Author Bios
Learn more about the authors published by Red Bridge Press. They are emerging and award-winning writers of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from around the world.
aJbishop lives, writes, and runs a business in Montreal, Quebec. She lives with a mastiff named Cooper and posts her poems at allisonjb.wordpress.com. Her poem appearing in Writing That Risks is excerpted from a larger poem named “The Plane of Consistency” which continues to explore iterating digressions.
Jenny Bitner’s fiction has been published in Mississippi Review, The Sun, Fence, Corium, and PANK. Her story “The Pamphleteer” was selected by Dave Eggers for Best American Nonrequired Reading and incorporated into an opera by The Paul Bailey Ensemble. Her nonfiction has appeared in Utne Reader, To-Do List, The San Francisco Bay Guardian and Men’s Health. She organized Irrational Exuberance--a cross-genre series combining music, visual art, writing, performance art, and lectures--and a literary reading series, The Basement Reading Series. Pine Press published a chapbook of her poetry entitled Mother. She has finished a novel Here Is a Game We Can Play and is seeking a publisher. She earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Virginia. Visit her at jennyart.com.
Steve Castro was born in Costa Rica. He will be attending the MFA Program in Creative Writing at American University in Washington, D.C., starting Fall, 2013. He recently received a very kind letter informing him that he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has a website: thepoetryengineer.com.
Registered Nurse by day and Psychic by night, Joanne M. Clarkson uses poetry to make sense of both callings. She has authored several collections of poems including Pacing the Moon (Chantry Press). Clarkson has Master’s Degrees in English and Library Science, has taught and worked as a librarian. She re-careered as a Hospice nurse after caring for her mother. Clarkson’s grandmother, a psychic, helped her learn both palmistry and card reading, talents she has honored more energetically recently. Life and afterlife inform much of what she writes.
After completing a Master’s degree in nautical archaeology, Patrick Cole moved to the West Coast of the U.S. and then to Barcelona, Spain, where he has lived the past fourteen years. His fiction appeared recently in Conclave and Timber and has also been published in Parcel (a Pushcart Prize nominee), High Plains Literary Review (also a Pushcart Prize nominee), Nimrod International, Agni online, 34th Parallel, and turnrow, among other journals. He has also published poetry and a one-act play which was a finalist in the Knock International Play Competition and was produced in Seattle.
Thia Li Colvin lives far to the west of the Western U.S., with her two daughters and husband. By day, she writes magazine features. Her nights are her own.
David Ellis Dickerson is a regular contributor to public radio’s “This American Life” and the host of the YouTube series “Greeting Card Emergency,” which often gets him interviewed around the holidays. He has a Ph.D. in Literature from Florida State and an MFA from the University of Arizona, and his work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Story Quarterly, Slice, and Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. He has also written crossword puzzles for The New York Times and The New Yorker. None of this pays as well as you’d hope. Which is why he lives in Tucson. Follow along at davidellisdickerson.wordpress.com.
Poet and vocalist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs has been published in Ploughshares, Jubilat, Fence, LA Review, and Black Renaissance Noir, among others. Her performance work has been featured at The Kitchen, Exit Art, Recess Activities Inc, The Whitney, and MoMa. As a curator and artistic director, she has staged events at El Museo del Barrio, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Dixon Place, and BAM Café. She is the recipient of several awards, including Cave Canem, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The Laundromat Project. Along with Greg Tate, she edits yoYO/SO4 Magazine. Her poetry collection TwERK was recently published by Belladonna*. She is a native of Harlem. More at latashadiggs.tumblr.com.
Molly English is a writer and illustrator from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. She is currently pursuing a BFA in studio art and creative writing at the University of Iowa.
Mariev Finnegan lives in a Gothic house on the dead end of Erie Street, on the edge of the Erie canal, with her grandson, Jacob Stump; a three-legged dog, Bloody Stump; Erie, the cat; and an owl, named Who? Her work has appeared in Farrago’s Wainscot, Serendipity, The Bad Version, Shadows of the Mind Anthology, Fiction Brigade, and Advances in Parapsychological Research (Saybrook). More at MarievFinnegan.yolasite.com.
Erin Fitzgerald holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in publications such as The Rumpus, Hobart, Salt Hill, PANK, Wigleaf, Artifice, and FRiGG. Her chapbook This Morning Will Be Different appeared in the anthology Shut Up/Look Pretty (Tiny Hardcore Press, 2012). Erin lives with her husband and daughter in western Connecticut. Find her online at gnomeloaf.com.
Soren Gauger is a Canadian who has lived for over a decade in Krakow, Poland. He has published two books of short fiction: Hymns to Millionaires (Twisted Spoon Press) and Quatre Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus (Ravenna Press). He published translations of Polish writers (including Jerzy Ficowski, Bruno Jasieński and Wojciech Jagielski), as well as several dozen essays, stories, poems, and translations in journals in Europe and North America, including the Chicago Review, Capilano Review, Contrary, Asymptote, Cossack, American Book Review, and Words Without Borders. He wrote the story included in Writing That Risks first in Polish and then translated it. More of his work is available here.
Libby Hart is an Australian poet and Pushcart nominee. She is the author of two books of poetry: Fresh News from the Arctic, winner of the Anne Elder Award; and This Floating World, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Awards and the Age Book of the Year Awards, and longlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. This Floating World was also devised for stage and received the Shelton Lea Award. She is a recipient of several fellowships, including the DJ O’Hearn Memorial Fellowship, as well as a number of residencies in Australia and Europe. Visit her at libbyhartfile.blogspot.com.
Liana Holmberg, Red Bridge editor. Learn more on the About page.
Catie Jarvis is an author of fiction and poetry, as well as a yoga instructor, a competitive gymnastics coach, and an online writing instructor at Ashford University. She received a BA in Writing from Ithaca College and an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts. She grew up on a lake in northern New Jersey and now lives with her husband; her cat; and her bird, Echo, by the ocean in Marina del Rey, California. She finds the world to be a strange place and loves writing that examines the ambiguity of “reality.” She blogs here.
With a PhD in literature from the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Michelle S. Lee headed for the Atlantic coast, where she is now an associate professor teaching composition and creative writing at Daytona State College. A freelance writer for nearly twenty years, she has published across genres in a variety of literary spaces, including the introduction to a Simon & Schuster Enriched classic, a podcast/article for the Poetry Foundation, and pieces in Text and Performance Quarterly and Northwind Magazine. She is experimenting with multi-genre texts, as well as the novella form. Find her at doctormichellelee.blogspot.com.
Norman Lock has written novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as scenarios for video art installations, stage, radio, and screenplays. He won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Kahn Prize for fiction, and writing fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Love Among the Particles (Bellevue Literary Press) is his newest story collection since The History of the Imagination (FC2). Ravenna Press will publish his book-length poem, In the Time of Rat, later this year. More at normanlock.com.
Jønathan Lyons lives and writes in Central Pennsylvania. He teaches writing and literature at Bucknell University. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Experimental Fiction, Hotel Amerika, Exquisite Corpse, and elsewhere. He received an MFA from California College of the Arts. The process that yielded his story included in Writing That Risks involved cutting up and rearranging blocks and columns of text, hanging those on walls throughout the basement, and then striving to bring this exploded narrative into a coherent whole. A novel which began with this short story is forthcoming in August 2013 from the Journal of Experimental Fiction. His website is The Foundry.
Robert Neilson is married with children and lives in Ireland. In partnership with his wife, he runs a successful retail business in Dublin city. His short fiction has appeared extensively in professional and small press markets, and he has had three plays performed on Irish radio. He also presented a science fiction radio show on Anna Livia for a year. He has had two short story collections published, Without Honour (Aeon Press, 1997) and That’s Entertainment (Elastic Press, 2007), as well as several comics and a graphic novel. His non-fiction book on the properties of crystals is a best-seller in the U.K. and Ireland. He is a founding editor of Albedo One magazine. Visit him at bobneilson.org.
John Newman was born in Helensburgh, Scotland and moved to Canada as a teenager. After graduating with a degree in English Literature from Carleton University in Ottawa, John spent 15 very long years as a technical writer and editor. John is predominantly a screenwriter. He has written for a number of Canadian comedy shows and has sold and optioned both short scripts and feature length screenplays. A short screenplay version of “Love in Vain,” his story in Writing That Risks, reached the semi-finals of the British Short Screenplay Competition in 2012. Further examples of John’s work can be found here.
Christina Olson is the author of Before I Came Home Naked, a book of poems. Her poetry has appeared in journals and magazines including The Southern Review, RHINO, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, Puerto del Sol, The Normal School, Anti-, Gastronomica, Passages North and Hayden’s Ferry Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, Black Warrior Review, Wake: Great Lakes Culture, and Thought, and was anthologized in The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 3. She is the poetry editor of Midwestern Gothic. Originally from Buffalo, she currently teaches writing and technical communication at Georgia Southern University. She also lives online at thedrevlow-olsonshow.
Zach Powers lives and writes in Savannah, Georgia. He is writing this bio himself, and writing it in the third person, which to him feels rather pompous. He is averse to pomposity and is really quite personable. You’d like him. Give Zach Powers a chance. Why do you have to be so judgmental? His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Review, Phoebe, PANK, Caketrain, The Bitter Oleander, Quiddity, The Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere. He is the founder of the literary arts nonprofit Seersucker Live (SeersuckerLive.com). He leads the writers’ workshop at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, where he also serves on the board of directors. His writing for television won an Emmy. Get to know him at ZachPowers.com.
Jordan Reynolds has published poems, essays and reviews in Interim, The Offending Adam, zero ducats, The Agriculture Reader, and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco.
Sharif Shakhshir was born and raised in
Pomona, California. He is the poetry editor at the Southern California Review. He is a candidate for a Master’s of
Professional Writing at the University of Southern California, where he studies
fiction, poetry, and screenwriting. He blogs about creative writing techniques and
My Little Pony
at mlpwritingismagic. His hobbies include breathing fire, hiking, and being
snarky.
At Endicott College, Dan Sklar teaches his students to love language and to write in an original, natural, and spontaneous way. Recent publications include Harvard Review, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street Press, and The Art of the One Act. His play, “Lycanthropy” was performed at the Boston Theater Marathon in May 2012 and reviewed in the Boston Globe. More info here.
At Endicott College, Dan Sklar teaches his students to love language and to write in an original, natural, and spontaneous way. Recent publications include Harvard Review, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street Press, and The Art of the One Act. His play, “Lycanthropy” was performed at the Boston Theater Marathon in May 2012 and reviewed in the Boston Globe. More info here.
Deborah Steinberg, Red Bridge editor. Learn more on the About page.
Wendy Patrice Williams, writer, public speaker and workshop facilitator, is an accomplished poet with two chapbooks, Some New Forgetting and Bayley House Bard. Her blog restoryyourlife features inspiring words of healing, highlighted with original artwork, and articles that help people cope with early trauma and post-traumatic stress. An excerpt of her memoir manuscript, The Autobiography of a Sea Creature, appears in The Healing Art of Writing (University of California Press). Turning the Page: Poems of Trauma, Healing and Transcendence, which Wendy is co-editing, will be published by Fearless Books later this year.
xTx is a writer living in Southern California. Her work has been published in places like The Collagist, PANK, Hobart, Puerto del Sol, Smokelong Quarterly, Monkeybicycle, and Wigleaf. “Normally Special,” a collection of stories, is available from Tiny Hardcore Press. Her story “The Mill Pond” won the 2012 storySouth Million Writers Award. Her chapbook, Billie the Bull (Dzanc Books) can be purchased through a link on her blog at www.notimetosayit.blogspot.com
Rachel Yoder edits draft: the journal of process which features first and final drafts of stories, essays, and poetry along with author interviews. She earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She is the recipient of the 2012 Missouri Review Editors’ Prize in Fiction. The essay that appears in Writing That Risks is from her book-length manuscript The Hard Problem: A Guide for the Intergalactic Writer Looking To Mate. More at racheljyoder.com.
Edmund Zagorin is a writer and argument coach in Iowa City, Iowa, and Detroit, Michigan. His serial novel Sorry, Our Unicorn Has Rabies appears regularly on Jukepop. For those who enjoy receiving physical fictional correspondence, Edmund compiles and mails the free monthly broadsheet Stories By Mail. Read his data-fossils @multiplicit or zagorin.tumblr.com.
Olga Zilberbourg was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and moved to the United States at the age of seventeen. Her first two books of fiction were published in St. Petersburg, where her parents still reside. Where Does the Sea Flow, a short film based on one of Olga’s stories, recently was a finalist at the Manhattan Short Film Festival. Olga’s English-language writing has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Santa Monica Review, eleven eleven Journal, Mad Hatters Review, J Journal, Prick of the Spindle, HTMLGiant, and other print and online publications. Olga is a senior associate editor at Narrative Magazine. More at zilberbourg.com.
