Emily Adams-Aucoin’s (Louisiana) poetry has been published in various anthologies, as well as in Electric Literature’s The Commuter, storySouth, Split Rock Review, Meridian, and Colorado Review, among other publications. When she’s not writing, Emily enjoys baking, gardening, and looking for poems that hide in the wooded area behind her home. Website: www.emilyadamsaucoin.com
John Arterbury (Virginia) is a Virginia-based writer and researcher. His nonfiction has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Bangkok Post, New Statesman, and Roads & Kingdoms, and his prose has been featured in Glassbottled, Deek Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, and staged for production by the Delta Literary Arts Society.
Sara Atwater (Belgium) grew up in Washington DC. She completed a BA in German and English at UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in education from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. She taught secondary school English for fifteen years. Currently, Atwater is working on a PhD at Maastricht University (Netherlands). She lives in Brussels with her partner and their two children.
Erin Rose Belair (California) received an MFA in fiction in 2013 from Boise State University. Her story “Rare Items From The Universe” won Glimmer Trains’ Emerging Writers Award. Her other work appears in Narrative, Southern Indiana Review, Greensboro Review, and more. She is currently writing her first novel.
Blair Benjamin’s (Massachusetts) writing has appeared in Atticus Review, Bluestem Magazine, Gone Lawn, North American Review, Pithead Chapel, Spillway, Sugar House Review, The Threepenny Review, and Typehouse, among others. He is the founder and director of the studios at MASS MoCA, a residency for artists and writers at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, in North Adams, Massachusetts.
Janice F. Booth (Maryland) is a book reviewer for this issue. Her poetry is included in The Song In the Room: Six Women Poets. Her poems appear in several publications, including S/He Speaks and Avocet. As a journalist, she authored Crofton: Images of America, and she writes a long-running garden column in a regional magazine. As a teacher, she taught high school and college English. Her blog: www.open-line.org.
Mary Buchinger (Massachusetts) is the author of six collections of poetry, including Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023), Virology (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), and Einfühlung/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018). She teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and serves on the board of the New England Poetry Club. Website: www.marybuchinger.com
Michelle Cacho-Negrete (Maine) is a retired social worker in Maine and the author of Stealing: Life in America. Four of her essays were selected as most notable of the year, two have won Best of the Net, one has won the Hope Award. She is also in five anthologies. Her work appears in The Sun, Under The Sun, New England Review, and Solstice among others. She says she is especially pleased to be in Delmarva Review.
Sam Campbell (Arkansas) is a writer and teacher from Tennessee. She currently serves Arkansas International as Managing Editor and is co-founder of Black Moon Magazine. She publishes across all genres and her awards include the 2021 James Still Prize for Short Fiction. Website: samiamwrites.com
Judy Catterton (Delaware), a retired Maryland trial lawyer, currently lives in Rehoboth Beach, where she teaches memoir for the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. Her essays and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was a 2015 recipient of the Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowship for her nonfiction writing.
Samuel E. Cole (Minnesota) is a poet, political junkie, and flash fiction enthusiast. His work has appeared in a myriad of literary magazines and journals. Five of his books have been published, including two poetry collections and three short story collections. He lives in Hoyt Lakes.
P.W. Covington (New Mexico) writes in the Beat tradition of the North American highway. His work has been published by indie and underground presses, including those from University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. He is a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and in 2019, his collection “North Beach and Other Stories” was a Finalist in LGBTQ Fiction by the International Book Awards. Covington lives in Albuquerque, two blocks north of historic Route 66.
Pam Crow (Oregon) is an award-winning poet who lives in Portland. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Green Mountain Review, Carolina Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, and other journals. Her book Inside This House was published by Main Street Rag press in 2008.
Janis Robinson Daly (Massachusetts) is a book reviewer for this issue. She is the author of the historical novel The Unlocked Path (Black Rose Publishing, 2022). She holds a BA in Psychology from Wheaton College, MA, and spent her career in marketing and sales “until the writing bug caught me to launch a second chapter.” A seasonal resident of Cape Cod, Daly, her husband, and a rescue pup spend the rest of the year in New Hampshire, Florida, the guest rooms of family, and hotel stops along Route 95.
Catherine DeNunzio’s (Connecticut) poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices from The Robert Frost Place, Connecticut River Review, Italian Americana, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Scapegoat Review, and Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis. Her chapbook, Enough Like Bone to Build On (Antrim House), was released in 2022. Website: www.instagram.com/catherinedenunziopoetry
Philip DiGiacomo (California) is a former painter and actor from New York. He studied creative writing with Lou Mathews, Colette Sartor, and Ben Loory at UCLA. He lives with his wife, the painter Hilary Baker, in a 100-year-old farmhouse in Ojai, where he writes, reads, cooks, and sometimes races an old Porsche.
Craig Dobson (United Kingdom) has been published in The Adelaide Literary Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, Black Works, Delmarva Review, The Eunoia Review, Flash, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Frogmore Papers, Halfway Down the Stairs, The Interpreter’s House, Literally Stories, The London Magazine, New Welsh Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Rialto, Rue Scribe and Short Fiction Magazine.
Sally Dunn’s (Massachusetts) poetry has appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Plainsongs, and Straylight Literary Arts Magazine, among others. Her poetry placed third in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She lives on Cape Cod.
Ellis Elliott (Florida) likes to divide her time, as much as possible, between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the ocean. She is a writer, leader of online writing groups, and teacher of ballet. Elliott has a blended family of six grown sons and lives with her husband in Juno Beach. She is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and recently she completed an MFA at Queens University. Website: elliselliottpoet.com
Barbara Esstman (Virginia) is a book reviewer for this issue. She is an NEA fellow, the coeditor of A More Perfect Union, and the author of many short stories. Her novels, The Other Anna and Night Ride Home, were made into Hallmark movies. She was on the board and an instructor at The Writer’s Center, in Bethesda, and was a popular writing instructor at several writers conferences. Esstman currently edits and coaches writers working on novels and memoirs. Website: barbaraesstman.com
Gina Ferrara’s (Louisiana) poetry collections include Ethereal Avalanche (Trembling Pillow Press, 2009), Amber Porch Light (Word Tech, 2013), Fitting the Sixth Finger: Poems Inspired by the Paintings of Marc Chagall (Kelsay Books, 2017), Weight of the Ripened (Dos Madres Press, 2020), a finalist for the Eyelands Poetry Prize, and Amiss (Dos Madres Press, 2023). Her work has appeared in Callaloo, The Poetry Ireland Review and Tar River Poetry, among others.
Mary-Cecile Gee (California) has been published in Water~Stone Review and other publications. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in studio-arts from California State University, Fullerton. Gee attended the Community of Writers (in the High Sierras), studying with C.J. Wright, Sharon Olds, Mark Doty, and Robert Hass. She is a Buddhist Chaplain at the “no-barriers” Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. She is a dedicated visual artist. Website: marycecilegee.com
Daien Guo (District of Columbia) is a writer based in Washington, DC. She has been a resident at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and previously published her writing in Lunch Ticket, Bodega, Furious Gravity, Little Patuxent Review, and 3Elements Literary Review.
Meredith Davies Hadaway (Maryland) is a book reviewer for this issue. She is the current Sophie Kerr Poet-in-Residence at Washington College and the author of three poetry collections: Fishing Secrets of the Dead, The River is a Reason, and At The Narrows (winner of the 2015 Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing). She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Website: meredithdavieshadaway.com
Mary Beth Hines (Massachusetts) writes poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction. Her recent work appears in Bracken, Cider Press Review, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Kelsay Books published her debut poetry collection Winter at a Summer House in 2021. Website: marybethhines.com
Christopher Honey (District of Columbia) is an MFA candidate at the University of Saint Thomas. His poetry, essays, and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the The Rumpus, The Decadent Review, Vita Poetica, Pomona Valley Review, the Building Trades News, and Montgomery Living Magazine. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and daughter.
Marlowe Jones (Ohio) is a student in the NEOMFA program through Cleveland State University. His poems have been published in Green Blotter, Sink Hollow, and The Courtship of Winds under a previous name. His interests outside poetry include horror movies, folklore, and birdwatching.
Julian Koslow (New Jersey) is a former professor of Renaissance literature at Virginia Tech, but left academia to take care of a child with special needs. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sugar House Review, The Columbia Review, SRPR, Cumberland River Review, New Ohio Review, and Atlanta Review. He lives with his wife and two sons in Fair Lawn.
Steph Liberatore (Maryland) is the Featured Writer for Nonfiction in this edition. Her essays have appeared in River Teeth, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Cream City Review, Inside Higher Ed, and elsewhere. When she isn’t working on her first book—an investigative memoir—or chasing after her two young kids, she teaches writing at George Mason University. Website: www.stephliberatore.com
Mercedes Lawry (Washington) is the author of three chapbooks. The latest is In the Early Garden with Reason. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Nimrod, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among others. Her poetry book, Vestiges, was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books, and her collection Small Measures will be published in 2024. Her work has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize. She has also published short fiction and stories and poems for children.
Mia Mazzeo (Maryland), a junior at Easton High School, is the recipient of the Delmarva Review Youth Writing Mentorship and Scholarship Award (2023), funded by a grant from Talbot Arts and supported by Talbot County Schools. The awarded student collaborates with one of the review’s editors to finalize their original prose for publication. The high school scholarship and mentoring initiative encourages outstanding writing among students in regional schools. Mia is a member of the National Honors Society, Latin Honor Society, Latin club, Interact club, and Yearbook club.
Jean McDonough (Illinois) is an elementary school librarian with a BA in photography and a MFA in poetry writing from the University of Michigan. She is currently working on a collection of essays inspired by Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Her creative nonfiction was chosen as a finalist for Ruminate’s 2022 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize, and her most recent publication is in Water~Stone Review. Jean lives in Illinois with her husband and daughter.
John J. McKeon (Maryland) comes from an Irish/German family, grew up in New York City, and has always been interested in the immigrant American experience. His career has included work as a newspaper reporter and magazine writer. He is the author of several novels and a short story collection, and his work last appeared in Delmarva Review in Volume 11, 2018. Website: www.johnjmckeon.com
Elly Meeks (New Jersey)—Her essays, articles and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and JSTOR Daily, among others. She works in nonprofits in the areas of community arts, culture and mental health and lives in Northern New Jersey.
Suzi Messick (Maryland) is a book reviewer for this issue. She is an ordained interfaith minister working with people at the threshold of life and death, companioning them through grief. She is also an editor, following retirement from teaching English and history and having a career in global public health. She has lived in Geneva, Switzerland, Boston, Nairobi, and Washington, DC. Messick and her husband tend several bee colonies on their farm in Cordova.
Nancy Mitchell (Maryland) is a book reviewer for this issue. She is the author of The Near Surround, Grief Hut, and The Out-of-Body Shop and coeditor of Plume Interviews I. Her poems have or will appear in Agni, Green Mountains Review, Ploughshares, Thrush, Washington Square Review, and other literary journals. Mitchell is associate editor of special features for Plume Poetry and recipient of a Pushcart Prize in Poetry, in 2012. She is Poet Laureate of Salisbury, Maryland, and hosts the “Poets on the Plaza” reading series, live and on Zoom. Website: nancymitchellwriter.com
Devon Miller-Duggan (Delaware) is the Featured Writer for Poetry for this edition. She teaches poetry writing and is associate professor of creative writing at the University of Delaware. Her books include Pinning the Bird to the Wall (Tres Chicas Books), Alphabet Year (Wipf & Stock), and The Slow Salute (Lithic Press Chapbook Competition Winner, 2018). Her poems have been published in The Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, Margie, Spillway, and Delmarva Review, among others.
Susan Bucci Mockler’s (Virginia) poetry has appeared in the Maryland Literary Review, peachvelvet, Maximum Tilt, Pilgrimage Press, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Cortland Review, Paterson Literary Review, Lunch Ticket, Voices in Italian Americana, and several anthologies. Her full-length poetry collection, Covenant (With), was published by Kelsay Books in 2022. She teaches writing at Howard University in Washington, DC.
Colin Jeffrey Morris (Massachusetts) lives in Berkshire County. Poems from his sequence-in-progress on Audubon have recently appeared in descant, Lily Poetry Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. He was born in Liverpool and raised on the Lancashire coast of England.
Anne Moul (Pennsylvania) is a retired music educator from York and is pursuing her second act as a writer. She has had work published in Hippocampus, Episcopal Café, Thread, AARP’s The Girlfriend, and others, and has won several awards in Pennwriters Annual Writing Contest and third place in Medium’s Fall 2022 Tell Your Story contest. Anne blogs at www.secondactstories.com.
John Muro’s (Connecticut) work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, as well as a Best of the Net Award. He has published two volumes of poems, In the Lilac Hour (2020) and Pastoral Suite (2022), and his work has appeared in Acumen, Barnstorm, Grey Sparrow, New Square, River Heron, Sky Island, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. He lives in Connecticut and is a lover of all things chocolate.
Kathy Nelson (Nevada) is the 2019 James Dickey Prize recipient (Five Points) and a Pushcart nominee. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. In addition to her chapbooks, Cattails and Whose Names Have Slipped Away, and her forthcoming full-length The Ledger of Mistakes, her work has appeared in LEON Literary Journal, New Ohio Review, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Madeleine Cohen Oakley (New York) is a retired librarian living in upstate New York. She loves words, language, and grammar, and is a firm believer in the serial comma. She especially loves working with children to write poetry. Oakley also has participated in writing programs at The Writer’s Center, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Susan Okie (Maryland) is a doctor, a poet, and a former Washington Post medical reporter. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. Her work has appeared in various poetry journals. Her full-length poetry collection, Woman at the Crossing, won the 2023 Off the Grid Poetry Prize, and will be published in autumn, 2023.
Marijean Oldham (Virginia) is a public relations consultant and writer in Charlottesville. She has written three editions of the guidebook 100 Things to Do in Charlottesville Before You Die (Third Edition, 2022, Reedy Press) and Secret Charlottesville, a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure (2021, Reedy Press). In 2003, Marijean set a Guinness Book World Record for creating the largest bouquet of flowers.
James O’Sullivan (Maryland) is a book reviewer for this issue and a past fiction coeditor of Delmarva Review. He is a writer, lawyer, teacher, and a 2022 recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. In addition to Delmarva Review, his writing has appeared in Pennsylvania English, Sheepshead Review, Laurel Review, Regardie’s Magazine, and is forthcoming in Straylight. He holds an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in English literature from University of Connecticut. O’Sullivan lives in Bethesda, where he is a member of The Writer’s Center.
Mary Ozbolt (Ohio) is a queer poet with interest in generational trauma and folk magic. Her work has been published in The Bind, Ashbelt Literary Journal, Wingless Dreamer, and others. She enjoys cozy, rainy days with her son, partner, and two cats.
Andrew Payton (Virginia) is a writer, learning designer, teacher, and climate advocate living in Harrisonburg with his partner and children. His writing has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, among others, and he won the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review. Born and raised in Maryland, he is a 2014 graduate of the MFA program in creative writing and environment at Iowa State University. Website: andrewdpayton.wordpress.com
Barry Peters (North Carolina) teaches in Raleigh. He and his wife, the writer Maureen Sherbondy, live in Durham. His publications include Best New Poets, Grist, Image, RHINO, and The Southern Review.
K. Alma Peterson (Florida) is the author of two books of poetry, published by Blaze Vox Books, Was There No Interlude When Light Sprawled the Fen (2010) and The Last Place I Lived (2015). She is a graduate of the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College. Having recently moved to Florida from Minnesota, she enjoys the tropical environs of the Gulf Coast. Peterson is a painter in abstract and surrealist styles of art.
Leslie Pietrzyk (North Carolina) is the Featured Writer for Fiction for this edition. Her collection of linked stories set in DC, Admit This to No One, was published in 2021 (Unnamed Press). This Angel on My Chest, her first collection of stories, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Story Magazine, Hudson Review, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, The Sun, The Washington Post Magazine, and Delmarva Review, among others. Her awards include a Pushcart Prize in 2020. Website: https://www.lesliepietrzyk.com
Rita Plush (New York) is the author of two novels, Lily Steps Out and Feminine Products, and a short story collection, Alterations. She is the book reviewer for Fire Island News and has been a guest on The Author’s Corner on Public Radio. Her stories and essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, MacGuffin, The Iconoclast, The Sun, Kveller, Jewish Week, Broadkill Review, Backchannels, LochRaven, Avalon Literary Review, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Sanctuary Magazine. Website: www.ritaplush.com
Bethany Reid’s (Washington) stories, essays, and poems have recently appeared in One Art, Poetry East, Quartet, Passengers, Adelaide, Kithe, Descant, Peregrine, and Catamaran. Her fourth full-length collection of poems, The Pear Tree, won the 2023 Sally Albiso Award and is due out this winter. She lives in Edmonds, Washington, and blogs about writing and life at: http://www.bethanyareid.com
Brendan Rowland (Massachusetts) lives in Westford, several lots down from Edgar Allan Poe’s brief residence. He drives a silver Honda Odyssey. While writing, he sports black denim, cream-colored cat hair, and Sennheiser cans blasting rock ‘n’ roll. He will begin a master’s in modern literature at the University of Glasgow in the fall.
Curt Saltzman (France) was born and raised in Los Angeles. His work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Sou’wester, Atticus Review, Into the Void, Epiphany, Gargoyle, and others. He has been nominated for the Best Small Fictions anthology.
T. Dallas Saylor (he/they) (Colorado) is a PhD candidate at Florida State University and holds an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body, especially gender and sexuality, against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. Saylor’s work has been featured in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, Christianity & Literature, PRISM international, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Denver.
Richard Sensenbrenner (Illinois) is a writer who says he never wanted to be one and considers it a form of mental illness. He works by day in intellectual property law and fights his madness by night. He’s recently published in Ancient Paths, Corner Club Press, Down in the Dirt, Every Day Fiction and Defenestration. He forgives them all.
Elise Seyfried (Delaware) is the author of five books of humorous spiritual essays, most recently Nanamorphosis: Reflections on an Ever-Evolving Life. Her essays have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Insider, Living Lutheran, The Independent, Delaware Beach Life, Shore Monthly, The Broadkill Review, and Purple Clover, among others. Elise and her husband Steve have produced The Rehoboth Summer Children’s Theatre since 1982. Website: www.eliseseyfried.com.
Noel Sikorski (she/her/hers) (Kentucky) is a biracial Korean American. She received her MFA from New York University. Her writing has been published in The American Poet, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Georgetown Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, and Action, Spectacle. She received a Work-Study Scholarship for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Patty Somlo’s (California) books, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), have been Finalists in the International Book, Best Book, National Indie Excellence, American Fiction and Reader Views Literary Awards.
Robert Stone (United Kingdom) was born in Wolverhampton. His stories have been published in British, American, Asian, and Canadian magazines, including: 3:AM, Stand, Panurge, Eclectica, Confingo, Punt Volat, HCE, Wraparound South, Lunate, Decadent Review, the Nightjar chapbook series and elsewhere. His “micro-stories” have appeared in 5x5, Third Wednesday, Star 82, Ocotillo Review, deathcap. A story is included in Salt’s Best British Stories 2020. He has two children and lives with his partner in Ipswich
Erin Stoodley (Illinois) is an artist residing in Urbana, where she is pursuing her MFA in poetry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can be found in The Adroit Journal and Vox Viola.
Dale Stromberg (Malaysia) is the author of Melancholic Parables (2022). He grew up not far from Sacramento before moving to Tokyo, where he had a brief music career. Now he lives near Kuala Lumpur and makes ends meet as an editor and translator. Website: dalestromberg.jimdofree.com
Kathryn Temple (Maryland) writes poetry and fiction from her home on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Streetlight, 3Elements, Moss Puppy, and Persimmon Tree, among other publications. When she’s not writing, she tries to keep the ducks off the dock. Website: https://medium.com/@templek.
Robert Wexelblatt (Massachusetts) is a professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He has published ten collections of short stories, two books of essays, two short novels, three books of poems, and stories, essays, and poems in a variety of journals. One novel was awarded the Indie Book Awards first prize for fiction.
Katherine Williams (District of Columbia) is a retired clinical psychologist and art therapist. She is an Associate Professor Emerita at George Washington University, where she directed the MFA program in art therapy. Her clinical articles on art therapy have appeared in The American Journal of Art Therapy and Art Therapy. In addition to the Delmarva Review, her poems have been published in Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, 3rd Wednesday, Voices, The Poet’s Cookbook, The Widows Handbook, and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection edited by James Crews. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Andrea Wyatt (Maryland) is the author of six poetry collections and coeditor of Selected Poems by Larry Eigner (Oyez Press), Collected Poems by Max Douglas (White Dot Press), and The Brooklyn Reader (Random House/Harmony). Her work has also appeared in Copperfield Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Plum Tree Tavern, Rust and Moth, Hanging Loose, and Gargoyle, among others.
