Elaine Bentley Baughn is a (pick one) Feng Shui practitioner, psychotherapist, poet, gospel singer, survivor of the 60's. Her first published poem was "Radicalization" printed in a paper called High Street in Oxford, OH, near where she grew up. She lived and worked in seven states and is now into her third career. Most recently, her poems have appeared in Bone (volumes 1 and 2) and Through Spiders Eyes. She is the author of four chapbooks, the latest of which, Portraits and Landscapes, will be published shortly after she enters the 21st century.
Ted Blackler is a poet and performer in Marlborough, Mass. He has been writing and visiting Worceseter-area poetry readings since 2002, and co-edited for the Worcester-based Poets' Asylum annual anthology series Voices from the Asylum in 2004 and 2006 (http://www.poetsasylum.org). Ted writes about his suburban surroundings, and about trying to achieve some personal growth in that space. Ted has self-published three chapbooks of his poems, Bang!, Hesitation, andThe Darkness of the Suburbs.
Tony Brown Worcester-based poet Tony Brown has been published in numerous anthologies and has read his work all over the country. His most recent chapbook is a collected works, poet (Doublebunny Press, 2004).
Tom Carroll After 35 years of gadding about, Tom came back home to roost in Massachusetts. Writing poems helps him stay grounded.
Jenith Charpentier is a life-long reader and writer with a penchant for volunteer editorial work. Her work has appeared in Worcester Magazine, and Omnivore. Jenith is please as punch to be involved with the Ballard Street Poetry Journal.
Curt Curtin has published his work in several places, but prefers to say only that he writes by a river in North Brookfield, Mass., and more recently, on a hill in Worcester.
Tom Ewart, sixty-one years old enough to know better, but he doesn’t; that’s why he writes. Originally from the South, now he isn’t, but he likes to think that, to the extent he retains any sensibility at all, it’s still a Southern one. His poetry can be filled with tenderness and violence, and also with commas and semicolons. He lives along; when he tires of the voices he hears, he plays guitar. He does not sing; that’s also why he writes…
Emily Ferrara teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Worcester Review, Family Medicine, Full Circle, Lynx Eye, Lifeboat, and several anthologies. Her poems have received awards from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine in 2005, and the Worcester County Poetry Association in 2006. Adam Incarnate, a collection of poems about the death of her 19-year-old son, was a finalist in the Blue Light Poetry Chapbook Contest in 2005. A participant in the Workshop for Publishing Poets in Brookline, Mass., since 2002, Ferrara lives in Worcester, Mass.
John Gaumond is a poet and photographer from Worcester, Mass. His poetry has been published in Sahara, The Leaflet, Worcester Magazine, The Issue, The Longfellow Society, The Lancaster Times, Vox Poetica, The Connecticut River Review, and Poets in the Galleries: a collaborative Project of the Worcester Art Museum and The Worcester County Poetry Association.
Bob Gill writes about life, nature and the world around him when the
mood or the muse strikes. A computer professional by day he finds that
poetry helps to provide balance in a complex world. In a collisions of
worlds he maintains the website for the Poets' Asylum -
www.poetsasylum.org
R. Joyce Heon is a New Englander of Finnish heritage and hates housework. She is the Assistant Editor to Diner.
Christy Howard received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She currently lives in Providence, RI where she works for a small non-profit organization.
Carolyn Howe started writing more seriously about four years ago. Her poems often have an autobiographical component. In the past year she has also taken up watercolor painting and has been experimenting with autobiographical paintings that contain poetry within the painting. For her day job, she teaches sociology at College of the Holy Cross.
David Keali’i is currently the mc/host of the Community Voices Poetry Open Mic in Westfield, Mass. He has featured at Jester’s and Worcester Storytellers. He is known to attend various reading in Worcester and occasionally readings in Shelburne Falls. He is currently serving one year as an Americorps*VISTA. He is easily bribed with chocolate.
Diana Mackiewicz is a teacher in a private boarding school in Western Massachusetts. She has many opportunities to express her own creativity and also encourage that of her students. Diana is head of the computer department and also literary magazine editor. She was selected for a study tour to Japan sponsored by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, summer 2005.
Sou MacMillan is a musician, artist, and writer who thinks of poetry as a much underestimated form of music. She believes strongly in the spirituality of art, and considers performance poetry to be the canvas for the fusion of the body and things we cannot always see or touch. A veteran of the early and mid-nineties Columbus, OH indie scene, she helped coin the term Tantrum Rock with band Pet UFO (Burnt Sienna, Double Deuce/Caroline) while obtaining her BA in Russian Lit from Ohio State University. Honored as a winner of the 2004 Jacob Knight Award for Poetry, Sou recently published her poetry collection, Shallow Empire, at Lethe Press. She resides in Worcester, Mass., with her husband and son.
Dave Macpherson is a poet and storyteller living in Worcester, Mass. He has performed all over New England. He has been published in The Worcester Review, Nights and Days, The November 3rd Club, and Forbidden Panda. His work has appeared in the anthology Poets in the Galleries. David received the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry in 2003. The Projectionist’s Tale and Both Sides Against the Middle are two of his plays that have been produced.
Heather J. Macpherson is a poet and librarian, and also the editor of Ballard Street Poetry Journal. Her work has also appeared in The Sun, Wicked Alice, Poets in the Galleries, Beginnings, and What you are about to witness… a Poets’ Asylum anthology. She enjoys frequenting open mics and writing with her husband, Dave Macpherson.
Chris Mellen has been writing and reading poetry in the Worcester, Mass., area for almost fifteen years. She is inspired by Celtic mythology, Eastern philosophy, and by a deep reverence for the beautiful contradictions in life. Her work has appeared in The Issue, Street Signs- a Worcester Anthology, and Setting the Stage, a Poets’ Asylum anthology.
Laura Vookles has worked at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY for over 20 years, and is a member of the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center. She frequents open mic’s around Westchester County and New York City. Most of her current writing is memoir, ranging from recollections of Maine summers, grandmothers to motherhood, her husband’s death and middle-aged romance.
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