Tom Ball holds a B.A. in archaeology and a B.S. in geography. He has travelled to 35 countries and lived in six. His favorite country is Taiwan. He works as an online English teacher and volunteers as co-founder for fleasonthedog.com, a literary e-zine. He has written 32 books, most of which have been published, at least in part. He now resides in Ontario, Canada.
Lorrie Ness was born in Indiana and currently lives in Virginia with her husband and a menagerie of pets. She completed her doctorate in psychology from the University of Tennessee and her writing is deeply influenced by the complexities of human relationships and our connections to the natural world. When she is not writing, she can be found hiking, photographing insects, and playing in the dirt.
Deborah Ann Dawson grew up in Oregon’s Rogue Valley and majored in Art at what is now Southern Oregon University. In 1978, she was the first woman to receive the Outstanding Senior of the Art Department Award. For three years, Deborah was an Artist in Residence for the Southern Oregon Arts Council, teaching drawing and watercolors to thousands of elementary school children. Learn more at deborahanndawson.com.
dan raphael moved to Oregon in 1976, and lived in Ashland almost two years before moving to Portland, where he has lived since. For over 4 decades, he has been active in the Northwest as poet, performer, editor and reading host. For 17 years, dan edited NRG Magazine. He then published 26 Books—26 chapbooks of 26 pages each by 26 Oregon and Washington poets. He also ran a monthly reading series in downtown Portland for 13 years, and organized Poetland—80 writers reading in 8 different venues in an 8 hour stretch. For nearly 4 years now he has written a current events poem most Wednesdays for the KBOO Evening News. Oh, and he worked for the DMV for 32 years.
Martin Willitts Jr. is a retired librarian living in Syracuse, New York. He is a visual artist of Victorian and Chinese paper cutouts. He is the author of 10 full-length collections and more than 20 chapbooks. Recent books include “Searching for What is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013), “God Is Not Amused with What You Are Doing in Her Name” (Aldrich Press, 2015), and “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press, 2016). He has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Award, the 2013 Wild Earth Poetry Prize, and Big River Poetry Review’s 2012 William K. Hathaway Award.
David Newell was an artist and wood carver, specializing in necklaces, animal and floral figures, and ornamental garden boxes. Mytho-poetic themes and imagery were a primary focus of his work. He spent his extra time playing banjo, making one-string puppets (like Murphy the Leprechaun Lawyer), and throwing spears with an atlatl on the spear golf course he built. He reconstructed the banjos, and made the one-string puppets and atlatls himself. His poems appeared in the first two issues of Cobra Lily, and issue three is dedicated to him. He passed the week of his 74th birthday in September 2017.