Issue Sixty-One Contributors

Meet Issue Sixty-One Contributors…

Kobina Wright

Kobina Wright is a second generation Southern California native with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Communications (journalism concentration) from California State University, Fullerton. Wright explored the arts of acting, singing and dancing early in childhood and by her mid-teens, she began taking her painting seriously. Wright also began studying choreography and in her third year of high school, co-founded the dance group “Ten Rows of Beans.” With the help of her mother, she also self-published her first book, a volume of poetry titled “Oh Yeah!” to help offset college expenses. While attending the University of Georgia, Wright joined the modern dance group Pamojaand four years later, while attending California State University, Fullerton, founded the Likizo Dance Troupe, which performed throughout Southern California, from Hollywood to San Diego. After graduating from CSUF, Wright published her second volume of poetry, “Growth Spurt” and worked as an assistant editor at Entrepreneur Press. Pursuing her passion for acting, Wright attended the Gloria Gifford Conservatory for the Performing Arts where she discovered that her training in acting made her a better writer. There, directed a reading of scenes from her screenplay titled, “Snapped Back” and her experience at the GGC was instrumental in preparing her for her roles in movies such as “Sunday Morning Stripper;” “Messed in the Head;” and her notable performance in the horror film, “Dark Town.” She has written for publications such as, CYH Magazine and LACMA Magazine and penned several books, including, “Growth Spurt;” “50;” “Raise the Red Teddy: A Single Mother’s Guide to Dating;”and “A Crime And A Simplification Of Something Sublime.” In 2004 she attempted her most ambitious and evolving work by creating the Hodaoa-Anibo language and wrote the first Hodaoa-Anibo dictionary. Currently, she writes for her art and culture blog called “The Wrighter” Wright has created several varying art series including: “Fractured,” “Cali Free,” “Eleven Twenty-Three Girl” and “Kobiphysics.”

Keith Rebec

Keith Rebec resides in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He’s a graduate student, working on an MA in Writing, at Northern Michigan University. His work has appeared in Monkeybicycle, apt, Underground Voices, and Split Lip Magazine, among others.

Molly Pinto Madigan

Self-proclaimed poet and songstress, Molly Pinto Madigan loves words, old ballads, faery stories, and beaches, where she spends her time indulging her mermaid nature.

Debra Brenegan
Debra Brenegan has a Ph.D. in creative writing from The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is an English Professor at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. For her fiction, she has received a Ragdale residency, and was a recent finalist for the Snake Nation Press’s Serena McDonald Kennedy Award for a short-story collection, the John Gardner Memorial Fiction Prize, The Cincinnati Review’s Schiff Prose Prize, and the Crab Creek ReviewFiction Prize. Her work has been published in journals such as Calyx, Tampa Review, Natural Bridge, The Laurel Review, Cimarron Review, Milwaukee Magazine, Phoebe, RE:AL, The Southern Women’s Review, Knee-Jerk, Literary Orphans, Circa Review, and elsewhere. Her novel, Shame the Devil(SUNY Press), about nineteenth-century American journalist and novelist Fanny Fern, was named a finalist for Foreword Reviews 2011 Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction.

Chella Courington

Chella Courington teaches literature and writing at Santa Barbara City College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Nano Fiction, Gone Lawn, Danse Macabre du Jour, The Collagist and SmokeLong. In 2011 Courington published three books: Girls & Women (Burning River), a chapbook of prose poetry; Paper Covers Rock (Indigo Ink), a flipbook of poetry; and Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana (Musa), an e-book of linked microfiction.

Roger Leatherwood

Roger Leatherwood worked in Hollywood on the low rungs until returning to print fiction, where at least the stories he told were his own. His writing has or will appear in Skive Magazine, Oysters & Chocolate, Oulipo Pornobongo, KY Scary Story anthology, European Trash Cinema, and others.

Charles Wilkinson

Charles was born in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His publications include The Snowman and Other Poems (Iron Press, 1978) and The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions, 2000). His stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990(Heinemann), Best English Short Stories 2(Norton), Midwinter Mysteries (Little, Brown), The Unthology (Unthank Books), London Magazine and. A pamphlet of his poems is now out from Flarestack ( Birmingham, U.K.) and new short stories are scheduled for publication in Change at New Street ( TSFG) and an Eibonvale Press anthology. His poems have been in a numbers of American journals, including The San Pedro River Review, The Conium Review, The Raintown Review and Prick of the Spindle. He lives in Presteigne, Powys, Wales, where he is heavily outnumbered by members of the ovine community.

Jacob Collins-Wilson

Jacob Collins-Wilson, a high school English teacher, has had poetry published in Pathos Literary Magazine and Burningword Literary Journal, as well as a short essay published by 1 Bookshelf.