DOTS!! and Dash

HEY GUYS!!   HEY FRIENDS!!   HEY PEOPLE!!!

After five decades of planeting with you ,You’d think I would know your preferred nouns by now. But I don’t.  You’re still the mystifying organism known as Humanitor. 

But it’s okay—I misclassify myself on occasion too. I’m one of you & though less mysterious than you I’m still not fully solved.

*****

It’s not the New year (new Decade) yet, but I’m desperate for change so I’m going to elasticize a bit

past Thanksgiving to the knowledge that the Internet (and social networking) was the strangest & most magical & also least wholesome experience I could’ve ever imagined in my life;

I think in 2009 I proclaimed Facebook “more enchanting than attending one’s own funeral” and I meant it. it was a blast and it was more entertaining than television, or my real introverted life before the extronet;

for me being alive on the internet was more lively than going to a party in real life. and that’s…not as sad as it sounds, it’s hard to see people having fun in real life when I’d rather be home writing reading singing or just about anything.

So this has been quite an enlightening, evolutionary, revolutionary decade we’ve spent together & I think we’ll look back at it & pat ourselves on the back for being such brave magicians.

The Gentoos perform their own version of The Crying Game

***************** BUT WAIT

I haven’t written enough about being trans here, and I apologize.  When I started this momentous portion of my life, I thought it would be more newsworthy : ))

But my change has not been as drastic as the younger (& same age as me, in fact all other trans guys I’ve seen) and it has puzzled me, and my friends, and my doctors. But I changed more this year than in the first 3 years on T combined. I’m finally at a plateau I can live with without wanting to murder the person in the mirror.  I love my post-post-post modern pubescence!!!!

I never expected to be Aquaman, and yet I felt like him at times this& last year. My T was high then, but it’s high now. I never, never, ever understood the female hormone cycle, no matter how many times I read about it in Cosmo or a doctor explained it w/ charts & all. I just never got which fluid was in the beaker at which time of month. And why it had to affect me so much [??]  I know that’s problematic, but I hope you understand. 

Anyway, I’ve never been good with hormones. They’re like little foreign languages flowing through my endocrine system.

I feel pretty good gender-wise, though.  And that’s something to be Thankful for as we bypass all the turkey talk.

The Gentoo Emperors — Teduardo, IO Pine, Cayden Haydenson, and Susie G (full biographies to come)

I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that sometime in 2014 my brain broke and its probably not going to return to the way it was. I’ve adjusted to a different level of foreboding that tells me something absolutely catastrophic is going to happen all the time. It took five years to calibrate my new levels of foreboding w/ PKD-approved reality. But…

…I’m still not sure something catastrophic hasn’t already happened???!!!?? 

Anyway, I tried to fix this many ways, including yoga, fitness, all the healthy stuff that I was told to do by well meaning folks

and then had to feel like a huge failure when I couldn’t live without medication any longer.  (I no longer feel bad about this—I’m old and brains go bad.) I just worry about my liver now. But let’s not start a hypochon-CON.

I’ve had a good life and I know for sure there are enough good people out there, even if I can’t talk to them regularly.

Pixel gets in on the act

THIS YEAR…I did what I’ve wanted to do since 11-8-16. I lost hope in people. I gave up on life. I know, I know…I’m a rich, crazy, asshole who can do something like that…that’s partially true…but a little exaggerated : )) Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend it if you have many real world commitments…it’s a feral adventure…and be sure to have the support of angels (living and other) around you. 

I had to unconsciously face some conscious [biases?/terrors?/glitches?/some of which were not even my own] and that sounds so easy but nothing was labeled and all the pie was in uncharted territory,

the soft innards leaking past the tinfoil...mmmm, pie.

There is no 14-year-old girl here. Nor any mama. Your dumb pie will land on the wall way above my head.                                        

No papa bear eating toast, but there was a jaguar spotted swimming across the channel.

Misuse my words and treat them as you would my torso when you thought it was yours

and it may be funny but I hope it’s also a big load off your…

…..

…..

….

shoulders.  [There are no puns here! Only double thrusts and ironic jabs; so sharpen or grow up]

Muchi gratz to Matt Groening for learnin' me to draw a proper bun!

******************AND THIS!!!

I’ve always known what everyone wants to know (as soon they get away from you & with their friends) is all the sexual stuff.  I encourage everyone to do their own research on the effects of testosterone & estrogen  [freud missed 

the boat when 

he didn’t guess it could flip over]

I was going to do a thing on transitioning bathrooms, but it wasn’t very exciting. I never was a fan of public restrooms, even as a lady. And let me tell you, no matter how strongly you identify as male, the women’s restroom is a luxury you give up when you pass too well as a guy. The lack of privacy is a bit alarming, speaking as a human of either gender who is accustomed to stalls or peeing in a cup in my car : )) But I think the most bizarre bathroom experience was running into my brothers in there at a wedding! I quickly ducked into a stall so I hope it wasn’t as awkward for them, but thank fuck that stall was open : O

Usually men’s restrooms are darker and quieter than women’s. That’s nice. But women’s rooms smell better! That’s about all the bathroom data I could gather. I hope that was entertaining enough for you.

WRONG!!!!!!

With the help of colorful dots, medication and Eeeyore, I feel better than I did when I decided to give up hope on people (March-ish). I think the pendulum will strike a less vertiginous balance, though I’m not sure it’s done swinging in all directions…

…which is to say I’m still 115% for Free Speech. Especially for artists and whistleblowers. I had to wrestle with my own peanut gallery of voices with the question of someone’s right to incite violence using hate speech, after the Australian guy went to NZ and shot up a bunch of Muslims and then claimed prominent world leader DT’s rhetoric as his inspiration,

[ I wish I knew more about clauses and addendums about gagging potential dictators. Did we not clausify this stuff after WW2—what was the verdict on Free Speech then?]

Can he shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it? The only thing I see in my perfectly conscious and wide awake mind is YES.  And that’s not a the Tiptree-approved reality I saw myself growing ripe in.

Anyway, I know there is a faction of free speech activists who defend it just so they can get away w/ promoting their hateful nationalist racist sexist agendas. 

I hope this is not us, Miss Question Mark/

                                 Madame Asterisk!   << misgendering someone else is kinda fun!

************ IN CONCOLLUSION

Are you wondering why I keep talking about the internet and the social networks in the past tense? As if they are something I enjoyed at one time, but not so much here and now?  Well, I’m bout to deliver a premature new years resolution for the whole decade of the 20s — yay The Twenties! Let’s all be Dadaists together (or separately)—

My resolution is to be on the internet less! I’ve gotten down from a steady 77% to a nice comfortable 44%. But I’m gonna crank it all the way down to 11%. 

An 11% internet life is all I can handle from now on : )) and that includes this blog too! 11% Octopus, I hope you understand. I am thrilled to have reconnected & known so many new people (esp writers). But now I shall go have my Syd Barrett years, so don’t be surprised to see a fat old bald guy growing roses in the garden next time you stop by!

************Post Script Re: DOTS

Hey GuyFriendPeoples, you know I don’t do much art that’s pretty. It’s just not what inspires me. But I want you to know I was making the most beautiful dot portrait of the view from our cottage on Siesta Key. It was turning out quite nicely, but…

…the art gods demanded a sacrifice out of the calypso blue   So I ripped up my landscape &

kicked my own ass

& everyone was happy

I will try to recreate the landscape sometime in the Spring. Now is too soon.

***********Post-post Script re: 8

This summer I found out I had an 8th sibling. Along with my 2 natural born sibs, my 2 long lost step-sibs, and my 2 younger adopted sibs, there was a sister born before my parents met in college. It was treated as a huge secret & swept under the rug, but I knew from a young age that my family was a very secretive unit, so I wasn’t surprised to find out five decades later that there were even more secrets than I’d figured out on my own. I haven’t met her yet. But I have no doubt she will be more welcome in our family than I ever was.

And so it goes.

Sweet, Sweet Eye Candy Dots!

Friendly-types,

Hi there, how are you? I’m doing pretty good again, so i thought I’d say hi. But I guess the real reason I’m here is because of the DOTS!

Enjoy all the new art. Sorry about the over eager color saturation, but I’ll get better at leaving some white space for your weary eyes as I do more dotwork. I plan on becoming a regular DOTTARD in the coming weeks & months…

There was a lot I wanted to talk to you about, but I didn’t want to call each & every one of you on your smartphones, so I’m just going to leave my thoughts here & let you find them at your leisure & get back to me (or not) as you wish.

Time Gets Mad & Eats Its Children

[Thank you for finally getting that I am not a nazi, just a writer who communicates in an exhausting & bizarre fashion…]

The topics I wanted to discuss w/ you are

1) Octopus Review news (thank you all for such an exciting 8th issue!)

2) Trans news (I declared my transition COMPLETE back in April, but it’s complicated…did I reach my personal peak of masculinity in April? yeah…Did I sustain it throughout the summer? not really. But I’ll talk about this another time… ) the other topic I wanted to say something about is 

3) Vogon poems (aka automatic writing aka spirit writing aka stream of conscious gibberish that isn’t really poetry. I am used to not being noticed, ever, at all, much less in any artistic pursuit…and I couldn’t help but notice…that y’all noticed the Vogon poems & so I’ll say something about them, then I’ll give you Octo Review news….

How’s that?)

************* VOGON POEMS AKA ALL THOSE THINGS ABOVE *************

I guess you all know by now that I went on another “psychic safari” , except I’m calling this one “shamanistic fight club” and I really can’t say much about it yet.

The Vogon poems are a 542-page 14 pt document (and I apologize for that —even in beloved MS 10 pt that is a sizable doc). It begins 12-5-17 and ends 4-29-19 and should not be cherry-picked or read out of order. It also includes the Adventures “Rogue Bub” & “Red Flamingos” plus all the art that went with them.

I think I will change the name of it to “Installing the New Aeon” because that’s what it felt like. And I thank Douglas Adams for indulging my use of Vogon all these years.

8 Alters & 2 Albums

The writing portion of this spirit adventure has ended, but other aspects of it continue. Spirit writing is any stream of conscious writing done w/ the purpose of invoking contact w/ the spirit world. 

I always loved to do this style of writing but knew it was not poetry, so when I committed to learning to write I sort of lost contact w/ my spirit pen pals : )) For seven years I really closed off that part of my thought process & wrote from a conscious brainy place. And it didn’t go well. I produced very little good writing that way.

I did hope that going from left brained to right brained writing would yield some interesting results but that was not the PURPOSE of the project. My intention when I started was for it to not be about incoming data that I couldn’t decipher until after it happened. Something different from the last time, I asked. And I guess I got my wish : ))

It all starts w/ being receptive to stuff that doesn’t make much sense…

…for me that was a few months of awkward left/right gibberish writing. But it was fun. Writing was fun again! Then by the summer of ’18 things heated up & I felt tapped into a meditative trance-like style.

By winter of ’19 I felt very trance-like. All the time. Like when you’re black out drunk & you have full conversations & continue to function pretty normally but you have no memory of it. At first this trance-like state was a nice welcome change from the nervous rodent I usually am, but then it sort of became a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from…

…and that’s when some really weird shit happened. Interesting. Scary. Can’t say much about it shit. I tried to say some things about it in the poems but wasn’t sure how “kosher” that would be, spiritually speaking. Someday I will try to write more consciously about the whole experience…but when I say a mother and son who died the same day came to me for help…

…pretty much sums it up…. if you can think of a mother & son who died the same day in recent history, you might get the gist of the spiritual dialogue that began as the writing exercises ended.

So, what about spirit writing predicting stuff?  It’s been known to happen. The alpha state of mind is very elastic. Throughout this project, I read a lot about time & how it moves & pushes & bullies us on our peaceful orbits in space. But I can’t go into that now…our minds are more elastic than our bodies… that’s all my conscious brain will say.

TUMBLR meme?

Anyway…the Vogon poems are not witchcraft. I have not cursed anyone ( I know you’ve designated me the bad witch, but I am a good witch, or possibly a magician since I identify more masculine now). I’m not trying to call out any person, race, gender, editor or ex lover. One thing I learned about writing, which I probably missed by not going to school is that HIGH SCHOOL and EXPLOSIVE ENDINGS are big fox paws. But why? I’ll never know.

And I’ll continue to write from whatever dot on my timeline I choose. KAPOW!!

************************OCTOPUS REVIEW NEWS*************************************

Before I started doing The Octopus Review, my true goal was to (self)publish a poetry chapbook. I saw allllll of you all doing it, and I thought it would be really neat if I could do it too. So I tried. I got software. I got advice from friends who’d successfully put together chapbook after chapbook. I felt like I could handle that part. But then I looked at my…oeuvre. 

You can imagine just from reading this blog how exhausting my poetic oeuvre must be. I had 10 chapbooks, possibly 11 waiting in the hatch, unedited, totally slushy, messy, in need of repair. And when I say chapbooks I mean 70-page manuscripts really. 

As promised, the Gentoo Emperors

I quickly abandoned that venture and decided to do The Octopus Review instead. I had no idea if anyone would send me their poems when I first asked, but they did. And then this happened 7 more times!! I have to say I really like putting together a poetry/art zine.  

However, before I do another Octopus Review, I feel like I must concentrate on getting a chapbook together. It’s going to be frustratingly left-brained but it has to be done.

Then — when that major feat is accomplished — there will be more Octopus Reviews. Getting a new website up will also be a major accomplishment for me, but I’m going to make the 2020’s about updating my technical lexicon. I’ve got 2011/2012 technology licked, but now I’m starting to feel left behind again : ))

I would like to keep the scrolling format but really pare it down to maybe 8 poems & 4 artworks & even offer a small payment to each contributor. It won’t be a lot, but I believe in artists & writers getting paid. We are also considering doing a writer’s retreat/ air bnb situation, but that may be beyond our hobbity scope, ie just a dream we like to dream, which would be a better reality for someone else.

Also… I don’t know how publications get added to Duotrope, but somehow I got added and it’s been interesting. All summer I received tons of fabulous vacation photos from all over the world. And I’m not complaining—there are worse things than a mailbox full of gorgeous photos. 

But I don’t feel like I belong there. i am currently not using Duotrope, since I’m on submission hiatus. If I have any real friends who can check my Duotrope account & see if it’s legit that would be cool. If not, I’ll live : ))

I made this at Starbucks...

I will start writing conscious poetry & submitting it again someday…maybe to you : O

The Octopus Review #8

Friends!

It's finally here —The Octopus Review #8!  This will be the last Octo Review in this space in this format, and it is a good one!  I will be back soon with news about the new incarnation of the Octo Review.

I think great things are happening in the poetry scene and I've been honored to participate in it with you all. Thank you not just to this batch of poets and artists but to EVERYONE who has contributed to The Octopus Review the past 2 years. You'll never understand what it has meant to me.

Also—I can't believe it but no one submitted any octopus art : )) For the first 3 or 4 issues I received several octopus submissions and I rejected them because, you know, I thought it would be octopus overkill. And this time around? Nothing. Oh well—you guys always surprise me.

**************************************************************************Barbara H. Moore

NEW DAY

Standing on the rooftop, I am Juno, Ceres, 

Victoria, Minerva, Hecate, Iris, Diana – 

wind in my hair, sun rising to greet me.

I contemplate flight over a city awakening, 

scoping out freshly mown territory – 

looking for places to hide in plainest sight.

Simply clad in camouflage, blending in 

with treetops, I am pleased with last year’s crops 

but not content. Over and again, I rise victorious, 

no ashes in sight, with wing expansion greater 

than my own capacity for dreaming. Wise but 

not without faults of jealousy, suspicion, 

my body armor never leaves my sight completely. 

I carry torches and threats to morph you into 

other forms if you double-cross me. I may 

surprise you, arriving when you’re least prepared – 

with cryptic messages and leftover nectar dripping 

from my fingertips. My eyes ablaze like silver moons,

and deadly as my aim is true, I do not suffer fools lightly.

Man Walking by Wayne F. Burke

************************************************************************Andrew Darlington

COURTESY OF ANOTHER EMPTY SPACE

(Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield, February 2017)

I’m in the Hepworth Gallery

where someone’s draped

their coat folded over the chairback

and left their case slanting the seat,

with their tight-rolled umbrella

angled precisely across it,

I’m appraising in indecision

from different perspectives, see

a common on impermanence,

the transience of art and presence,

the outsider nature of being

and nothingness, absence and

what remains beyond leaving,

but no,

not installation sculpture,

just left by another drifting art-geek

in the Hepworth gallery

****************************************************************************Lois Betterton

Gracing the Square

(An Ode to Poetry)

Crowds gather as the ancient sundial tells them what they want to know.

The bells ring, the crowd gawks,

Music fills the chambers as we enjoy their dimensions.

Tea? you ask, and I am charmed,

For your eyes sparkle and we both know what we mean,

And what we cannot mean.

Musicians are everywhere, even in corners we cannot see,

We can hear them only faintly now.

And finally the senses are relaxed as laughter

Spills out from between lips like honey from a golden pitcher.

Time is a man-made invention, a name and a promise

To move forward reliably; though, in reality, time is something

That can neither be contained nor defined. And man is so uneasy

That he gives time a measure that it can neither understand nor obey.

And no one is the wiser.

Untitled by Jim Zola

The ARTist

Fragment Raw Rage Unfinished

Untethered by convention, witnessed,

Unbound by perceived oppression,

Works his ART, visual expression.

Its soul cries out to be unheard, 

Poetry without a word,

A silent tortured naked scream

To his within, fulfills his need.

The ARTificial sacrifice, of life and limb, of modern strife,

The path unbroken, all his Life,

Revealing unseen, unknown truth

He carries from his sacred youth.

Generous now, he shares his view

For there is nothing he won’t do

To see how deeply he can go

I don’t think he can really know

How rare his magic, how his eye

Compels his hand, his raw heart cries

Out to the cosmos, to the Moon

His new work’s heartbeat emerging soon

To live its truth will come alive.

To be itself it must survive.

Releasing thunder, tenderness,

The ARTist’s heart, the gift possessed.

*****************************************************************************Robert Beveridge

ALL THOSE PROMISES

an excess of legs

brushes against your sternum,

orgy of past due notices. the last time

you stood here, Canaveral

was still a cloak. the twilight

casts everything in hues of red

yet the traffic has not found a reason

to stop, you dodge bicycles

on the way to the deli, your chest

alive. bags of cats set you to ponder

the way to succeed. roast beef on rye

with extra mustard and a hint

of sliced olive. you wait for it to move.

Incels in Space by Peter Landau

************************************************************************************Tony Egler

INHERIT THE MOON

It’s life and death every day on the Moon.

Hell, anywhere I guess. You don’t have to leave

Earth to die, plenty of that here everyday.

It’s more than where you live, it’s how.

Like, do you I-me-me-I your way

From relationship to relationship?

Or are you all in?

They said there was no place for us here,

that our lives didn’t matter. Not until someone

believed in us, helped us survive,

taught us how to live again.

First we made the desert bloom, then

we moved to the Moon. They called us Refugees,

but we always knew we were just like you. Free.

Dialogue with Articulated Formation by John Nelson

**************************************************************************************Juliet Cook

What if my most vibrant heart beats happened in the past

 and then my emotions gradually got stoned

 into grey?

Or maybe I'll never dry out all the way.

Today I took photos of my own menstrual blood,

because it won't be long before it stops.

Or maybe it will never stop.

Maybe when I die, the blood will still be gushing

out of my vaginal lines.

Bloodied screw hole.

Bloodied irises

in a flower pot.

Bloodied saint of torn apart poems,

dripping, thrown away, hidden inside 

underwear drawers and

underground dreams.

In which my vagina was a tiny tomb

for broken dicks

whose heads have managed

to convince themselves that I don't exist anymore

and maybe I don't in some mind's eyes.

I mean I'm not the same as I was 

when I was 20

when I was 30

when I was 40

but I do still exist

and I'm still the real me

no matter how much I change.

I want to be able to keep changing

for at least another 40 years, but

can I handle myself?

     ****

When I was a little girl,

my grandma made witch finger shapes

with pierogie dough. She knew

I would turn into a witch with entrails

stuck between dirty fingernails.

My nose keeps growing more and more witchy

and I can't tell if this is sorcery or another ugly sign 

of aging.  It is hard to believe that anyone really wants

to handle these spells. That anyone really wants all of me.

Brimming  with broom legs,

with bruises and veins, 

uneven blood flow, pulsating heart beats

underneath my skin. I cut myself 

shaving again, because the veins 

bulged into the razor blade.

The ever alternating landscapes

of quantifiable feminism.

Blood 

then mental evaporation

then excavation from underneath the cuts.

Woods by Wayne F. Burke

***********************************************************************************Pris Campbell

 burn

hate burns his lips

sets fire to trees

scares off squirrels

he walks in haze

no longer knows color

until the sky bends

to touch him

he has long forgotten seedlings

in spring

redbirds in flight

wildflowers in bloom

this man...

my hunched over grandfather

carries his daughter's torn

underpants in one hand

my barrette in the other

the road to perdition

has many turns

barbed wire holds

shirt fragments

snagged from other

lost men who

tried to escape this route

before him

he cries out

to the god his victims

cried for when his evil

lay so heavily

upon them.

a storm rises

on the horizon

cloaked horsemen

ride its cusp

Untitled by Jim Zola

jukebox

I still smell that war... 

it seeps from my bones. 

Oh praise to the soldiers

lined up on D-Day,

shivering, while the water

turned crimson 

We were so certain 

of our lives together

before Vietnam. 

Bodies pile up

in the Middle East,

a child's broken toy 

beside them.

When the shells 

hit his ship he slipped

further through that rabbit hole 

carrying him away from me.

Return to me,

oh souls of the dead

and the walking dead

for one last benediction

He didn't want me 

to drop braids, kiss a frog, 

or click heels together 

to help him return intact. 

White crosses shine

in the moonlight

at Arlington:

ghosts step out from the Wall.

I watch helplessly 

as he falls further. 

I reach out, but my hands 

grasp empty space.

Our warriors are gone now,

leaving behind those who mourn.

May we may hold their memory dear,

gain peace for what has been lost .

Dead now a year

I still talk to him -

program alternate endings 

into this jukebox called life.

*********************************************************************************Catfish McDaris

THE LAST NIGHT SHIFT

Stumbling outside from the monster

loud shrieking machine madness, the

black slate floor trying to swallow your

feet to the knees in phobic quicksand

A cigarette, a sip of water in a deserted

parking lot, night, like a workman’s

gloves fingers wearing through at the

tips grasping the sun, clutching that

orange red ball to his dark bosom

Quick dozed off leaning against a

concrete wall, he struggled awake

hearing a sound, a lady was playing

trombone with a monkey in a tutu.

What Is A Man? by Peter Landau

***********************************************************************************Matt Borczon

Try ( for Eliza at 10 years old )

Try

to channel

the devil

with your

dance moves

to wake

the dead

with your

screams

to scatter

the crows

with your

icy breath

stampede

the horses

sink the

ship shoot

out the

street lights

with the

fierce energy

of your

youth with

the power

of your

love and

anger try

please try

to change

the world!

********************************************CONTRIBUTOR BIOS******************************************

Andrew Darlington worked as a Stand-Up Poet on the ‘Alternative Cabaret Circuit’ and interviewed many people from the worlds of Literature, SF-Fantasy, Art and Music for a variety of publications. His latest poetry collection is Tweak Vision (Alien Buddha Press), while his new fiction collection A Saucerful Of Secrets is now available from Parallel Universe. His scientifictionnovel In The Time Of The Breaking (Alien Buddha Press) was published in January 2019. 

Barbara Moore is a New York poet and author of the slim poetry collection Dancing on Broken Glass (Nightwing Publications, 2014.) Her poems have appeared in numerous online and in-print poetry journals/anthologies. Barbara admires the ability to access the flip side of tragedy and believes it’s humor that keeps her afloat. An avid Bob Dylan fan, music is one of her greatest pleasures.

Catfish McDaris won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015. He’s been active in the small press world for 25 years. He’s recently been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Mandarin, Yoruba, Tagalog, and Esperanto.  

Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina. 

John Nelson: “My paintings employ design to generate tension, and I use color for a release of that tension. I enjoy watching the art reveal itself layer after layer using newly discovered techniques while eliminating subject matter. Having no formal training , I can create in a manner that knows no bounds.“

The two poems by Juliet Cook appear within a chapbook called DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises), which will soon be published online by Dusie. It can currently be acquired in hand-designed print chapbook format in the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/689260672/new-dark-purple-intersections-inside-my?ref=shop_home_feat_1".

Lois Betterton grew up in Yonkers, New York and now resides in Sarasota’s Historic Rosemary District. She began reading and writing poetry as a young child and has embraced the written word all her life.  She founded and hosts The Word Show in Sarasota that showcases local, free range, organic poets.

Matthew Borczon is a poet and navy sailor from Erie, PA. He publishes widely in the small press. He has published 6 books of poetry, the most recent The Smallest Coffins Are the Heaviest was released through Epic Rites Press this year. He is the father of 4 kids and he works way too many hours to survive. He also holds a degree in fine arts from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Landau draws and writes in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children. His drawing can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/peterlandau/  or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/peterlandau/

The poems of Pris Campbell have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including PoetsArtists, Nixes Mate, Rusty Truck, Bicycle Review, Chiron Review, Pulse, and Outlaw Poetry Network. Nominated four times for a Pushcart, the Small Press has published nine collections of her poetry and Clemson University Press a collaboration with Scott Owens. My Southern Childhood, from Nixes Mate Press is her most recent book. A former Clinical Psychologist, sailor and bicyclist until sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990, she makes her home in the Greater West Palm Beach, Florida. 

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in The Virginia Normal, Credo Espoir, and Chiron Review, among others.

Tony Egler is an avid Science and Science Fiction enthusiast who for many years has engaged his muse as a spectator, but has longed to be an adept. He has practiced his craft with the development of screen plays, manuscripts and short fiction. He lives in Sarasota Florida with his partner and co-conspirator. His work has appeared in AntiMatter magazine.

Wayne F. Burke:  “My drawings have previously been published in Portland Review, Flare, Grey Sparrow, Red Savina, and elsewhere. I live in Vermont, USA.”