April 5, 2016

Photo Courtesy of Ken Murphy

Welcome! Thomas Gray once said, "Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn" and Indiana Voice Journal is celebrating National Poetry Month with twenty-one poets whose thoughts and words do exactly that. We also have five of the best fiction writers, two wonderful essayists, and two amazingly talented visual artists featured in this issue. It has been an honor getting this edition together and meeting new friends in the process. Enjoy the read, and don't forget to leave some kind comments for the authors. Thanks ~Janine Pickett, Editor

POETRY 

Suvojit Banerjee, GF Boyer, Jared Carter, Pijush Kante Deb, Kika Dorsey, Ken Allan Dronsfield, Matthew Duggan, L Mark Finch, John Grey, Scott Hensley, Julia Hones, Michael Lee Johnson, Joan Payne Kincaid, KG Newman, Todd Outcalt, Dale Patterson, Arthur Powers, Soodabeh Saeidnia, Jay Sizemore, Emile Stieffel IV, David Subacchi 

VISUAL ART

 Douglas G. Campbell, Ken Murphy

CREATIVE NONFICTION/ESSAYS 

Glenna Blomquist, Lynda McKinney Lambert 

FICTION

Donald Baker, Jeff Burt, Rich Elliott, Jess Kapp, Diane Stallings

Suvojit Banerjee has seen twenty eight summers, but he doesnt remember all of them; his existence is torn between the suburbs in West Bengal he grew up in, and the city called Atlanta he now lives in. The world around him adorns many masks, and so does he, while roaming around its streets with the eyes as a journal and his soul as a pen. He is searching for answers in this surreal yet slimy maze, but the questions keep on changing every time.

GF Boyer is a freelance editor, creative writing instructor, and the editor of Clementine Poetry Journal   https://clementinepoetry.wordpress.com/  and Clementine (Unbound) (https://clementineunbound.wordpress.com/). Her poems have appeared in a number of publications, including The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, RHINO, and Heron Tree.


Jared Carter grew up in Elwood, Indiana

Pijush Kanti Deb is a new Indian poet with more than 234 published or accepted poems and haiku in more than 75 national and international magazines and journals,[print and online] including Down in the dirt, Tajmahal Review, Pennine Ink, Hollow Publishing, Creativica Magazine, Muse India, Teeth Dream Magazine, Hermes Poetry Journal, Madusa’s Kitchen,Grey Borders, Dead Snakes, Dagda Publishing, Blognostic and many more. He is the editor of Poebita Magazine.
His best achievement so far is the publication of his first poetry collection,’’Beneath The Shadow Of A White Pigeon’’ published by Hollow Publishing. It is available on AMAZON and BARNES AND NOBLE.

Originally from South Bend, Indiana, Kika Dorsey is a poet and professor living in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, kitten, and Border Collie. She wakes up at 5:00 every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels. Her poems have been published in The Denver Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Comstock Review, Freshwater, The Columbia Review, among numerous other journals and books. . Her collection of poems, Beside Herself , was published by Flutter Press. Her full-length collection, Rust, is coming out with Word Tech Editions August 2016..  She is a professor of English at Front Range Community College. When not writing or teaching, she taxis her teenagers to activities, swims miles in pools, and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains. 

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a Published Poet/Author/Digital Artist originally from Hampton New Hampshire, now residing in Oklahoma. He has been writing for many years and enjoys spending time hiking, playing guitar and spending time with his cats Merlin and Willa. His published work can be found at numerous print venues.

Born Bristol U.K. 1971

Matt won the Erbacce prize for poetry 2015 his new collection Dystopia 38.10 (erbacce-press) is now available. His poems have appeared in many magazines and journal's such as Page and Spine, Harbinger Asylum, Apogee Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Knot Literary Magazine, Clockwise Cat, Ygdrasil, The Journal, The Seventh Quarry Carillon, Sarasvati, Poetry Quarterely. http://www.mattduggan.webnode.com


L. Mark Finch: Compost

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Silkworm work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Main Street Rag and Spoon River Poetry Review.   

Scott Hensley and his wife, Erica, own and operate a small farm near downtown Indianapolis.  The themes of land, restoration, and the spiritual life are the main threads that inspire these thoughts and words.

My poetry and stories have appeared in a vast array of literary journals and anthologies including Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Embodied Effigies, Loud Zoo, The Medical Literary Messenger, The Voices Project, Coffee Shop Poems, Mother Bird, Digital Papercut, Vox Poetica, The Artistic Muse, and many others. To learn more about my list of published or forthcoming material you can check my literary blog.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, editor, publisher, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  He has been published in more than 880 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites.  Author's website http://poetryman.mysite.com/.  Michael is the author of The Lost American:  From Exile to Freedom (136 page book) ISBN:  978-0-595-46091-5, several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems.  He also has over 88 poetry videos on YouTube as of 2015:  https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos  Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, IL. nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015.  Visit his Facebook Poetry Group and join https://www.facebook.com/groups/807679459328998/  

Joan's latest book Being Here New and Selected Poems 1988-2012 is now available here there and on Amazon.  She also has an on-line book with John M. Bennett: Now Blank Sky.https://archive.org/details/NOWBLANKSKYKincaidBennett.doc (15 years in the works). Joan has been published in a wide variety of magazines and journals.

KG Newman is the editor of a high school sports website, ColoradoSportsNetwork.com, and lives in Aurora, Colo. He is an Arizona State University graduate and his first collection of poems, While Dreaming of Diamonds in Wintertime, is available on Amazon. 




Todd Outcalt is the author of thirty books in six languages, including Common Ground, Candles in the Dark, The Best Things in Life Are Free and Where in the World We Meet (his first poetry collection). His most recent poetry has been published in The Oklahoma Review, Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. He lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and enjoys kayaking, hiking and travel.




Dale is a visual artist and poet living in Indiana. His work has been published in many online and print journals; the most recent appearing in: Pilgrimage, The Tower Journal, The Museum of Americana, The Lake, Short Fast and Deadly and Midwestern Gothic. A more complete listing of Dale’s work can be seen on his website http://dalepattersonart.com/


Arthur Powers is from Illinois.  In 1969 he went to Brazil as a Peace Corps Volunteer and lived most of his adult life there.  From 1985 to 1992 he and his wife lived in the Brazilian Amazon, working with subsistence farmers in a region of violent land conflicts; through his experience with the farmers, Arthur came to appreciate more deeply his own Midwestern heritage.

Soodabeh Saeidnia was born (1973) in Iran and received Pharm.D. (1997) and also Ph.D. of Pharmacognosy from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in 2002. She was Visiting Researcher (2002-2003) at Kyoto University, and was also awarded a Foreign Researcher Fellowship to work as a Research Associate both at Kyoto University (2005-2006), as well as Associate Professor at TUMS (2007-2015) and Visiting Professor at Saskatchewan University, Canada (2013-2014). She has written roughly 150 scientific papers for various academic journals, as well as books in both English and Farsi.

Jay Sizemore is not your enemy. He's just a writer, someone who writes things and then spends weeks regretting it. Sometimes he questions the motives of the muse, but he's handcuffed to her for life. You can find him at jaysizemore.com, or, if you're a stalker, in Nashville, TN, where he may or may not actually exist.


Emile Stieffel IV  is a student majoring in secondary education - English at University of Detroit Mercy. Website:  http://stieffel.weebly.com/


David Subacchi lives in Wales (UK) where he was born of Italian roots. He studied at the University of Liverpool and Cestrian Press has published his poetry collections First Cut (2012), Hiding in Shadows (2014) and Not Really a Stranger (due in May 2016).
His collection of Sonnets about the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916 -  A Terrible Beauty is also published this year. His blog can be found at:


Ken Murphy is a retired war veteran residing in South Carolina with his wife Deena of 16 years. He became interested in photography in 2011, and especially likes photographing nature. In his spare time Ken enjoys working out, working with weapons, and spending time with family and friends.


Glenna Blomquist has lived in Florida for 15 years and is still exploring what it is to be a "Floridian".  Now retired, she has time to recollect and time to experience each moment as new.  So she writes, weaving her childhood appreciations into the experience of her older self, offering up lyrical pieces with universal appeal. 

Lynda McKinney Lambert is a retired fine arts and humanities professor from Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA.  She resides in a small village in western Pennsylvania with her husband, Bob, 4 cats and 2 dogs.  Lynda is the author of Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, published by Kota Press. She writes articles on the humanities,  contemporary poetry and inspirational human interest stories.  Her teaching career took her to Europe  each summer where she taught  drawing and writing to college students. She also taught a course in Puerto Rico every spring semester for the college. Lynda loves to write, knit. and travel. 

Donald Baker writes under his middle name.  He has had his short fiction published in The Southern Cross Review, The Huffington Post and in Literally Stories.  He is currently hard at work submitting his first novel, Bob, P.I. and rewriting several short stories.   He is also an active amateur photographer, an actor in community theater (yes even Shakespeare), and progressive spoiler of seven grandchildren.  Somewhere in there he works when he isn’t laid off.  He happily resides in Central Indiana with his family. He maintains an author website at http://www.sylbun.com


Jeff Burt works in mental health and has work in Amarillo Bay, The Nervous Breakdown, Atticus Review, and forthcoming in Per Contra. He has published poetry in Indiana Voice Journal previously.



Rich Elliott is a writer from Valparaiso, Indiana. He is the author of two works of sports nonfiction: The Competitive Edge: Mental Preparation for Distance Running; and Runners on Running: The Best Nonfiction of Distance Running. You may visit his website at: www.richelliottproductions.com


Jess Kapp is a lecturer in the department of geosciences at the University of Arizona. She writes short fiction and memoir, and blogs for the Huffington Post.  She is currently finishing a memoir about her high altitude field adventures doing geologic research in Tibet. You can find Jess on twitter @jess_kapp, Facebook, and her website http://jesskapp.com.

Diane Stallings' urge to write began as soon as she learned to read.  Published in a few magazines decades ago, she also has a story in the first Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul.  A Holistic Nurse, Healer, and health nut, she keeps a blog at joystreamhealth.wordpress.com

I live in Portland, Oregon. I am a retired professor of art at George Fox University where I taught painting, printmaking, drawing and art history courses for over 20 years. My artwork is represented in collections such as The Portland Art Museum, Oregon State University, Ashforth Pacific, Inc. and George Fox University. http://www.douglascampbellart.com/work/

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