MARY, MARY: Poets' Biographies
Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Ph.D., of Hollywood, Florida, is a poet, scholar, educator, author, and artist. Her most recent poetry collection is the chapbook Life in the Holocene Extinction (Finishing Line Press, 2016). More than 200 of her individual creative works have been published in such periodicals and journals as The Beloit Poetry Journal, Mid-American Poetry Review, Sojourners, and Atlanta Review.
Website: http://www.kristinberkey-abbott.com/
Life in the Holocene Extinction, I Stand Here Shredding Documents
Jenne’ R. Andrews
Jenne’ R. Andrews has been publishing poetry since 1971. She is the author of the collections Blackbirds Dance in the Empire of Love (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and Reunion (Lynx House Press), among others, and the chapbook In Pursuit of the Family (Robert Bly/Minnesota Writers Publishing House), and has published poetry at Vox Populi, Adirondack Review, Belletrist Coterie, and elsewhere. Her Beautiful Dust was a 2014 finalist for the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Andrews was Poet in Residence for the St. Paul, Minnesota, schools for four years.
Blog: http://parolavivace.blogspot.com/
Blackbirds Dance in the Empire of Love
Evelyn Bence
Evelyn Bence, of Arlington, Virginia, is an author, essayist, poet, and editor. Her books include Room at My Table: Preparing Heart and Home for Christian Hospitality (Upper Room Books, 2014), Prayers for Girlfriends and Sisters and Me, Spiritual Moments with the Great Hymns (Zondervan, 1997), and Mary’s Journal (Zondervan, 1992). Bence’s essays have been published in The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and US Catholic, among other periodicals. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Anglican Theological Review, America, and Christian Century. Recipient of aChristianity Today critic’s award, Bence was religion editor at Doubleday and managing editor at Today’s Christian Woman magazine earlier in her editorial career.
Room at My Table, Prayers for Girlfriends and Sisters and Me, Mary’s Journal: A Mother’s Story
Jericho Brown
Author of The Tradition (Copper Canyon, 2019), Brown has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Whiting Award, American Book Award, Ansfield-Wolf Book Award, and Paterson Poetry Award. Fellowships have come his way from the Guggenheim Foundation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s other collections are Please (New Issues, 2008), New Testament (Copper Canyon, 2014), and The Tradition. His poems have been published in The Best American Poetry, The Bennington Review, The New Yorker, and many other magazines, journals, and periodicals. Brown directs the Creative Writing Program and is a professor at Emory University.
Website: https://www.jerichobrown.com
Leila Chatti
Tunisian-American poet Leila Chatti is the author of her debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and the chapbooks Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya (Bull City Press). Winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, Chatti also has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, among others, and been awarded a number of prizes, including a Pushcart Prize and Narrative’s 30 Below Contest. Her poems have appeared in a long list of publications, including The New York Times Magazine, POETRY, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, and Kenyon Review Online. Chatti teaches at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Website: https://www.leilachatti.com/
Jill Crammond
A poet, artist, and teacher, Jill Crammond has published work in such periodicals as Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Crab Creek Review, and deLuge. Anthologies in which her work appears include Fiolet and Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulist Poetry, Fire on Her Tongue, Thirty Days: The Best of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project’s First Year, and Classifieds: An Anthology of Prose Poems. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she lives in upstate New York.
Jill Crammond on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jillypoet?lang=en
Maureen E. Doallas
Author of the collection Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems (T.S. Poetry Press, 2011), Maureen Doallas has published poetry most recently in NoVA Bards 2021 (Local Gems Press, 2021), and in the how-to guides The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft (Terrapin Books, 2021), Diane Lockward, Ed., and How to Write a Form Poem (T.S. Poetry Press, 2021), Tania Runyan et al. Doallas’s poems have appeared in Every Day Poems, Rattle Poets Respond, Poets Reading the News, Escape Into Life, Found Poetry Review, and other print and online periodicals. Her work also has been anthologized in A Constellation of Kisses, Is It Hot in Here Or Is It Just Me?, The Dreamers, and Alice in Wonderland. Doallas edits the monthly Artist Watch column at the international online arts magazine Escape Into Life. She leads the Arts & Faith Ministry at St. Michael’s.
Blog: Writing Without Paper
Escape Into Life, Neruda’s Memoirs, The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft, How to Write a Form Poem
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jeannine Hall Gailey, who was the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington, is the author of the poetry collections Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006), She Returns to the Floating World (Two Sylvias Press, 20213), Unexplained Fevers (New Binary Press, 2013), and The Robot Scientist’s Daughter (Mayapple Press, 2015). Her Field Guide to the End of the World (2016) received the Moon City Press Book Prize. Hall Gailey also has published PR for Poets: A Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her poems have been published in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and other periodicals and journals.
Blog: https://webbish6.com/
Field Guide to the End of the World, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Unexplained Fevers, She Returns to the Floating World, Becoming the Villainess, PR for Poets: A Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing
Luisa A. Igloria
The 20th Poet Laureate of Virginia, Luisia A. Igloria has published more than a dozen books of poetry and five chapbooks. Among her collections are the award-winning Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020), The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, 2018), the award-winning Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University, 2014), and Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014). In addition to a lengthy list of national and international literary honors, Igloria’s poems have been anthologized or published in such journals as Crab Orchard Review, New England Review, Poetry, Rattle, and TriQuarterly, as well as The Asian Pacific American Journal, Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), and PRISM International (Canada). An 11-time recipient of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in three genres (poetry, nonfiction, short fiction), Igloria is a professor of creative writing and English at Old Dominion University in Virginia.
Website: http://www.luisaigloria.com/
Maps for Migrants and Ghosts, The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis, Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, Night Willow
Julie Kane
A poet and writer who has received many writing and teaching prizes and honors, Julie Kane served from 2011 to 2013 as Louisiana Poet Laureate. Now on the poetry faculty of Western Colorado University’s low-residency MFA program, Kane is the author of Mothers of Ireland (LSU Press, 2020), Paper Bullets (White Violet Press/Kelsay Books, 2013), Jazz Funeral (Story Line Press, 2009), Rhythm & Booze (University of Illinois Press, 2003), and Body and Soul(Pirogue, 1987). Anthologized in Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press, 2017), she also is the author of the novel Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval Officer’s War (Naval Inst Press, 1998).
Website: https://www.juliekanepoet.com/
Mothers of Ireland, Paper Bullets, Jazz Funeral, Rhythm & Booze, Body and Soul, Counterpart, Nasty Women Poets
Collin Kelley
Collin Kelley is a poet, reviewer, essayist, interviewer, story writer, and novelist. His poetry collections are Midnight in a Perfect World (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), Better to Travel (Poetry Atlanta Press, 2003)), Slow to Burn (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), and Render (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013). Together with Karen Head, he edited Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing). His novels, comprising the Venus Trilogy, are Conquering Venus, Remain in Light, and Leaving Paris (all from Sibling Rivalry Press, 2009-2016). Kelley has published poems and other writings in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies. An Atlanta, Georgia, resident, he has received a number of honors, including Georgia Author of the Year Award and Deep South Festival of Writers Award.
Blog: https://collinkelley.blogspot.com/
Midnight in a Perfect World, Better to Travel, Slow to Burn, Render, Venus Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3)
Laurie Klein
Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens (Cascade Books, 2015) and Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. A Merton Poetry Prize winner and Pushcart nominee, she has published her work in The Christian Century, Commonweal, Relief, Ruminate, Saint Katherine Review, Whale Road Review, Dappled Things, ATR, Every Day Poems, and elsewhere. Klein lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Website: https://lauriekleinscribe.com/
Marjorie Maddox
Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry, including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); True, False, None of the Above(Illumination Book Award Medalist); Local News from Someplace Else; and Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award). In addition, she is the author of the short story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite). Her four children’s and Young Adult books include Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist, Children’s Educational Category 2020 International Book Awards), and A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry, and I’m Feeling Blue, Too! Maddox is Co-Editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Assistant Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. Marjorie’s 650 stories, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.
Forthcoming in 2022 are Majorie Maddox’s books Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press) and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts), an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias.
Website: https://www.marjoriemaddox.com
Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation, True, False, None of the Above, Local News from Someplace Else, Perpendicular As I, What She Was Saying, Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises, A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry, I’m Feeling Blue, Too!
Marissa McNamara
A contributing poetry editor for The Chattahoochee Review, Marissa McNamara is an associate professor at Georgia State University and teaches English composition and creative writing in the state’s prisons. Her poetry has appeared in such periodicals as Assisi, Story South, The Cortland Review, Oyster River Pages, Rattle, and Wild Goose Poetry Review. Her poems have been anthologized in On Our Own and My Body My Words. She lives in Atlanta.
GSU Profile: https://perimeter.gsu.edu/profile/marissa-mcnamara/
Audrey Mlakar
Audrey Mlakar is a poet who lives in the beautiful Columbia Gorge with her husband, sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. She says, “My mother was 17 when I was born, and perhaps this explains the protective instincts that arose as I contemplated Mary as a child expecting a child. I’m grateful that like Mary, my mother rocked it.”
Malkar is a 2017 People’s Choice Award Winner.
Michelle Rinaldi Ortega
Michelle Ortega is a licensed speech-language pathologist in private practice. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming, online or in print, at Tweetspeak Poetry, Casual (an e-book), Tiferet Journal, Exit 13, Shrew LitMag, Contemporary Haibun Online, Snapdragon: A Journal of Healing, The Platform Review, and Shot Glass Journal, and abroad in Horizon: The Haiku Anthology. Ortega’s Tissue Memory, (micro-chapbook) will be published by Porkbelly Press in 2021. Her chapbook Don’t Ask Why (Seven Kitchen’s Press) was released in 2020.
Michelle Ortega on Twitter: https://twitter.com/curlygirlSLP
Anne M. Doe Overstreet
Anne M. Doe Overstreet is a poet and editor. A Pushcart Award nominee and the recipient of an Oregon Soapstone residency, Overstreet also is the author of Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems (T.S. Poetry Press, 2015). She has published her writing in Asheville Poetry Review, Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, and DMQ Review, among other periodicals. Overstreet lives in Shoreline, Washington.
Blog: https://anneoverstreet.wordpress.com/
JC Reilly
JC Reilly, a prize-winning poet who focuses on women and family, as well as issues such as immigration and domestic violence, published What Magick May Not Alter (Madville Publishiing), a full-length poetry collection, in 2020. Her chapbooks are Daughter of the Wheel and Moon (2021), Amo e Canto (forthcoming in 2022), and La Petite Mort(Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her poems have been published in Apeiron Review, Arkansas Review, Pine Hills Review, Kentucky Review, Southern Women’s Review, and Poetry International Online, among others. In addition to writing poetry, Reilly is a fiction writer and dramatist, and the managing editor of Atlanta Review.
Website/Blog: https://jcreilly.com/
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan is a poet and writer. Her poetry collections include What Will Soon Take Place (Paraclete Press, 2017), Second Sky (Cascade Books, 2013), and A Thousand Vessels, and her poems have appeared in Poetry, Image, The Christian Century, and many other publications. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and awarded “Book of the Year” by the Conference on Christianity and Literature. Runyan’s field guides include How to Write a Form Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Read a Poem (all for T.S. Poetry Press).
Website: https://taniarunyan.com/
What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels
Claudia Serea
Award-winning poet and translator Claudia Serea is the author of Twoxism (8th House Publishing, 2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (Broadstone Books, 2016), Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, 2012), and other full-length and chapbook-length publications. Published widely, Serea’s work has appeared in New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Field, The Malahat Review, Asymptote, and numerous other journals and anthologies. Her translations have been featured in The Writer’s Almanac. Serea’s sixth poetry collection, to be published in early 2022, is Writing on the Walls at Night (Unsolicited Press). Serea, who also is a copywriter and editor, was born in Romania and immigrated to the United States in 1995.
Website: https://cserea.tumblr.com/
Twoxism, Nothing Important Happened Today, To Part is to Die a Little, Angels & Beasts
Diane Walker
Diane Walker is a contemplative artist and writer who wrote her first book of poetry at age 8. She has taught Foundations for Ministry at the Diocesan School of Theology in Seattle, Washington, and has preached numerous sermons and led numerous retreats.
Since 2007, Walker has been producing two blogs of poetry and art: daily at Contemplative Photography, and longer poems occasionally at Contemplative Poetry. She has published eight books of poetry, a book of short plays, and a mystery novel, and her paintings and photographs have been exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest. Her plays have been performed at venues in Seattle, Washington; Poulsbo, Oregon; New York; and Bainbridge Island, Washington, and she has appeared in numerous theatrical productions but it is the daily discipline of poetry and mediation that gives her the motivation and energy to pursue her other activities.
Poetry Blog: http://contemplativepoetry.com/
Photography Blog: http://contemplativephotography.com/
