The Blue Ridge Anthology 2011 - Contributors
Coy Barefoot (special contributor, nonfiction judge) is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com best-selling author. His books include Thomas Jefferson on Leadership and The Corner: A History of Student Life at the University of Virginia, which won the 2003 Nalle Prize for Outstanding History. Coy serves as the director of communications and alumni relations for the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the
Janice Bowen is an older artist who discovered poetry later in life. She writes that, “This is a challenging new medium that is endlessly intriguing and engaging. I am hoping the muse decides to stay for awhile—and even longer than that. Discovering the writing of poetry was the biggest surprise of my life.”
Robert Brickhouse’s (special contributor) poems and stories have appeared in many magazines, including the Virginia Quarterly Review, Texas Review, Louisiana Literature, Poet Lore, and Light Quarterly. A former reporter for
Rick Britton (special contributor, nonfiction judge) is a Charlottesville-based author, illustrator, and historical interpreter. Following a career as a graphic designer, he began writing in the mid 1990s. Since that time he has served as desk editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch Broadcast News Department, contributing editor of Albemarle Magazine, and editor of the Magazine of Albemarle County History (MACH). Now an award-winning historian with over 200 articles under his belt—the vast majority on the history of Virginia—Rick is the author of Albemarle & Charlottesville: An Illustrated History and Jefferson: A Monticello Sampler (which in 2009 was awarded a bronze medal by the Independent Publishers Association at Book Expo in New York City). He also teaches classes on the history of
Victoria Britton (2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009) dedicates this essay to the memory of Kyle Brennan (1986–2007), but it also was written to honor all the blessed children—our Angels—who have died too young.
Lori Dixon (special contributor, poetry and fiction judge) started writing again in 2001 after a twenty-year hiatus, when a second recurrence of cancer forced her to retire from her day job. She primarily writes novels, but she also writes a lot of poetry and dabbles in every other form except scripts. As writing is to dance, poetry is to ballet and, like ballet, she believes poetry requires formal structure, or “bones” upon which a poem can be built. She’s won or placed in a few national contests for poetry and fiction.
Bryan Giemza (1st place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009) is a
Judith Grissmer (1st place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2010) moved to
Linn Harrison (1st place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC and State VWC, 2009) practices neurology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She attended the Taos Writing Retreat for Health Professionals in 2008 and participates in a monthly writing group. This is her first nonmedical publication.
Jody Hobbs Hesler is a writer and at-home mother living in
Sarah Collins Honenberger’s (special contributor, fiction judge, contest coordinator) forthcoming novel, Catcher, Caught, was selected as a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest and was published by Amazon Encore in December 2010 as the fifteenth book in their new traditional publishing endeavor. Her first two novels, White Lies (Cedar Creek, 2006) and Waltzing Cowboys (Cedar Creek, 2009) were nominees for the Library of Virginia Fiction award. Her first-prize short fiction has appeared in Antietam Review, New Millenium, South Lit, and The HooK.
Paul F. Johnson (3rd place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2020) is a military and civil service retiree. Always an avid reader, Paul decided to try his hand at writing and achieved immediate success with over two dozen short stories published under the pen name P. J. Lawton. Paul’s (P. J. Lawton) writing credentials include three private detective mystery-adventure novels, Lethal Option, Lethal Judgment, and Lethal Knowledge. He has also published two volumes of horror and Sci-Fi short stories along with four children’s books. Now fully retired, he is keeping busy working on several new books and as an unpaid reviewer for three different review sites.
Gary D. Kessler (1st place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009, 2nd place, 2010; shared 1st place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC Winter Contest 2009; 3rd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2010; anthology volume editor; contest coordinator) is a former news agency managing editor, diplomat, newspaper columnist, and movie consultant, and is currently a freelance book editor. His own book projects include a short story collection, On the Downtown Mall; volume editor for the two-volume WritersNet Anthology of Prose; coauthor, with Carol Kluz, of a publishing reference, Finding Go! Matching Questions and Resources in Getting Published; and coauthor of a Bible study, (Re)Tell Me the Stories, with his minister sister, Carole Stockberger. He was first-place winner in the adult division of the 2008 UVa Art Museum Writer’s Eye prose contest and third-place winner in 2009. He writes novellas and novels under the pen names Olivia Stowe and Gina Drew and hosts the www.editsbooks.com and www.publishingquestions.com (a Writer’s Digest 101 best site) Web sites.
Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and author, living and working in
Carol A Landy (shared 3rd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009; 2nd place, 2010) has had a love of poetry since childhood.
Linda Levokove has degrees in interior design, art, and psychology. She is past docent educator at the University of Virginia Art Museum, consults and teaches classes in interior design, and leads a poetry group in adult education. Linda has been published in the Blue Ridge Anthology, Poets of the Palm Beaches, Mid-America Review, Poetry Express, A Hudson View, Poet’s Domain, and Tonight: A World Love Anthology. She is a member of the Virginia Writer’s Club, the Poetry Society of Virginia, and a poetry critique group. Her first book of poetry, Walk On The Heart Side, was released in September 2010.
Kristen-Paige Madonia’s (special contributor, fiction judge) fiction has been published or is forthcoming in New Orleans Review, American Fiction Volume Eleven: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Sycamore Review, Inkwell, and South Dakota Review, and she recently received the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Award. She has been awarded writing residencies with
Claude Marsilia (charter member), a cattle farmer and former managing engineer, has written the Boston Post-Gazette’s “Book Review” column since 1987. Claude’s mother was born in
Charles E. McAlpine (shared 3rd place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009) was born in
Carolyn McGrath (2nd place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009) has a degree in classics from the
Lena Cantrell McNicholas (2nd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009; shared 1st place poetry, Winter Contest, 2009) has a love of travel that has led her to live and work in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Texas, where she began her writing journey through poems, vignettes, and short stories that are included in her Appalachia memoir, Patchwork, published in 2010. She has won various competitions and been published in Appalachian Heritage, Coalfield Progress, Abingdon Virginian, Appalachian Women’s Journal, Clinch Mountain Review, A Magazine, Wind 94 The Hindman Issue, and The Blue Ridge Anthology 2009. She was a finalist in the poetry competition sponsored by the
Award-winning artist, Sigrid Mirabella (shared 3rd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2010), lives in
Janice Kirby Moler (charter member) was born in
Walter Nicklin (special contributor, nonfiction judge), a U.S. Army draftee (Vietnam War), has worked in journalism and publishing almost all of his professional life. He has been a reporter/editor for Scripps-Howard and UPI, in the
Deborah Prum (special contributor) has just finished a novel called The String Theory of Love. Two excerpts and a poem from the novel have been included in The Blue Ridge Anthology and The Sweetbay Review. Her fiction has won several awards and has appeared in many literary journals, including the Virginia Quarterly Review, Folio, and the Journal of Graduate Studies. She’s written for Writer Magazine and has contributed to several editions of The Writer’s Handbook. Her humorous essays have appeared both nationally and internationally. Her articles have appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal, Southern Living, and Albemarle Magazine. She is the author of a young adult history book called Rats, Bulls and Flying Machines: A History of the Renaissance and Reformation and also has contributed to several history books for children.
Priscilla Randolph (special contributor), formerly of Baltimore, is an editor and author whose work has appeared in literary journals, magazines, newspapers, anthologies, and her books, How to Write an Uncommonly Good Novel and Lifehunter: Selected Stories, Poems and Essays. She had fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, the
Barbara Rich (charter member), a resident of
Helen Rodman (charter member) was born in Philadelphia of Richmond heritage. In 1941 she married Bill Rodman, and soon after, her parents resettled in
Randy Salzman (shared 3rd place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009; 2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2010) taught and practiced journalism for thirty years, writing about sports, politics, society, business, and culture before moving to
Marilou Schunter began writing poetry in seventh grade and continued to write stories and poems through college. In the mid 1990s, she wrote a weekly column in the Culpeper Star Exponent and “Hello, Marilou!” in Culpeper, the Magazine. She chaired the Windmore Foundation’s Brown Bag Poetry Contest for fourth through sixth graders for ten years. She has taught creative writing with Healthy Culpeper’s After School Arts Program for the past several years. This is her first poem publication since college.
Joanna Catherine Scott (special contributor, fiction judge) is the author of the novels Child of the South; The Road from Chapel Hill; Cassandra, Lost; The Lucky Gourd Shop; and Charlie, the nonfiction
Elizabeth Doyle Solomon (shared 3rd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009; 1st place nonfiction and shared 1st place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC Winter Contest 2009; 1st place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC 2010) is a native of New Orleans and has written over 250,000 poems. She leads the Blue Ridge VWC’s weekly poets’ critique group. A retired teacher, she taught in public and private schools and tutors privately.
Gail South (2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge WVC, 2009) is the author of two novels and has been published in Slow Trains and Huffington Post.
Andy Straka (special contributor) is the author of five novels. His debut Frank Pavlicek mystery, A Witness Above, garnered Shamus, Anthony, and Agatha Award nominations for Best First Novel in 2002. A Killing Sky received an Anthony Award nomination in 2003. Cold Quarry won the 2004 Shamus Award for best paperback original private eye novel. Andy’s inaugural nonseries novel, Record of Wrongs, published in 2008, was labeled “a first-rate thriller” by Mystery Scene magazine. His latest novel is Kitty Hitter.
Jack Trammell (shared 3rd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009; shared 1st place fiction, Winter Contest, 2009) teaches at
Leonard Tuchyner (shared 3rd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2009 and 2010) has placed in one or more categories each year in the club contest since 2006. He has written manuscripts for three science fiction novels, a local color novella, and a spiritual Sci-Fi novella, as well as numerous short stories in various genres, more than a dozen of which have been published in a variety of outlets, including Dialogue Magazine, which is written for the visually impaired. He facilitates the Writing for Growth and Healing writing group, and lives with his wife, two cats, and one dog in
Holley Watts’s writing career began in 2002 in search of no words at all, but an elusive picture. Instead, she found hundreds she’d taken in 1966–67
Lauvonda Lynn (Meade) Young’s (contest coordinator) first poem, “Spring Plowing,” was published in Young America Sings: National School Poetry Anthology, 1963. Her other winning poetry has included “Searching,” “In a Dark Place,” and “Endings and Beginnings,” selected by the American Society on Aging/National Council on Aging, 2002; the Poetry Guild’s Editor’s Choice Award for “Flowers” (Shelter in the Storm, 1998); and second place for “Gardening” in the Blue Ridge Anthology 2009. She authored “Council Matters” in the
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The Blue Ridge Anthology 2009 - Contributors
Coy Barefoot is a best-selling and award-winning author, journalist, and radio talk show host. His books include The Quixtar Revolution, Thomas Jefferson on Leadership, and The Corner: A History of Student Life at the University of Virginia, which won the 2003 Nalle Prize for Outstanding History. He has written and reported for magazines and newspapers around the country as well as a long list of online publications. Coy is the director of communications and alumni relations for the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. He is also the host and producer of Charlottesville—Right Now, a public affairs radio program broadcast throughout Central Virginia each weekday on NewsRadio1070 WINA.
Janice Bowen has been involved in the art world for many years—painting, drawing. She began to write in the spring of 2007. Discovering the ability to express feelings and thoughts in yet another medium was very exciting. Poetry was a perfect fit. She feels like one of her very short poems:
a weed grows
without doubt
only zeal
Rick Britton (2008 nonfiction judge) is an award-winning historical journalist whose work has appeared in the pages of the Washington Times, the Richmond Times Dispatch, Virginia: The University of Virginia Alumni News, Civil War Magazine, and Civil War Times Illustrated. Having published over two hundred articles—most of them on the history of the Old Dominion—Britton is also a well-published map artist and frequently leads tours of historic sites and hallowed battlefields. His second book, Jefferson: A Monticello Sampler, was published in 2008.
Lori Dixon (2008 poetry judge) shares a big old house on the Shenandoah River with her husband, her son, three dogs, a half-dozen cats and a lot of books. She writes in all forms from reportage to poetry, but is currently concentrating on novels. She reads everything she can get her hands on.
Herbert F. Frisbie has worked in both the private sector and for the federal government in various engineering, design, procurement, and contract administration functions. After he retired in 1979, he and his family moved from Northern Virginia to a house they built in Madison County. His family lived there until his wife was killed during the rains and flooding in the spring of 1995. Living alone and with time on his hands, he resumed writing as a pastime. He is an Ogden Nash fan, so most of what he writes is humorous or satirical. He also writes narrative poems for children. To date he has written nearly four hundred poems and stories in verse, some of which have been published. He lives in Aroda with his dog and cat.
Kathie Gavel wasn’t drawn into writing till late in her life, when after years of working as an artist, her creative heart gradually began to change, from painting to writing. She’d always felt more comfortable telling a story through color, tonal values, and reflected light, than through words. Now, the artist in her visualizes her stories in full living color—aware of the history of the place, and the feelings of each person—and the writer in her tries to get those people and places down on paper.
Lucille (Kim) Grimm (Shared 3rd place poetry, Charlottesville VWC, 2007) spent her early childhood on a farm in Illinois, with her two sisters and one brother. She always had a keen sense of adventure with a fearless nature, which at times created quite a challenge for her parents. While living in Iowa, she married a young man she had known since childhood. They later moved to Virginia, where they welcomed a daughter into their home. When her daughter had become a teenager, Lucille took the challenge and started to write.
Judith Grissmer (1st place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) moved to Charlottesville from Northern Virginia in 2007. She is a retired marriage and family therapist. Judith has published in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review and received a second place prize in the Virginia Poetry Society’s 1994 contest. She lives with her husband and three cats, enjoying the proximity of her two daughters and their families, including five grandchildren. She is a member of the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville and travels frequently to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where she is inspired to write of the sea.
Sarah Collins Honenberger (Nonfiction judge 2008; 1st place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) is a former president of the Charlottesville VWC chapter. Her first novel, White Lies, was nominated for the Library of Virginia Fiction Award in 2007. Her short fiction has won first place awards from the Antietam Review, New Millennium, the HooK, the Virginia Writers Club (VWC), and the Blue Ridge VWC Chapter. The recipient of a Virginia Creative Arts Center Fellowship, Honenberger is a regular panelist at book festivals. Her second novel, Waltzing Cowboys, was released in January 2009.
Writing, reading, and the visual arts have been a passion for Marie Keese since early childhood. She graduated from the University of Maryland with BS-double major in psychology and visual arts and earned a masters degree in art psychotherapy from George Washington University. Marie also studied for four years at a professional art school in Atlanta, Georgia. She retired recently after twenty-three years working full time as an art psychotherapist and has found that belonging to the Blue Ridge Writers Group has enriched and expanded her world of poetry and prose.
Gary D. Kessler (2nd place nonfiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007; 3rd place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008; anthology volume editor) was the 1st place winner in both fiction and nonfiction in the 2006 Charlottesville VWC (and 2nd place that year in the statewide VWC contest in fiction). He is a former news agency managing editor, U.S. diplomat, newspaper columnist, and movie consultant, and is currently a freelance book editor. Published author of a short story collection, On the Downtown Mall, and two espionage thrillers, he conducted a worldwide, online editorial workshop, which resulted in the two-volume WritersNet Anthology of Prose. He coauthored, with Carol Kluz, a publishing reference, Finding Go! Matching Questions and Resources in Getting Published, and coauthored a Bible study, (Re)Tell Me the Stories, with his minister sister, Carole Stockberger. He hosts the www.editsbooks.com and www.publishingquestions.com Web sites.
Phyllis Koch-Sheras, PhD, has been living in Charlottesville since 1974, raising two children, practicing as a clinical psychologist, serving as adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia, and founding the Creative and Healing Arts Institute. She has published several books, including Couple Power Therapy (2006) and The Dream Sharing Sourcebook (1998), with her husband Peter Sheras, and The Dream Sourcebook (1995) and Dream On: A Dream Guide for Women (1983). Phyllis is also a professional singer and artist; she has both exhibited her watercolors and poems and sung in concert at Fellini’s Restaurant. She is an associate member of the BozArt Gallery in Charlottesville.
Liz Kollar (3rd place fiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007) teaches the Writing for Pleasure class at the Charlottesville Senior Center. About her winning anthology story, she writes, “Having seen angels several times in my life, I have written this fictional story about some of their activities. Life is strange but the hereafter can be even stranger. Someday I hope to interview an angel and get the real scoop on their activities. We only believe what we can see but there is much more if we allow ourselves to believe. Write to kollarhouse@earthlink.net if you have an angelic experience you’d like her to write about.
As a child in Norway during the occupation, Inger Kretsinger gained alternate perspectives on basic human conflicts and emotions. Now, in a different language and context she has explored alternate modes of expression. In her fiction, she has examined the nuances of these relationships. In her poetry she merely offers hints, hoping the reader will connect, as she employs images from the physical world. Fundamentally, Inger believes, poetry is trying to express verbally what exists only subliminally. Hence, mood or strong emotion resonates in images of natural phenomena. Poetry is like momentary perception, whereas fiction embodies the ongoing saga of human life.
Carol Landy’s love for poetry began as a child reading classic poetry. Reading and writing were essential escapes for many children in the 1940s in suburban Philadelphia. After raising her six children, she enrolled in the nursing program at the University of Northern Colorado. While there, she returned to abandoning dreams, rekindling her passion for writing by taking a creative writing class. Since moving east, she has taken a poetry writing class at PVCC and a course at the Charlottesville Writer’s Center and has belonged to several critique groups over the past five years. She’s retired and currently living in Louisa County.
Sharon Leiter, a former president of the Charlottesville Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, is the poetry editor of Streetlight, Charlottesville’s journal of literature and fine arts. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Dream of Leaving (Main Street Rag) and The Lady and the Bailiff of Time (Ardis); a literary study of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Akhmatova’s Petersburg (University of Pennsylvania Press); and A Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson (Facts on File). Her poetry has appeared in The Georgia Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, and many other journals. A recipient of a Virginia Prize for Fiction, she has published a number of short stories.
Linda Levokove (3rd place tie poetry, Charlottesville VWC, 2007; 3rd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) has degrees in art, interior design, and psychology. She is docent coordinator/educator at the University of Virginia Art Museum and teaches interior design in Continuing Adult Education. She has headed her own interior design firm for many years and has worked on projects in the New York Metropolitan area, Florida, and St. Martin. Linda has been published in Poets of the Palm Beaches, Mid-America Review, Blue Ridge Anthology, Poet’s Express, and Hudson View. Her poetry will soon appear in The Poet’s Domain and an International Love Anthology. She is a member of the Virginia Writer's Club, Poetry Society of Virginia, and a Poetry Critique group that meets weekly. Linda is currently working on her first book of poetry to be titled Walk on the Heart Side.
Carolyn McGrath has a degree in classics from the University of Iowa and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stony Brook University in New York. For twenty years she taught full time in the Department of English at Stony Brook in subjects that included creative and expository writing, drama, and literary analysis and argumentation. For ten years she was director of Stony Brook’s $1,000 Fiction Prize, a competition for undergraduates throughout the United States and Canada. Her publications include short stories, reviews, journalism, and professional academic articles.
Lena Cantrell McNicholas (Honorable mention nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) was born in Pound, Virginia. Following graduation from Radford College, she spent months cycling and traveling through Europe and Africa. Her love of travel led her to live and work in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Texas before returning to her Southwest Virginia roots following her husband’s death. There she began her writing journey through poems, vignettes, and short stories that are included in her book of Appalachian memoirs. She has won various writing competitions, and her work has appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Coalfield Progress, Abingdon Virginian, Appalachian Women’s Journal, Clinch Mountain Review, A Magazine, and Wind 94 The Hindman Issue. She is a member of Appalachian Poets and Writers.
Sigrid Mirabella was born into a Long Island, New York, working-class community, surrounded by estates, fields, and woods. She grew up admiring splendid mansions, picking wildflowers, and playing inside a forest that no longer exists. Sigrid raised her daughter in a nearby fishing village that was just beginning to burgeon. Later, she moved to central Virginia, where she had spent her summers as a child, visiting relatives, riding horses and exploring. She has always expressed herself through writing and visual media. Today, Sigrid lives on a small farm along with various animals where she and her late husband, also a writer and artist, had found tranquility. She works as a pet behavior consultant and pet rescue advocate in Amherst County. Some of her pieces have appeared in The Blue Ridge Anthology; Woman’s Day Magazine; The Mid American Poetry Review; Countryside Magazine; the Lynchburg News and Advance; Long Island Pet Gazette; Your Friend and Mine, by Martin Lieberman; and American Kennel Club Dog Care and Training.
Stephen Mirabella (1st place poetry, Charlottesville VWC, 2007, and 2nd place poetry, State VWC, 2007; 2nd place fiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007), now deceased, wrote prose, poetry, songs, scholarship, and art criticism. He was a contributor to the American Arts Quarterly magazine and the Encyclopedia of Sculpture. He taught history at St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville, where his Imagine the Middle Ages is their medieval studies textbook. His Art of Enduring Value catalogs the sculpture of Barry Woods Johnston. Mirabella sculpted the John Milton Memorial in Oneonta, N.Y., and has numismatic work in three museum collections.
Janice Kirby Moler was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in College Park, Maryland. In 1979 she moved to Charlottesville with her husband, Dennis, and two children, Tony and Amy. She is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and has written numerous articles for various magazines and newspapers, including MORE Monthly newspaper and Albemarle magazine. In addition to writing, she enjoys reading, hiking, dancing, traveling (especially to Hawaii), and spending time with her grandchildren, Caroline and Cole. Janice also volunteers at the University of Virginia Hospital and the Paramount Theater.
Brenda Morris (1st place fiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007) is a retired Special Education and English teacher. She currently works as a Homebound Instructor for Fluvanna County. She writes poetry, short stories, young adult fiction, and memoirs and has won awards from the Philadelphia Writers Conference, Writer’s Digest, the Maryland’s Writer’s Alliance, and the Virginia Writer’s Club. Her work has been published in the anthologies 9/11: Maryland Voices and The Blue Ridge Anthology, the Echo, The Village Voice, and other small regional magazines and newspapers. Brenda lives in Palmyra with her husband and stepdaughter.
Rachel Norment (1st place nonfiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007), B.A. in English and M.A. in art education, is author of Guided by Dreams: Breast Cancer, Dreams, and Transformation, which reveals how knowledge gained through dream interpretation guided many of her decisions during treatment and recovery from breast cancer and how the experience inspired her own spiritual and personal awakening. A facilitator of dream groups since 1994, she is certified through the Marin Institute for Projective Dream Work in California and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. An award-winning watercolorist, Rachel has taught in public schools, on the college level, and privately in her studio and for art organizations.
Nancy K. O’Brien, a New Jersey native, has resided in Charlottesville for the past forty years. She has been a nurse, public administrator, mother, and politician during her professional years. Now retired, she enjoys the camaraderie and criticism in the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Writer’s Club’s Burnley Station Road Poets Group, which, she says, has opened a whole new world to her. She believes that retirement is the time to explore new things and that the world here is, thankfully, full of them.
Deborah Prum’s (fiction judge 2008) short fiction has been published in many literary journals, including the Virginia Quarterly Review, Folio, Sweetbay Review, the Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, and Lifeline (at Dartmouth College). She has recently completed a novel called The String Theory of Love. Her articles and essays have appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal, the Writer Magazine, Southern Living, the Writers Handbook, and Albemarle Magazine. She is the author of Rats, Bulls, and Flying Machines: A History of the Renaissance and Reformation and also has contributed to several history books for children.
Barbara Rich has been writing for most of her adult life, for a variety of newspapers and magazines. Her published work includes theater and book reviews, interviews, essays, a political opinion column, and three short stories. She is the recipient of four Virginia Press Association Awards for Critical Writing and is the current book reviewer for the Charlottesville Daily Progress. She cannot imagine living a nonwriting life and is delighted that “Gezundheit Love,” her second published poem, is seeing the light of print in this anthology.
John W. Rogers moved to Albemarle County from Lake Wales, Florida, in 1983. He is a native of New York State. His father purchased a dairy farm in Hillsdale, New York, a small farming community in the Berkshires, when John was fourteen. Farming, horticulture, and his affinity for rural living and working with the soil have been the most influential aspects of John’s life. He has had four years of college, though no degree. He have attended three liberal arts colleges: Ohio Wesleyan, West Virginia Wesleyan, and Ithaca College, and he studied horticulture at the State University of New York at Farmingdale. His liberal arts majors were English and Psychology.
Elaine Ruggieri, retired from a longtime career in public relations at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, is now writing freelance. At Darden, her articles were published in the Darden magazine and other external school publications. Born in Pennsylvania into a large Italian-American family, she has lived in Albemarle County since 1964.
Randy Salzman (Salz) (shared 2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) is a former communications and marketing professor who promotes sustainability and transportation demand management through his writing, projects, and speaking. His journalistic work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, including Bicycling, the Washington Post, Style, Metro Spirit, Thinking Highways, Planning, Mother Jones, Virginia Living, the Denver Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Pinnacle Living, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as most local print media. A lover of film, theater, and books, he has also reviewed all three media while working and acting in film, television, and theater productions.
Jean Schendel began writing for her grandchildren after she retired. When a Christmas story was accepted for publication in the Victoria, Texas, Advocate, she joined several writers’ groups and has continued writing children’s and short stories ever since.
Susan Skolnick-Lozano and her family moved to Virginia from Boston in 2000 and established Fairhunt Farm in Scottsville. Susan runs an equine program there and is an avid member of Farmington Hunt Club, dividing her time between “riding to the hounds” and working with young children. She recently completed her first book, Riding at Fairhunt, an insightful look at riding and its life lessons. The book is also a testimony to family strength and to therapy through horses after the tragic automobile accident in 2003 of her daughter, Rebekah, who is recovering from a traumatic brain injury.
Elizabeth Doyle Solomon (shared 2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008; honorable mention, both fiction and poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) was born in New Orleans and has written over 250,000 poems. She has been published widely in poetry journals and anthologies. She taught in Albemarle County and private schools for ten years and now does private tutoring and substitute teaching. Solomon authored Seasons and an illustrated book of nature poets and has written columns for many newspapers, including her own, the Central Virginia Leader. She has lead a weekly poets’ critique group for the Blue Ridge VWC for five years. Elizabeth’s latest statewide awards have come from the Poetry Society of Virginia in April, 2008.
Featured by Publisher’s Weekly as one of ten rising stars in crime fiction, Andy Straka is the author of four novels. His debut Frank Pavlicek mystery, A Witness Above, garnered Shamus, Anthony, and Agatha Award nominations for Best First Novel in 2002. A Killing Sky received an Anthony Award nomination in 2003. Cold Quarry won the 2004 Shamus Award for best paperback original private eye novel. Andy’s inaugural nonseries novel, Record of Wrongs, published in 2008, was labeled “a first-rate thriller” by Mystery Scene magazine. The next book in the Pavlicek series, Kitty Hitter, will be released in August 2009.
Jack Trammell (1st place fiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008) lives and writes in central Virginia, where he lives on a farm with his wife and blended family of seven children. He has published nine books, including three chapbooks of poetry; four novels; and two history textbooks as well as dozens of poems and stories. His fiction and poetry credits include journals such as Virginia Adversaria, Exquisite Corpse, SouthLit, and others. His nonfiction credits include a regular Civil War column in the Washington Times and related articles in various national publications. He is published in the 2007 Blue Ridge Anthology and was first place winner for poetry for 2006 at both the Virginia Writers Clubs chapter and State levels. He is teaching and administrating at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland.
Leonard Tuchyner (3rd place nonfiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2007; shared 2nd place nonfiction, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008), won 3rd place for both fiction and nonfiction in the Charlottesville VWC 2006 contest. His professional writing has been mostly confined to the development of character portraits in the clinical counseling realm, including a series of human behavioral articles for local newspapers. He has written manuscripts for three science fiction novels, a local color novella, and a spiritual Sci-Fi novella, as well as numerous short stories in various genres, eleven of which have been published in a variety of outlets. He lives with his wife, two cats, and one dog in Greene County.
Hilda Ward (Poetry judge 2007, 2008) is a retired RN and health educator, who, after teaching school for twenty-four years in New York, came to Charlottesville in 1996 as coordinator for the Peer Health Educator program at the University of Virginia. She also cofacilitates the multicultural education program at U.Va.’s Curry School of Education. Hilda has been writing poetry since the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and this event was the subject of her first poem. She has written over three hundred poems and has two CDs of spokenword, with musical background by George Melvin. She is a member of the steering committee for, and frequent participant in, the Virginia Festival of the Book. She hosts the local public access television show, Artistic Expressions, and is artist in residence for Albemarle County.
Valarie Massie Watersun (Fiction judge 2008) is an award-winning journalist and author who is also a published poet. She is the author of one novel, The Quality of Blue, and editor of three others. Her stories have appeared in anthologies such as The Blue Ridge Anthology, All Aboard, and All in the Seasoning. She is currently the editorial systems coordinator for Clinical Chemistry, a scientific journal, and is a book reviewer for Hampton Roads Publishing.
Lauvonda Lynn Meade Young (2nd place poetry, Blue Ridge VWC, 2008). Recognitions: (1) first place for poetry: “Searching,” “In a Dark Place,” and “Endings and Beginnings” (American Society of Aging/National Council on Aging, 2002). (2) Poetry Guild’s, Editor’s Choice Award: “Flowers” (1998). Publications: (1) article “Some Thoughts on Power,” including poem “The Power Of Power,” The College Paper, (Piedmont Virginia Community College, 1990). (2) authored monthly newsletter article, “Council Matters,” in Times (Senior Center, Inc., 2006–2007). (3) poem “Visit at Dad’s Grave” (Blue Ridge Anthology, 2007).
Michael S. Zbailey (Poetry judge 2008), a former president of the Charlottesville VWC chapter, is a freelance writer with a concentration in nonfiction. His articles and stories have appeared in the Providence Journal Sunday magazine, C-Ville, Blue Ridge Country magazine, Albemarle magazine, Keswick Life, as a feature in the Sunday Style Section of the Washington Post, and in the 2007 Blue Ridge Anthology. He is in the process of completing his first book. He has his undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and now is based in Keswick.
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The Blue Ridge Anthology 2007 - Contributors
P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., is one of the original researchers in the field
of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978. Today, her
research base covers nearly four thousand adult and child experiencers
and comprises a contribution to the field that is considered one of the
best. Her findings are contained in eight books. Some of her work has
been verified in clinical studies, both in Holland and in Florida. She
has received three lifetime achievement awards, has lectured around
the world, and has been a guest on many television and radio talk
shows.
Kurt Ayau (anthology fiction editor) is a graduate of the University of
Southern California with a dual degree in English and Drama, and
holds an M.A. in English from the University of Virginia, an M.F.A. in
Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, and a Ph.D. in English
from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His novel, Nana’s
House, won a Virginia Prize in Literature in 1988 and also won the
Great American Novel contest of the Virginia Festival of the Book in
2003. He has published short fiction in The Villager, the Michiana
Creative Arts Review, City Magazine, the Roanoke Review, the Front
Range Review, descant, the William and Mary Review, and the Red River
Review. Writing with David Rachels, he has published the novel What
the Shadow Told Me (Eastern Washington University Press, 2005) and
short stories in nearly a dozen literary magazines. He is an associate
professor of English at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington and
lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with his wife,
Kathleen, and daughters, Julia and Leah.
David Baldacci is the author of twelve consecutive international
bestsellers: Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth,
Saving Faith, Wish You Well, Last Man Standing, The Christmas Train,
Split Second, Hour Game, The Camel Club, and The Collectors, as well as
his Freddy and the French Fries children’s series. His books are
published in over thirty-five languages in more than eighty countries,
with nearly forty-five million copies in print worldwide. He’s also the
cofounder, with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. He
and his family reside in his native Virginia.
Coy Barefoot is a best-selling and award-winning author, journalist,
and radio talk show host. His books include The Quixtar Revolution,
Thomas Jefferson on Leadership, and The Corner: A History of Student Life
at the University of Virginia, which won the 2003 Nalle Prize for
Outstanding History. He has written and reported for magazines and
newspapers around the country as well as a long list of online
publications. Coy is the director of communications and alumni
relations for the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the
University of Virginia. He is also the host and producer of
Charlottesville—Right Now, a public affairs radio program broadcast
throughout Central Virginia each weekday on NewsRadio1070 WINA.
Romney Brand is the grandson of the nationally known artist Frances
Brand (deceased) of Charlottesville. Romney was born in
Charlottesville in 1959. His poems have been published statewide. He
is currently concentrating on painting a series of portraits begun by
Grandma Fran in 1976, called “Charlottesville Firsts.” Romney lives
with his wife in Charlottesville and has a grown son.
Rick Britton is an award-winning historical journalist, whose work has
appeared in the pages of the Washington Times, the Richmond Times
Dispatch, Virginia: The University of Virginia Alumni News, Civil War
Magazine, and Civil War Times Illustrated. Having published over two
hundred articles—most of them on the history of the Old Dominion—
Britton is the editor of the Magazine of Albemarle County History and a
well-published map artist. He resides in Charlottesville with his wife,
two step-sons, and four felines.
Julie Chan was born in San Francisco, California, taught third grade in
Berkeley, and currently lives in Louisa County. She is a member of the
Friday Poets’ Critique Group led by Elizabeth Doyle Solomon in
Albemarle County.
James Culmer was born in Philadelphia in 1975 and lived there until
1995. He started writing at age thirteen. His writing is characterized by
spiritual and political themes. He lives with his wife, Kamika, and
young daughter in Charlotesville, where he is a maintenance technician.
Kurtis Davidson is the author of the award-winning comic novel
What the Shadow Told Me. Download the first chapter for free at
http://www.kurtisdavidson.com.
Rita Dove, the Pulitzer Prize recipient for 1987 in poetry, served as
Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet
Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She
has received numerous other literary and academic honors. In 2006 she
received the coveted Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service.
Her published poetry collections include The Yellow House on the
Corner (1980), Museum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986), Grace Notes
(1989), Selected Poems (1993), Mother Love (1995), and On the Bus with
Rosa Parks (1999). She also wrote a book of short stories, Fifth Sunday
(1985), the novel Through the Ivory Gate (1992), essays under the title
The Poet’s World (1995), the play The Darker Face of the Earth, and the
song cycle Seven for Luck. She is the editor of Best American Poetry
2000, and from January 2000 to January 2002, she wrote a weekly
column, “Poet’s Choice,” for the Washington Post. Her latest poetry
collection, American Smooth, was published by W.W. Norton &
Company in September 2004. Rita Dove is Commonwealth Professor
of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she
lives with her husband, writer Fred Viebahn, and daughter.
Margaret Edwards was born in 1930 in New York City. She grew up in
New England and moved to Virginia in the mid 1960s. She has been
writing for fun ever since she grabbed a pencil and paper and has been
published in Poet’s Doman and other anthologies.
Herbert F. Frisbie has worked in both the private sector and for the
federal government in various engineering, design, procurement, and
contract administration functions. After he retired in 1979, he and his
family moved from Northern Virginia to a house they built in Madison
County. His family lived there until his wife was killed during the rains
and flooding in the spring of 1995. Living alone and with time on his
hands, he resumed writing as a pastime. He is an Ogden Nash fan, so
most of what he writes is humorous or satirical. He also writes narrative
poems for children. To date he has written nearly four hundred poems
and stories in verse, some of which have been published. He lives in
Aroda with his dog and cat.
George Garrett, retired Henry Hopes Professor Emeritus of Creative
Writing at the University of Virginia and 2002–2004 Poet Laureate of
Virginia, has written some thirty books, including seven published
volumes of poetry and the trilogy of historical novels based on
Elizabethan England, Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from
the Sun; edited nineteen books; and written Hollywood screenplays. He
helped found the Associates Writing Programs, the national
organization for university writing workshops. His awards for writing
have included the PEN/Malmud Award for short fiction, the T. S.
Elliot Award for Creative Writing, a 2000 individual (Virginia)
Governor’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award,
and, most recently, the Aiken Taylor Award for poetry.
Lucille (Kim) Grimm spent her early childhood on a farm in Illinois,
with her two sisters and one brother. She always had a keen sense of
adventure with a fearless nature, which at times created quite a
challenge for her parents. While living in Iowa, she married a young
man she had known since childhood. They later moved to Virginia,
where they welcomed a daughter into their home. When her daughter
had become a teenager, Lucille took the challenge and started to write.
Seth F. Hartman was born in 1974 in Appleton, Wisconsin. He grew
up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he attended Emmaus High
School and simultaneously worked in his family’s tree-trimming
(lumberjack) business. Following high school, he moved to Montana
and joined the U.S. Air Force, initially serving as a medic and then
commissioned as a Space Command officer. He was honorably
separated from the military and is attending the University of Virginia
to prepare for entry into a creative writing master’s degree program.
When Enrique Herrera’s parents were rural teachers in Argentina, his
life consisted of reading children’s stories and hunting with his dad.
After high school, he studied philosophy at the University of Cordoba,
followed by some military training and then by the study of economics
at the University of Buenos Aires. Enrique became a professor and
worked for the Argentine government, research institutions, and the
Bolsa. He also was a consultant of the IDB Bank in many countries in
Latin America. When Argentina exploded in a crisis, he came to the
University of Virginia. He is now happily retired in beautiful
Charlottesville, where he travels, reads, and writes.
The fiction of Sarah Collins Honenberger (1st place fiction,
Charlottesville VWC and state VWC, 2005; contest fiction editor)
has won first place awards in the Antietam Review, New Millenium,
and the HooK. The recipient of a Virginia Creative Arts Center
Fellowship and the 2005 Virginia Writer’s Club statewide Fiction
Award, she appears regularly on literary panels and has taught
writing skills for a decade. Her novel, White Lies, was launched in
November 2006. She writes at the foothills of the Blue Ridge
Mountains, inspired by vineyard views, three brilliant children, a
patient husband, and twenty-five years of rural law practice.
Heather Hummel resides in Charlottesville. A graduate of the
University of Virginia, she is working toward her masters and Ph.D. in
metaphysical sciences. Her work has appeared in Albemarle Family
Living, Messages of Hope and Healing, and PetTails. She has finished her
first novel, Touch of a Feather, and is working on her second, Coffee with
Middle. Heather is an active member of the Virginia Writer’s Club, the
International Women’s Writing Guild, and the James River Writers.
She’s an avid cyclist and lives with her dogs, Julie and Stephan, whose
photo appears in PetTails.
Gary D. Kessler (1st place, both fiction and nonfiction, Charlottesville
VWC, 2006; 2nd place for fiction, State VWC, 2006; anthology
volume editor), a former news agency managing editor, U.S. diplomat,
newspaper columnist, and movie consultant, is currently a freelance
book editor. Published author of a short story collection, On the
Downtown Mall, and two espionage thrillers, he conducted a
worldwide, online editorial workshop, which resulted in the twovolume
WritersNet Anthology of Prose. He coauthored, with Carol Kluz,
a publishing reference, Finding Go! Matching Questions and Resources in
Getting Published. His latest book is a Bible study, (Re)Tell Me the
Stories, coauthored with his minister sister, Carole Stockberger. He
hosts the www.editsbooks.com and www.publishingquestions.com Web
sites.
Charlottesville area writer Rosa Turner Knapp has published fiction,
nonfiction and poetry, and optioned screenplays to television and
feature film producers. She currently has a movie project in
development with Cosa Bella Films of Los Angeles and New York,
based on her unpublished Latino Romantic Comedy novel “Getting
Lucky.”
Liz Kollar attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts,
married during WWII, taught art for some years, and had four sons
and a daughter. Now retired, she teaches writing at the Senior Center in
Charlottesville, where her Writing for Pleasure class meets every Friday.
A thousand thoughts gleaned from the pages of her life have found
their way into many stories, some real, some fictional.
As a child in Norway during the occupation, Inger Kretsinger (3rd
place poetry, Charlottesville VWC, 2006) gained alternate perspectives
on basic human conflicts and emotions. Now, in a different language
and context she has explored alternate modes of expression. In her
fiction, she has examined the nuances of these relationships. In her
poetry she merely offers hints, hoping the reader will connect, as she
employs images from the physical world. Fundamentally, Inger believes,
poetry is trying to express verbally what exists only subliminally. Hence,
mood or strong emotion resonates in images of natural phenomena.
Poetry is like momentary perception, whereas fiction embodies the
ongoing saga of human life.
Laurie M. Lawson resides in Charlottesville, where she attends the
University of Virginia and is pursuing a degree in science education,
with an emphasis in biology. Besides reading and writing, Ms. Lawson
enjoys hiking, polo matches, and playing with her rabbits: Snooky,
Nibbles, and Sneakers.
Linda Levokove has a degree in art and interior design and a Masters
degree in psychology. She heads her own interior design firm and
has worked on projects in the New York Metropolitan area, Florida,
and St. Martin. She has lectured on design and antiques at Florida
Atlantic University and the Boca Raton Museum of Art, where she
also served as chair of docents. Linda paints in acrylics and began
writing poetry three years ago. She’s new to the Charlottesville area
and loves her new home.
Sharon Leiter, a former president of the Charlottesville Chapter of the
Virginia Writers Club, is the poetry editor of Streetlight,
Charlottesville’s journal of literature and fine arts. She is the author of a
volume of poetry, The Lady and the Bailiff of Time (Ardis) and a literary
study of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Akhmatova’s Petersburg
(University of Pennsylvania Press). Her poetry has appeared in The
Georgia Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Atlanta Review,
Cimarron Review, and many other journals. A recipient of a Virginia
Prize for Fiction, she has published a number of short stories. Her latest
book, A Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson, was published in 2006.
Sigrid Miribella was born into a Long Island, New York, working-class
community, surrounded by estates, field, and woods. She grew up
admiring splendid mansions, picking wild flowers, and playing inside a
forest that no longer exists. Sigrid raised her daughter in a neighboring
fishing village that was just beginning to burgeon. Later, she moved to
Central Virginia, where she had spent summers as a child, visiting
relatives, riding horses, and exploring. She has always expressed herself
through writing and visual media. Today, she lives with her husband,
also a writer and sculptor, on a small farm with two dogs, an iguana, a
horse, a pig, and a cat. She works as a pet behavior consultant and pet
rescue advocate.
Stephen Mirabella is an artist, writer, and teacher who moved to rural
Virginia from Long Island, New York, in 1994. His artwork has been
seen at many art institutions, including the National Museum of
American History, Washington, D.C. A lifelong love of art and poetry
merged in the fall of 2000, when his John Milton Memorial sculpture,
depicting Eve, Satan, and the serpent from Paradise Lost, was installed
at SUNY Oneonta. Today, he writes metaphorical poetry in voices of
fictional or historical characters. He writes alone and with his wife,
Sigrid, on weekends at their Amherst farm. He teaches history at St.
Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville.
Sheila Moore was born in Pennsylvania in 1939. She began composing
poetry and adventure stories at age eight and has continued writing ever
since. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous literary
magazines. She coauthored the Little Boy Book, now a Ballentine
paperback. A Montessori teacher, she has written on educational topics
for Parents’ Magazine, the Washington Post, and Instructor publications.
Samson Svenson’s Baby, her first book for children, received a starred
review in Book List. Her most recent published book is Abadaba
Alphabet, which helps young children read better. She has four children
and five grandchildren and lives with her husband, Harry, in
Charlottesville.
Brenda Morris is a retired special education teacher who is currently a
Home Bound instructor. She has four stepchildren and two
grandchildren. She lives with her husband and youngest stepdaughter
in Palmyra. Brenda writes poetry, memoirs, and young adult fiction.
She has been published in the anthology 9-11: Maryland Voices,
Scribble, the Village Voice, and the Creative Writers Notebook. In
addition, she has won contests from Writer’s Digest, the Maryland
Writers Alliance, and the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference.
Catherine Gorey Peaslee, founder and publisher of Charlottesville’s
weekly Observer newspaper, received fellowships with the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts while writing a biography of Virginia novelist Ellen
Glasgow. Widow of Foreign Service officer Sandy Peaslee, she has
published her nonfiction in China, Taiwan, Brazil, and Canada. Iris
and Richmond Magazine have published her articles. As a research
assistant after WWII, she worked for columnist Walter Lippmann and
the Senate Postwar World War Committee. She holds degrees in
political science from Miami University and George Washington
University.
Deborah Prum’s short fiction has been published in many literary
journals, including the Virginia Quarterly Review, Folio, the Journal of
Graduate Liberal Studies, and Lifeline (at Dartmouth College). Her
short story “Triage” was given first place in a fiction contest sponsored
by the HooK. Her articles, essays, and book reviews have appeared in
the Virginia Quarterly Review, Ladies’ Home Journal, the Writer
Magazine, Southern Living, the Writers Handbook, and Albemarle
Magazine. She is the author of Rats, Bulls, and Flying Machines: A
History of the Renaissance and Reformation and also has contributed to
history books for children. She received an MALS from Dartmouth
College.
David Rachels (anthology fiction editor), an Alabama native, earned
his Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois. He is editor of
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes Completed: A Scholarly Text
(University of Georgia Press, 1998) and coeditor of The First West:
Writings from the American Frontier, 1776–1860 (Oxford University
Press, 2002). He has published short fiction in journals, including
Tamaqua and Sou’wester. His first published collaboration with Kurt
Ayau recently appeared in the Portland Review. David is an associate
professor of English at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington and
lives in the Shenandoah Valley with his wife, Angie, and their two sons,
Aaron and Gus.
Priscilla Randolph’s work has appeared in literary journals, magazines,
newspapers, an anthology, and a book, How to Write an Uncommonly
Good Novel (Ariadne Press, 1991); also in a self-published book,
Lifehunter: Selected Stories, Poems and Essays (Beecher Press, 1994). A
fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts, a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and
a grant recipient of a fiction fund at the George Washington University,
she has been a press assistant to a Massachusetts governor, a journalist at
the Boston Herald, and a librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Elizabeth Doyle Solomon was born in New Orleans in 1942. Her first
poem at age eleven was chosen from eight hundred to represent her
school in New York, and since then she has written over 550,000
poems, which are published widely. At age fifty-two, she earned a B.A.
in English and K-4 teacher’s certification from Mary Baldwin College,
graduating Magna Cum Laud and selected as Outstanding Student of
the Year. She taught in Albemarle County and private schools for ten
years and is now tutoring privately. She authored Seasons, an illustrated
book of nature poems, and has written columns for many newspapers,
including her own, the Central Virginia Leader. She currently leads a
poets’ critique group. She has two adopted children and has fostered
more than thirty-five others.
Marian Courtney Styles (2nd place, poetry, 2006; anthology
nonfiction editor) came to Charlottesville in late 1994 by way of
Southern California and Alaska. She has worked as a secretary,
employee travel expert, building issues facilitator, newspaper
community editor, fund-raising researcher, and multimedia assistant.
Her hobbies include hiking, reading, writing, movies, dancing,
traveling, spending time with friends, and playing with her
hyperkinetic cat.
Jack Trammell (1st place poetry and 2nd place fiction, Charlottesville
VWC, 2006; 1st place poetry, State VWC, 2006) lives and writes in
central Virginia, where he lives on a farm with his wife and blended
family of seven children. He has published nine books, including three
chapbooks of poetry, four novels, and two history textbooks as well as
dozens of poems and stories. His fiction and poetry credits include
journals such as Virginia Adversaria, Exquisite Corpse, SouthLit, and
others. His nonfiction credits include a regular Civil War column in the
Washington Times and related articles in various national publications.
He recently completed his Ph.D and a new Civil War novel, and is
teaching and administrating at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland.
Leonard Tuchyner (3rd place, both fiction and nonfiction,
Charlottesville VWC, 2006) “A Time to Die” was inspired by over
thirty-five years of experience in the martial arts, and the tale of the
“Golf Course Camp Site” by the wonderment Leonard felt in his first
encounters in the Blue Ridge Mountains. His professional writing has
been mostly confined to the development of character portraits in the
clinical counseling realm, including a series of human behavioral
articles for local newspapers. He has written manuscripts for three
science fiction novels, a local color novella, a spiritual Sci-Fi novella as
well as numerous short stories in various genres. He lives with his wife,
two and one half cats, two dogs, and parrot in Greene County.
H.E.R. (Hilda) Ward (anthology poetry editor) is a retired RN and
health educator, who, after teaching school for twenty-four years in
New York, came to Charlottesville in 1996 as coordinator for the Peer
Health Educator program at the University of Virginia. She also
coordinates the multicultural education program at UVa’s Curry School
of Education. Hilda has been writing poetry since the year John F.
Kennedy was assassinated, and this event was the subject of her first
poem. She has written over three hundred poems and has two CDs of
spokenword, with musical background by George Melvin. She is a
member of the steering committee for, and frequent participant in, the
Virginia Festival of the Book. She hosts the local public access television
show, Artistic Expressions, and is artist in residence for Albemarle
County.
Valarie Watersun: Journalist: (1st place poetry, 2nd place fiction,
Charlottesville VWC, 2005) Nelson County Times, Charlottesville
Observer, Albemarle Magazine, Inside UVA, Emory & Henry, Virginia
Review. Three Virginia Press Association awards. Editor: Two published
books, SPWAO, VaNOW, Byrd Newspapers, Carden Jennings
Publishing. Novelist: The Quality of Blue. Author: Honors from
Writer’s Digest, Muse Magazine, Writers in Virginia, The Virginia
Writing Club (VWC), Piedmont Writing Institute, and Writers of the
Future. Poet: Lynchburg Magazine, Muse, Witness to the Bizarre, Worlds
of Surrealism. Judge: Poetry Society of Virginia, PARC’s Young Authors
Program. Playwright: Truman’s Word, directed by Maxine Fox,
Broadway producer of Grease. Currently editorial services coordinator
for Clinical Chemistry, a scientific journal. www.valariewatersun.com.
Catherine Wolniewicz’s passion for writing began when her short story
about a six-legged spider brought rave reviews and a coveted E+ from
her sixth-grade teacher. Inspired, she began scribbling daily in an old
denim binder the fragile beginnings of a novel about an eleven-year-old
girl. Little support at home for this creative obsession, however, forced
her to abandon the binder and protagonist for more “practical
pursuits.” Twenty-five years later, while attending a creative writing
course, her passion was rekindled. She has since written songs, poems,
short stories, and a play. “Us” is her first published piece.
Lauvonda Lynn Meade Young’s love of books and creative writing
began in elementary school, when teachers asked her to read her
work in class. Her first poem, “Spring Plowing,” was published in
1962–63 (Young America Sings—National High School Poetry
Anthology). Additional publications or recognitions include: (1) First
Place in Poetry; poems “Searching,” “In a Dark Place,” and “Endings
and Beginnings” (American Society of Aging and the National
Council on Aging, 2002); (2) Poetry Guild’s, Editor’s Choice Award;
poem “Flowers”; Shelter in the Storm, 1998; (3) “Best in Poetry”
(Piedmont Virginia Community College, 1989).
Michael S. Zbailey (2nd place nonfiction, Charlottesville VWC, 2006;
1st place nonfiction, Charlottesville VWC and state VWC 2002 and
2005) is a freelance writer with a concentration in nonfiction. His
articles have appeared in the Providence Journal Sunday magazine,
C-Ville, Blue Ridge Country magazine, Albemarle magazine, Keswick
Life, and as a feature in the Sunday Style Section of the Washington
Post. He is in the process of completing his first book. He has his
undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University and an
MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. Mike is based in Keswick.