In the Toys & Games Issue (May 2017), “everyone” was…
Deborah Alma – Playing Scrabble with My New Lover
Deborah Alma is also Emergency Poet in her vintage ambulance and is editor of ‘Emergency Poet-an anti-stress poetry anthology’, ‘The Everyday Poet- Poems to live by’ (both published by Michael O’Mara), and her ‘True Tales of the Countryside’ is published by The Emma Press. She lives with her partner, the poet James Sheard, on a hillside in Powys, Wales.
Hedva Anbar – War Games
Hedva is based in London after spells in Israel, America and Switzerland. She writes fiction and drama.
Nancer Ballard – Dilemma
“I am a Boston and Vermont- based writer, poet and book artist, and a Resident Scholar at Brandeis University. My recent non-fiction and poetry has appeared in Thema, Frostwriting, South Street Review, Far Reaches of the Fourth Genre (ed. Prentiss and Wilkins), and The Melancholic Muse (ed. S. Horton). A book of my poetry, ‘Dead Reckoning’, was published by Good Gay Poets, and I have an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. In my non-existent spare time, I play Mille Bornes badly, do triathlons, and make a fool of myself in other sports.
Richard Bannerman – This Bottle Don’t Play
Richard Bannerman sleeps in the morning, plays in the afternoon and writes at night. To him, life is a game that you can’t win or lose but rather wander through and play until it crashes. He has previously been published in the Poeming Piegon and lives in a nice little place in the United States.
Alan Beard – Spy Film
Alan Beard has two collections of stories out ‘Taking Doreen out of the Sky’ (Picador) and ‘You Don’t Have to Say’ (Tindal Street Press). His stories and flashes have appeared in many UK and USA magazines and anthologies including ‘Best British Short Stories 2011’.
Twitter: @AlanBeard4
Dmitry Borshch – Fencing on the Gallows Tree
Dmitry Borshch was born in Dnepropetrovsk, studied in Moscow, today lives in New York. His drawings and sculptures have been exhibited at the National Arts Club (New York), Brecht Forum (New York), ISE Cultural Foundation (New York), the State Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg).
Leanne Bridgewater – Clanger/Miro/Monkey Cymbal
Leanne is a UK-based visual writer, doodling caricatures of imaginary jungle people and profiling architecture of language and climates in poetic segments – working in digital, live, traditional and formally acquainted aquatic formations.
Website: http://www.leannebridgewater.co.uk
Martin Brown – Humaning
Martin Brown lives in Coventry, paddling about in the evaporating pools of the late twentieth century, and still weighing up the pros and cons of diving naked into the new millennium. He’s the author of ‘1,000 Scary Cabbages’ and ‘Shake, Rattle and Custard’. (“Make your local bookshop work for their money by requesting copies!”)
Douglas Bruton – Hopscotch and the Point of It
Oliver Cato – Illuminated
Oliver Cato was born in Southport on Australia’s Gold Coast. He grew up a surfer on the beaches of Greenmount and Kirra. Having lived in Europe, especially Berlin, most of his adult life after graduating with a degree in philosophy, he currently resides in London with his wife and three children. His short pieces and poetry have been published in Sein und Werden, Coffeehouse Poetry and Obsessed with Pipework among others.
Website: www.oocato.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @oocato
Genelle Chaconas – Interrogation
Genelle Chaconas earned their BA in Creative Writing from California State University Sacramento in 2009, and their MFA in Writing and Poetics graduate of Naropa University in 2015. Their first chapbook is Fallout, Saints and Dirty Pictures (little m Press, 2011). Their work has been published or is forthcoming in Olentangy Review, Fjords, WomenArts, Jet Fuel, Sonora Review, Burningword, Exposition Review, Milkfist, Image OutWrite, Crack the Spine, Third Wednesday, Primal Urge, Brevities, Bombay Gin, Calaveras Station, Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets and more. They are a volunteer submission reader at Tule Review. They hosted Red Night Poetry.
Gram Joel Davies – Miniature Model Painter
Gram Joel Davies lives in Devon. His poetry has appeared lately in The Interpreter’s House, The Fenland Read and The Fat Damsel. His first collection, ‘Bolt Down This Earth’ is published by V. Press in 2017.
Jane Dotchin – Another Day
Jane’s work has been published in Fictive Dream Magazine and The Literateur.
Marta Ferguson – Minecraft: The End, Again
Marta Ferguson is the co-editor of Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books (Minor Arcana Press, 2014), the editor of the Columbia Art League’s Interpretations anthology series, and the author of Mustang Sally Pays Her Debt to Wilson Pickett (Main Street Rag, 2005). Her poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including The Cortland Review, Poet Lore, So to Speak, Rattle, and Prairie Schooner. A former poetry editor for The Missouri Review, Marta holds a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia and has been the sole proprietor of Wordhound Writing & Editing Services, LLC (http://www.wordhound.com) for 15 years.
Robert Hamilton – Valentino
Robert Hamilton has spent his working life writing software, but has always enjoyed the company of words more than code. After creating six computer game titles in the early eighties, he took a year out to write a non-fiction book called Earthdream. One year became five and although it was successfully published, by Green Books in 1990, it left him rather poor, necessitating a return to working for a living ever since. Living in West Yorkshire, with his family having spread its wings, he has found the space to pick up his pen again, this time to write short stories.
Jim Hanlen –Returning to Yugoslavia to Pay His Respects
Jim is retired and lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He has poems in Cirque, 13 Chairs and English Journal. Jim was two-time Alaska State Chess Champion.
Jim Gibson – Traffic Lights
KJ Hannah Greenberg – Yesterday’s Toys and Games
KJ Hannah Greenberg captures the world in words and images. Her latest photography portfolio is 20/20: KJ Hannah Greenberg Eye on Israel, http://camelsaloonisrael.blogspot.co.il/. Her most recent poetry collection is A Grand Sociology Lesson (Lit Fest Press, Sept. 2016). Her most recent brief fiction collection is Friends and Rabid Hedgehogs (Bards & Sages Publishing, June 2016).
James Croal Jackson – Ouija Board
James Croal Jackson’s poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Rust + Moth, Isthmus, and elsewhere. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Visit him at jimjakk.com
Kevin Jackson – Playing Us
Kevin Jackson, based in Nottingham, has been writing poetry “that dares to care” for over ten years, with a steady record of publication online, in journals and anthologies in the US and Europe. His most recent publication is a collection of poems called Touching you. He’s also recently been published in the Words for Walls project run by the University of Nottingham. Kevin also contributed to Over land, over sea, the Poems 4 People anthology in solidarity with refugees. Kevin is a member of the DIY Poets collective in Nottingham and a keen performer on the vibrant spoken word scene. He blogs at https://kevnjacksn.wordpress.com
Jessica Jordan – Pokémon Masters
J.C. Jordan is a transplant Knoxville, Tennessee. A graduate of Wesleyan University, she is currently a Ph.D. student in English Literature at Stanford University. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Microchondria II: 42 More Short Short Stories and LitMag. Her passion for Pokémon has never died.
Jacqueline Jules – Sunday Games
Jacqueline Jules is a Northern Virginia author and poet who writes for children and adults. Her books for young readers include the Zapato Power series, the Sofia Martinez series, and Never Say a Mean Word Again. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including The Broome Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, OffCourse, Hospital Drive, and Imitation Fruit. She is the author of two chapbooks, Field Trip to the Museum and Stronger Than Cleopatra.
Laurinda Lind – Last Laugh
Laurinda Lind lives in the U.S. in New York’s North Country where “we theoretically recovered from a summer drought, just in time for the trees to lose their leaves anyway and fill up with snow and ice”. Some previous publications and acceptances were in Antithesis Journal, Deep Water Literary Journal, Earthen Lamp Journal, Far Off Places, and Sonic Boom.
Douglas Macdonald – New Age
Douglas Macdonald had a short story published in the book ‘Visions of Life’ (2015). He is a member of Evanston Writers Workshop near Chicago, Illinois. “The spiral form is not end-stopped like most poetry. It is one inspired by breathing.”
Shahé Mankerian – Resourcefulness
Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Alfred and Marguerite Hovsepian School in Pasadena and the co-director of the Los Angeles Writing Project in California. His most recent manuscript, History of Forgetfulness, has been a finalist at four prestigious competitions: the 2013 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, the 2013 Bibby First Book Competition, the Quercus Review Press, Fall Poetry Book Award, 2013, and the 2014 White Pine Press Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in numerous literary magazines. In 2016, one of Mankerian’s poems received a Pushcart Prize nomination from Altadena Poetry Review.
Andrea Mbarushimana – The Illusion of Control
Scott-Patrick Mitchell – 8-Bit Love Poem
Scott-Patrick Mitchell is an experimental performance poet from Perth, Western Australia. His work appears in Contemporary Australian Poetry and The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australia Poetry. SPM’s debut collection, Vade Mecum, is out in 2017 through Hawkline Press.
Wilda Morris – What is Left
Wilda Morris grew up in Iowa (USA )playing table games with her sister, mother and grandmother, and outdoor games with cousins. She is the workshop chair of Poets & Patrons of Chicago and chair of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She has won prizes for free and formal verse and haiku, and is widely published. Her first book is Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant, published by RWG Press. Her blog at wildamorris.blogspot.com provides a monthly contest for other poets.
Sophie Petrie – Sal
Sophie Petrie is a poet, and literary fiction writer. Her work often deals with trauma and the collapse of time, with an evocative style that is often lyrical and always unexpected. She is currently experimenting with multimodality, and is still working away at her poetry study of the North Devon coast.
Emily Richards – You Just Have to Practise
Birmingham born and Nottingham based, Emily worked as an English and Drama teacher in London and Saigon before turning her attention to writing full time. Though she looks 27, she feels 10 and a half, and is consequently obsessed with magic, hypothetical questions and tomfoolery of all kinds, both on the page and off of it. She was longlisted for the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize in 2016, and was recently published in ‘Women’s Stories, Women’s Voices’, an anthology of feminist writing.
Moay Sakata – Long, Fat, Hard and Pink
Moay Sakata is a Vancouver-based author. She has loved writing her whole life and specializes in creative short fiction. She has won writing contests and has had her work published. Apart from her passion for writing, Moay takes pleasure in photography and music.
Matthew Schmidt – Hand in a Head
Matthew Schmidt is working on a PhD in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Hobart, indicia, Word For/Word, and elsewhere.
Michele Sheldon – The Spinning Monkeys
Michele Sheldon lives in Folkestone, Kent and has had short stories published on Storgy and in anthologies, including Black Pear’s On the Day of the Dead and Other Stories and Stories for Homes, and literary magazines including Rosebud, (U.S). She has also been shortlisted for several competitions including the Bridport Prize.
Olivia Tryon – Poison
Olivia Tryon is a writer from Vancouver, Canada. She enjoys writing poetry and short fiction, and is currently working on her first novel.
Holly Watson – Jackie’s Marvellous Medicine
Born and bred in Coventry, Holly now lives in Westcliff-on-Sea. Her blog the Coventry Conch, tells tales from her childhood growing up in Coventry in the 1990’s.
Jennifer Nichole Wells – Monachopis 3711/Monachopis 3562
Jennifer Nichole Wells creates images full of desolation, malcontent and longing by transforming her hand-built miniature tableaus through her camera lens. Her images draw influence from her midwestern roots and Florida youth. Jennifer graduated from the University of North Florida in the Spring of 2013 with a Bachelors of Fine Art, concentration in Photography, and minors in Art History and Professional Education. She resides in Jacksonville, FL with her boyfriend and cat.
Website: https://jennifernicholewells.com
Marne Wilson
Marne Wilson grew up on the plains of North Dakota and now lives in the foothills of West Virginia. Her poetry has appeared in such places as Atlanta Review, Poetry East, and The South Carolina Review. Her first chapbook, The Bovine Daycare Center, was recently published by Finishing Line Press.
