wild violet | waking world

Margaret Andrews
Margaret Andrews is one of those computer nerds, designing web sites and the like. She rides the fence between Los Angeles and Sacramento. You can track her progress via
www.southwestairlines.com/unrulypassengers.html. Her short stories have appeared in Toasted Cheese, T-Zero, Long Story Short and The Glut. She placed in an Elk Grove Public Library Short Story Contest and won honorable mention in the Writers Digest Short Story Contest. She is currently working on her first novel A Slice of Heaven.
Humor: Heredity Sucks

Kathryn Atwood
Kathryn Atwood's poetry and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, including SecondWind, Applecart (forthcoming), The Aurora Review, Premier Review, Midwest Book Review and Book Pleasures. She also writes a regular column called "Literary Allusions" for LitFreak, an online journal. When she's not driving her kids around somewhere (everywhere and anywhere), she's teaching at a local music studio or performing historical music programs (www.HistorySingers.com) with her husband.
Reviews: Because of Winn Dixie

David Biddle
David Biddle has worked as a farm laborer, soup kitchen manager, solar energy technician, government policy analyst, and educator. He has also been a freelance writer for more than twenty years with articles, essays, and fiction in such publications as The Harvard Business Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Toasted-Cheese.com, and BioCycle. He is a contributing editor to In Business magazine, published by JG Press, and writes regularly for getunderground.com. He is also executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Council. David may be reached through formalityoccurrence.blogspot.com. He lives with his wife and three sons in Philadelphia.
Fiction: The Significance of Music

Dean Borok
After spending many years in France studying the art of gavage, or the force-feeding of geese for foie gras, Dean Borok returned to America where he operates a training camp for competitive eaters in Far Rockaway, New York.
Fiction: Papu's Deception

Elizabeth Bragg
Wild Violet copy editor Elli Wilson is a family counselor, Penn State alumnus and a multimedia artist. She lives in State College with her husband and three adorable pets, Emma, Bonanza Jelly Bean and Ludo.

Jeff Bragg
Jeff Bragg is a Wild Violet copy editor. He lives in central Pennsylvania with his wife, two cats, and a dog. He works in a library, and he loves to read.

Anselm Brocki
Anselm Brocki has had poems published in over 590 publications. He taught high school for several years, was a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin, was editorial coordinator for the Los Angeles City Schools, and is currently running his own editing business.
Poetry: Team

R.G. Cantalupo
R.G. Cantalupo is an honors graduate from University of California Santa Cruz and a teaching fellow at Loyola Marymount, making a living as a nonfiction writer and teacher. Most recent publications include Nimrod, Rattle, Sou'wester, The Aurorean, The Cape Rock Review, Green's Review, The Comstock Review, The Blue Collar Review, The Southern Review, War, Literature and the Arts, JAMA and The Green Hills Literary Lantern.
Poetry: Nicknames

Michael Ceraolo
Michael Ceraolo is a forty-something civil servant/poet trying to overcome a middle class upbringing. His epic poem of place, Euclid Creek: A Journey, will be published later this year by Deep Cleveland Press.
Humor: Now for this Commercial Message

Marifrances Conrad-McKinnon
Marifrances Conrad-McKinnon was born in the Rust Belt of Ohio. She graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Epitome Magazine, and Flashquake. Her flash fiction story, "The Fairy Well," earned an Honorable Mention in this year's "Flashquake: Welcome to My World Contest." The upcoming year will bring two new challenges to Marifrances as she becomes a mom for the first time and also embarks on a Master of English program at Youngstown State University. She is married and lives with her husband, the actor Al McKinnon, in a small town in Ohio.
Essay: Job Hunting in the Rust Belt

Keltic Corman
Keltic Corman, copy editor extraordinaire, was born in 1991 in the rolling green hills of downtown Baltimore. After wandering in and out of many a school in the county, he packed his bags and headed west....about five miles, whereupon he was never heard from again. That is unless you're on the Internet. That being his only contact with the outside universe, he created a world just like any other and rocked the masses with this knowledge of cheap places to eat around his place. To this day you can still find him on the net skulking around web pages and creating stories that will never see the light of day...or night.

Mariah Cunningham
Mariah Cunningham is a 2005 high school graduate and a member of the class of 2009 at the University of Maine. A liberal vegetarian waitress at a restaurant specializing in meat dishes and Republicans, she is constantly searching for ways to express herself. An avid reader, she will try a genre once and many twice. This is her first published work.
Cutting: The Fight Against Mediocrity

Mark Cunningham
Mark Cunningham received an MFA from the University of Virginia, and he still lives in the Charlottesville area. Poems have appeared in Rhino and Sentence; a larger selection, of poems on parts of the body, is on the Mudlark web site.
Cuttings: Cygnus, Yellow-Billed Magpie

Peter Desy
Peter Desy is retired from the English Department of Ohio University, where for thirty years he gnashed my teeth each time he sat down to correct "themes" and analyses of poems, plays and fiction. Now he watches a lot of the same bad TV shows these students watched (while writing their papers), but not as much of it. He's got poems in or forthcoming from Shenandoah, Green Mountains Review, Poetry International, Virginia Quarterly Review, Connecticut Review and Poem. His poetry collection is Driving From Columbus.
Poetry: What the Head, The Heart, Know Not Of

Doris E. Dhillon
Born in Cleveland Ohio, Doris Dhillon is the only child of a Scottish Marine officer and his Swedish wife. She earned a B.A. at Ohio State University and a M.A. from Drew University, and she and Raghbir married in 1962. After retiring, she went to India to fulfill her dream of opening an orphage. She and her husband were in th eprocess of purchasing the property when the Indian police made false allegations that she was a CIA terrorist. On returning to America in 1989, she began chasing her second dream, of writing fiction.
Fiction: Snared by Dowry

Raghbir S. Dhillon
Born in Punjab India, Raghbir Dhillon's father was an English professor and famous writer. He excelled academically, graduating first in his class in college with a B.A. and topping the university when he earned a BSCE in 1947. For 11 years he was a railroad engineer in India before immigrating to America, where he earned his MSCE from Purdue University. He served with several consulting firms in America, retiring in 1987 as chief engineer with Campbell & Associates. Together with his wife, he has written 90 stories and had a few of them published in Indian papers and American magazines. They have also completed four novels.
Fiction: Snared by Dowry

D. E. Fredd
D. E. Fredd lives in Townsend, Massachusetts. He has had or soon will have fiction appear in several literary journals including in The Transatlantic Review, The Southern Humanities Review, Rosebud, The Armchair Aesthete, Word Riot, Prose Toad, Tribal Soul Kitchen, WriteThis, LitVisions, Grasslands Review, Verb Sap, Bullfight, The Pedestal, 3711 Atlantic, Megaera, Double Dare, Slow Trains, Pointed Circle, Raging Face, Cautionary Tales, Poor Mojo and SNReview. Poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, The Paumanok Review and the Café Review. He teaches writing and literature courses at New Hampshire Community Technical College.
Humor: Our Daughter Brenda

Jack Goodstein
Jack Goodstein's "Princess and the Frog" appeared in Wild Violet in the Fall of 2002. Seventeen of his stories about the mute actor Mandelbaum have appeared both in print and on the web in Eclectica, Plum Biscuit, and The Asylum among others. Also a playwright, his work has been staged at the Pulse Ensemble Theatre in New York, Silver Springs Stages in Maryland, and Collaboraction in Chicago. His one page plays "Big Brothel" and "Marcel Marceau" were included in the Harrogate Theatre's "Gone in 60 Seconds." The productions should be available for downloading on the web later this year. He reviews books regularly for The Compulsive Reader.
Fiction: Impersonating Mandelbaum

Jim Hanley
Jim Hanley works in human resources and writes fiction in different genres:
mainstream, mystery and humor. Jim is also an avid New York Mets fan, and like
the season ticket holders of the team described in his short story, "The Roosters," is impractically hopeful, bordering on delusional.
Fiction: The Roosters

Sheri Fresonke Harper
Sheri Fresonke Harper started her second career as a writer after falling in love with a co-worker at the Boeing Company. She gladly gave up systems analysis to follow her muse: finding beauty in nature and evaluating the impact of science on society. Sheri is from Renton, Washington. Her poems have appeared in Spring Hill Review, Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry, BigCityLit.com among others. She's finished her first novel, No Placers, and is working on a second. You can find out about her travels, writing, and more at her website/blog: www.sfharper.com.
Poetry: Porté De Abejos

Linda Oatman High
Linda Oatman High is a Pennsylvania author of books for children and teens who presents oftens at schools and conferences. Her programs and writing workshops may be found on www.lindaoatmanhigh.com
Reviews: South Ridgeway Avenue by Ken Shane, Here's to the Arts Cafe Concert

Michelle Humphrey
Michelle Humphrey lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, and works for Art in America. She has recently launched a feminist zine called Beatrix. Drop her a line.
Reviews: Lipstick and Dynamite, Assisted Living, My Mother's Smile (Ora Di Religione: Il Sorriso Di Mia Madre)

Linnea Jacobson
Linnea Jacobson lives in New York City, where she was born and raised. She has nearly completed her B.A. at Sarah Lawrence College. Aside from a poem she wrote about her cat when she was nine years old, "Faking It" is her first published work. She loves stand-up comedy, horror movies, summertime, and the Ramones.
Fiction: Faking It

Pete Lee
Pete Lee lives in a geographically remote town in the Mojave Desert, where he works as a grant writer and poet. His former occupations include U.S. army sergeant/counterintelligence agent, federal intelligence operations specialist, and private investigator. His poetry has been published in hundreds of literary journals.
Humor: Two Short Poems

Lyn Lifshin
Lyn Lifshin has published more than 100 books of poetry, won awards for her non-fiction and edited four anthologies of women's writing. She is the subject of an award winning documentary film, Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. Whatever she does she does to extreme: when she fell in love with Ruffian, the tragic, gorgeous race horse, for a year she wrote, read, dreamed, breathed little else. Her book, The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian, will be published by Texas Review Press.
Poetry: Extreme, Lavender, It Was the Blue Distance

Chris Martinez
Chris Martinez lives in a shoebox under your bed.
Cutting: Rattle Ride

Elizabeth A. Marx
Born amongst beer bottle and steel mills in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Marklewicz was first published at the age of ten in A Celebration of Pennsylvania's Young Poets. She attended the Rochester Institute of Technology for filmmaking. Braving the harsh realities of New York for two years, she returned to live with her boyfriend and dog in Pittsburgh. Recently, she has appeared in many online publications and is the current fashion commentator for Deek Magazine. With a love for travel, she has spent her last two summers in France, England, Scotland, Italy, and has no plans of stopping there. She enjoys ethnic shoes, glossy magazines, Cartier cigarettes, The Who, and French wine.
Humor: A Modern Fable: Or Do's and Don'ts in Accordance with Gym Etiquette

William Starr Moake
William Starr Moake is the author of three published fiction books, two novels and a short story collection. Last year his article about a fishing boat that vanished in a storm with five men aboard was published by Honolulu Magazine and won a first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists. When he's not writing, he freelances as a web designer and software programmer from his home in Honolulu. He has lived in the islands since 1972.
Essay: The Savage Journey of Dr. Gonzo

D.L. Olson
After growing up and graduating from high school in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, I studied foreign languages, literature, and writing at UW-Madison, where I eventually earned a bachelor's and two master's degrees. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Army as a Russian translator, I moved to Athens, Ohio. The humble servant of five masterful cats, I now live in an old slate-roofed house atop a ridge between a serene Appalachian hollow and a rowdy college town. To feed my felines I work for Ohio University as a librarian and write fiction in whatever spare time my keepers permit.
Fiction:

Laura Perlberger
Laura Perlberger is a junior at Haverford College studying Anthropology and Peace & Conflict Studies. She writes to convey and entertain, but also as a self-exploration of the many feelings, transitions, and mini-dramas that shape her life.
Poetry: High School Sweethearts, Shower

Jon Picciuolo
Jon Picciuolo is retired from the navy and writes for pleasure. His work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been published by many magazines nationwide, both online and on paper. He lives in Lompoc, California, and enjoys writing, hiking, and yoga.
Fiction: Starlight and Footlights

Margaret A. Robinson
Margaret A. Robinson grew up in New England, now lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and teaches at Widener University in the Writing Center and creative writing program. She has two triolets in the spring 2003 issue of Rattle and three poems in the spring 2003 issue of Chiron Review. Abbey just brought out her cheapo chapbook, Sleeping Outdoors in the Suburbs — 18 pages, fifty cents a copy — available at Book Source in Swarthmore. Pudding House Publications has accepted her chapbook, Sparks.
Poetry: Everyone's in the Garden

Mike Ryan
Wild Violet assistant designer Mike Ryan has a distressingly common name. He's not the lawyer or pharmaceutical salesman or the pool club owner. He's the information services manager. The one that loves anime and science fiction. No, not the one from New York, the one from Pennsylvania. Yeah, that one.

Wayne Scheer
After teaching writing and literature in college for twenty-five years, Wayne Scheer retired to follow his own advice and write. His stories have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Slow Trains, Thought Magazine, River Walk Journal, Espresso Fiction and Laughter Loaf. His writing awards include a Pushcart Prize nomination. Wayne lives with his wife in Atlanta and can be contacted via e-mail.
Fiction: The Howling Pussycat
Cutting: Working the Land

Chuck Shandry
Chuck Shandry, former Navy Photographer and rabid anime fan, fondly remembers the days of Speed Racer and Kimba, the White Lion. Currently, he attends and helps out at Katsucon, since '96, and Otakon since '95, two anime conventions held on the East Coast of the U.S. (in Baltimore, Maryland). He lives in York, Pennsylvania, and tries to blend reality (a job) and fantasy (anime) as much as possible. Getting too old to admit his true age, he nonetheless tries to spread the word of Japanese animation at every opportoon-ity.
Probe: Joe Grisaffi

Tomi Shaw
Tomi Shaw is a reader, a thinker and a racecar driver. She has three daughters, one husband and a mutt Chow/Husky mix. She lives in a place where chipmunks and raccoons are as much pets as the dog. There are lots of trees here. And bugs. She loves this weird writing gig, and more often than not she pays dearly for her passion.
Cutting: Living Like This

Sam Vaknin
Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love — Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain — How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. Visit Sam's Web site for more essays.
Essays:

Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña
They call her Impetuous Delirious, Bride of Baudelaire, La Chacalaca, Goya's Maja, and by legal decree, Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña — Gabriela of Mexico City, of Texas, and of La Jolla. In coin bra and sequins, she reads and dances in library, theater, and college; in bookstores and salons by the sea. Read her poems in the air, in your dreams, in LanguageandCulture.net, Quill and Parchment, Megaera and Sauce Box. Her books, Exaggerated Gender Signals, Sun's Promise and Bride of Baudelaire, grace the clean and dusty shelves of the unruly and the well-groomed, the insane, and the lucid. She is what she is, that you may have the luxury of propriety. Let her in, you will be cursed or blessed; leave her out, you risk nothing, though nothing is hell.
Poetry: Beneath the Cherry Blossoms

KC Wilder
KC Wilder has authored five books of poetry and dozens of chapbooks, with work published in over 100 literary journals and magazines worldwide, including in 2005, The Seattle Review, Poetry New Zealand, Soma Literary Review, Auckland Poetry Review, and The Iconoclast. KC is also a guitarist, singer, lyricist and musician, currently playing in several bands in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a web designer who builds e-books and commerce websites specifically for writers and artists. Parts of KC's latest book appear on the popular award-winning website www.WhateverMay.com, where visitors daily interact on the the world’s first online literary slam, which KC engineered.
Humor: etching in appointments

T. Richard Williams
T. Richard Williams is the pen name for Bill Thierfelder who teaches (and lives on campus) at Dowling College on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. He loves reading a good book at the ocean, mountain hiking, gardening, going to the movies, and just about anything to do with science and astronomy. His poems and stories have appeared in Lucid Stone, American Poets and Poetry, Higginson Journal, and other venues. He lectures regularly on literature, art, and opera at libraries around Long Island. A perfect day: a walk on the beach in winter; hiking in an October forest; the deep, planet-studded midnight sky in his backyard.
Ficton: Sylvie Knows

Mary Wilson
Wild Violet copy editor Mary Jarrett Wilson lives in Vermont with her husband, dog and cat. She has just given birth to her first child, until recently known as "the belly dweller." Her short stories can be read at Hackwriters.com.

Paul Worthington
Paul Worthington lives in Indiana, where he enjoys both idling through the teeming masses and scurrying about in the hinterlands. He reads novels, short stories, novellas, novelettes, articles, essays, reviews, interviews, maps, nonfiction books, understands little of it, and sometimes writes his own versions of these things. He also enjoys referring to himself in the third person. If you are struck by any of his works, you can tell him so.
Fiction: Beyond the Mist