Svea Barrett is a 25-year veteran NJ public school teacher and mother of three teenage boys. Her chapbook, Why I Collect Moose, won the 2005 Poets Corner Press Poetry Chapbook Competition, and her book, I Tell Random People About You, won the Spire Press 2010 Poetry Book Award. Her work has appeared in Samsara Quarterly, Journal of NJ Poets, Lips, and other journals.
Norma Bernstock lives in Milford, Pennsylvania, where she is a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. Her poetry has appeared in many journals including Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Lips. She has been twice awarded an Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. Her chapbook, Don’t Write a Poem About Me After I’m Dead, was published in 2011 by Big Table Publishing.
Jessica de Koninck is the author of Repairs (Finishing Line Press). Her poems appear in various publications including Paterson Literary Review, The Ledge, Edison Literary Review, and Lips. She has an M.F.A. from Stonecoast, a B.A. from Brandeis and a J.D. from Boston University. An attorney, she was twice elected to the Montclair, NJ, township council.
Sandra Duguid was Assistant Director of the Academic Support Center at Caldwell College for seven years, retiring in 2010 to devote more time to writing. She was awarded a Fellowship in Poetry from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and was invited to read her poetry in a Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. She has published in several anthologies and magazines. Her first published book, Pails Scrubbed Silver, is from North Star Press (2013).
Jane Ebihara is a retired middle school teacher who now nurtures her love of language with a village of poet friends in Allamuchy, NJ. Her poems have appeared in several journals and literary publications. Her chapbook manuscript, A Little Piece of Mourning, is still knocking on doors.
Laura Freedgood's third chapbook of poems, What I Would Paint If I Could, was released in December 2012 by Finishing Line Press. She is also the author of two earlier chapbooks, Slant of the Heart and Weather Report, both published by Pudding House Press. Her poems have appeared in Descant, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Wisconsin Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she was also awarded a three-year poetry grant from the City University of New York, where she worked as an Assistant Professor until 2010.
Sondra Gash’s collection of poems, Silk Elegy (CavanKerry Press) was a Finalist for the 2003 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, Calyx, Paterson Literary Review, and U.S. 1 Worksheets. She has read at the Dodge Festival in Waterloo, NJ, and is a recipient of fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (for fiction and poetry), Yaddo, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Deborah Gerrish is a poet and teacher whose work has appeared in Ararat, the South Mountain Poets anthology, Goldfinch, and the Paterson Literary Review. She was “Poet in Residence” at the Presbyterian Church of New Providence (2005-2008) and was a featured poet on Breathearts.org in April 2010. Her chapbook, The Language of Rain, was published in 2008, and her collection of poems, The Language of Paisley, is forthcoming.
Gail Fishman Gerwin’s poetry and reviews appear in journals including Caduceus, Loch Raven Review, Lips, and Journal of New Jersey Poets. Her memoir, Sugar and Sand, was a 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize finalist. Her second collection, Dear Kinfolk (ChayaCairn Press), was published in December 2012. She is associate poetry editor of Tiferet and founder/principal of the Morristown communications firm inedit.
Marcia Ivans has given workshops at the College of St. Elizabeth and Caldwell College. She has led workshops at Barnes and Noble, Watchung Booksellers, and The Fine Grind. She has facilitated Poetry and Pastries at Cafe Beethoven in Chatham for the past nine years.
Vasiliki Katsarou, is the author of the just-published poetry collection, Memento Tsunami. She is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee and curates the Panoply Books Reading Series in Lambertville, NJ. In 2009, she co-edited and wrote the introduction to the anthology Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems (Ragged Sky Press). She holds an MFA from Boston University and wrote and directed the award-winning 35mm short film, Fruitlands 1843.
Adele Kenny is the author of several books of poetry and nonfiction, most recently What Matters (Welcome Rain Publishers), which received the 2012 International Book Award for poetry. Her poems, reviews, and articles have been published in journals, books, and anthologies. The recipient of two poetry fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, she is founding director of the Carriage House Poetry Series and poetry editor of Tiferet.
Denise La Neve writes both poetry and fiction, and co-hosts The North Jersey Literary Series in Teaneck with her husband, Paul Nash. She spent part of her childhood in France and has traveled extensively on three continents. Her poetry has most recently appeared in The Istanbul Literary Review, The Red Wheelbarrow Anthology, Sensations Magazine, and the anthology, Beyond the Rift: Poets of the Palisades (2010), for which she was also an editor.
Gina Larkin, a retired teacher, is the editor of the Edison Literary Review. Her first book, When the Gods Play Hide and Seek, was published in 2011.
Deborah LaVeglia is director of Poets Wednesday, the longest running poetry series in NJ. She studied poetry at Kean University and NYU. She resides in Cranford with her son and husband, but dreams of living in a log cabin in Vermont.
Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently Temptation by Water (Wind Publications, 2010) and a forthcoming craft book, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop. Her poems have been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. She is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the NJ State Council on the Arts and won first place in the 2012 Naugatuck River Review's poetry contest.
Nancy Lubarsky writes from Cranford, New Jersey. She has been an educator for 30 years and is currently a superintendent in Mountainside, New Jersey. She has been published in the journals Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Lips, and Tiferet, and in Impact: An Anthology of Short Memoirs. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She takes inspiration and support from her membership in a poetry group.
Julie Maloney is a writer and poet and founder/director of Women Reading Aloud, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of women writers. She is a former dancer and choreographer of the Julie Maloney Dance Company. Her book of poems, Private Landscape, was published in 2007. She is working on her debut novel. In June, she will travel to Greece to lead a writer's retreat on the island of Alonissos.
Charlotte Mandel won the 2012 New Jersey Poets Prize. Her eighth book of poetry, Life Work, is forthcoming from David Robert Books. Previous titles include Rock Vein Sky and two poem-novellas of feminist biblical re-vision—The Life of Mary and The Marriages of Jacob. She has published a series of essays on the role of cinema in the life and work of poet H.D. She recently retired from teaching poetry writing at Barnard College Center for Research on Women.
Elizabeth Marchitti's poems have been published in Paterson Literary Review, Lips and Journal of New Jersey Poets, among others. She has been a finalist in the Allen Ginsberg Contest three times. In 2010 her poem "The Music Tree" won first prize at St. Catherine's annual Art and Poetry Exhibit in Ringwood, New Jersey. In 2011 her chapbook, In Praise of Stillness, won First Prize in the Bear House Publishing Mini-Chapbook Competition.
Jean Meyers is a retired English teacher who lives in Montclair with a cat and a lot of books. She is a member of a quilting group celebrating its fortieth year and a poetry group celebrating its sixteenth. In recent years she has taken up watercolor painting. Last Thanksgiving she played clarinet duets with her granddaughter.
Wanda S. Praisner, a recipient of fellowships from the New Jersey State
Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, has read at the
Dodge Festival and the Governor's Conference on the Arts. Winner of the
2010 Princemere Prize, her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Lullwater Review, New York Magazine, and Prairie Schooner. A teaching artist for the NJ Writers Project, her third collection is due out from CavanKerry Press in 2013.
Linda Radice, a poet and essayist, has had her work published in numerous journals and anthologies and was the second place recipient of the 2007 Allen Ginsberg Award. She is a member of the Fanwood Arts Council and is currently involved in organizing a new reading series in her hometown. She is a Paralegal and resides in North Plainfield, NJ.
Susanna Rich is the author of Television Daddy, The Drive Home, and The Flexible Writer. She is the founding producer of Wild Nights Productions, LLC, through which she tours her one-woman, audience-interactive poetry performances: Back to the 60s; Television Daddy; The Drive Home; ashes, ashes: A Poet Responds to the Holocaust; and A Wild Night with Emily Dickinson. She is the recipient of Kean University’s Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Wendy Rosenberg is a poet, teacher, Reiki master and certified Creativity Coach. She is an Expressive Arts Educational Facilitator and a Certified Applied Poetry Facilitator. She is a founding member of the Westfield Poetry Group and the recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation teacher scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center. Wendy lives in Westfield.
Susan Rothbard’s poetry has appeared in The Literary Review, Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, The National Poetry Review, and other journals. She won the 2011 Finch Prize for Poetry and was awarded second prize in the 2012 Beyond Baroque poetry contest. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, and in 2012, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches English and creative writing at Livingston High School in NJ.
Carole Stone, professor emerita of English, Montclair State University, currently teaches courses at Montclair Adult School. Her most recent book of poetry is American Rhapsody (CavanKerry Press, 2012). Hurt, the Shadow is forthcoming from Dos Madres Press. She was the second prize winner in the 2012 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest, and has recent poetry publications in Marsh Hawk Press Review, Wisconsin Verse and Cave Wall.
Christine Waldeyer, founder of Adanna, a woman’s literary journal, is an Assistant Professor at Passaic County Community College where she directs the Journalism Program. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Frame by Frame, Gravel, and Eve Asks and has published in literary journals such as Paterson Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Texas Review, and Verse Wisconsin.
