Gertrude Press

Michelle Acuff (see essay, page 69 of issue 13)  

Brent Calderwood is a writer, musician, and activist. His essays and reviews have been published widely; his poems have appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, American Poetry Journal, Cherry Blossom Review, Arts & Understanding, Slow Trains, modern words, and in the forthcoming anthology Solace. He has twice been the recipient of Lambda Literary Foundation Fellowships for poetry, and he is currently working toward his Masters in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Steven Cordova's first collection of poetry is forthcoming from Bilingual Press in late 2008 or early 2009.  He is the author of the chapbook Slow Dissolve (Mombotombo Press, 2003), and his poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Calalloo, Cimarro Review, The Journal, and Northwest Review.  An essay will appear in Diva Complex: Gay Men On Their Divas (University of Wisconsin Press) in 2009.  He lives in Brooklyn, New York.  

Lea C. Deschenes resides in Worcester, MA and holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College. Author of thirteen chapbooks, her first full-length collection, The Constant Velocity of Trains, is available through Write Bloody Publishing at www.writebloody.com. For more information, visit her web site at www.quantumredhead.com. She once found a five-leaf clover during a solar eclipse.  

Born in eastern Washington, Hannah E. Martin joined the military after a first aborted attempt at college; she spent her early adult years traveling the world, first as a Marine then as a Naval Officer. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and Portland State University, Hannah loves storytelling in all its forms. Her short fiction has been published in periodicals such as Down in the Dirt, Oysters and Chocolate, Oregon Literary Review and New Moon.  

Dawn Forbes has spent her entire life in the Northwest, and currently resides in Walla Walla, Wa.  She has a B.A. in Studio Art from Whitman College and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College. Forbes is a professional artist whose work engages in explorations of psychology, archeology, gender identity, and the extraordinary body.   In addition to her own artistic productions, over the last decade, Forbes has worked in a variety of art related fields, including commercial and institutional gallery venues and art instruction.  Forbes currently teaches as an adjunct assistant professor of art and directs the Sheehan Gallery at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. She was the featured artist in issue 12 of Gertrude.  

Mary Butler Harpin, MFA, is the winner of the 2007 Prairie Poetry Friends Prize and has been selected for the 2009 FAWWA Emerging Writer 's Residency in Perth, Western Australia. Mary's work has appeared in Prairie Poetry, Confluence, Cherry Blossom Review, and Dos Passos Review. Mary is a health and wellness writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

Christopher Hennessy is the author of Outside the Lines: Talking with Contemporary Gay Poets (Univ. of Michigan Press). His poetry, profiles, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Verse, The Writer's Chronicle, Crab Orchard Review, Cimmaron Review, and elsewhere. He is associate editor at the Gay and Lesbian Review-Worldwide.  

Susan Holcombe received her undergraduate degree from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and her master's degree in writing from Southern Connecticut State University.  Her poetry was a winner in the Al Savard Memorial Poetry Contest and will be published in a forthcoming issue of Long River Run. Holcombe was also invited to attend the 2008 Lambda Literary Foundation Writer's Retreat. She currently teaches English and creative writing at Farmington High School and resides in Wethersfield, CT with her partner of eighteen years and their two daughters.  

Brian McCurdy is a magazine editor and former newspaper reporter. He has been writing poetry for nearly 20 years. He graduated from Neumann College with an English degree. Brian and his partner live in Delaware.  

Neil Meitzler Frank Munns (see essay, page 25 of issue 13)  

Briandaniel Oglesby lives in his hometown of Davis, California, and in Riverside. He is literary manager of Barnyard Theatre in the former. He attends the MFA program at UC-Riverside, where he has been the script supervisor for The Coming Out Monologues. His short fiction has appeared in ZYZZYVA and he is at work on a collection of short stories and a novel.  He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

Maureen Owens received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles and earned her BA in Literature from Binghamton University. Her poetry has been anthologized in ImageArt, Knocking on the Silence, and Common Intuitions and will be included in the forthcoming anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, edited by Holly Hughes. Maureen's first book of poetry, She Sleeps With Dogs, is published by Foothills Publishing. Maureen teaches at Finger Lakes Community College and lives in Seneca Falls, NY with her sweet greyhound, Gloria.  

Liz Prato plays with words in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in several publications, including ZYZZYVA, Iron Horse Literary Review, Cream City Review, and Subtropics. She's a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a winner in the Berkeley Fiction Review's 2005 Sudden Fiction Contest and the 2007 Juked Fiction Prize. She teaches creative writing to students who constantly impress her.  

Gerard Sarnat is a physician, past CEO and Stanford professor, and virginal poet at the tender age of sixty-two. He's published or forthcoming in fifty-some journals internationally during the first half of 2008, and has won poetry contests in the US. California Institute of Arts and Letters' Pessoa Press will publish his first book, The Jonestown Homeless Chronicles. Gerry's listed in Poets and Writers in Creative Nonfiction and Poetry.  

Judith Skillman's tenth book, Heat Lightning, New and Selected Poems 1986 - 2006, was published by Silverfish Review Press. The Carnival of All or Nothing is forthcoming from Cervéna Barva Press in March, 2009.  Skillman is the recipient of WPA's William Stafford Award, the Eric Mathieu King Award from Academy of American Poets, King County Arts Commission Publication Prize and Public Arts grant, and Washington State Arts Commission Writer's Fellowship.  She holds a Masters in English Literature from the University of Maryland, and has completed graduate work in Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at the University of Washington.  Skillman's poems have appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Southern Review, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), The Iowa Review, Midwest Quarterly, and numerous other journals and anthologies.  She has been a frequent Writer in Residence at Centrum.  See www.judithskillman.com for more information.  

Michael Angelo Tata's poetry has most recently appeared in the journals Blood Lotus, Origami Condom, LinQ, FRIGG, and Ugly Couch.  He is currently editor-in-chief of iPublishing (New York City and Los Angeles) and American editor for Australian interdisciplinary journal Nebula.  His criticism appears in the forthcoming anthologies Nervous States: Modernity and the Neurological Subject and The Globetrotting Shopaholic.  

Rachelle Taylor is an MA candidate and composition instructor at Radford University in Southwest Virginia, and is the proud adopted mother of two growing turtles.  She boasts obsessions with Flannery O'Connor, Greta Garbo, and haute couture.  In her spare time, she is working on the fourth revision of a novel exploring sexual identity in the rural South.  Her work has previously appeared in The Blotter and Neon.