~A~

Matthew G. Adams is still busy contemplating new ideas and ways to express them. He remains inspired by the works of the greats. He maintains a dwelling in Onslow County, NC.

Sandra Ervin Adams has always loved cats, and since her son and daughter grew up, she chose to mother some feral felines that she rescued over ten years ago and had neutered and spayed. They are truly part of her family as they provide unconditional love and companionship as they all experience growing older together. Sandra lives with and cares for her catbabies near Jacksonville, NC where she sometimes writes poetry.

JoAnna Arnold lives in Americus, Georgia, with her husband and three children. She teaches French and Spanish at a local high school and serves as an adjunct professor of French at South Georgia State College. JoAnna regularly travels with her family and students throughout Europe and Latin America. Although she believes that teaching high school is an incomparable mission field, she continues to nurture an insatiable love for programs in Haiti and Costa Rica. 

~B~

Katherine Russell Barnes, who lives in Wilson, NC, has a passion for words that inspires her to write, despite her loss of vision. Her work has been published in many magazines and anthologies including Crucible, Pembroke Magazine, Here’s to the Land, Earth and Soul, and Weymouth. Her collections Treading Water and Breakfast at McDonnell’s were published by Old Mountain Press. An award-winning poet, she served on the boards and was active in the NC poetry organizations for many years.

Jerry Bradley retired from the military after thirty years of service in August, 2008. He now has the opportunity to concentrate on his writing. He and his wife, Laura, raised three children, a daughter in the Army, a daughter married to Army, and a son in the Air Force. Jerry is the President of the Fayetteville Writers’ Ink Guild and he and his wife Laura are currently living in Raeford, NC.

Stuart Burroughs works with visual art, poetry, and music. Her art hangs in many homes, and she has been a teacher. Her poems are in various anthologies including several NC Poetry Society's books and OMP anthologies. A collection of her poems is listed with Amazon.com. Stuart lives in Chapel Hill, NC, where she also plays her piano program Music to Remember at several locations.

~C~

Vicki Collins teaches English at the University of South Carolina Aiken and lives in Graniteville, SC. The focus of her current research is Appalachian literature. She has been published in many OMP anthologies as well as Windhover, Kakalak, MoonShine Review, The Teacher's Voice, and Barbaric Yawp.

~D~

Mary Ann Davis of Vienna, GA is a retired English teacher who taught the gifted program at the Dooly County High School in Vienna, GA. She holds a BA degree in English and French and a Masters and an EdS in English Education from Georgia Southwestern University and the University of Georgia. She loves reading and writing and is the author of Mam Maw’s ABCs, a fun book about the letters of the alphabet.

Polly Davis, Ed.D, is retired from the NC Community College System where she served as an English department chair and an administrator.She served as a trustee for the Cumberland County Library and Information Center and chairs its program committee. She is the editor of Daddy Pa’s Diary, and Growing Up Southern in Baconton Georgia. She is an avid reader and supporter of the arts in North Carolina. Polly lives in Webster, NC.

Tom Davis’s publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Caroli­na Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, The Fayetteville Observer’s Saturday Extra, A Loving Voice Vol. I and II, Special Warfare., and Winston-Salem Writers’ POETRY IN PLAIN SIGHT program for May 2013 (poetry month). He’s authored the following books: The Life and Times of Rip Jackson; Pickaberry Pig;, The Patrol Order; and an action adventure novel, The R-complex. Tom lives in Webster, NC.

Nancy Dillingham, poet, is a sixth-generation Dillingham from Big Ivy in WNC. She lives and writes in Asheville, NC. Her book of poems Home was nominated for a SIBA award in 2010. Americana Rural is her latest collection of poetry and short stories.

Beth Dragon, of Henrietta, NY, is an ordained interfaith minister. She has earned her fortune writing commercial non-fiction and light poetry. Dr. Dragon has won a number of contests and previously published in an OMP anthology. She edited several in-house publications and her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and newsletters. She currently resides in a senior community affiliated with an Upstate NY university and is kept humble by caring for two felines.

~E~

Terri Kirby Erickson is the award-winning author of three collections of poetry, including In the Palms of Angels (Press 53), winner of a Nautilus Silver Award for Poetry and a Gold Medal in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her work has appeared in the 2013 Poet’s Market, American Life in Poetry, The Christian Science Monitor, North Carolina Literary Review, storySouth, and many others. Please visit her website at www.terrikirbyerickson.wordpress.com

~F~

Dena M. Ferrari is a regular contributor to OMP, her poetry is featured in Westchester Community College of NY Phoenix (1975); placed several times in Fields of Earth, sponsored by the Writers’ Ink Guild; in Charles Weyant’s book, An Odyssey in Broken Rhythms and Ragged Lines (2006). Writers Alliance Poets World-Wide anthologies has many of her works. Her own book, Poems From the Hearth (2010) shows diversified writing styles. She and her husband, Peter live in Vass, NC.

Ann Fogelman, a writer of memoirs in prose and poetry, lives in Friendswood, Tx. Her work has appeared in The Noble Generation, That Thing You Do, Pets Across America, Boundless, Happy Feet and other anthologies and school publications. Ann is a member of Bay Area Writers League, Gulf Coast Poets, Poetry Society of Texas and Osher Lifetime Learning Institute at UTMB, Galveston. 

~G~

James Gibson (Northville, Michigan) combined his love of the American West and his fascination with Native American culture to write the five novels of the Anasazi Quest series, available at PentacleSPresS.com.. He also wrote The Last Ride, a traditional western set outside Tucson, Arizona. Visit his blog at www.anasaziquest.wordpress.com.

Marian Gowan is author of Notes from the Trunk, published by Old Mountain Press (www.oldmp.com/mariangowan.htm). Her work has appeared in several regional publications and Old Mountain Press anthologies, as well as Christmas Presence, Clothes Lines and Women’s Spaces Women’s Places, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. She retired to Hendersonville, NC from western NY in 2001.

Phyllis Jean Green’s first poem was published in Buffalo Spree Magazine in l986. It proved to be a banner year where writing was concerned. Her fiction, poetry, and other works have since appeared widely. She is planning to write until she drops...in Chapel Hill, North Carolina!

~H~

Kerri Mai Habben lives in Raleigh, NC where she works as a writer, photographer, and local historian. A graduate of Peace College and North Carolina State University, her articles, essays, and poetry have appeared in literary journals, The News and Observer, and other publications. She is currently at work on a collection of her essays.

MaXine Carey Harker and husband Berkley, have lived 57+ years in the little one-stop-light town of Grifton, NC, reared 5 children who have produced grandchildren and great grandchildren in far-flung places. Published in national, state, and local publications, she prefers non-fiction, sonnets, and haiku. She’s taught Writing for Publication for 30+ years at Community Colleges, now Rec Center in New Bern. MaXine is 84; her doctor tells her she is 65. 

Robert Hewett lives in Louisville, KY and writes in several genres including Children; Romance; Old West Romance/ Adventure; Humor and Skits. He has been named Poet of the Month on several worldwide sites and Poet of the year on www.publishingwithpassion.com, a poetry forum. You can find some of his writings at roberthewettsr.hubpages.com (no www or http://)

~J~

Arnie Johanson is a retired philosophy professor from Minnesota, now living with his wife, Alice, in Durham, NC. He has been writing poetry since his retirement, and has published two chapbooks.

~K~

K.D. Kennedy Jr. has published three (3) books of poetry, short stories, and essays Our Place In Time, Waiting Out In The Yard, and For Rhyme Or Reason. He has published works in over twenty anthologies and periodicals. He has four (4) children who are (1) A Broadway Leading Lady (2) A President of a Corporation (3) A Real Estate Developer and (4) A Mother of four (4) grandchildren. He humbly gives thanks to his wife of 46 years, Sara Lynn.

Fiona Kelly is a high school student who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She loves her family and friends and draws a lot of inspiration and insight from them. She likes to do all the things that a normal girl likes. She has all the thoughts and concerns and trials and ups and downs and smiles and tears of her friends. Maybe writing about them helps in clearing the mind. She is also the author of the play, Promise.

Jo Koster teaches at Winthrop University, where she spends too much time on administrative duties and not enough on writing or flying, to her grave dismay. She and her cats Max and Neville live in comfortable chaos and in Rock Hill, SC.

~L~

Patsy Kennedy Lain still lives and frolics in Hubert, NC. She continues to write feverishly and paint passionately. Patsy has many published works, several awards and remains a member of the NC Poetry Society. 

Blanche L. Ledford’s work has appeared in Happy Feet, A Time to Read, The Nature of Things, and other Old Mountain Press anthologies. She received the Paul Green Award from North Carolina Society of Historians in 2012 for her prose collection, Planting by the Signs. She also won first place in the Cherokee County Silver Arts Contest. Blanche reads, writes, and gardens, in Hayesville, NC.

Brenda Kay Ledford resides in Hayesville, NC. She’s a member of North Carolina Writer’s Network and listed with A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, and North Carolina Literary Map. Her work has appeared in many Old Mountain Press anthologies, Asheville Poetry Review, Our State, Pembroke Magazine, and other journals. She received the Paul Green Award five times for her chapbooks. Her latest poetry book, Beckoning, was published by Finishing Line Press.

~M~

Valerie Macon, from Fuquay-Varina, NC., has received awards from the N.C. Poetry Society, The Writer’s Inc Guild, and the Gilbert-Chappel Distinguished Poets Series. Recently, her poetry has been featured in the Spare Change News, appears in The Clockhouse Review, and has been sung in a concert at the New England Conservatory. Shelf Life, her first collection of poetry, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Sleeping Rough, her second book, focuses on homelessness and inspired her to start a community garden ministry, The Garden of Eaten, to feed the hungry.

Leann Marshall: Since retiring from her job as a letter carrier with the Post Office after twenty-seven years, Leann has self-published two novels and is currently working on writing and illustrating a children's book. A mother and grandmother, she lives with her love and best friend, John, and dog, Jules, in Charlotte, NC.

Celia Miles, a retired English instructor from AB Tech, writes and lives in Asheville, NC. Her latest novel, set in Jackson County in the 1800s, is Sarranda’s Heart: A Love Story of Place.

~N~

Jerome Norris lives with his beautiful wife by a pond near New Bern, NC. Had he not misspent his younger days as a lawyer, it’s possible he’d have written something meaningful. 

~O~

Beverly Ohler has worked in the Theater Department of Warren Wilson College for many years. Writing occupies her time between designing plays and teaching students. She has published several books, edited others, and has numerous stories and poems included in anthologies and magazines. Bev lives in Black Mountain, NC.

Martha O’Quinn writes poetry and creative non-fiction stemming from true-to-life events and from stories told to her. She is a regular contributor to OMP anthologies and her work has appeared in a number of regional publications, including three anthologies edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. She is a great-grandmother and lives with her husband in Hendersonville, NC. 

~R~

Edwina Rooker grew up in Warrenton, NC. She holds an AB in English from Duke University and a MSLS from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught English or worked as a media specialist in Southern Pines, Virginia Beach, and Warren County. She retired to Bridgeton, NC, on the Neuse River. Her newspaper column, “Observations,” appears in the weekly Warren Record. Today she lives at The Courtyards at Berne Village in New Bern, NC.

Carmen Ruggero. Fiction writer and poet. Co-authored a poetry anthology: Shaken & Stirred, and short story collection Kaleidoscope, published by BeWrite Books. Adventure Books of Seattle published her short story collection: Eighty-six eggs. Joined Bewildering Stories as an author and review editor. In 2011, she became part of a writers group organized by her hometown newspaper, where she was also a contributing author. Carmen lives in Crawfordsville, IN.

Rhonda Frazier Rutterbush is a human being, wife, dog mother and native of Greenville, SC. She is a lay chaplain in the Community of Hope and Spiritual Mentor. Her literary claim to fame is winning first prize in a short story contest sponsored by the Pickens County Museum of Art.

~S~

(Dr.) Lynn Veach Sadler, widely published in academic and creativewriting and a native North Carolinian and former college president, has nine poetry chapbooks (and one forthcoming) and four full-length collections (another in press) and over a hundred short stories published. She has published four novels, a novella, and a short story collection and written forty plays. She works full time as a writer and an editor and is the 2013-2014/2014-2015 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet.

Judy Lewis Shackleford grew up in Atlanta, GA and wrote a weekly column for the Atlanta Journal before moving to NC where she wrote about dogs for the Fayetteville Observer. Her interest in dogs led her to a career of instructing people and dogs in the art of understanding dog behavior through obedience training. Being a romantic has led her writing to encompass love in all it’s aspects. She lives with her husband and a house full of rescued dogs in Fayetteville, NC.

Rishan Singh is a prize-winning South African poet, a biologist as well as a writer. His is published in numerous books and journals. He has had work published in academic press and poetry publicized in the United States in 2004. He is a Golden Key recipient. He received acclaim as a professional writer before he was trained as an academic. He received prestigious awards for professional writing. He had a contract with the United Nations. 

Susan Snowden’s poems and short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her novel Southern Fried Lies won a gold medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards contest for Best Fiction in the Southeast Region for 2013. An Atlanta native, Susan has lived in Hendersonville, NC, since 2002. 

Nancy Sollosi lives in Jamestown, North Carolina with her daughter. She longs to slow the passage of time by capturing it in her writing. The object of this particular poem is a teenager now. They rejoice and grieve the changes together.

Dorothea Spiegel, now living with her daughter in Gainesboro, TN, is still writing poetry at the age of 91. She became well known when she was living in Hiawassee, GA, because of her membership in NC Writers Network West, and her yearly readings at John Campbell Folk School. She studied Creative Writing at Tri County College and John Campbell Folk School. Her work has been published in many anthologies.

Tonya Staufer found her way back to writing a few years ago. She is a real estate investment broker by day and a writer by night. She and her husband call Saluda, NC home. Her stories have appeared in Spirit of the Smokies, A Long Story Short, Western NC Woman, Moonshine Review, and numerous anthologies.

Shelby Stephenson’s Family Matters: Homage to July, the Slave Girl won the Bellday Prize for Poetry, 2008, Allen Grossman, judge, and the Oscar Arnold Young Award from the Poetry Council of North Carolina, 2009, Jared Carter, judge. Shelby Stephenson’s Maytle’s World is forthcoming from Evening Street Press. He lives near McGee’s Crossroads, North Carolina.

~W~

Sandy Waddell lives in Greenville, SC. and is the proud grandmother of 8 children. She has published one children’s book Tellie Turtle Tales.

Elizabeth B. Watson finds her muses in The Woodlands at Furman in Greenville, SC these days. She usually writes much longer stories than “I HELP! I HELP!” which appears here, but enjoys the challenge of such a short piece – so few words. She has published in OMP many times and also in other NC anthologies such as moonShine review and WNCWOMAN.

Glenda S. Wilkins grew up on an eastern NC tobacco farm, and believed she’d never live beyond the county line. Decades later, she moved to Europe for almost a dozen years. Her poems are published in the U.S.A., Canada, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Great Britain. Along the way, she has won several poetry awards. Today, she lives with her husband on an airstrip outside Winterville, NC. 

DONNA WOODS has been writing poetry for many years and is currently trying to get her work published. She has a collection of hundreds of poems and was inspired to start writing again after her son was diagnosed with severe Autism in 2011 as a coping mechanism. She has two poems pages on social networking sites where you can read some of her work. She writes each poem in less than 15 minutes. Donna lives in Toddington, England. 

Barbara Ledford Wright, associate editor to Moonshine and Blind Mules frequently contributes to OMP, including A Time To Read A Time To Write, Clay and Cherokee County Souvenir Edition's, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Express Yourself 101 Vol 2 For Your Eyes Only, Kaleidoscope, Fireflies and June Bugs, Yesterdays Magazette, Christmas Presence, Clothes Lines, Women's Spaces Women's Places, Fresh, Mused, Bread ‘N Molasses, Northern Stars, The Oxford So and So. Barbara, lives in Shelby, NC.

~Y~

C. Pleasants York and her husband, Guy, are refurbishing and renovating the two houses where they live in Sanford, NC. One is a Victorian built in 1918, and the other is a Swiss chalet A-frame from 1976. Their three children - Adam, Emily, and Jonathan - have moved away, but York has a bouquet of multicolored feather dusters and a bottle of Old English Red Furniture Polish just waiting for their grandson, Noah Bourdon.

Joseph Youngblood lives in Fayetteville, NC, with his family where he works as a behavioral healthcare therapist and addictions specialist. Joe writes for fun about topics that move him. He has published a novel and numerous poems. His poems have appeared in several previous OMP anthologies.