Belinda Edwards – Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Belinda Edwards is an African American writer who was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently working on a collection of essays that explore social justice and anti-racism issues through her experiences. By weaving threads of familial and community memories with the threads of current and past national events, this book, much like quilting, will take an old fragmented western narrative and piece together a new one. She earned her M.A. degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She currently facilitates various writing groups.
Find more on Belinda’s website.
Kelly Eddington – Missouri, USA
Kelly Eddington was a high school art teacher for seventeen years before deciding to pursue painting full-time in 2010. She specializes in detailed portraits and still life. One of her first fans was film critic Roger Ebert, who recognized one of his books in the background of Kelly’s portrait of a little girl named Mabel. Strathmore produced two pads of watercolor paper with step-by-step instructional material and videos by Kelly in 2016. Learn to Paint Watercolor Flowers and Watercolor Basics are designed for people who are new to the medium. Kelly is a signature member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America and the Watercolor Honor Society, among others. Her award-winning paintings are in private and public collections throughout the world. She has shown her work in numerous one-person shows and in China, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and the United States, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two of her paintings are part of The Little Museum of Dublin’s permanent collection. She lives with her husband Jeff and their cat Pooj in northeast Missouri.
Follow Kelly: Websites: Achtoon Baby & KellyEddington.com, Prints, Patreon, YouTube, Strathmore newsletter, “Painting What I Love”, Strathmore Learning Series-Learn to Paint Watercolor. Or find her on social media: Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook.
Susan H. Evans – Tennessee, USA
Susan H. Evans writes and teaches writing at a community college in east Tennessee, USA. Her contribution speaks of community in an indirect way. In Tennessee alone, there are nearly 400,000 people, or about 1 in 20, who abuse or are dependent on alcohol or drugs. She sincerely hopes this piece helps in some way, gives hope to someone, and inspires all readers. Evans is published in many online and print magazines and journals.
You may follow Susan on Facebook.
Jean Ende – New York, USA
Jean Ende is a nice girl from the Bronx trying to exorcize her background by writing short stories about her immigrant family. Her stories have been published and recognized by a dozen publications and contests. She is a former newspaper reporter, corporate marketing executive, political publicist, and college professor. Jean is almost finished with her first novel and wishes it weren’t so hard to find an agent.
TAK Erzinger – Zurich-highlands, Switzerland
TAK Erzinger is an American/Swiss poet and artist with a Colombian background. Her poetry has been featured in Cornell University’s Bien Acompañada, McMaster University’s The Muse, River and South Review, Welter, and more. Her debut chapbook Found: Between the Trees was published by Grey Border Books in 2019, and her 2021 poetry collection At the Foot of the Mountain won the University of Indianapolis’s Whirling Prize for best nature poetry book. A staff writer for Alebrijes Review, TAK lives in a Swiss valley with her husband and cats.
Carol Edwards – Arizona, USA
Carol Edwards is a northern California native transplanted to southern Arizona. She lives and works in relative seclusion with her books, plants, and pets (2 dogs, 5 cats, + husband). She grew up reading fantasy and classic literature, climbing trees, and acquiring frequent grass stains. She enjoys a coffee addiction and raising her succulent army. Her work has recently appeared in Trouvaille Review, Open Skies Quarterly, Otherwise Engaged Literary and Art Journal, and Red Penguin Books.
Konrad Ehresman – California, USA
Konrad Ehresman is a creative living in the heart of California where he writes, reads, acts and is a general nuisance. His work has appeared in Bluffington University: The Bridge, AMDA Ink Literary Journal and You Might Need to Hear This among others. When he isn’t typing away you can find Konrad loving on his dog Harper or baking far too much bread.
Thomas Elson – USA
Thomas Elson’s stories appear in numerous venues, including Mad Swirl, Blink-Ink, Ellipsis, Scapegoat, Bull, New Writing Scotland, Flash Frontier, Ginosko, Short Édition, Litro, Journal of Expressive Writing, Dead Mule School, Selkie, New Ulster, Lampeter, and Adelaide. He divides his time between Northern California and Western Kansas.
Lea Ervin – Alabama, USA
Lea Ervin is a writer and artist from Oneonta, Alabama. Lea’s artwork is a documentation of dealing with chronic pain and endometriosis through art therapy. Aside from writing and painting, Lea loves cooking, listening to vinyl records, and spending time with husband, Brad White, and their Beagle-mix, Starla Belle.
Find Lea on Instagram.
Laurie Einstein Koszuta – Florida, USA
Laurie Einstein Koszuta is a freelance writer currently living in Florida. Her work has appeared in Emerald Coast Magazine, Kveller, Shape, and many others. She is an avid tennis player, scrabble aficionado, exercise guru and a new pickleball player.
Find more on Laurie’s website.
Garry Engkent – Canada
Garry Engkent has co-authored three college/university texts: Groundwork: Writing Skills to Build On; Fiction/Non-Fiction: A Reader and Rhetoric; and Essay: Do’s and Don’ts.
His stories have appeared in Exile, Alberta Magazine, Many Mouthed Birds, SELS Review etc. Most of the stories have a Chinese immigrant slant, circa 1950-70s: “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English,” “Chickens for Christmas,” and “Visiting”. Among others, his stories “The Bear and I”, “Eggroll”, “Acceptance” and “Rabbit” were published in Ricepaper Magazine. Recently, he has branched out to horror: “I, Zombie: A Different Point of View,” “The Zombie and the Shedim,” “Swine,” and “Merci” among others.
Justine A. Engelbrecht – South Africa
Justine is a Johannesburg based writer. She has a BA HONS TLI in Theory of Literature, and a BA CWR in Creative Writing. She has published a collection of poems ‘Two Willows’ on Amazon KDP, as well as the ‘Adventures of Nala’ for children and ‘Studying Made Fun’ a study guide for children. Justine has also published a short story ‘Today is Tuesday’ on ExquisiteDeathezine.com and various poems on Spillwords. She is the previous founding publishing editor of Brides Essence Magazine and TravelmagSA, and has worked on various digital and print publications during her career. Justine writes remotely from home, and is working on a fiction novel and a memoir, as well as poetry and flash fiction.
Find Justine’s writings in her portfolio.
Murray Eiland – California, USA
Murray Eiland is an archaeologist and speculative fiction enthusiast, particularly stories from the 1940s. His work has appeared in: Aphelion, AcademFic, Bewildering Stories, and Mystic Mind Magazine.
Find more from Murray on Facebook.
Wilson F. Engel III – Ohio USA
Dr. Wilson F. Engel, III, who resides in Ohio, USA, is a Distinguished Member of the International Society of Poets and Noble House Poet Fellow in the UK, and a Best American Poet for many years. A member of Master Bards, his poems have won a Second Place (2024) and a Third Place (2023) in international amateur poetry competitions. In 2006 he was awarded a medal for his lifetime service to poetry education.
Sara Etgen-Baker – Texas, USA
After a 25-year teaching career, Sara Etgen-Baker began writing. She’s written a collection of memoir vignettes (Shoebox Stories), a collection of poems (Kaleidoscopic Verses), and a novel (Secrets at Dillehay Crossing). Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications including Guideposts and Chicken Soup for the Soul.