March 5, 2017



























Powerful, historic, wacky, and wonderful...Welcome to the March 2017 edition of Indiana Voice Journal authored entirely by women! 

 International Women's Day is annually held on March 8 to celebrate women's achievements throughout history, and across nations. It is also known as the United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace. The 53 stories, poems, visual art, and essays in this issue are the best of the best! I hope you enjoy, read, share, and comment on our featured posts. A heartfelt thanks to art editor, Jennifer Criss, and poetry editor, David Allen for all their help with this huge edition! ~Janine Pickett


~Featured Authors~

Poetry


Visual Art


Fiction

Creative Nonfiction/Essay


Marianne Szlyk is the editor of "The Song Is...," associate poetry editor at "Potomac Review," and a professor of English at Montgomery College. Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, was published by Flutter Press. Her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking up at Trees of Heaven, is available through Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html . Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print venues.Two of her poems received nominations for Bet of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. Recently she was artist in residence at The Wild Word: http://thewildword.com/artist-in-residence-marianne-szlyk/ . He blog is at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/

Bonita Cox Searle is a Hoosier native who strayed outside the border to the UK for a brief five years and returned with a slightly bewildered husband and a toddler with a British accent. She lives in Noblesville, Indiana, where she writes whenever she can’t bear not to. Her poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction has been published by Flying Island and the Polk Street Review.

Blanca Alicia Garza is from Las Vegas, Nevada. She is a nature and animal lover, and enjoys spending time writing. Some of her poems have been published in the Poetry Anthology, "Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze," now available at Amazon.com. Blanca's published work can be viewed at The Poet Community, Whispers in the Wind Blog, The Winamop Journal, Indiana Voice Journal, Tuck Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, as well as Birdsong Anthology 2016, Vol 1.

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught poetry in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines. Currently, she is helping produce a documentary, Strangers to Peace, about the current Colombian peace process (www.strangerstopeace.com). Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind and drinks milk shakes and eats cake whenever possible.

Anoucheka Gangabissoon is from Mauritius, where she is a primary school educator. She says she “writes and publish as hobby and passion.” She has published a collection of poems titled “Awakened Fancies,: and has a nother collection pending with the Ministry of Arts of Mauritius. Her blog is at anoucheka.blogspot.com. She has been published in various literary journals, including SETU, Different Truths, Dissident Voice, and Tuck Magazine. Her works can also be found at poetrysoup.com.

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items,  photos, and memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.

Marcia Conover was born in Indiana, growing up in a small Farming community located in northern Madison County. Since she was a small child, she has had a compassion for animals in need and a love of photography and the outdoors. She wrote short fiction and poetry since high school and has been published in Indiana Voice Journal and several anthologies available on Amazon. She is married with 2 grown children and lives on a small farm where she has owned and operated an in home state licensed child care since 1984.

Lisa Keifer is a budding writer from a rather small town in Indiana. She currently resides in an even smaller town with her husband and precocious son.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian, native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016.

Kathy Jo Carter is a nurse and life resident of Madison County, Indiana. The Arts are a passion, but her biggest passion is her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She is a member of Last Stanza Poets of Elwood, IN, and St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

Mary Winslow studied poetry with Oregon poet John Haislip (a student of Theodore Roethke's). She teaches creative writing and gardening in Lake Oswego and West Linn, Oregon. He poems have been published in several journals, including Avocet, Indefinite Space, The Blue Nib, Switch Poetry Journal, Road Not Taken, and The Antigonish Review. Visit her blog at: http://hellopoetry.com/mary-winslow/

Monique Hayes' poems and short fiction have appeared in Heart: Human Equity Through Art, Prick of the Spindle, District Lines (Politics & Prose), Midway Journal, Touch: the Journal of Healing, The Literary Nest, and Revise the Psalm: Works Celebrating the Writings of Gwendolyn Brooks. She received her MFA from the University of Maryland College Park.

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha is a Nigerian poet/writer/thinker/rhymer. She has been published in journals in the UK, US, Ghana, Liberia, India, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago and Germany among others.

Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer & musician, has published several books
of poetry, a libretto, & a novel, & worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of
mixed ancestry [Irish/Italian/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Qld.,
Australia. Stefanie is currently working on the manuscript ‘Blanks From
The Other World’ (Poems). Her latest poetry title (2015) “The Vanishing”
is published by Walleah Press.

Nicole Surginer, is a poet from the small town of Bastrop,Texas. She is inspired to write through her love for nature's enchantment, a fascination with the power of raw, intense emotion and a desire to create beauty with words. She has been published in Tuck Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Indiana Voice Journal, In Between Hangovers, Your One Phone Call, and several others. Her poems are slated to appear in the anthology "Dandelion in a Vase of Roses" later this year.

Joyce Zephyrin is a member of The Last Stanza Poetry Association and the Poetry Society of Indiana. She has a book of poems, "Shadows on the Land," available on Amazon. She loves art, travel, and music.

Joan Leottahas been playing with words on page and stage since childhood. She's a journalist, novelist, poet and playwright. Her novels feature strong Italian-American women. Joan's poems and picture books celebrate food and family. Her poetry and essays appear in Gnarled Oak, Red Wolf, A Quiet Courage, the A-3 Review, Hobart Literary Review, Silver Birch, Postcard Poems and Prose among others, Her blog, Recipes for Success, is at www.joanleotta.wordpress.com. He Facebook page is: Joan Leotta, Author and Story Performer. Her first poetry chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, is out this year on Finishing Line Press.

Susan Kahil singer/songwriter/poet is originally from the UK but has lived in Southern Spain for the past twelve years in a secluded mountain valley on her olive, orange and avocado farm. Surrounded by nature, lots of animals and wildlife, this is where she draws her inspiration for poetry and original songs. She has been published in several publications including an anthology. Visit her Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/susan.kahil

Olfa Philo is a writer from Tunisia and holds a PhD in American literature. She is an English teacher and an ex-international volleyball player. Her cause as a poet is to voice the buried emotions and phobias of the oppressed and the downtrodden and also to unmask and expose hidden truths socially considered as taboo or shameful. She is a female rebel at heart who wages war against injustice, marginalization, intimidation, objectification, subjugation and violence against the powerless. Her weapons are peaceful, yet bullet-like words. Her poems have appeared in different online and print literary journals in Tunsia, USA, UK, Canada, India, Asia, China, Albania and Serbia. Some of her poems have been translated into Arabic, Serbian, Chinese, Albanian and the Assamese language. She has published so far a play entitled  "Sublime Revenge" and a collection of poetry entitled "(Un)jailed," both available on Amazon.

Tamara Lakomy is an archaeologist, specializing in the occult practices of indigenous people, herself of Berber Amazigh and Slavic descent. She runs a foundation that operates in East Africa, specializing in the cultural preservation of indigenous tribes, women’s rights and education. She also advises foreign governments. She’s a priestess in training having embraced the faith of the Mother Goddess. She is a co-founder and pioneer of Blueprints.org to collaborate on sustainable solutions to troubled regions. She’s also a great animal lover, saving stray and neglected animals in her native country since she was young

Tamsen Grace is a published author and poet, inspirational speaker, martial artist and a cancer survivor. She lives in the Midwest with her three children. She enjoys reading, writing, spending time outdoors and teaching children Martial Arts. Visit her blog at: http://tamsengrace.com/

Vatsala Radhakeesoon is a poet from Mauritius. She is the representative of Immagine and Poesia for Mauritius, She is also a regular contributor to "Different Truths Magazine" and other literary journals and magazines. Her first poetry book When Solitude Speaks was published in 2013 .

Karen Ankers lives in Anglesey, North Wales, where she draws inspiration for her writing from the landscape and Wales’ mythical tradition. As well as writing poetry, she enjoys writing one act plays, in which she tries to give a voice to those usually ignored and unheard. Her plays have been performed in the UK, America and Australia, and she is currently working on a novel.

Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 39 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2016. She is a member of the California Writers Club, Healdsburg Literary Guild. She is an Adjunct Professor at Touro University Vallejo California

Katelin Rice is a middle-school English teacher. Her brand of feminism was reborn with her first child and continues to evolve as she wends her way through the cornfields in her small-town home. When she's not teaching, directing middle school musicals, writing poetry, reading excellent literature, or taking care of her son, she enjoys sporting overalls, cooking, and doing yoga.

Judy Moskowitz started playing piano at the age of three and became a professional jazz musician. She has performed throughout the New York City area and was part of the jazz scene in New York. Judy started writing poetry three years ago and has been published in Indiana Voice Journal, Midnight Dreamers Of The Yellow Haze, The Poet Community.com, Whispers Of The Wind, Leaves Of Ink, and Poetry Life & Times. She currently resides in Boca Raton Florida where she continues to play jazz and write poetry. They live side by side in her veins and soul.

Jan Ball started seriously writing poetry and submitting it for publication in 1998.
Since then, she's had 220 poems accepted or published in the U.S., Canada,
India and England. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Calyx, Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, Nimrod, Phoebe and many other journals. She has two chapbooks, Accompanying
Spouse (2011) and Chapter of Faults (2014),  published by Finishing Line Press and available on Amazon. She is a member of The Poetry Club of Chicago. She is a former Franciscan nun and is married with two children.

Fizza Abbas is a struggling writer and poet from Pakistan, who loves to explore the world with visionary eyes. Her work has been published in many online publications, including Best New Poems, The Legendary, Eye On Life, Express Tribune, Poetry Pacific, Health TV, and many others.
Read some of her work at https://newlondonwriters.com/tag/fizza-abbas/

Editor and English professor emerita Ellae Lawton has been a feminist since she discovered Queen Elizabeth I at age six but has considered motherhood her greatest privilege for nearly half a century. Born a Hoosier, she now lives near her daughter in southeastern North Carolina. Some of her work has appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Referential, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, and When Women Waken.

Doni York is a graduate student and teaching assistant at Indiana State University where she is majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. She currently acts as Vice President of her college's Creative Writing Society and is also a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honor Society. After graduation she plans on pursuing a career that allows her to write and work with books.

Daginne Aignend is a pseudonym for the Dutch poetess Inge Wesdijk. She started to write English poetry four years ago and posted some of her poems on her Facebook page and on her website.
She likes hardrock music, photography and fantasy books. Daginne is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals.

Carol Ann Moon is a library professor at Saint Leo University and an MFA candidate at Stetson University. Her slice-of-life poetry often features the wonderful and indomitable women in her family.


Jo Barbara Taylor lives near Raleigh, NC. Her poems have appeared in journals, anthologies and online; she leads poetry writing workshops through Duke Continuing Education, chairs the workshop committee for the North Carolina Poetry Society, and coordinates the poetry reading series for Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. Of five poetry books, the most recent is How to Come and Go, published by Chatter House Press, 2016.

Angel Edwards can be found here:  http://www.reverbnation.com/angeledwards


CHARLENE M BROWN FINE ART
Original Drawings & Oil Paintings


“I’m an artist because I’m greedy for life; I want to capture and preserve the significant moments that move me. When I draw or paint, I like to work from what I see. My desire is to discover and share the essence of what it is about a person, place, or thing that arrests my attention. It’s a great mystery how to do this using mere pigment on a flat surface.” 


I have a Ph.D. in creative writing from The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and am an English Professor and Director of the Graduate Program at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For my fiction, I have received a Ragdale residency, and was a recent finalist for Glimmer Train’s Family Matters Short Story prize, the Snake Nation Press’s Serena McDonald Kennedy Award for a short-story collection, the John Gardner Memorial Fiction Prize, the Cincinnati Review’s Schiff Prose Prize, and the Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize. My work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and has been published in journals such as Calyx, Tampa Review, Natural Bridge, The Laurel Review, Cimarron Review, Bluestem, Milwaukee Magazine, Phoebe, RE:AL, The Southern Women’s Review, Knee-Jerk, Literary Orphans, Circa Review, and elsewhere. My novel, Shame the Devil (SUNY Press), about nineteenth-century American journalist and novelist Fanny Fern, was named a finalist for Foreword Reviews 2011 Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction.
www.debrabrenegan.com


Sneha Subramanian Kanta believes all writing is a form of dissent. Her work has forthcoming in Fallujah Magazine, 7X20 mag, In Between Hangovers Magazine, Sahitya Akademi, Noble/ Gas Qtrly, Epigraph Magazine and the print anthology of Peacock Journal. Her work has been published in poetry anthologies such as Dance of the Peacock (Hidden Brook Press, Canada), Suvarnarekha (The Poetry Society of India, India) and elsewhere.

Janice E. Rodríguez inhabits two realities—the rolling hills and broad valleys of her native eastern Pennsylvania, and the high, arid plains of her adopted land of Castilla-León in Spain. She currently teaches Spanish at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. When she’s not teaching, writing, or gardening, she’s in the kitchen working her way through a stack of cookbooks. She can be found online at janiceerodriguez.com


BonnaSue has retired to Southern California to resume writing a historical fiction book based on family history. This is her first  novel. All previous writing has been academic. She became interested in this part of her family story because they were slave owners and Loyalists in the Revolutionary War. Embarrassed by the racism inherent in owning other people and troubled by the legacy as "enemies" of our country, she immersed herself in research. She balances the story with slave and Scots-Irish dialects. She draws her characters' shadow sides into the story while offering redemptive qualities. BonnaSue is supported in her writing by a weekly writer' group, comrade writer and as her two cats.

Diane lives in the lush desert foothills just beyond the Phoenix metropolis.  Her stories have appeared in Indiana Voice Journal, The Flash Fiction Press, Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul. She's into energy healing and biophotons - that light coming out of your hands. (Her daughter is a music therapist.) Check out Diane's blog at joystreamhealth.wordpress.com  

I live with my children and crazy dogs in Middletown, Kentucky, a stone's throw from the beautiful horse farms Kentucky is always bragging about. During my career in education, I served as middle school principal in one of the largest school districts in the US; I share many skills with cat-herders. I love to read, write, cook, and sit in the sand watching the waves when I can. My poems and stories have appeared in several journals and anthologies.

Eleanor Scott Meyers lives in Claremont, California where in her retirement she writes, paints and teaches watercolor and oil painting classes.  She has just completed her first novel.  Writing fictionalized accounts based on characters from her extended Midwestern family, Eleanor enjoys putting stories together that highlight real people living everyday lives that challenge old stereotypes.

I was born and grew up in the East Midlands in England and now live in South Wales.
I've written for pretty much all this time and has had a few short scripts performed at venues around Cardiff. I completed an MA in Scriptwriting, but have recently returned to prose, where it all started.
Short scripts tend to take a light entertainment/ reality TV format, give it a twist and watch it go bad, as in "A Magpie's Nest". I also love a ghost story. My wordpress site is: https://jenniferholdich.wordpress.com

Cecilia Soprano lives in Westchester County and makes her living as an organic gardener and artist. Her poems and artwork have been published in La Joie magazine and UC at Santa Barbara among others.  Her artwork is often featured on the covers of Inner Directions magazine. She is a member of the Greenwich Art Society and the Katonah Museum Art Association. She has published three small books and has had several one woman art exhibits.  Her love of nature and gardening provides the space for uninterrupted inspiration.  Her intention is to make images and words that describe beauty and uplift the human spirit.   My art is about making the simple sacred and the ordinary extra-ordinary.

"The reason why we exist is to remember why we exist and to realize our interconnectedness with all things."    WEBSITE:  www.Amichiart.com or CeciliaSoprano.com

Carol Smallwood's most recent books include Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University Press, 2014); Divining the Prime Meridian (WordTech Communications, 2015); and Writing After Retirement(Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Interweavings: Creative Nonfiction has garnered wide acclaim.  Carol has founded, supports humane societies. https://www.prlog.org/12616387-this-collection-of-short-essays-will-make-you-rethink-lifes-ordinary-moments.html

Ayesha Adam is a South African visual artist. Her paintings and her text reflect the deep love she has for her country. Many of her pieces are inspired by the socio political condition in South Africa during the 80's and the 90's.You can see more of her work here:
Ayesha Adam/South African Visual Artist


Lynda McKinney Lambert, a retired professor of fine arts and humanities, taught at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. She authored the book, “Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage,” by Kota Press. It features poetry and creative non-fiction essays she wrote during her summers while living in Salzburg, Austria where she taught for many years. Lambert also created and taught an annual course each spring in Puerto Rico as part of an inter-disciplinary course with colleagues from Geneva College.


Amy Bee regularly writes for the Sacramento News & Review and her work has appeared in NANO Fiction and Manifest Station. When she isn’t writing, Amy likes to backpack long distances and marinate in her constantly nagging existential worries. Find her worries at www.lionbythetail.com and her backpacking adventures at www.mountainsforbreakfast.com

Diane Quick-Machaby is a native Floridian living her entire life in North and Central Florida.  She has two grown daughters and has lived in the Jacksonville area for over 28 years.
After being a Stay-At-Home Mom, Room Mom, PTA Mom and Community Activist, Diane began her career working with nonprofits in Northeast Florida.  Since the early 1990’s, she worked for the City of Jacksonville’s Keep Jacksonville Beautiful Programs, Habitat for Humanity in Jacksonville and St. Augustine, and Home Again St. Johns, an agency that works directly with the homeless of St. Johns County.
In 2015, Diane joined her husband to start their own business, Art 4 Charities, which partners with nonprofits in their fundraising efforts.

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.

Toti O’Brien’s work has most recently appeared in Rooted, Wordland, Pilcrow&Dagger, and Bindweed Magazine. More about her can be found at totihan.net/writer.html   


Stacy E. Holden is an Associate Professor of History at Purdue University in Lafayette, IN.  Her research and teaching focus on the modern Middle East and North Africa as well as American engagement with these regions.  To understand how Americans have imagined the Arab world, both in the past and the present, Dr. Holden is now traveling in the footsteps of Edith Wharton, who visited Morocco in 1917 as a guest of French colonial authorities.  You can learn more about Dr. Holden at https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/history/directory/index.aspx?p=Stacy_Holden, and her email is sholden@purdue.edu.   

Kate M Carey writes about people and the crazy and chaotic, painful and prideful, wild and wonderful things they do for love. She is married to an Episcopal priest, has children living in Ohio and Florida. Carey lives in Lexington, North Carolina, and prays every night that the owl in her neighborhood eats the snakes in her backyard.

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