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The Avalon Literary Review
Contributors Winter 2024
Rick Blum has been chronicling life’s vagaries through poetry and essays for more than 30 years during stints as a nightclub owner, high-tech manager, market research mogul, and, most recently, old geezer. His writings have appeared in more than 50 print magazines, literary journals, and poetry anthologies, as well as in numerous online publications. He is also a frequent contributor to the Humor Times.
Kathryn Brown Ramsperger is a lifelong award-winning fiction writer, who won her first fiction award at 16. She’s worked for Nat Geo and the International Red Cross. Her latest novel A Thousand Flying Things is shortlisted for Chanticleer’s Hemingway Award, recipient of The Royal Dragonfly’s First Place in Fiction, and the Pulpwood Queen’s International Book of the Year. Kirkus calls the novel “vivid…moving…an exceedingly thoughtful reflection.” She’s lived and worked worldwide and now lives with her husband in the DC suburbs. Kathrynbrownramsperger.com
David Cameron catches stories and poems from scraps of conversations and dreams half-remembered. After a career as a Presbyterian minister, he is happy to write and explore the trails and waterfalls in Western NC where he lives with his spouse and son.
Frank Castelluccio recently returned to writing after a twenty-five-year life detour. His short story, Hollywood Endings was published last year in Made in LA Writer’s annual anthology and was also recently published in RFD Magazine. Frank lives in Brooklyn, New York with his husband of 30 years.
Holly Day’s poetry has appeared in over 4,000 publications internationally and she is the co-author of the books, Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently works as an instructor at The Richard Hugo Center in Seattle and at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
Drea Edwards is a writer, business/life coach, and native New Englander whose cross-genre work is influenced by the magic of nature, our shared human experience, and her Buddhist practice. In keeping with her deep belief that it’s never too late to begin again, Drea earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University at age 57. You can learn more about her writing projects at https://www.dreaedwards.com/ and at https://substack.com/@dreaedwards where she publishes a periodic newsletter, As Long As We’re Breathing…
Paul Facinelli is a retired journalist/math teacher living in Avon, Ohio with his cat, Ophelia. The Hankie is his first publication.
Joe Flood is from the Blue Mountains, Australia.
Anne Garwig is from Ohio.
Kathleen Glassburn is a fiction writer and an editor. Her website, with examples of her work, is: www.kathleenglassburn.com
Tiffany Graham Charkosky serves as Cleveland Public Library's Director of Arts and Culture and lives in Northeast Ohio with her family. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Gordon Square Review, and Mutha Magazine and can be found at www.tiffanygrahamcharkosky.com. She is working on a novel.
Rachel Guvenc is an emerging writer and MFA candidate at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is published in Third Wednesday Magazine, and is an editor for Water~Stone Review. She is also an educator, parent, and yoga instructor.
Michelle Hartman is the author of four poetry books, four chapbooks, the most recent a winner of the John and Miriam Morris Memorial Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in Crannog, Galway Review, The Atlanta Review, Penumbra, Poem, Southwestern American Review, Carve and many more. She is the former editor of Red River Review, as well as the owner of Hungry Buzzard Press.
Jay Jolles is from Virginia.
Mark Keane has taught for many years in universities in North America and the UK. Recent short fiction has appeared in Bards and Sages Quarterly, Cape Magazine, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Seppuku, Shooter, untethered, Night Picnic, upstreet, Granfalloon, Liquid Imagination, Into the Void, Firewords, and Dog and Vile Short Fiction. He lives in Edinburgh (Scotland).
Tim McDonald is from Washington state.
Karen Paley, a former English professor, is now a Financial Advisor. Small Talk is part of her memoir which includes essays on surviving a Communist cult in the 60s, losing a sister to nicotine, the impact of letters from the old country and brain surgery. She is the author of I-Writing (So. Illinois UP). Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Stirring Nonfiction, Boston Woman, Ladies Home Journal, Mothering, Writing on the Edge, and The Yale Journal of Humanities and Medicine.
Adina Polatsek is a writer from Houston, Texas. She has poetry and fiction published or forthcoming with Apricity Magazine, Verklempt!, Soundings East Magazine, Welter, Barzakh Magazine, Hothouse, Ligeia Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Figure 1, The Talon Review, MSU Roadrunner Review, Wayne Literary Review, Last Leaves Magazine, and Moot Point Magazine.
Pamela Richardson is a writer and martial artist who lives in Charlotte NC with her husband. She owns a Taekwondo studio, where she teaches children and adults martial arts and empowerment self defense. She has been published in The Main Street Rag, Roi Fainéant, New Feathers Anthology, and The Remington Review, among others. Her work has also been featured in the public arts project Poetry in Plain Sight.
Kendal R. Rose is from Florida.
Greg Stidham is from Ontario, Canada.
Dan Swain is a retired Special Education teacher, who worked as a freelance journalist from 1984 to 1990, publishing a dozen feature non-fiction articles, one of which was published in Unwinding Vietnam an anthology of the best work written on the Vietnam War, in conjunction with the unveiling of the Vietnam Memorial Monument in Washington D.C. Kindly Stop for Me is his last completed piece of short fiction and is one of four pieces of fiction published in the last year.
Marc Swan lives in coastal Maine. Poems recently published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, Nerve Cowboy Anthology, Misfit, Sheila-na-gig, among others. His fifth collection, all it would take, was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK).
Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and Pushcart nominated poet. His work has appeared in Galway Review, Dunes Review, Hiram Review, Cleaver Magazine, and elsewhere. A full-length collection, Disappearing by the Math, will be published by Silver Bow in March of 2024.
Diane Webster's work has appeared in El Portal, North Dakota Quarterly, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022 and 2023 and was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022.
