the blueshift journal

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

 

 

Wendy Barker’s sixth collection of poetry has received the John Ciardi Prize and will be out from BkMk Press Fall 2015. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Wings Press around the same time. She has published individual poems in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Southern Review, Nimrod, New Letters, and Best American Poetry 2013. She is Poet-in-Residence and Pearl Lewinn Endowed Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she has taught since 1982.

Eric Beeny is the author of Snowing Fireflies (Stories, Folded Word Press, 2010), Of Creatures (Poetry, Gold Wake Press, 2010), Milk Like a Melted Ghost (Novella, Thumbscrews Press, 2011), Lepers and Mannequins (Novel, Eraserhead Press, 2011), and other works. He also writes and records music at home. His blog is Dead End on Progressive Ave. (http://ericbeeny.blogspot.com). He lives in Buffalo, NY.

Marshall Blevins is a professional photographer who lives and works in Louisiana. She has been published in Equus Caballus, Capricious, and Limestone, in addition to several trade magazines. She makes art with the intent to celebrate the south and one of its oldest traditions, horse racing.

A. R. Canzano is a freshman at Yale, where she has recently started writing things that she doesn't keep under her bed. She grew up in downtown Detroit, and went to the Scripps National Spelling Bee when she was in 7th
grade.

Cortney Lamar Charleston lives in Jersey City, NJ. He is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania’s performance poetry collective, The Excelano Project, and a founder of BLACK PANTONE, an inclusive digital cataloging of black identity. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, Eleven Eleven, Folio, The Normal School, Chiron Review, J Journal, Kweli Journal, Winter Tangerine Review, CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art & Action and elsewhere. He has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Ben Clark grew up in rural Nebraska and now lives in Chicago, Illinois. His first book Reasons To Leave The Slaughter was released by Write Bloody Publishing in 2011. His second collection if you turn around I will turn around is forthcoming from Thoughtcrime Press in early 2015.

Brendan Constantine's work has appeared in FIELD, Ploughshares, Zyzzyva, Ninth Letter, and Hotel Amerika
among other journals. His most recent collections are Birthday Girl With Possum (2011 Write Bloody Publishing)
and Calamity Joe (2012 Red Hen Press). He has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently poet in residence at the Windward School and regularly conducts workshops for hospitals, foster homes, & with the Alzheimer's Poetry Project.

Alex Currie is a 17 year old photographer and filmmaker from Buffalo, New York.  He has been recognized by publications such as Photo Vogue, Photofocus, Lens People, Rewind Magazine, 2VIDA Magazine, and Awake Platform.  Furthermore, Alex has received countless awards for both his videotography and his camera work. Some of these include First Place in Short Film at the National Fine Arts Festival (both 2013 and 2014), First Place at the Mata Exhibition (2014), the NeXt Vision Award for Excellence from Kenan/Storrs All High, and First Place in the Villa Maria High School Photo Show (2014).  Recently, Alex was selected as Flickr's 20 Under 20 photographers, along with Issue 1 cover artist Oliver Charles and Issue 1 contributor Katharina Jung. Among this group of highly talented and unique individuals, Alex received the Most Creative award. 

Laura Davenport's poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Meridian, New South, Best New Poets 2009 and Boxcar Poetry Review. She is the recipient of a Meridian Editors' Prize and a Hackney Literary award, and completed an M.F.A. at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Loren Erdrich is a New York based visual artist and co-author, with poet Sierra Nelson, of the lyrical choose-your-own-adventure book I Take Back the Sponge Cake (published by Rose Metal Press in 2012, and recipient of the 2010 NYU Washington Square Review Prize For Collaboration). Loren and Sierra continue to collaborate under the name Invisible Seeing Machine and were awarded a 2014 City Artist Grant by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. In 2011 Loren was featured in Vogue Italia, in a photo essay of female artists to watch in NYC by photographer Francesco Carrozzini. Recent exhibitions include Avis Frank Gallery in Houston, TX, Butter Projects of Detroit, MI, Hugo House in Seattle, WA and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Please see more of her work at www.okloren.com.

Richard Foerster is the author of seven books of poetry. His most recent is River Road, forthcoming from Texas Review Press in Fall 2015. He has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize, a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, and two National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowships. His work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, The Southern Review, and Poetry. He has worked as a lexicographer, educational writer, typesetter, teacher, and as the editor of the literary magazines Chelsea and Chautauqua Literary Journal. Since 1986 he has lived on the coast of Southern Maine.

Eleanor Grabowski is a high school senior at the Bryn Mawr School. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended the Iowa Young Writers' Studio in 2014.

Christian Hopkins is a 22 year old photographer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For him, photography has
been a means of therapy in a battle with Depression that began when he was 16. Through surreal self-portraiture and photo manipulation, he gives form to the strong emotions with which he has and continues to struggle with. Christian remains an inspiration for many young writers and artists out there today who might be going through similar personal experiences.  He is currently enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania studying biochemistry.

Rachna Kulshrestha lives in McKinney, a suburb of Dallas, Texas with her husband and two kids, and is an Electrical Engineer by profession. She moved from India to United States almost two decades ago.  Her work has appeared in Prime Number, Jersey Devil, FlapperHouse and is upcoming in Redactions and Columbia Journal of Art and literature Online.

Sarah Loreth does not take photographs; she creates them from scenes she pulls from deep within herself. Sarah is a fine art and travel photographer from New England, who specializes in self-portraiture and conceptual portraiture. In her work she tries to convey a quiet stillness of emotion with a connection to her natural surroundings. From her use of color and surreality she creates a reality found only in her imagination but with an emotion that is undeniably human. She explores the divide between darkness and light. Her work evokes a connection from the viewer, a feeling of oneness of the human experience and a mystery that will leave you wondering how the story will unfold.  Fueled by her love for travel and need to give, Sarah is the co-founder of The Wild Ones Workshop Tour, a not for profit organization set up to aide in the growth of photographic artists by providing education in both photographic techniques and business consulting while providing a supportive and ongoing global community.  When not taking photos Sarah loves to write, cook, and take many naps.  She is partnered with Vanguard.

Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Zorba’s Daughter, which received the May Swenson Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury, and two chapbooks. Publications include The Yale Review, FIELD, The Literary Review, et al. She was a Hawthornden Fellow in 2008. Currently, she resides in Alexandria, VA.

Jesse Nathan lives in San Francisco. His poems and writings have appeared in jubilat, the American Poetry Review, Adbusters, the Nation, the Believer, and elsewhere. He's hammering away at a PhD in English literature at Stanford, and he's a co-founding editor of the McSweeney's Poetry Series.

Deonte Osayande is writer from Detroit, Mi. His poems and essays have been published in over a dozen publications and have won awards in the Dudley Randall Poetry Contest, the Wayne Literary Review Poetry Contest and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a two time member of the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team. He is also a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal and teaches creative writing through the Inside Out Detroit program.  Currently, he is a Professor of English at Wayne County Community College.

C.C. Russell currently lives in Wyoming with his wife, daughter, and two cats. His poetry and fiction have appeared in the New York Quarterly, Rattle, Pearl, The Meadow, and Whiskey Island among others. He has held jobs in a wide range of vocations – everything from graveyard shift convenience store clerk to retail management with stops along the way as dive bar dj and swimming pool maintenance. He has also lived in New York and Ohio. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions.

Alexandra Spensley attends Avon Lake High School in Ohio. Her work has been recognized by theScholastic Art and Writing Awards. She enjoys running and reading.

Audrey Spensley is a junior at Avon Lake High School in Ohio, named a Foyle 2014 Young Poet of the Year and a National YoungArts Winner in poetry.  She has received a national gold medal from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her work is published or forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Magma, Vademcum, and Crashtest, among others, and she has been recognized by the Notre Dame of Maryland University and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth for my poetry.  She enjoys running and playing the violin.