Online Features 

Cover Artist: Stephen Namara

African American artist Stephen Namara is known for still-life painting, portraits, figures and landscapes, with a low-key moody character, that are often “snap shots” of moments in his life. His images that mysteriously speak of isolation offer space within which we can experience our own mental and emotional reactions to it without the need of academic explanation. 
Artist Statement: "The single unifying factor and focus in my work for the past two decades has been portraiture. Having been born in Africa and having spent part of my formative years there, I acknowledge my work reflects something of that mask-like quality to be found in African art. I think that the scale of the portraits attempts to create a "psychological space" in which the viewer is confronted."

Interview: Jeanne Wagner

To preview Dion O’Reilly’s interview with Jeanne Wagner click on the title below:

Dion O’Reilly: Creating the Poetry Collection One NEedful Song. An interview with poet Jeanne Wagner

Jeanne Wagner is the author of four chapbooks and three books, most recently, Everything Turns Into Something Else, published in 2020 as runner-up in the Grayson Books Poetry Contest. Most recently, she has work appearing in Alaska Quarterly Review, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and Southern Poetry Review. She is the winner of the 2024 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets.

Dion O’Reilly’s debut poetry collection, Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books, 2019), was runner-up for the Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets and shortlisted for several awards, including the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, was published by University of Wisconsin’s Cornerstone Press in 2024. Her work appears in The Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, The Sun, Rattle, Narrative, and The Slowdown. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.

Fiction: Mellissa Sojourner

The Apprentice and the Fishmonger’s Daughter

Mellissa Sojourner was born and raised in Florida. Her previous work has been published in the field of philosophy. This is her first published short story.

Nonfiction: Gail Tyson

Touch Pool guide

A graduate of Stanford’s creative writing program, Gail Tyson moved to Santa Cruz after a lifetime spent on the East Coast. Her recent work appears in Allium, Rockvale Review, SHIFT, and Still: the Journal. In 2020, Shanti Arts published her chapbook, The Vermeer Tales. She learns every day from the marine animals and her fellow exhibit guides.

Poetry: Misha Lynn Moon

Super Bloom Spirit

Misha Lynn Moon (she/her) was one of the first transgender teachers to transition midcareer in Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals. She currently works for Outside In, a medical and housing nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. She wrote Trans Book of the Living and Dead, a finalist for the 2024 Catamaran Poetry Prize in memory of Lyra, Rani, and Jake.

Translation:

Pamela Proietti
translated from the Italian bY:
Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart and Stephen Eric Berry

Three Poems

Pamela Proietti’s first book of poetry, il nome bianco, was published by Gattomerlino Edizioni in 2021. Her work has appeared in several magazines in America (including Michigan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, Asymptote, Interim, Waxing & Waning and The Lincoln Review), in Brazil, and in Italy. She lives in Rome, Italy.

Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart received her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University and is author of Dante and the Empire (Peter Lang, 1987). Her most recent publications include translations of children’s books by Lucia Tumiati and a World War I diary, Mountains of Fire (Amazon Publishing, 2024).

Stephen Eric Berry is a writer, filmmaker, composer, and recipient of a Hopwood Minor Award at the University of Michigan. In 2017, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to be a visiting scholar at Amherst College.

Issue 46 Fall 2024

Cover & Table of Contents