandsons, and hopes these men and boys in her life won’t wonder too much about why many of her stories are so weird. Her fiction for grownups has appeared in About Place Journal, Mused BellaOnline Literary Review, The Chicago Renaissance Court 2012 Anthology, and 50-Word Stories.

Kate Dlugosz is a 2015 graduate of Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in History. During her childhood, Kati felt an immense passion and connection with fairy tales, nature, history, and literature, and her love continued into her studies through the genres of Nonfiction and Fiction. In her own writing, she weaves tales of girlhood, femininity, magic, nature, and history together into one.

Emily Swaim is a freelance writer living in the sunny state of California. She has worn many hats, including rock climbing instructor, video game writer, and matchmaking assistant. Her zombie novella, “Living Ever After”, was published by Martinus Publishing in 2014 in the anthology “Life of the Dead”.

Alex Bernstein is a freelance writer in New Jersey and the author of Miserable Holiday Stories. His work has appeared at Corvus, BluePrintReview, Hobo Pancakes, Gi60, The Rumpus, The Legendary, The Big Jewel, MonkeyBicycle, McSweeney’s, Yankee Pot Roast, Swink, Litro, Back Hair Advocate, and PopImage, among others.  Please visit him atwww.promonmars.com.

Tara Campbell [www.taracampbell.com] is a Washington, D.C.-based writer of crossover sci-fi. With a BA in English and an MA in German Language and Literature, she has a demonstrated aversion to money and power. Previous publication credits include stories in Lorelei Signal, Punchnel’s, the WiFiles, Silverthought Online, Toasted Cake Podcast, Litro Magazine, Luna Station Quarterly, Master’s Review and Magical: An Anthology.

Maggie Kast is the author of A Free, Unsullied Land, a novel, and The Crack between the Worlds: a dancer’s memoir of loss, faith and family. A story excerpted from the novel won third place in the Hackney Literary Contests. She received an M.F.A. in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has published fiction in The Sun, Nimrod, Carve, Paper Street and others. A chapter of her memoir, published in ACM/Another Chicago Magazine, won a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council and a Pushcart nomination.  Her essays have appeared inAmerica, Image, Writer’s Chronicle and elsewhere.

MULTI-MEDIA Content

He is a lyrical/performance poet, reading and performing his poetry from a unique rhythmic perspective: at the crossroads of poetry and music. He has six published books of his poetry and through his publishing company, Arrowcloud Press, has published other poets as well as poetry anthologies for the city of Eugene, Oregon and the Oregon Poetry Association. He has been published in over a dozen countries and interviewed on television, radio and in literary magazines. He has performed from coast to coast. His work appears in countless literary journals and anthologies, both in print and online. He is also the pioneering author of the very first—ever poetry chapbook actually published as a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/591180474377593

2013 !Short Story Contest! finalists

Michael Mohr is literary agent Elizabeth Kracht’s assistant (Kimberley Cameron & Associates).  In addition to writing a regular blog (Michaelmohrwriter.com) about the ins and outs of the industry, Michael is a published author. His work can be found in Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine; The MacGuffin; and others. His nonfiction can be found on the San Francisco Writers Conference Newsletter, and as a guest blogger in Writer’s Digest. He lives in Oakland, California.

Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, a former community college instructor who taught Political Science and Sociology, and is finishing a certificate in Veteran Studies. Her fiction has been published in a slew of print and on-line journals including Cigale Literary Magazine, 100 Doors to Madness Anthology, Mad Swirl and The Moon, and her poetry has been accepted by Van Gogh’s Ear and Page & Spine. Her photographs have appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Off the Coast Magazine among others.  Her novel, The 9th Circle was published by Barbarian Books.

Christian McKay has never published a story. Not on purpose. As he wanders through Salt Lake shrubbery, children listen to his mumblings, write them down, and then sell them at a profit to publications like Bewildering Stories, Danse Macabre, Well Told Tales, and Everyday Weirdness. Recently, he’s been mumbling about haunted foxes.  He has just been offered representation for his first novel, about children that used to eat brains together.

K.J. Roby just sent her only son off to start his senior year of high school and is thrilled to have found something to focus on other than an upcoming empty-nest. She is a native Floridian and tries to spend as much time as possible reading and writing. Her poetry as been published in Newsletter for Writers produced by Clarity Works. This is her first published short-story.

Roger Hannigan Gilson was born in Baltimore, but grew up in Connecticut. He is a humor columnist for Brokeassstuart.com,           and the majority of his writings can be found at Threadbaretravels.com.

Matt West is a graduate from Arcadia University, and is proud of never having a single creative writing class in his life. His girlfriend convinced him to pack up and leave Philadelphia for Austin Texas, and writes stories inside to avoid dying of heatstroke. His short fiction has received honorable mention in Allegory Magazine, and is ferociously seeking representation for his novels.

Svetlana Kortchik was born in a small Siberian town of Tomsk and, when she was 16, moved to Australia with her mum. She lives in Sydney, working as a computer programmer. Her passions are writing, travelling, history and martial arts. Her work has appeared in Spark Creative Anthology, Alt Hist Magazine and Forging Freedom Anthology, among others.

Svetlana’s first novel is published!  Read “Savaged Lands” for e-readers, here:

http://amzn.to/1S1A5mY for Amazon UK, and http://amzn.to/1OtUUVH for Amazon US.

2014 FLASH SUITE Contest

Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, a former community college instructor who taught Political Science and Sociology, and is finishing a certificate in Veteran Studies. Her fiction has been published in a slew of print and on-line journals including Cigale Literary Magazine, 100 Doors to Madness Anthology, Mad Swirl and The Moon, and her poetry has been accepted by Van Gogh’s Ear and Page & Spine. Her photographs have appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Off the Coast Magazine among others.  Her novel, The 9th Circle was published by Barbarian Books.

Barry Basden lives in the Texas hill country with his wife and two yellow Labs. He edits Camroc Press Review and is coauthor of CRACK! AND THUMP: WITH A COMBAT INFANTRY OFFICER IN WORLD WAR II. His shorter work has been published in Atticus Review, decomP, Matter Press, Northville Review, PANK, Prick of the Spindle, Thrush, and many other fine journals. He is currently working on a collection of compressed pieces related to war.

Anne Waldron Neumann teaches creative writing to adults and has completed a collection of literary folktales, Bedtime Stories for Mothers.  She is currently working on a book, Reading and Writing with Jane Austen, that combines an appreciation of Austen’s novels with a fiction-writing handbook.

John Vicary is the pseudonym of an author from Michigan. He began publishing poetry in the fifth grade and has been writing ever since. He’s published in many fiction compendiums, but his most recent credentials include short fiction in the collection “The Longest Hours”, “Anthology of the Mad Ones” , “Midnight Circus” and issues of “Alternating Current”, “Timeless Tales”, and the Birmingham Arts Journal. He has stories in upcoming issues of Disturbed Digest, “Creepy Weird Horror Stories”, a charity anthology entitled “Second Chance”, and “Dead Men’s Tales”. He is the proud parent of five kids. You can read more of his work at  keppiehed.com.

Amy Severson was about thirteen when she learned that the only thing more fun that reading science fiction and horror was writing it herself. Her work has been featured in various on-line magazines and one horror short story, “The Box,” was published this year in 100 Doors to Madness by Forgotten Tomb Press. Amy recently finished her first novel, a sci-fi comedy about monsters, and is trying to find an agent who loves it as much as she does.

Julie Duffy is the host of the StoryADay.org creative writing challenge for short story writers, held annually in May. She first came across the term ‘defenestration’ in a high school history class and blames it for her subsequent degree in History. A transplanted Scot, she lives and writes in Pennsylvania and blogs at julieduffy.com

Martha Hubbard lives on an island in the North Baltic. A place of strange gods, mysteries, tragedies and wonder, it provides the perfect bed-rock for a writer of dark fantasy. Previously she has been a teacher, cook, stage manager & dramaturge ,  a parking lot company book-keeper and a community development worker.  Her stories have appeared in the Innsmouth Free Press’ anthologies, Historical Lovecraft, Candle in the Attic Window and Future Lovecraft. Last year she served on the jury for the International SFF Translation Awards and hopes to do so again.

Andrew Leon Hudson is an Englishman resident in Madrid and has been writing full-time since the beginning of 2012, partly in an attempt to appear as unemployed as everyone else in the country, partly in an attempt to lead a fulfilling life. In preparation for this he has worked in fields as diverse as prosthetic makeup, teaching, contact lens retail, “intoxicant delivery” and the services (customer and military). He used to have his own company, but it died. His first novel, The Glass Sealing, is currently in the works at Musa Publishing and will be available in the new year. He has a variety of short stories floating around the infosphere, with directions available from his minimalist, pseudonymous blog, andrewleonhudson.wordpress.com

Rhonda Eikamp is originally from Texas and lives in Germany. Stories of hers appeared up to 2001 in venues such as Barrelhouse and The Urbanite, after which she climbed out the window for awhile. Since refenestrating in 2012, she has published fiction in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Birkensnake and Apocrypha and Abstractions. When not writing fiction, she works as a translator of German legalese, which is as crazy-making as one might think. Favorite story with defenestration: Village of the Mermaids, by Lance Olsen.

2014 !Short Story Contest! finalists

Ethan Brightbill has a BFA in creative writing from Penn State Erie and lives in Iowa City. By day he smites the unworthy as a freelance editor, while by night he reads for Revolution House and Literary Orphans. His fiction has appeared in Transcendence Magazine.

Rafael S.W. writes short stories and poetry and is a founding member of ‘Dead Poets’ Fight Club’. He’s been published in The Big Issue Fiction Edition, Voiceworks, and Award Winning Australian Writing. A regular contributor to Going Down Swinging online, he also enjoys poetry slams and giant-sized chess games. www.rafaelsw.com

Jetse de Vries—@shineanthology—is a technical specialist for a propulsion company by day, and a science fiction reader, editor and writer by night. He’s also an avid bicyclist, total solar eclipse chaser, beer/wine/single malt aficionado, metalhead and intelligent optimist.  The T-shirt he’s wearing is of the November 14, 2012 total solar eclipse over Port Douglas, Australia.

Krista Madsen, found online at SleepyHollowInk.com, is the mother of two young girls and the author of two weird novels (Four Corners and Degas Must Have Loved a Dancer, both published by Livingston Press). Born and raised in Bristol, CT, she majored in English at Yale University and then received an MFA in creative writing from the New School in New York City. Her short fiction and essays have been printed in The Citizen, 11211, Lit, Small Spiral Notebook, Urban Folk, Driftwood, and the River Styx, anthologized in Hunger and Thirst and Little Red Book, and found online on All Things Girl, Reading Divas, Front Street Review, Emerging Writers Forum, Bite Magazine, Suitcase, and MiPOesias. After five years of owning and operating a Brooklyn arts/wine lounge called Stain, she moved with her art-making husband Jeff to Sleepy Hollow, NY, where she is happily returning to her fictional roots and launching her virtual “wordsmithery” shop for editing, teaching and writing.

Angela Maracle has mentored young people and passed on the art of dance for over thirty years. She owns a studio in Ontario, Canada, and has also taught in Campo Mourao, Brazil. She traveled to post-revolution Romania in 1990 to adopt one of Ceausescu’s forgotten children, and has two younger boys, eight and ten. She enjoys sewing, painting and crafting, but her lifelong passion is writing. She recently had two pieces published in Microfiction Monday, and won second place in the flash fiction Chest Writing Contest sponsored by author Mike C. Paulus.

Andy Nellis is a writer living and studying in the lusty, dusty streets of Denver. He holds some degrees from some places. When not writing Andy can usually be found throwing pebbles at your kitchen window. His work most recently appeared in The Los Angeles  Review of Los Angeles.

2015 FLASH SUITE Contest Finalists

Misty Shipman Ellingburg is a Shoalwater Bay Indian from the coast of Western Washington. Her passions include teaching English (writing & rhetoric), social-justice blogging, and participating in Tribal Journeys. Currently, she is blogging about Ferguson at mfaconfessions.wordpress.com, curating for an American Indian literary journal, Four Winds (fourwindslitmag.org), and desperately cramming for finals at the University of Idaho, where she is obtaining her MFA in writing, class of 2016.

David Giannini’s most recently published collections of poetry include AZ TWO (Adastra Press,) a “Featured Book” in the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival; RIM/WAVE in 2012;, and  five chapbooks in 2013, including  INVERSE MIRROR, a collaboration with artist, Judith Koppel; and his full-length book of selected prosepoems, SPAN of THREAD, will be published before the end of this year. His work appears in national and international literary magazines and anthologies.  Awards include:  Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Awards; The Osa and Lee Mays Award For Poetry; an award for prosepoetry from the University of Florida; and a 2009 Finalist Award from the Naugatuck Review. He has been a gravedigger; beekeeper; taught at Williams College, The University of Massachusetts, and Berkshire Community College, as well as preschoolers and high school students, among others; and he worked as a psychiatric case manager for 31 years. He lives among trees in Becket, Massachusetts with his wife, Pam.

Laryssa Wirstiuk is a writer and writing instructor based in Jersey City, NJ. She teaches writing and digital media at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. Her collection of short stories The Prescribed Burn won Honorable Mention in the 21st Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards (Mainstream Fiction category). Her writing has been published in IthacaLit, Hamilton Stone Review, and The Stockholm Review of Literature and is forthcoming in Barely South Review. You can view all her work here: http://www.laryssawirstiuk.com.

2015 !Short Story Contest!

Survival is part of William Masters’ unpublished anthology, Portraiture: A San Francisco Story Cycle.

Glenn A. Bruce, MFA, wrote the movie Kickboxer, for TV shows including Walker:Texas Ranger and Baywatch, and has won video awards for writing/directing. He has been published in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Shotgun Honey, RedFez, Beat Poets of the Forever Generation, Alfie Dog, LLR, Oval, Carolina Mountain Life,Loud Zoo, and Green Silk Journal. He has published five novels and two collections of short stories. His play “A Man’s World” will be produced by In/Visible Theatre.

Ariel Fintushel lives in LA where she writes and works in the visual and sound mediums, experimenting with process and intention. Fintushel teaches writing at Oxnard College and AMDA. Her work was recently published in Welter, Lunar Poetry, and Shabby Doll House. Find more here: 10humanfingers.tumblr.com

Sarena Ulibarri earned an MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and attended the Clarion Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop at UCSD in 2014. Her fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Monkeybicycle, Birkensnake, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Editor for World Weaver Press, and currently lives in New Mexico. Find more at sarenaulibarri.com

Tom Sheehan served in 31^st Infantry, Korea 1951, graduated from Boston College, 1956. Books include Epic Cures; Brief Cases, Short Spans; Collection of Friends; From the Quickening; The Saugus Book; Ah, Devon Unbowed; This Rare Earth & Other Flights.  In the Garden of Long Shadows, The Nations and Where Skies Grow Wide, were recently published by Pocol Press. Sons of Guns, Inc., just released by Nazar Look Books in Romania (where he was awarded a Nazar Look Short Story Award for 2014.)eBooks include Korean Echoes (nominated for a Distinguished Military Award), The Westering, (National Book Award nomination);  Murder at the Forum, Death of a Lottery Foe, Death by Punishment, Copperfield Review, An Accountable Death, Vigilantes East. Work in Rosebud, KYSO Flash, The Linnet’s Wings, Literary Orphans, Provo Canyon Review, Nazar Look, Eastlit, Rope and Wire Magazine, The Literary Yard, Green Silk Journal, Western Online, The Path, Faith-Hope-Fiction, etc. He has 28 Pushcart Prize nominations.

Sara Kate Ellis lives in Tokyo. She is a 2011 Lambda Emerging Writers Fellow and a martial artist in seat nabbing during crowded commutes. Her essays and stories have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, AllyMcBeal.com, Bete Noire, Ideomancer, and most recently, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. She also writes about comic books for Sequart.

T.C. Powell starves full-time and writes on the side.  He has been published by the Christian Science Monitor, New Myths, Big Pulp, and others, and his short stories “Natural Forces at Work” and “A Flip Through the Past” have won the Penn Cove Literary Arts Award for June 2015 and July 2015, respectively.  His woeful web presence can be found at http://tcpowellfiction.blogspot.com .

 2016 FLASH SUITE Contest

Lara Alonso Corona was born in a city in the north of Spain. She completed her Film and TV studies in Madrid before moving to London to study creative fiction. Her fiction has appeared online and in print in magazines like The Copperfield Review, Literary Orphans,Devilfish Review, Whiskey Island and recently in Betty Fedora.

Geoffrey Miller has an MFA from City U in Hong Kong. His most recent fiction can be found inApocrypha and Abstractions,Crack The Spine,Revolver, Ginosko Literary Journal,Pank, and The Journal of Micro Literature. Visually check outPaper Tape Magazine and Weave Magazine.

For three decades Paul Lewellan taught creative writing and debate at Bettendorf High School.  For the last twelve years he has taught communication studies at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. His latest novel, Twenty-one Humiliating Demands, chronicles an aging assassin who retires to teach Atrocity Studies as small Mid-Western college.

Evan Guilford-Blake writes plays, prose and poetry for adults and children. His published books include the comic mystery novel Noir(ish), the short story collection American Blues and the novel Animation, as well as the forthcoming middle-grade novel The Bluebird Prince and short story collection Love and Loss and Love. His work has also appeared in some 60 journals and anthologies, winning 23 awards; his plays have been performed internationally and won 43 playwriting competitions. Thirty are published.   He and his wife (and inspiration) Roxanna, a healthcare writer and jewelry designer, live in the southeastern US.

the 2016 !Short Story Contest! Finalists

DC Diamondopolous is an award-winning short story and flash fiction writer published worldwide. DC’s short stories have appeared in online literary magazines: Antioch University’s Lunch Ticket, Fiction on the Web, Eskimo Pie, Five on the Fifth, Crab Fat Lit and many more. DC stories are also in print anthologies, Blue Crow, the Australian literary journal and Scarborough Fair, published by the University of Toronto. DC won second place in the University of Toronto’s literary Contest for 2016 for her short story, Taps, and won two Soul Making-Keats honorary mentions in 2014 for her short stories, The Bell Tower and Taps. DC lives in California.

Glenn A. Bruce has an MFA in Writing, was associate fiction editor for The Lindenwood Review, and has published seven novels as well as two collections of short stories. He wrote the movie Kickboxer, episodes ofWalker: Texas Ranger and Baywatch. He has been published in RedFez, Beat Poets of the Forever Generation, Alfie Dog, LLR,Carolina Mountain Life,Oval,Brilliant Flash Fiction (where he was also final judge for the Flash Fiction 2015 contest) and many others. He recently won top prize in the “Quick & Dirty” short story contest for Also That (which included a cash prize and some cool art!). He currently teaches Screenwriting and Acting for the Camera at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.

The son of a World War Two US Marine,Chad Ehler is an avid military historian and researcher. He studied national security and military affairs at UC Berkeley and constitutional law and jurisprudence at Santa Clara University.  His latest novel set in England and France during the Battle of Britain, 1940, is set to be published in 2016 by London-based Endeavour Press, Ltd. You can find him on Twitter @ghqhomeforces or on Fidalgo Island, Washington, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Tara Campbell [www.taracampbell.com] is a Washington, D.C.-based writer of crossover sci-fi. With a BA in English and an MA in German Language and Literature, she has a demonstrated aversion to money and power. Previous publication credits include stories in Lorelei Signal, Punchnel’s, the WiFiles, Silverthought Online, Toasted Cake Podcast, Litro Magazine, Luna Station Quarterly, Master’s Review and Magical: An Anthology.

Don Noel retired after four decades’ print and broadcast journalism in Hartford CT, a career that included runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize, finalist for a White House Fellowship, an Alicia Patterson Fellowship for study in Cambodia and Romania, and a dozen or so other honors.  Turning in retirement to fiction, he took an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University at age 81. His work has so far been chosen for publication by Calliope, Shark Reef, Drunk Monkeys, The Tau, Indian River Review, Midnight Circus, Oracle, Clare Literary Magazine and The Raven’s Perch.  He has a novel and two novellas looking for publishers.  The Albert Einstein quote on the desk reads: “If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

2017 FLASH SUITE Contest

William R. Soldan received his BA in English Literature from Youngstown State University. He currently studies fiction and poetry in the Northeast Ohio MFA program and teaches English Composition at YSU. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of publications such as New World Writing, Thuglit, The Vignette Review, Kentucky Review, and Elm Leaves Journal, among others. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio, with his wife and son and some cat named Ringo.

Chad Ehler is a 20th century military historian and the son of a World War II US Marine. Chad studied national security and political science at UC Berkeley and constitutional law and jurisprudence at Santa Clara University. His latest novel, Battle for Glory, is set in England and France during the Battle of Britain, 1940, and was published in October 2016 by London-based Endeavour Press, Ltd.  His other published fiction and non-fiction works appear ondefenestrationism.net and Historynet.com. You can find him on Twitter @ghqhomeforces, atwww.ghqhomeforces.com or on Fidalgo Island, Washington, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Ingrid Jendrzejewski grew up in Vincennes, Indiana, studied creative writing at the University of Evansville, then physics at the University of Cambridge. Her work has found homes in places like Passages North, The Los Angeles Review, The Conium Review, The Mainichi, andThe Liars’ League (London & NYC) and. Links to Ingrid’s work can be found atwww.ingridj.com and she occasionally tweets @LunchOnTuesday. When not writing, Ingrid enjoys cryptic crosswords, the python programming language and the game of Go.

2017 !Short Story Contest!

Lisa Clark‘s work has appeared in various publications including The Alligator, The Gnu, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Best Modern Voices, v 2. She’s winner of the Glass Woman Prize for fiction and the Mia Pia Forte Prize for creative non-fiction. Bulgaria has been her home for over eighteen years. She’s currently working on a YA novel about AI sentiency.

Jessica Costello began writing when all her friends got too old to play make-believe and she still wanted to. At eleven she decided to try writing a novel, after she read Lord of the Rings and thought, “I can do that.” Though that first attempt was unsuccessful, she hasn’t stopped: throughout high school and college she wrote four unpublished novels, and is now working on her first novel to be published. Her flash fiction is available at https://funkyllamablog.wordpress.com/. Jessica is a recent graduate of Emerson College, where she earned her BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing, and is working toward her Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University to become a children’s librarian. Her stories have appeared in the online magazines East Coast Ink and the Merrimack Review, and she has reviewed books for Graphic Novel Reporter, Indie Reader, and The Horn Book, Inc. She lives in Los Angeles.

B. Craig Grafton‘s stories have appeared regularly in Scarlet Leaf Review. His story Misconceptions appears in The Prison Compendium a book if thirty three short stories. Two of his stories are in the book Tales of Canyon Lake and two in 100 Voices An Anthology one in Volume Three and one in the upcoming Volume four. In addition he has had nine stories published in Romance Magazine, one in Heater and seven in Frontier Tales and a few others here and there. Author is a retired attorney now living in Texas who began writing stories about two years ago while recovering from a broken foot.

In addition to writing fiction, Andrew Livingston writes and draws a daily webcomic at CrustaceanSingles.com. Back when he was a linguist, he wrote an extremely technical descriptive grammar of an obscure Polynesian language. He also co-authored What The French!?, a very non-technical textbook on French grammar. He subscribes to the notion that any window can be a door if you believe in yourself.

Isabella Hernandez is unemployed young adult of 19 reapplying for another try at college in the Fall. She hopes to be accepted into SUNY Delhi, where she will pursue an Associates in Culinary Arts; then later a Bachelors in Culinary Management in the hopes of owning her own fine dining restaurant, Arato’s. After that, she would like to continue studying culinary overseas at Tsuji Culinary Institute before gaining work experience and finally opening her place. On the side, she writes her own novel set in an alternate history WWII that while not changing the outcome, will offer a fresh new take on the subject that also shows the trials and tribulations of mankind from either side- moral, psychological, and physical. Aside from cooking and writing, she is also a massive history buff, and is particularly fond of the pilots who flew on regardless of their flag, the odds, and at times in spite of the horrid ideologies of their governments. The only other official contest she has won was an essay on Thanksgiving during 5th Grade which instead spoke out on the inhumane treatment of Native Americans. Ever since, she has continued to expand and improve her writing by first reading good books, classic or otherwise. She consistently scored extremely well in English class, and once achieved the highest grade on the English Language Regents exams in her first high school – a 95. She looks after her old dog of nine years, named Happy, on a daily basis.

Gustavo Bondoni is an Argentine novelist and short story writer who writes primarily in English. He has recently released two science fiction novels: Siege (2016) and Outside (2017).  He has nearly two hundred short stories published in fourteen countries.  They have been translated into seven languages.  Many of the stories are collected in Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011). The Curse of El Bastardo  (2010) is a short fantasy novel.  His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com.

2018 FLASH SUITE Contest

Brooke Reynolds is a veterinarian from Charlotte, North Carolina. When she isn’t busy saving animals, she enjoys writing fiction. Her stories have appeared at such markets as The Scarlet Leaf Review, Massacre Magazine, Fantasia Divinity, The Airgonaut, The Literary Hatchet, Ghost Parachute, Riggwelter, and Every Day Fiction. Her story ‘Dr. Google’ won 2nd place in the 2016 Short Story Contest for Channillo. You can follow her on Twitter @psubamit

Salvatore Difalco is the author of four books. His short stories have appeared in a number of online and print magazines.

Anna Chan obtained her BA in Business Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma.  After graduating, she worked as an air traffic controller for 8 years in the United States Army.  Her work has appeared in the Army Magazine, The Story Shack, and Three Line Poetry.  Anna is currently brushing up on proficiency in Spanish and Mandarin, with the goal of entertaining more readers in the ever changing landscape of fiction and literature.  She currently resides in a rather notorious border town in southeastern Arizona and contributes write-ups and photography to a local news venue.

Meet the 2018 !Short Story Contest! Finalists

Nathan Alling Long lives in Philadelphia and teaches creative writing at Stockton University.  His work appears in various journals, include Tin House, Glimmer Train, Story Quarterly, and Crab Orchard Review.  His fifty-story collection The Origin of Doubt (Press 53) is being released Spring 2018.  He can be found at https://blogs.stockton.edu/longn

Martha Hubbard’s students tell her she’s led an interesting life. The evidence seems to support this. Teacher, writer, mother, life-long student, promiscuous experience seeker, Martha has run a parking lot company in NYC, a Greek restaurant on Crete, been a dramaturg & stage manager in New York City’s Off-Off Broadway theatre community, English language teacher to culinary students and now is semi-so-so retired on an island in the North Baltic Sea off the coast of Estonia where she agitates for shorter supply chains between local food producers and consumers, and guides unwary visitors around her island, mostly in summer. Somehow in the middle of all this she finds time to write.

Salvatore Difalco is the author of 4 books. His short story collection MINOTAUR is due out in 2019. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada.

Eneasz Brodski lives in south Denver, and has a number of meaningful relationships of many varieties. He was raised in an apocalyptic Christian sect, and while he’s left that behind, it still colors much of his writing. In his ever-dwindling free time, Eneasz produces an audio fiction podcast at www.hpmorpodcast.com. He’s always willing to strike up a conversation with anyone in dark clothes and eyeliner.

Jessica Dalton’s work has been published in Postcard Shorts, HOOT, Pure Slush, The Copperfield Review, CommuterLit, and Kzine. She lives in rural Virginia, and makes a living, of sorts, in the local agriculture scene.

2019 FLASH SUITE Contest

M.T. Ingoldby works as a copywriter in the UK. His stories have appeared in The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Next Review, the Lowestoft Chronicle (x2), Existeré, Octavius, Crimson Streets, Story & Grit, and one or two anthologies, working his way up to a novel. He is an active member of the Waterloo Theatre Group, and a keen runner. He currently lives in London.

Despite being born to two parents who are writers, Chantelle Tibbs’ writing journey didn’t begin until her late twenties. She started life off as an actress and a musician. Finding some of the roles for women of color limiting, she began writing stories, scripts and songs from her own unique experience and perspective. In 2016 she co-wrote the script “Shrine of Scars” which was published about in February 2016 and January 2017 in the Modesto Bee. Whether singing, acting, writing or cleaning the bathroom on the set of an independent film she is passionate about, Chantelle strives to break patterns, untying the shoelaces of monotony and routine while helping to open the door for people to experience so much more out of life. She is an Aries, she enjoys post-apocalyptic movies, forensic science shows and her golden, five year old son, Kai.

Katharine McGiffert has been a university teacher of children’s literature, a zookeeper, and an ESL instructor and is now a book buyer for a children’s bookstore in San Francisco. She also has been crazy and sane, sick and healthy, and a writer and a non-writer. She has 29 pets, most of them small.

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Writers Digest, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.

Dina Toyoda came to the United States many years ago. She started to write just recently.  Dina and her husband, Takahumi, live in California, where they patiently wait for their kids to come home from college.

John Steckley taught at Humber College in Toronto for 30 years before he retired in 2015.  He has published 21 books of non-fiction, including textbooks in sociology, anthropology and Indigenous Studies, several biographies and seven works concerning the Wendat and Wyandot people. His house is a menagerie, with eight parrots, two dogs and a cat.  He is married to a woman who is a brilliant artist, and shares his passion for animals. He currently works part time at the Tribal Linguist of the Wyandotte of Oklahoma.  He started writing short stories when he retired, and wishes he had started doing that years earlier.

Levi Andrew Noe was born and raised in Denver, CO. He is a writer, wanderer, yogi, entrepreneur, and amateur oneironaut. His flash fiction collection Rain Check was published in August 2016 from Truth Serum Press. His flash fiction, short stories, creative non-fiction and works of poetry can be found in Connotation Press, Boston Literary Magazine, Bartleby Snopes and Literary Orphans, among many others. Levi is the editor in chief and founder of the podcast Rocky Mountain Revival Audio Art Journal.

Twitter: @LeviAndrewNoe, @RockyMtnRevival

W.F. Lantry’s poetry collections are The Terraced Mountain (Little Red Tree 2015), The Structure of Desire (Little Red Tree 2012) winner of a 2013 Nautilus Award in Poetry, The Language of Birds (2011) and a forthcoming collection, The Book of Maps. He received his PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Honors include the National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry, CutBank Patricia Goedicke Prize, Crucible Editors’ Poetry Prize, Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (Israel), Comment Magazine Poetry Award (Canada), Paris/Atlantic Young Writers Award (France), Old Red Kimono Paris Lake Poetry Prizeand Potomac Review Prize. His work has appeared widely online and in print in journals such as Asian Cha, Gulf Coast and Valparaiso Fiction Review. He is the editor of Peacock Journal.

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