Michael Buckley’sfiction has appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2003, The Southern California Review, and numerous times in The Alaska Quarterly Review. His poetry was recently anthologized in In the Shadow of the City of the Angels, and his collection of short stories, Minature Men, is out from World Parade Press (2011). He is co-founder and editor of Transcurrent literary journal, and an instructor at UCLA extension.
Out of the thousands of images he has made, a. paul cartier selects the few that stick with him, the ones he thinks others should see. In a world now saturated, no, besotted, with images, it is not easy to find ones that hold the attention for longer than two seconds. He hopes his images will last with his viewers, and that his viewers will see the world differently through them.
Tobi Cogswell is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Publication credits include Willow Review, Rhino, Spilt Milk (UK), Frostwriting (Sweden), Penumbra, Spoon River Poetry Review, Illya’s Honey and Blue Earth Review, Rhino, Slab, and Decanto (UK), and are forthcoming in Iodine Journal, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Slipstream, and Turbulence (UK). Her full-length poetry collection Poste Restante is available from Bellowing Ark Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review. <www.sprreview.com>
Manuel Cautle is the author of Delirios de un poeta nocturno, Cuerpos nómadas, and Emulación de la tierra. He lives in Mexico City with his wife and their two children. A translation of a poem has appeared in Common Ground Review.
Susan Hansell taught in the MFA program at Brooklyn College. Her plays have been published in such places as The Best American Short Plays (Applause) and More Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann). Her most noted productions include Affair on the Air, American Rose, and Rollover Othello (all in NYC), and My Medea.
Eileen Aronson Ireland was born 1930 in Brooklyn N.Y. and she was graduated from Brooklyn College in 1954. She wrote in high school and through the early1970's. She was a colleague of the Venice (California) Beat poets of the1960's, and she was active in the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and the Women's Movement. After twenty-eight years as a California State civil servant, she retired in 1994 to Las Vegas, New Mexico. In 2010, the poet and scholar Bill Mohr heard her poems at the Larry Lipton Archive at UCLA, then searched for and found her, becoming her inspiration to begin revising old poems, and also to write a few new ones for the first time in thirty-five years.
Toshiya Kamei is the translator of Liliana Blum’s Curse of Eve and Other Stories (2008), Naoko Awa’s Fox’s Window and Other Stories (2010), and Espido Freire’s Irlanda (forthcoming).
Werner A. Low’s poems and short stories have appeared in Bateau, Falling Fountain, The Journal (of Ohio State University), Lily Literary Review, The Literary Review (of Trinity College, Hartford), The Pedestal Magazine, Slow Trains, The Square Table, Taj Mahal Review, Terrain, and Void Magazine, among other places. A novel, The Prophet of Essaouira, is looking for an agent, a publisher, or friendly readers. For more, visit <WALow3@gmail.com>.
Lisa Manning has been writing poems, fiction and essays for about forty years now, because she can’t help it. Her work has been appearing in a variety of journals, magazines, and anthologies for most of the past thirty years. She has published three books of poetry, and has recently completed a novel that needs publishing. She lives in Oakland, California.
Denny E. Marshall lives in the midwest and has had poetry and artwork published recently. And example of this is the cover for the August 2011 issue of Scifaikuest. He began writing fiction this year and his first submitted story has been accepted for publication.
Phyllis Mass is a freelance writer and editor who leads private writing workshops. She teaches Write Now! a mindfulness writing workshop at Temple University’s Adult Education Institute and is co-facilitator of the mixed genre writing workshop at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent fiction, poetry, and opinion pieces appear in a variety of on-line and print publications, and she was one of the nineteen essay finalists in Philadelphia’s 2006 citywide Autobiographical Project to mark the tercentenary of Benjamin Franklin’s birthday.
Rodney Nelson's poems began appearing in mainstream journals long ago; but he turned to fiction and did not write a poem for twenty-two years, restarting in the 2000s. See his page in the Poets & Writers Directory: <http://www.pw.org/content/rodney_nelson>. He worked as a book and copy editor in the Southwest and now lives in his native northern Great Plains.
Carl Palmer, president of the Tacoma Writers Club, nominee for three Pushcart Prizes and the Micro Award, from Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, Virginia, now lives in University Place, Washington.
Dan Pearlman’s fiction has appeared in magazines such as The Florida Review, Spectrum, New England Review, Quarterly West, The MacGuffin, and anthologies such as Semiotext(e), Synergy, Simulations, The Year’s Best Fantastic Fiction (1996), Going Postal (1998), Imaginings (Pocket Books, 2003), and XX Eccentric (MSR Pub. Co., 2009). His books of fiction to date are The Final Dream & Other Fictions (Permeable Press, 1995); a novel, Black Flames (White Pine Press, 1997); a second collection, The Best-Known Man in the World & Other Misfits (Aardwolf Press, 2001); and a second novel, Memini (Prime Books, 2003). Recently published are: Brain & Breakfast, a paperback novella (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2011) and a new collection, A Giant in the House & Other Excesses, (The Merry Blacksmith Press, October 2011). Find more at <ddpearlman.com>.
Jonathan Rapp lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
John G. Rodwan, Jr., is the author of Fighters & Writers (Mongrel Empire Press, 2010), a collection of essays on boxing and literature combining literary criticism, journalism, and memoir. One selection in Fighters & Writers was named a Notable Essay of 2009 by The Best American Essays and another was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His writing has been published by The American Interest, The Mailer Review, The Oregonian, Palimpsest, Blood & Thunder, Philip Roth Studies, The Nevada Review, Fight News, The Brooklyn Rail, Free Inquiry, and The Humanist, among many other publications. He currently resides in Detroit. <rodwanwrites.wordpress.com>.
Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island. He has published fourteen books — ten short story collections, two novels, two poetry collections — and five chapbooks, the most recent ones being Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2009), A Fanciful Geography (Poetry Chapbook, erbacce-press, 2010), and A Glass Shard and Memory (Stories, Recliner Books, 2010).
Nathan E. White is a writer and musician living in the Los Angeles area. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such publications as the Tulane Review, Bellingham Review, REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, South Dakota Review, and Redactions: Poetry & Poetics.
Jennifer Woo is an artist living in Torrance, California. She is a studio art major concentrating on photography and drawing. A licensed bartender, she can usually be found around the city rocking out to her own internal playlist. This is her forth publication with SpotLit.
Christopher Woods is the author of a prose collection, Under a Riverbed Sky, and a collection of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. He lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas. He is also a photographer, and shares a gallery with his wife Linda at Moonbird Hill Arts: <www.moonbirdhill.exposuremanager.com>.
Order of Contents:
Christopher Woods “Rooftops in Moonlight” (photo)
Manuel Cautle “Untitled” (poem, trans. Toshiya Kamei)
Carl Palmer “waiting” (poem)
Nathan E. White “Brief Notices for the Agony Column”
(poem)
Rodney Nelson “Not an Elegy” (poem)
Daniel Pearlman “Standing Firm” (story)
Jennifer Woo “I Only Have Eyes for You” (multi-media)
Lisa Manning “Grilled Cheese on White Bread” (poem)
Tobi Cogswell “Humidity” (poem)
Eileen Aronson Ireland “The Fall of Paris” (poem)
J. J. Steinfeld “Anniversary Party, November 9, 2010, at
a Luxurious Downtown Hotel” (poem)
John G. Rodwan, Jr. “Playlist Directives” (poem)
Tobi Cogswell “Erected by James MacDonald, Loving
Husband” (poem)
Werner A. Low “The Same Leaf” (story)
Lisa Manning “Lavelle and Iris Almost Burn Up” (story)
Denny E. Marshall “Twenty” (drawing)
Michael Buckley “Pristine” (story)
Jennifer Woo “A Candy Coated Sky” (photo)
Phyllis Mass “Finally Did It” (story)
Jonathan Rapp “Excursion Mountain” (poem)
Eileen Aronson Ireland “Grandma” (poem)
Manuel Cautle “Untitled” (poem, trans. Toshiya Kamei)
Christopher Woods “If Wishes Were Horses” (photo)
Lisa Manning “Any Hint of Tomorrow”
(prose poem series)
Denny E. Marshall “The Secret Shortcut” (drawing)
Michael Buckley “Pirates” (story)
a. paul cartier “22nd” (photo)
Jonathan Rapp “Corso Vittorio Emanuele” (poem)
PLEASE NOTE: Due to website formatting considerations and the organizational limitations of the internet as a medium, the hardcopy versions of SLM issues vary significantly from the website versions. Works on the website are organized by genre; hardcopy contents, on the other hand, are organized by a sensibility set down by the editor and cannot be approximated here. In addition, each hardcopy issue contains several visual art pieces per issue which cannot be displayed here. Moreover, the hardcopy issues present the textual pieces in the exact form that the authors intended: Some web browsers distort the formatting of complex or intricate texts, so not all pieces that exist in the issue's hardcopy version can be represented 100% accurately; therefore, at any author's specific request, some included works do not appear on the site at all. The hardcopy issue of SLM is the only definitive representation of the magazine, and 5.2 will be available in November of 2011.
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