Fiction. Short Stories. Edited by Bruce Pratt, with Guest Judge Michael White. Twenty new authors wrestle with the powers that shape our lives. Winter Burial--written by a mortician--and Hearts like Lemons in Fists of Dew lead the way, luring the reader to poignant characters who experience burying a friend, running away with a circus, and savoring peach pie with Aunt Ida's caramel sauce.
About the Author: Bruce Pratt, Editor: Bruce Pratt, long recognized as one of New England s finest writers of short fiction, has recently published his first poetry collection, Boreal. The book has aroused enthusiasm among all who have seen it in draft form, among them Dzvinia Orlowsky, who writes as follows: A memorable outpouring of passion and paradox, Pratt s pitch-perfect poems entwine uncertainties into a retrospective which rather than striking back at experience, holds it gracefully, gratefully, close at hand. Again and again I m drawn back into these poems of faith, deeply rooted in a man standing firm, chest-deep in the current of each passing, uncertain moment, any desire to be rescued not out of fear but because someone looked for you and not finding you where you should be, / dove into the waves for love. Gerald Costanzo has commented that Bruce Pratt s poems are smart and accomplished. He keeps a close watch on the natural world, and an even closer one on human nature. Boreal is a collection which extends pleasure to insight on every page. Pratt was born in Bronxville, NY, and grew up in Connecticut. He attended Franklin and Marshall College, where he majored in Religious Studies, receiving his B.A. in 1972. After a short stint in the furniture industry, he began a two-decade career as a folk and blues singer/songwriter, appearing with many of the finest performers in that genre and touring regularly with Ramblin Jack Elliott. In the mid-Nineties, eager to spend more time with his wife and sons, Pratt began a new career as a teacher and coach at John Bapst Memorial, a small private high school in Bangor, Maine. His teams having won five consecutive state outdoor track titles, Pratt has five times been voted Maine State Girls Track Coach of the Year. In 2001 he received an M.A. in English from the University of Maine and in 2004 graduated from the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine, where he currently teaches fiction and advanced fiction writing. Pratt s poetry and fiction have appeared in more than two dozen journals and literary magazines during the past few years and have garnered several awards, among them the 2007 Andre Dubus Short Fiction Award. Pratt was assistant editor for two volumes of American Fiction, and this is his second volume as editor.
Michael White, Guest Judge: Michael White is the author of six novels: Soul Catcher, which was a Booksense and Historical Novels Review selection, as well as a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award, A Brother s Blood, which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers nominee; The Blind Side of the Heart, an Alternate Book-of-the-Month Club selection; A Dream of Wolves, which received starred reviews from Booklist and Publisher s Weekly, and is under option by Miracle Pictures; and The Garden of Martyrs, also a Connecticut Book Award finalist. His latest novel (William Morrow, 2010) is Beautiful Assassin. A collection of his short stories, Marked Men, was published by the University of Missouri Press. He has also published over 45 short stories in national magazines and journals, and has won the Advocate Newspapers Fiction Award and been nominated for both a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart. He was the founding editor of the yearly fiction anthology American Fiction as well as Dogwood. He is the founder and director of Fairfield University's low-residency MFA Creative Writing Program (www.fairfield.edu/mfa). He lives on a lake in Guilford, CT, with his black lab Henry.
Jill Birdsall: Jill Birdsall enjoys inspiration for writing at the lovely Shrewsbury River in New Jersey. Her short stories can be read in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ascent, Chicago Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Emerson Review, Gargoyle, Iowa Review, Painted Bride Quarterly Review, Potomac Review, Southern Humanities Review and Story Quarterly. An MFA graduate of Columbia University s School of the Arts, her recent awards include Eckleburg s Gertrude Stein Award and Potomac Review s Short Fiction Award. To read other stories written by Jill, please visit www.jillbirdsall.com.
Mathieu Cailler: Mathieu Cailler is a poet and award-winning short-story writer. A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, his work has been published in numerous national and international literary journals. He serves as a founding board member of the Short Story Writers Association and teaches writing and literature in various capacities. He lives--and will probably die--in Los Angeles.
Carol Cooley: Carol Cooley is an essayist and short story writer. Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including collections by Creative Nonfiction, SMU Press, and SUNY Press. She has received Honorable Mentions from the North Carolina Literary Review and Glimmer Train Press, and is a contributing author to a CNF blog. She lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina where she writes, works as a healthcare professional, and leads writing workshops for adults and teenagers. She is currently working on a short story collection.
Libby Cudmore: Libby Cudmore's stories and essays have appeared in Big Lucks, The Big Click, Chamber Four, The Vestal Review, Pank, The Citron Review, Kneejerk, Connotation Press, Postcard Press, Umbrella Factory, The MacGuffin, The Yalobusha Review and The Chaffey Review, as well as The Writer, Mixitini Matrix and ARCANE II (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
Marguerite Del Giudice: Marguerite Del Giudice is currently editing books and writing fiction from her home outside Philadelphia. She has been a national-award-winning newspaperwoman and Pulitzer Prize nominee for The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer and taught magazine writing at Temple University. Her work, which over the years has explored subjects ranging from the Mafia to UFOs to the meaning of life, has appeared in national publications and been translated worldwide, including cover stories for The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. She also practices and teaches aikido, a Japanese martial art, in which she holds the rank of sandan, or third-degree black belt. The Human Nature is her first published work of fiction.
Lee Hope: Lee Hope is the recipient of the Theodore Goodman Award for Fiction, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for Fiction. She has published stories in numerous literary magazines, such as Witness, The New Virginia Review, The North American Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Witness, and Epiphany. She founded the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program, played an instrumental role in the creation of Pine Manor s MFA program and was the director of a national writers conference. She has taught creative writing at various universities. She is president of the Solstice Writers Institute, a nonprofit organization in the service of creative writers. Lately, she teaches for Changing Lives Through Literature, an organization that brings literature to people on probation and parole.
Julia Lichtblau: Julia Lichtblau s writing has been published in Narrative Magazine, The Florida Review, Best Paris Stories, Temenos, Ploughshares Blog, and elsewhere. She was a finalist in the Narrative Winter 2013 Story Contest, and won the 2011 Paris Short Story Contest, and 2nd Prize in The Florida Review s Jeanne Leiby Chapbook Contest. She is Book Review Editor for The Common, was a journalist at BusinessWeek and Dow Jones in New York and Paris and has an MFA from Bennington College.
Beth Mayer: Beth Mayer s short fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Sun Magazine, and elsewhere. Her story The Way to Mercy was anthologized in New Stories from the Midwest 2011 and was named among Other Distinguished Stories by Best American Mystery Stories 2010. Red Bird Chapbooks features a limited hand-bound edition of Niagara Falls, a story with footnotes. Mayer holds an MFA from Hamline University and teaches English at Century College. She lives with her husband, two teenagers, and little dog in Lakeville, Minnesota.
Patricia McNair: Patricia Ann McNair s short story collection The Temple of Air won the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year in Traditional Fiction, the Devil s Kitchen Literary Festival Reading Award in Prose, and the Society of Midland Authors Finalist Award in Adult Fiction. The title story of that collection was named finalist in American Fiction: Volume 10. Her work has been published widely, and has received numerous Illinois Arts Council Awards and Pushcart Prize nominations. McNair teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago and is at work on a novel and a new collection of stories. www.PatriciaAnnMcNair.
Robin Mullet: Robin Mullet, a former CPA, realized the stories of her clients were more interesting than their budgets, so she turned to writing. She writes short fiction, poetry and non-fiction articles. A member of the Ohio State Poetry Association, Academy of American Poets, and SCBWI, she is most proud to be one of the Pentapoets, five women writers who are each other s biggest cheerleaders and most productive critics. Short fiction and poetry are her favorite forms because they provide a snapshot of the seminal moments of our lives. She lives on the edge of Appalachia with her husband and their deaf dog, who has taught her resiliency.
Steven Ostrowski: Steven Ostrowski is a fiction writer, poet, playwright and songwriter. His work has been published widely. His first novel, The Last Big Break will be published by LVCA in 2014. He teaches at Central Connecticut State University.
Molly Power: Bio: Molly Power writes short stories and poems on her farm in Vermont, where she is easily distracted by her dogs, horses, goats and comical chickens.
Leigh Rourks: Leigh Camacho Rourks teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University, where she is also the Assistant Editor of Louisiana Literature. She was a finalist for the 2012 Tennessee Williams Fiction Prize, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Spilt Infinitive, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. She is currently finishing her first novel.
Terry Ruud: Terry Ruud was raised on a tiny farm outside of Gatzke, Minnesota (population 24), but soon uprooted himself and wandered off in search of Bohemia. He toured North America for years with various musical groups, and lived a while in Nashville before returning to the Midwest and to Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he was paper trained in English Education and Creative Writing. He: writes poetry, prose, and songs; teaches English/Humanities at M-State, Fergus Falls; plays acoustic-eclectic folk music with the Cat Sank Trio; lives in Dilworth, Minnesota, with his wife, daughter, and two dogs; and is happy enough.
Lynn Sloan: Lynn Sloan has a master degree in photography and her photographs have been widely exhibited. Her stories have appeared in American Literary Review, Inkwell, The Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, and Sou wester, among other journals. Her work can be found at www.LynnSloan.com.
Madeline Wise: Madeline Wise grew up in Washington State and graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in nursing. She attended writing workshops with Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian. Brush Strokes is an old story. Her stories have appeared in Bryant Literary Review, North Atlantic Review, Palo Alto Review, Pleiades, Chaminade, The Storyteller, AIM, Caprice, Mobius, Windhover, and other small magazines.
Dallas Woodburn: Dallas Woodburn, a 2013-14 Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing at San Jose State University, has published work in The Nashville Review, The Los Angeles Times, Monkeybicycle, Family Circle, Ayris, and Louisiana Literature, among others. Her short story manuscript was a finalist for the Flannery O Connor Award for Short Fiction and her plays have been produced in Los Angeles and New York City. She has also been honored with the Glass Woman Prize, the Brian Mexicott Playwriting Award, a scholarship to attend the Key West Literary Seminar, and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.
John Zdrazil: John Zdrazil spent half of his life in the Minneapolis suburbs and the other half teaching in a small town. Two of his stories, "Delegation" and "Notices," appeared in The Lake Region Review, and he won the inaugural Lake Region Arts Council Six-Word Novel Contest ("Kenny Rogers ruined my life--again."). He treats his novel-in-progress, Age, Wisdom or Something Worse like a car that's fun to tinker with, though he has no intention of putting it on the road. He believes in graph paper, Flair pens, and good coffee and has earned degrees in Creative Writing and Mortuary Science, which explains a lot.
Yanshuo Zhang: Yanshuo Zhang is a PhD student in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. Born in Chengdu, China in 1988, she came to the U.S. at eighteen for college and has been pursuing higher education here ever since. Yanshuo has published two collections of literary writings in China and her English works have also been published in the U.S. Her genre ranges from fiction, essays, to poetry. Yanshuo is also an artist and her paintings have been exhibited at Stanford. She strives to be a creative and compassionate intellectual to help make this world a better place.
Timothy Zila: Timothy Zila was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was homeschooled before attending the University of New Mexico and earning degrees in English and History. While there, he worked on a thesis comprised of six stories set in New Mexico, of which High Life is the eponymous piece. He spent his summer painting, observing the progress of an in-construction IMAX, and writing. He s preoccupied with memory, philosophy, and the writing of Flannery O Connor and Pinckney Benedict. He s currently working on a collection of stories and a novel.

"