February 24, 2019

Artwork by Janine Pickett


Indiana Voice Journal is now closed. It has been an honor to work with all of you to help promote the literary arts throughout the world for the past four years. Thank you for all your support. It has truly been a pleasure getting to know all of you! Please enjoy our final issue, and feel free to browse some of our past issues at your convenience. ~Janine Pickett, Founding Editor

~In this Issue~

POETRY



CREATIVE NONFICTION/ESSAY



FICTION




Andrew Hubbard recently moved back to Indiana after ten years in Houston, Texas. He has had five books published, including, most recently, his first book of poetry, "Things That Get You," which was produced by Interactive Press. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2015. His new book, The Divining Rod, is available at: http://ipoz.biz/portfolio-single/the-divining-rod/


Marc Livanos lives in Florida and has had poetry published in Straylight Magazine, POEM, Sheepshead Review, Glass Mountain’s Shards, Old Red Kimono, Ship of Fools, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Song of the San Joaquin Quarterly, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and other journals.

A northern Los Angeles County denizen, Chuck Von Nordheim lives where the land shifts from chaparral to desert. An Honorable discharge recipient, he marches with Iraq Veterans Against the War. A Grateful Dead devotee, he endorses the healing power of tie-dye. An MFA graduate, his work appears in Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors Volume 5, Hapax Literary Review, and Cacti Fur.

A current independent filmmaker and former illustrator, Derek Quint began creating at an early age and hasn't stopped since. He is busy working on a number of different endeavors (more than he probably should be) and is based in Chicago.


Duane Vorhees was born in Germantown, Ohio, near the Indiana border. He moved to nearby Farmersville when he was 10 and spent his adolescence there -- or, rather, his adolescence spent him! After high school he briefly attended "The" Ohio State University before graduating from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio with a degree in American Studies. And then, predictably enough, he left Ohio for good (or bad, of course, depending on one's preference). He has spent most of his life abroad, mainly teaching in Korea and Japan for the marvelously redundantly named University of Maryland University College. Now he is happily retired in Khon Kaen, Thailand, where he publishes a daily creative arts magazine, duanespoetree.blogspot.com.

George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Belvidere, IL. His poetry has recently appeared in 'Carcinogenic Poetry'; 'The Tipton Poetry Review'; 'The Adelaide Review'; and 'Big Windows Review'. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc.; Lazy Bee Scripts; and Off The Wall Plays.

The poems here were inspired by classical Chinese poets.

Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on Pandora and Spotify, or by connecting with him at www.facebook.com/jon.bennett.967. He's been published in numerous journals including Duane's PoeTree and Indiana Voice Journal.

James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Rattle, Hobart, FLAPPERHOUSE, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle from Columbus, Ohio. Find him at jimjakk.com and @jimjakk.

Joseph Buehler has published poetry in ArLiJo, Nine Mile Magazine, H.C.E. Review in Dublin, Ireland, Sentinel Literary Quarterly in London, U.K., Futures Trading, Green Hills Literary Lantern and other literary magazines. He was a finalist for the Adelaide Voices Literary Award in February 2018. He resides in Georgia with his wife Trish.

Karen Ankers is a poet, playwright and novelist, who lives in Anglesey, an island in Wales, Great Britain. Her poetry collection, One Word At A Time, described by poet/performer Laura Taylor as “a collection that shines with honesty and integrity”, was published last year. Her one-act plays have been performed in the UK, America, Australia and Malaysia. Her first novel, The Crossing Place, published in January 2018 by Stepping Stones Publishing, is currently being described as “gripping”, “compelling”, “captivating” and “brilliant”.

Kevin R. Farrell, Jr is an artist, poet, and educator whose works attempt to capture life from the vantage point of someone in the backseat of a stolen car running on fumes. His poems are a play on words in the form of political, satirical, surrealist, tongue in cheek rants that often border on stream of consciousness ramblings that are a last ditch effort at taking it all in before we get taken out. For more information regarding Kevin's work please contact:http://kfarrelljrart.wixsite.com/kfarrelljrart.

Marianne Lyon has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in publications in 36 countries and edits and publishes 10 different poetry sites. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net.  Watch his poetry videos on YouTube at:https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. He is the Editor-in-chief of the anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze" and "Dandelion in a Vase of Roses" which are available on Amazon.

Neil Ellman is a poet from New Jersey. He has published more than 1,500 poems, most of which are based on modern art, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net.attached poems for  Each of these ekphrastic poems are written in response to a work of contemporary Japanese art.

Sarah M. Prindle received an Associate's Degree in English two years ago. Since then She's been working on getting short stories and poems accepted. She has been published in several magazines, including "Better than Starbucks Magazine", "Poetry Quarterly", and "Pale Ghosts Magazine". 

Ted Mc Carthy is a poet and translator living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, "November Wedding", and "Beverly Downs".
His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com

Joan Leotta is a poet, playwright, author and story performer who lives in Calabash , NC. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry and Prose Postcards, North Carolina's Pinesong, Whispers, Visual Verse, and the Ekphrastic review. Her newest blog entries reveal what editors of short story magazines want writers to know at www.joanleotta.wordpress.com. Her chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, was described in the December 2017 issue of Indiana Voice Journal.

Joyce Zephyrin is a member of The Last Stanza Poetry Association, the Poetry Society of Indiana, and AFSPS. She is a Hoosier poet, published in Hanover College’s "Hill Thoughts" and the Indiana Voice Journal. Her book of poems, "Shadows on the Land," is available on Amazon. Joyce has worked for many years in libraries, has been a newspaper correspondent, and has also written magazine articles on life in Indiana.

I am an Episcopal priest and author of the recent "Speaking Our Faith:Equipping the Next Generations to Tell the Old, Old Story" (Church Publishing 2018). I have been published recently in Anglican Theological Review and Section 8 Magazine. I recently attended the Kenyon Writers' Workshop, studying under Afaa M. Weaver.

A socially-conscious writer from Indianapolis, Tylyn K. Johnson has published a short story in Severance Publications' “Depravity” anthology, and other works of prose and poetry in "Reverberations," a Shortridge High School literary journal sponsored by Butler University. He has also had a winning essay published by the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy, and other essays published by the NUHA Foundation.

Sheehan, in his 91st year, has published 36 books and multiple works in Rosebud, Literally Stories, Linnet’s Wings,Serving House Journal, Copperfield Review, Literary Orphans, Eastlit, Frontier Tales, Western Online, Literary Yard, Rope & Wire Western Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, Green Silk Journal, Faith-Hope-and-Fiction, etc. He has received 33 Pushcart nominations and 5 Best of Net nominations with one winner, and other awards. Newest books are Beside the Broken Trail, Between Mountain and River and Catch a Wagon to the Stars with 4 in publishers’ queues, including Jock Poems for Proper Bostonians and Alone with the Good Graces and The Keating Script. He served in the 31st Infantry in Korea 1951-52, and graduated from Boston College 1956. His most recent reading was about the First Iron Works in America for The Saugus Historical Society. He has read for 17 years at Out Loud Open Mic in Melrose, MA.

Gary Roberts is originally from Michigan but is now living in Buellton California. He has been writing off and on since he was seventeen. He has had short stories published in The Lutheren Journal, and Indiana Voice Journal.



Phillip Brown is a frequent contributor to Indiana Voice Journal.

Artist Statement:

“My work focuses on research and documentation of the world of hip hop. This philosophy of life now is no longer relegated to just u.s.a. boundaries, but rather it can be found at any latitude.

I use as a support of my new works the concrete, as I find it is the link between my project and hip hop. concrete as the Internet has cleared all geographical boundaries, it's a material created by the ancient Romans, but today it's modernity and contemporarity indicator.”

July 6, 2018

"Sundog-Guardian of the Sun" Acrylic on Canvas/IVJ

Evening Sun
Orb suspended low to westward,
Glowing with a rosy blush
Like a ripened pomegranate
Drooping languid, large, and lush –
Noontide’s blinding glare has dwindled;
Now I look you in the eye.
Back you gaze, no longer blazing,
Stoically resigned to die;
Sinking through the purple heavens
Where magenta cloudscapes swell;
Smiling on the weary millions,
Calmly bidding them farewell.
Do not go! Your scarlet embers
Cast the light that comforts most,
Solace that your presence lingers
Still, so shortly to be lost.
©Adam Sedia

In This Issue: 
A mother ponders the best way to help her son through addiction. A couple contemplates a mattress found leaning against a tree. A man ensures his daughter's wedding will happen without a hitch. A doctor asks his patient, "How are you still alive?"  What do all these people have in common? They are just a few of the characters residing in the pages of this issue of IVJ. I hope you enjoy the read! ~Janine Pickett



POETRY


CREATIVE NONFICTION/ESSAYS


An Essay by Christopher Woods: "Passage"
An Essay by Allison Staley: "On Insecurity"
An Essay by Angel Grubbs: "What Kind of Freak am I?"
An Essay by Charles E.J. Moulton: "One Day, Rock will be Classical Music"
A Memoir by Barbara McLaughlin: "Boylston Street"


FICTION

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has been publishing his poetry over thirty years. He is a senior academic in India's Indira Gandhi National Open University.


Donna Monday, a native of Greenfield, IN, is a Hanover College graduate, a former teacher, a former newspaper editor, and a retired car salesperson. In 2017 she helped create the first ever “Step-on-Us Sidewalk Poetry Contest” in Zionsville. She is the mother of two and grandmother of six and, in addition to writing poetry, occasionally pens a column for the Zionsville Current. She is a past recipient of the prestigious “Town Crier Award,” presented by the Greater Zionsville Chamber of Commerce. She is the author of Dancing in the Alley, and was published in Diamonds, an anthology of the Poetry Society of Indiana. She took second place in the Riley Days Festival Spoken Poetry Contest in Greenfield.

S. Liam Spradlin writes poetry and fiction. His love for poetry has found a resurgence and he began writing poetry again in the recent months. His works have appeared in Sequoya Review, The Scarlet Leaf Review, Weasel Press, Dissident Voice, and Tuck magazine. He lives in Tennessee.

Sunil Sharma is Mumbai, India, based critic, literary editor and author with 19 published books, including six collections of poetry. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award for 2012. His poems have been published in the UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry. He edits the English section of the monthly bilingual journal Setu, published from Pittsburgh. Visit his webpage at http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html or his blog at
http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/.

Janice Canerdy is a retired high-school English teacher from Potts Camp, Mississippi. She says she has been writing poems for decades and especially enjoys writing rhymed, metered poems. Her poems and stories have appeared in several magazines and journals, including Indiana Voice Journal,
 and others.  She has been published in anthologies including those published by the Mississippi Poetry Society, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Whispering Angel Books, and Quill Books. My first book, Expressions of Faith (Christian Faith Publishing), was published in December 2016.

Gale Acuff has been published Ascent, McNeese Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Weber, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Poem, Carolina Quarterly, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Orbis, and other journals. He has three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

Dah’s sixth poetry collection is The Opening (CTU Publishing Group, 2018)
and his poems have been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Canada,
Singapore, Spain, Australia, Africa, Poland, Philippines, and India. Dah lives in Berkeley,
California and is working on the manuscript for his ninth poetry book. He is a Pushcart
Prize nominee and the lead editor of The Lounge, poetry critique group. He has two books of poetry scheduled to be published later this year.  His blog is at www.dahlusion.wordpress.com

Isabel Chenot says she has been "helplessly writing poems and stories since she could form letters and staple pages together into homemade books." She will soon have poems published in Assisi Magazine. Her website is at unevenlines.net.

Sue Ann Kautz Owens was born in Indiana and graduated from Indiana State University. She now lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband and son. She is a published novelist and published poet.

Steve Denehan lives in Kildare, Ireland with his wife Eimear and daughter Robin. He has been published in The First Literary Review, Better Than Starbucks, The Opiate, Sky Island Journal and many others. His poems are to be published in upcoming issues of Evening Street Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Folded Word, Ink In Thirds, Fowl Feathered Review,Third Wednesday and as a "microchapbook" as part of the Origami Poems Project."

Nels Hanson grew up on a small farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations.

Joseph S. Pete is an award-winning journalist, an Iraq War veteran, an Indiana University graduate, a book reviewer, a photographer, and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. He is a 2017 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee who was named the poet laureate of Chicago BaconFest.
His literary or photographic work has appeared in more than 100 journals, including Indiana Voice Journal, Punchnel's, Flying Island, Dogzplot, Proximity Magazine, Stoneboat, The High Window, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Steep Street Journal, Beautiful Losers, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Euphemism, and elsewhere. 

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), will be out mid-2018. The Yellow Dot of a Daisy is already out on Alien Buddha Press.

Hiromi Yoshida has been described as one of Bloomington's "finest and most outspoken poets" by Tony Brewer, Chair of the Writers Guild at Bloomington. Winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards, her poems have been published in Flying Island, "he Asian American Literary Review, Plath Profiles, Evergreen Review, Bathtub Gin, and The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society.

Fabrice B. Poussin lives in Rome, Georgia, where he teaches teachers at Shorter Univerity. He is the advisor for The Chimes, the univeristy's award-winning poetry and arts publication. His writing and photography have been published in print, including Kestrel, Symposium, La Pensee Universelle of Paris, and more than 350 other art and literature magazines in the United States and abroad.


A Poem by Phillip Brown: "I Bumped Into You'

Bruce Mundhenke has worked a laborer and a registered nurse. He writes poetry in Illinois, where he lives with his wife and their dog and cat. He finds in nature beauty, inspiration, and revelation. He has published fiction and poetry in the U.S. and the UK.

Adam J. Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Lake County, Indiana, with his wife, Ivana, and their son. He practices law as a civil and appellate litigator, and in 2017 served as president of the Lake County Bar Association. His poems have appeared in Indiana Voice Journal and other publications, and he has published two books of poetry, The Spring's Autumn and Inquietude, both available on Amazon.com. He also composes music, which may be heard on his YouTube channel.

Ann Christine Tabaka placed Third in Vita Brevis Best Poem Contest both January & February 2018. Her Interview in Spillwords was voted Publication for the Month for March 2018. and she was selected as Poet of the Month for January 2018 and interviewed by Kingdoms in the Wild. She lives with her husband and two cats in Delaware and loves gardening and cooking. Her most recent credits include poems in Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, Oddball Magazine, and The Paragon Journal, among others. She was a nominee for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry.

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas. He is the author of a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a collection of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. Gallery - http://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/

I grew up in Tipp City, OH and was raised in a Christian home with my older sister and younger brother. I graduated from Tippecanoe High School in 2014, and am currently a Middle Childhood Education major at Cedarville University. I look forward to completing my degree soon with my student teaching in Mexico this fall. I enjoy dancing, hiking, and traveling to new places and cultures. One of my joys is being involved with youth ministry and mentoring young students.


Angel Grubbs resides in the Midwest with her new husband Philip. Together, with their Blue Honda CRV, they embark on philosophical adventures traced through their favorite avenues: Tarbox Cemetery, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and CookOut. Her poetry has appeared in her university’s undergraduate journal Cedarville Review.

CHARLES E.J. MOULTON has been a stage performer since age eleven. His trilingual, artistic upbringing, as the son of Gun Kronzell and Herbert Moulton, lead to a hundred stage productions, countless cross-over concerts, work as a bandleader and as an acting teacher. He is a regular contributor for Idea Gems, has written for Shadows Express, Cover of Darkness, Vocal Images and Pill Hill Press. He is a tourguide, a big-band-vocalist, a filmmaker, a painter, a voice-over-speaker, a translator, is married and has a daughter. Charles E.J. Moulton's passion is creative versatility. His short story collection, Aphrodite's Curse: 21 Tales of Love and Terror can be purchased by clicking the link. Homepages:http://www.reverbnation.com/charlesejmoulton/

http://moultoniancreativity.weebly.com

I am pursuing my masters in Professional Creative writing from the University of Denver and have spent more than thirty years in Indianapolis. I have a children's book published, entitled Reuben Rides the Rails, a Christamore House Guild selected book in 2010. It tells the story of the Reuben Wells Steam Engine housed in the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Likewise, I worked with the Indiana Writers Center on two anthologies: Where Mercy and Truth Meet: Homeless Women of Wheeler Speak; and Finding the Words, stories of war by female veterans. Prior to writing fiction, I traveled the world as a journalist and media relations specialist for U.S. Diving in Indianapolis.

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