| Timothy Bartel "Four Counties" Timothy E.G. Bartel is a husband, writer, and educator from Whittier, CA. He currently resides in Edinburgh with his wife, while he pursues a postgraduate degree in poetry and theology at the University of St Andrews. Timothy's work has recently appeared in The Other Journal, Christianity and Literature, and the St. Katherine Review. |
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| Cindy Beebe "My Son Says What If Jesus Were Playing Basketball" Cindy Beebe lives in Collierville, TN, a suburb of Memphis, with her husband, their two teen-aged sons, and a couple of slacker house cats. She sings in her church choir, home-schools her children, and ministers to the community as a member of Continuum Arts: Engaging Culture With Culture Through Acts of Creative Excellence. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Image, The Cincinnati Review, RATTLE, The National Poetry Review, The Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, Radix, and APJ, among others. She also has poems in previous issues of Relief. Feel free to contact her. |
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| John J. Brugaletta "Itadaki Masu" "Everything Is Otherwise" John J. Brugaletta is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at California State University, Fullerton. He was editor and publisher of South Coast Poetry Journal during its ten-year history, and contributing editor of The Lamp-Post. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Tongue Angles and Tilling the Land, and is co-author of Discovering the Way of Wisdom: Spirituality in the Wisdom Literature. He lives in Northern California with his wife Claudia, where he makes tables, clocks and poems. |
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| Sara Burant “After Reading from Genesis I Consider Angels" “Within" “The Place After Words” “Meditation on a Man’s Figure” Sara Burant's poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, and Ruminate Magazine, among others. Her first chapbook, Verge, has just been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. She lives in Eugene, Oregon with her husband, a ball-crazy dog, elderly cat and small flock of chickens. This summer she was fortunate enough to be present at the birth of her first grandchild. |
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 | Scott Cairns "Two Trees" Scott Cairns, Professor of English at University of Missouri, is director of MU Writing Workshops in Greece: Thessaloniki/Thasos, bringing graduate and undergraduate students to Greece every June for engagement with literary life in modern Greece. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Image, Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, etc., and have been anthologized in multiple editions of Best American Spiritual Writing. His most recent books are Compass of Affection (poetry), Short Trip to the Edge (memoir), Love’s Immensity (translations), and a book-length essay, The End of Suffering. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. |
 | Maryann Corbett "Knowledge" Maryann Corbett's book Breath Control is due out in 2012 from David Robert Books. Her chapbooks are Dissonance and Gardening in a Time of War. She has been a winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and a finalist for the Morton Marr prize and the Best of the Net anthology. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals in print and online and in the anthologies Hot Sonnets, The Able Muse Anthology, and Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature. She lives in St. Paul and works for the Minnesota Legislature. |
 | Lynn Domina "Flickering Green, Flickering Bronze" "Omniscience in Babel" Lynn Domina is the author of two collections of poetry, Framed in Silence and Corporal Works. She is also the editor of a collection of essays, Poets on the Psalms. Her recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, The New England Review, The Southern Review, Christianity & Literature, and several other periodicals. She currently lives with her family in the western Catskill region of New York. |
| Michael Martin "Visions of Vladimir" "Words written during the suffering and subsequent death of John Paul II" Michael Martin lives on a small, organic farm between Detroit and Ann Arbor with his wife and eight children. He teaches English at Marygrove College in Detroit. His work has appeared in many different journals, most recently in Tiferet and Prose Studies. This is his third appearance in Relief. |
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 | Marsha Mathews "Crossing the Dead" Marsha Mathews’ Sunglow & A Touch of Nottingham Lace has won this year’s Red Berry Editions Chapbook Award. In 2010, her first book of poems, Northbound Single-Lane, was published by Finishing Line Press. Magazines that have published Mathews’ work include Apalachee Review, Appalachian Heritage, Fourth River, Greensboro Review, Hampden-Sydney, Inkwell Journal, Melusine, and Pembroke. Her poems appear in these anthologies, Child of My Child (Gelles-Cole Literary Enterprises, 2010) and Touching: Poems of Love, Longing, and Desire (Fearless Books, 2011). Mathews teaches writing at Dalton State College, in Dalton, Georgia, where she advises the campus literary magazine, Tributaries. |
 Julie L. Moore | Julie L. Moore "Prayer Shawl" Julie L. Moore is the author of Slipping Out of Bloom (WordTech Editions) and Election Day (Finishing Line Press). In addition, her manuscript, Scandal of Particularity, was a finalist for the 2011 FutureCycle Press Poetry Book Prize and a semi-finalist for the 2011 Perugia Press Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize from Ruminate, Moore has also had her poetry published in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Journal, Atlanta Review, CALYX, Cimarron Review, The Missouri Review Online, The Southern Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verse Daily. You can learn more about her work at www.julielmoore.com. |
 | Paul Willis "After Saying Goodbye" "The Closet in the Skeleton" "Dinah Morris Digresses in Her Evening Sermon on the Green" "Friday Night" "Looking Away" Paul J. Willis is a professor of English at Westmont College and the current poet laureate of Santa Barbara, CA. His most recent books of poetry are Rosing from the Dead (WordFarm, 2009) and Visiting Home (Pecan Grove Press, 2008). He is also the author of Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild (WordFarm, 2005) and the four-part eco-fantasy novel The Alpine Tales (WordFarm, 2010). He spends a little too much of his time creating obscure trails through the poison oak canyons of his campus. |
Tag Archive - authors
Announcing 5.2 Poets
Vintage Rejection
Stephanie Smith
Rejection always hurts, but this publisher seems particularly hard to please! This vintage rejection slip is from the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company (1907-1925), who is famous for their production of Charlie Chaplin movies (Photo originally posted on NPR). I’m not sure if my writing, or much modern writing at all for that matter, would pass muster! Which reason for rejection do you find most surprising, amusing, appalling? One of my favorites…see #6 for a good laugh.
But to keep you from getting too discouraged, here are a few excerpts from rejection letters of now beloved and classic works, from publishers who probably still have their foot stuck in their mouths…
Lord of the Flies by William Golding…“an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer…“This will set publishing back 25 years.”
The Diary of Anne Frank…“The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”
On Writings by Anais Nin…“There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic.”
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame…“an irresponsible holiday story.”
Stephanie S. Smith graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Communications and Women’s Ministry, which she now puts to work freelancing as a book publicist and writer through her business, (In)dialogue Communications, at www.stephaniessmith.com. After living in Chicago for four years, traveling to Amsterdam for a spell, and then moving back home to Baltimore to plan a wedding, she now lives with her husband in Upstate New York where they make novice attempts at home renovation in their 1930s bungalow. She writes for www.startmarriageright.com and manages Moody Publishers’ blog, www.insidepages.net.
Do Anger and Creating Mix?
Kimberly Culbertson
Are You Reading Along?
Have you clicked over to Don Miller’s Blog lately? You know I have, because this isn’t the first link I’ve posted on the Relief site. He’s been blogging a series on “The Way of A Creator,” and I think Relief readers everywhere should be reading along.
Anger + Creation = ?
Today, his post states that “A Creator Resists the Urge to Create out of Anger.” You’ll want to read the whole post, but here’s a quick quote:
The public only has a consciousness so big, and when you create something good, and it gets into the public consciousness, there’s less room for whatever it is that made you angry. So go and create something good, and displace whatever it is that is pissing you off.
This post has me thinking about Relief’s beginnings. Part of our story is that the vision for this journal was born out of frustration. I’ll be honest–sometimes “Christian” literature makes me angry. For years we’ve endeavored to create something that displaces the sometimes-overly-sanitized work that well, pisses us off… okay, I’m not sure I’m following Don’s advice in this sentence.
Thoughts? How do you, as a creator, wrestle your anger? Do you agree with Don’s advice?
Announcing Diner 3 Authors!
The Midnight Diner: Volume 3
I’m not going to lie. I was terrified when Coach handed me the keys to The Midnight Diner. This third edition would not have come to fruition without the absolutely amazing (all volunteer!!) staff. In all my (almost) forty years, I’ve never witnessed people working together so flawlessly. This well-oiled machine was definitely greased by The Big Man. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed publishing them.
 Eric Ortlund |
Eric Ortlund “A Thousand Flowers” Editor’s Choice Eric Ortlund teaches Hebrew and Old Testament at Briercrest Seminary in Saskatchewan, Canada. When he is not playing with his two kids, he is busy reading Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman and planning his next novel. |
 Edward Erdelac |
Edward Erdelac “The Blood Bay” Editor’s Choice Edward Erdelac was born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, and lives in the Los Angeles area with his family. He is an award winning screenwriter, an independent filmmaker, a sometime Star Wars contributor, and the author of Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter, the acclaimed first installment in a weird western series from Damnation Books. |
 Brian J. Hatcher |
Brian J. Hatcher “Clockworks of Hell” Editor’s Choice Brian J. Hatcher is an author, poet, and editor from Charleston WV. His work has appeared in the “Legends of the Mountain State” series, the poetry anthology ”Leonard Cohen: You’re Our Man”, the Stoker-award winning “Writers Workshop of Horror”, and Weird Tales Magazine. Brian will be appearing in “The Terror at Miskatonic Falls”, “Blood Lite 2: Overbite”, and the fourth volume of “Legends of the Mountain State”. “Mountain Magic: Spellbinding Tales of Appalachia”, Brian’s first anthology as editor, will be coming out sometime this fall. Keep up with Brian at www.brianjhatcher.com. |
| Kevin Brown | Kevin Brown “Monster Made” Kevin Brown has had work published in over one hundred journals and magazines, and has |
 Kevin Lucia |
Kevin Lucia Diner Alumni “Lonely Places” Kevin Lucia is the Review Editor for Shroud Magazine. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.blogspot.com. |
| Greg Mitchell | Greg Mitchell Diner Alumni “Flesh and Blood” As a child, Greg Mitchell was afraid of monsters. So, naturally, when he grew up, he devoted his life to writing stories about people shooting monsters in their hairy faces. He has contributed to the Star Wars continuity as well as the Halloween franchise based on the original John Carpenter film. The first novel in his “The Coming Evil” faith-versus-fear series, “The Strange Man”, was originally self-published in 2007, and a revised and expanded edition is due out February 2011 from Realms Fiction. While he’s not writing about monsters, he, his wife Meghan, and their two daughters can be found preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse at their home in northeast Arkansas. Check him out atwww.thecomingevil.com. |
 M.L. Archer |
M.L. Archer Diner Alumni “Virtuoso” A native of Los Angeles, M.L. Archer, has been writing fiction since the age of eight . . . |
| Douglas Kolacki | Douglas Kolacki “Cloak” Douglas Kolacki began writing while stationed with the Navy in Italy, where he received |
 Lon Prater |
Lon Prater “Way of Cold Teeth” Lon Prater is an active duty Navy officer by day, writer of odd little tales by night. His short fiction has appeared in the Stoker-winning anthology Borderlands 5, Writers of the Future XXI, and Origins Award finalist Frontier Cthulhu. He is an avid Texas Hold’em player, occasional stunt kite flyer, and connoisseur of history, theme parks and haunted hayrides. To find out more, visit www.lonprater.com. |
 Chris Mikesell |
Chris Mikesell Diner Alumni, Contributing Editor “Hanlon’s Folly” If you were to take a dictionary and highlight all the words in it that pertain to Chris Mikesell, you would wind up with a hefty fine for defacing library reference materials. You would also probably be left with plenty of ink in your Hi-Liter. Chris lives in suburban Dallas with his wife (Dina), his son (Philip), and his regrets (a few, but then again, |
Announcing Diner 3 Authors, continued…
| Jason Hubbard Derr | Jason Hubbard Derr “Haunting of Mabel” Jason Hubbard Derr holds an MA in Theological Studies from the Vancouver School of Theology and studied creative writing in his undergrad at Eastern Washington University. HIs writing has appeared in Relief, Patheos.com and The Huffington Post and his first book will soon be released by the Progressive Christian Alliance Press. Jason is a Theologian-In-Affiliation with the Progressive Christian Alliance and is married to Erin. They live in Vancouver, BC. |
 Michael Dean Clark |
Michael Dean Clark “Beneath Its Weight” Michael Dean Clark is an author of fiction and nonfiction situated primarily in the San Diego area. His work has appeared in Relief, FastForward, and Literary Circular among other outlets. He lives in San Diego with his wife and almost three children and works as a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. |
 Libby Cudmore |
Libby Cudmore “Preacher Man” Libby Cudmore is a regular contributor to Hardboiled. a Twist of Noir, Celebrities in Disgrace and Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers, where her story “Unplanned” won a Bullet Award in August 2009 and was nominated for a Derringer award in 2010. Her work has also appeared in The MacGuffin, the Yalobusha Review, the Chaffey Review, the Southern Women’s Review, Xenith, Inertia, Battered Suitcase, Big Pulp (with Matthew Quinn Martin) |
 Matthew Quinn Martin |
Matthew Quinn Martin Contributing Editor “Big Apple Gothic” Matthew Quinn Martin is a New York based writer. His original screenplay Slingshot was made into a feature film starring Juliana Margulies, David Arquette, Thora Birch, Balthazar Getty and Joely Fisher. Slingshot had its premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival, 2005, has been featured onAccess Hollywood, and is currently on DVD, distributed by the Weinstein Co. Matthew’s prose fiction has been published (or is forthcoming) in His screenplay A Very Good Year, featuring Dan Lauria (The Wonder He can also be seen flitting around the margins of your TV set…most |
 Colin McKay Miller |
Colin McKay Miller “The Ocean Thief” Colin McKay Miller is a writer and volunteer halfway house minister from Edinburgh, |
 Edoardo Albert |
Edoardo Albert “Last Door” Edoardo Albert is a professional writer and editor, born and based in London, although his parents come from Italy and Sri Lanka. He’s married, with two sons, and once wrote a lonely hearts ad that reduced a friend to a state of helpless, hysterical laughter. At the moment, he’s typing out a novel written long hand, finishing short stories and trying to find freelance |
 Virginia Hernandez |
Virginia Hernandez Diner Alumni “A Better Place” Virginia Hernandez is not having much luck finding time to write because life with her |
 Jeff Chapman |
Jeff Chapman “Princess and Vampire” Jeff Chapman writes fairy tales, fantasy, and ghost stories. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Golden Visions Magazine,Mindflights, and Third Order. Hearing the expression “just a fairy tale” rankles him. He lives with his wife and children in a house with more books than bookshelf space. Stop by his blog at http://jeffchapmanwriter.blogspot.com/. |
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