Editors
John Anstie
Associate Editor, Prose and Music
John is a British writer, poet and musician—a multi-talented gentleman self-described as a “Family man, Grandfather, Occasional Musician, Singer, Amateur photographer and Film-maker, Apple-MAC user, Implementation Manager, and Engineer”. He has been a participant in the d’Verse Poet’s Pub a player in New World Creative Union as well as a being a ‘spoken-voice’ participant in Roger Allen Baut’s excellent ‘Blue Sky Highway‘ radio broadcasts. He’s been blogging since the beginning of 2011. He is also a member of The Poetry Society (UK).
Recent publications are anthologies resulting from online collaborations among two international groups of amateur and professional poets. The first of these is The Grass Roots Poetry Group (Petrichor Rising). The other group is d’Verse Poet Pub, in which John’s poetry also appears The d’Verse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry, produced and edited by Frank Watson and The Gospel According to Poetry edited by T. Cole Jenkins.
jsburl
Assistant Production Editor
jsburl, MFA, is a hemorrhagic stroke survivor who lives in Northern NY. She loves her family, the mountains, gardening, writing poetry and stories, oil painting, dragons, and animals large and small. She lives with her partner and her dog Tippy, and has just finished her master’s degree in Creative Writing. She was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta International English Society, and The National Society of Leadership and Success. She has been a journalist and won state and US competitions, and has two children’s books slated for release this year. The stroke took her mobility, but not her creativity. Her favorite thing to tell people is “Make every day an extraordinary day.”
Michael Dickel
Editor
A poet, fiction writer, & photographer, Michael’s writing, art, & photographs appear in print & online. His poetry has won international awards & been translated into several languages. His poetry has won international awards & been translated into several languages. His latest poetry collection, Nothing Remembers, came out from Finishing Line Press in September 2019 & received a Feathered Quill Book Award for Poetry.
He has a chapbook, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism (Locofo Chaps, 2017) and a full-length flash fiction collection, The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden (Is a Rose Press, 2016. Previous poetry books: War Surrounds Us, Midwest / Mid-East, & The World Behind It, Chaos… He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36 (2010) & was managing editor for arc-23 & arc-24. With producer / director David Fisher, he received an NEH grant to write a film script about Yiddish theatre. He is the former chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English.
Chrysty Hendrick
Associate Editor
Of Reflections on Being, Healing, and Wandering was a weekly contributing writer for “Gratitude Fridays” at Beguine Again. Chrysty says, “I am a student of theology, people, and life. About a year ago, I decided to incorporate a public element to my private prayer life. I believe that prayer, at its best, can be ministry and expression as well as it’s traditional elements. I have learned from studies that gratitude is a window into the world as it could be. So I tweet a gratitude every day. Nothing grandiose. Just ordinary moments in an ordinary life with an extraordinary God. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @AuntChrysty if you would like to experience an instant of gratitude each busy blessed day.”
Corina Ravenscraft
Associate Editor, Arts
Dragonkatet ~ Regarding the blog name, Dragon’s Dreams ~ The name comes from Corina’s love-affairs with both Dragons and Dreams (capital Ds). It’s another extension of who she is, a facet for expression; a place and way to reach other like-minded, creative individuals.
On her blog and in The BeZine, Corina posts a lot of poetry and images that fascinate or move her, because that’s her favorite way to view the world.
Corina posts about things important to her and the world in which we live. She champions extra important political, societal and environmental issues, etc. Sometimes She waxes philosophical, because her blog is a place where she feels she always learns about herself, too, by interacting with some of the brightest minds, souls and hearts out there. It’s all about ‘connection(s)’ and I don’t mean “net-working” with people for personal gain, but rather, the expansion of the 4 L’s: Light, Love, Laughter, Learning.
Core Creative Team
Lorraine Caputo
Assistant Editor
Lorraine is a poet-translator-travel writer who has works appearing in over 300 journals on six continents and 23 collections of poetry–including the upcoming In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2022) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). Her writing has been nominated for the Best of the Net. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
JOSEPH HESCH (A Thing for Words) is a writer and poet from Albany, New York. His work appears or is forthcoming in over a dozen venues, including Cossack Review, Frontier Tales Magazine, Pine Hills Review, the 2017 Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Anthology, as well as the anthologies Petrichor Rising and For the Love of Christmas. His poetry collections, “Penumbra: The Space Between” and “One Hundred Beats a Minute” are available on Amazon.com. He’s currently working on his first collection of stories, all based on his fascination with the American frontier, whether it’s upstate New York in the 17th and 18th Centuries or the Nebraska plains and Arizona deserts of the 19th. You can visit him at his blog A Thing for Words. He can be found on Twitter at @JAHesch and his Amazon page is Joseph Hesch, Poet and Writer.
TERRI STEWART (Bequine Again* and The Bardo Group Beguines), resident Cannoness of The Bardo Group Beguines. I am a monk disguised as a passionate prophet. My true loves are God, family, and the creative arts. And maybe just a little bit of politics too. I come from an eclectic background and consider myself to be grounded in contemplation and justice as embodied in the United Methodist tradition.
I am the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition, which serves youth affected by incarceration.
As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, I earned my Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction. I am a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.
My online avatar is “Cloaked Monk.” This speaks to my grounding in contemplative practices and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as I advocate for justice and peace. You can find me here or at http://www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk. To reach me for conversation, send a note to terri@cloakedmonk.com.
* Bequine Again is an interfaith effort offering spiritual support through inspirational posts, daily spiritual practice and prayer, and community. Beguine Again and The BeZine are affilated sites.
Alison Stone…
…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.
Website
Emeriti
NAOMI BALTUCK, emerita, (Writing Between the Lines)~ is a Contributing Editor and Resident Storyteller. She is a world-traveler and an award-winning writer, photographer, and story-teller whose works of fiction and nonfiction are available through Amazon HERE.
Naomi presents her wonderful photo-stories – always interesting and rich with meaning and humor – at Writing Between the Lines, Life from the Writer’s POV (her personal blog) as well as on The B Zine.
Naomi conducts workshops such as Peace Porridge (multicultural stories to promote cooperation, goodwill, and peaceful coexistence), Whispers in the Graveyard (a spellbinding array of haunting and mysterious stories), Tandem Tales, Traveling Light Around the World, and others. For more on her programs visit Naomi Baltuck.com.
Naomi says, “When not actually writing, I am researching the world with my long-suffering husband and our two kids, or outside editing my garden. My novel, The Keeper of the Crystal Spring (Viking Penguin), can be read in English, German, Spanish, and Italian. My storytelling anthology, Apples From Heaven, garnered four national awards, including the Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice. I am currently working on a contemporary women’s novel.”
JAMES COWLES, emeritus, (Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author to Beguin Again. Married to Diane for 32 years, no kids. I retired in 2010 after 30+ years as, at various times, an engineer, software developer, and software development manager with the Boeing Co. Diane works as a librarian at the Beacon Hill Branch of the Seattle Public Library system.
I have a master’s in math from Wichita State University, a master’s in physics as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow from Tulane, a master’s in English literature from Tufts by way of Harvard and, as a Council of Europe Fellow, Oxford (Exeter College … same Oxford college as JRR Tolkien), and a master’s in theology (MAPS) from Seattle Univ.
My main current interest is constitutional history and theories of constitutional interpretation (my area of specialization at Tufts / Harvard / Oxford was postmodernist / deconstructionist interpretation theory). I’m currently auditing a class in advanced constitutional law at the UW law school, and plan to audit another class on the First Amendment next quarter, plus take a Coursera non-credit course in “con law” from one of my heroes Prof. Akhil Amar at Yale Law early in ’14. I am a “born-again” skeptic / atheist / agnostic (depending on what I ate for breakfast on any given morning) and equally “born-again” progressive who believes that anchorman Will McAvoy’s rant against the Tea Party as the “American Taliban” in the first episode of “The Newsroom” — which, if you don’t watch, you should — was far too charitable to the Tea Party and an insult to the Taliban, who are much more enlightened than, e.g., Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.
I believe that the “minimal state” as advocated in Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” is a fine goal — but only for “minimal people”. I also believe the greatest threat to America’s tradition of ordered liberty under the US Constitution is the Christian fascism of the religious right, and the 2nd greatest danger to that tradition is the unintentional, in fact, almost knee-jerk, nurturing of Christian fascism on the part of progressives in the name of “tolerance” (see Sam Harris’s remarks on same early in “The End of Faith”). The latter group, especially, would do well to read John Milton’s great defense of freedom of speech and press, “Areopagitica”, with careful attention to what Milton says about the moral limits of tolerance.
JAMIE DEDES, emerita, passed away in 2020. She was an accomplished Lebanese-American writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She was a content editor, and blogger, the founding and managing editor of The BeZine, manager of its associated activities and curator of the The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage outstanding but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day was dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights, as is The BeZine as we continue in her memory. See posts Remembering Jamie.
SUE DREAMWALKER, emerita, says, “I am just an ordinary woman, who stumbled across blogging in 2007 and thought to use it to enlighten people a little, to share my thoughts through my writings, poem and art. Having gone through my own experiences of depression, a break-down, and dark days of despair back in the 90’s. My Health was also in shreds, I had Fibromyalgia, among other things, so I set about self healing, using affirmations, meditation and Qi Gong.. Beginning with Louise Hays, You Can Heal Your Life Book; I set about changing my life from one of working in textiles and training for 28 years, to becoming a Support Worker, working with adults with learning difficulties, such as Autism, Down Syndrome and Asperger’s , To Mental health Support enabling individuals to integrate back into the community. Which I did for 11 yrs prior to my retirement I now spend time helping my husband on our allotment plot, and growing our own food. Between looking after our granddaughter, I enjoy writing poetry, short stories for my own pleasure, knitting, sewing, while learning to play the guitar ( Not very well ) but trying.
PRISCILLA GALASSO, emerita, (scillagrace.com), Contributing Editor of The BeZine, started her personal blog to mark the beginning of her fiftieth year. Born to summer and given a name that means ‘ancient’, her travel through seasons of time and landscape has inspired her to create visual and verbal souvenirs of her journey. From personal exploration to designated wilderness areas, her discoveries inform and shape integrated engagement with our wonderful world.
Currently, Priscilla lives in Wisconsin. She considers herself a lifelong learner and educator. She works part time as the Administrative Assistant at Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation and runs a business (Scholar & Poet Books, via eBay and ABE Books) with her partner, Steve.
RUTH JEWELL, emerita, (A Quiet Walk and Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author and site administrator to Begine Again. Ruth Jewell recently received her Masters of Divinity from Seattle University, School of Theology and Ministry. Ruth is currently in-care at Queen Anne Christian Church in preparation for possible ordination in the tradition of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She is a board member and volunteer for the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition, which serves youth in criminal detention.
Ruth has a long personal history of contemplative spiritual practices, which have been instrumental in much of her own discernment process. She hopes to pass on her love of sitting with the Holy Spirit.
CHARLES W. MARTIN, emeritus, (Reading Between the Minds) earned his Ph.D. in Speech and Language Pathology with an emphasis in statistics. Throughout Charlie’s career, he maintained a devotion to the arts (literature/poetry, the theater, music and photography). Upon retirement in 2010, he turned his full attention to poetry and photography.
Charlie publishes a poem and a photographic art piece each day at Read Between the Minds, Poetry, Photograph and Random Thoughts of Life. He is noted as a poet of social conscience. He has self-published a book of poetry collections entitled The Hawk Chronicles, A Bea in Your Bonnet: First Sting, featuring the renown Aunt Bea. In The Hawk Chronicles, Charlie provides a personification of his resident hawk with poems and photos taken over a two-year period. Charlie’s joint venture, When Spirits Touch, Dual Poetry, a collaboration with River Urke, is available through Amazon as are all his books.
LILIANA NEGOI, emerita, (Endless Journey and in Romanian curcubee în alb şi negru) is the author of three published volumes of poetry in English, which is not her mother tongue but one that she came to love especially because of writing: Sands and Shadows, Footsteps on the San – tanka collection and The Hidden Well. The last one can also be heard in audio version, read by the Lilliana herself on her SoundCloud site HERE.
Liliana is also the author of a novel, Solo-Chess, available for free reading HERE. Many of her creations, both poetry and prose, are published in various literary magazines.
LANA PHILLIPS, emerita, (Beguine Again) is a writer who lives in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the mountains of North Carolina. Poverty is real here too. I see and live it every day.
DONNA PIERCE, emerita, (Beguine Again) is a weekly contributing author for “Mindful Mondays” at Beguine Again. Over the years, I’ve been a college textbook sales rep, a literacy education professor, a storeowner, a social service nonprofit founder, a stay-home mom, and the caregiver for my parents during the last few years of their lives.
My husband Larry and I recently celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary, and we have two daughters, one in college and one in high school. I engaged the spiritual practices of both Christianity and Buddhism, sometimes leaning more one way, sometimes the other. Christianity tends to guide my life in community, and Buddhism helps me live more easily with myself, though the reverse is true as well.
MICHAEL WATSON, M.A., Ph.D., LCMHC, emeritus, (Dreaming the World) is a contributing editor to The BeZine, an essayist and a practitioner of the Shamanic arts, psychotherapist, educator and artist of Native American and European descent.
Michael lives and works in Burlington, Vermont, where he recently retired from his teaching position in undergraduate and graduate programs at Burlington College. He was once Dean of Students there. He also had wonderful experiences teaching in India and Hong Kong, which are documented on his blog. In childhood Michael had polio, an event that taught him much about challenge, struggle, isolation, and healing.
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