About Our Authors

Madville Publishing Authors

Madville is proud to publish incredible authors who tell daring stories that break genres and share powerful stories of the hardships and triumphs of the underdog, and the artists and photographers they collaborate with. Learn more about the people we publish below!


From left to right: Brian Petkash, Gianna Russo, George Drew, Madville Publishing founder Kim Davis, and Christine Cock.
From left to right: Brian Petkash (Mistakes by the Lake), Gianna Russo (All I See Is Your Glinting ,One House Down), George Drew (Drumming Armageddon), Madville Publishing director Kim Davis, and Christine Cock (featured in By the Light of a Neon Moon).

Jodi Angel

Author Jodi Angel with her tattooed hand half covering her face.
Jodi Angel is an expat living in the Netherlands whose work explores the difficulty of adolescence and self-realization. She has published two collections of short stories, You Only Get Letters From Jail and The History of Vegas. Her first novel, Biggest Little Girl, was just released by Madville Publishing.

Julie Bloemeke (Editor)

A picture of poet Julie Bloemeke.
Julie Bloemeke is a poet, freelance writer, editor, guest lecturer, and teacher of online poetry workshops. In 2021, her first poetry collection, Slide to Unlock ,was chosen as one of two full-length poetry collections statewide as a Book All Georgians Should Read.  Slide to Unlock was also chosen as the Finalist in Poetry for the 57th Georgia Author of the Year Award. She is currently an Associate Editor for South Carolina Review and co-edited a tribute issue of Limp Wrist for Dolly Parton’s 75th birthday in January 2021.  Along with Dustin Brookshire, she is the co-editor of the Madvillan anthology Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, which debuted with Madville Publishing on Dolly’s 77th birthday, January 19, 2023. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines including Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Cortland Review, Nimrod, Pine Hills Review, Crab Orchard Review, Muse/A Journal, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Poet Lore, and others.  Her poems have been published in a number of anthologies including  Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Popculture Poetry Anthology, The Pandemic Poetry Anthology, A Constellation of Kisses, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, The Great Gatsby Anthology, The Sense of the Midlands, The Nancy Drew Anthology, The Southern Poetry Anthology Volume V: Georgia, and the My Cruel Invention Anthology, among others.

Earl Braggs

A photograph of Earl S. Braggs (Obama's Children.)
A North Carolina native from the rural-back-woods-fishing community of Hampstead,  Earl Sherman Braggs is a UC Foundation and Battle Professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Braggs is the author of fourteen collections of poetry. Hat Dancing with Miss Bessie Smith, Cruising Weather Blues and Negro Side of the Moon are his latest. Among his many awards are the Anhinga Poetry Prize, the Cleveland (Ohio) State Poetry Prize (unable to accept, manuscript won in two places at the same time), the C&R Poetry Prize, the Jack Kerouac International Literary Prize, the Knoxville News Sentinel Poetry Award and the Gloucester County Poetry Prize. Braggs’ novel, Looking for Jack Kerouac was a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Contest. Boy Named Boy, a Memoir, was published by Wet Cement Press. His most recent, and first, Madville publication, Obama’s Children , was released by Madville Publishing in 2021.

Dustin Brookshire (Editor)

Dustin Brookshire, a finalist for the 2021 Scotti Merrill Award, is the founder/editor of Limp Wrist and curator of the Wild & Precious Life Series, a Zoom-based poetry reading series, program director for Reading Queer, and founding chapter president of the South Florida Poets. He is the author of the chapbooks Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021) and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012).  With poet Julie E. Bloemeke, Dustin is a co-editor of the Madvillan poetry collection Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023). Dustin’s work has been nominated for a  Pushcart Prize and has been published in or is forthcoming in Assaracus, Whiskey Island, South Florida Poetry Journal, South 85,  Olney Magazine, Mollyhouse, The West Review, Oddball, Gulf Stream Magazine, Redheaded Stepchild, SubtleTea, Ocho, Oranges & Sardines, Ouroboros, Qarrtsiluniand other publications.  He has been anthologized in Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses (Lethe Press, 2012) and The Queer South: LGBTQ Writes on the American South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014).

Rick Campbell

author, Rick Campbell
Rick Campbell is a writer, poet, and essayist who directed Anhinga Press for over 20 years, co-founded the Florida Literary Arts Coalition and its Other Words Conference. He teaches at Sierra Nevada University’s MFA Program and lives on Alligator Point, FL. His work was featured in Being Home: An Essay Anthology, edited by Sam Pickering & Bob Kunzinger (Madville Publishing, 2021.) His poetry was featured in Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology, edited by Karen Head & Collin Kelley (Madville Publishing, 2020), and By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019). His previous Madvillan poetry collection, Gunshot, Peacock, Dog, was published by Madville Publishing in September of 2018, and his latest collection of poetry, Provenance, was published by Blue Horse Press in 2020.

Bonnie Jo Campbell (Editor)

Bonnie Jo Campbell is an author a former Michigan farm girl, hitchhiker, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus snow cone salesperson, and philosophy major who practices Koburyu kobudo weapons training and works as a writing professor at Pacific University. Her most recent publication is a short story anthology she co-edited with fellow Madvillan author Luanne Smith titled Muddy Backroads in June of 2022. Her work was featured in the anthology Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings, edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, & Devi S. Laskar (Madville Publishing, 2021).

Sean D. Carberry

Sean D. Carberry is an award-winning writer, editor, and foreign policy and national security expert. In his more than 15 years as a radio and print journalist, he traveled to dozens of countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. He was NPR’s last Kabul-based correspondent, covering the country’s security and political transition 2012 through 2014. Before journalism, he was a Gold Record-winning recording engineer and producer. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his cat Squeak who he rescued from the streets of Kabul. His forthcoming Madvillan memoir, Passport Stamps: Searching the World for a War to Call Home will be released by Madville Publishing in August 2023.

Jenny Carey (Photographer)

Photographer Jenny Carey
Jenny Carey is a photographer and creative residing in Tampa, Florida. Her photographic images encompass the themes of memory, loss, and family using repetition, ordinary objects, and intimate environments. She seeks to narrate the unseen beauty in her immediate environment, despite the surroundings or one’s emotional state. Her home and personal objects are often subject matter in her images, but frequent travels have opened a favored narrative in her Erosion series. Jenny is also the founder, and coordinator, of Creatives Exchange, an artist collective of professional artists, based in Tampa, which supports the creative interests of the group and community through exhibitions and original programs. She can be reached at jcarey@msn.com. She provided the photography for Gianna Russo’s 2022 Madvillan poetry collection All I See Is Your Glinting: 90 Days in the Pandemic.

Wondra Chang

Wondra Chang smiles as she holds a copy of her novel, Sonju.
Wondra Chang was born in South Korea and has lived in the United States since 1970. Her debut novel, Sonju, was published by Madville Publishing in July of 2021, has been awarded the prestigious Kirkus Star, and chosen as one of their Best 100 Indie Books of the Year.

Jan Cole

Jan Cole reads poetry from her collection A flyer advertising the launch party for Jan Cole's poetry collection, Sisypha Larvata Prodeat..
Jan Cole was best known as a musician, composer, linguist and teacher. Studying music at the Paris Conservatory with Jean Pierre Rampal and Franciso LaGoya, among other musical legends, fueled Cole’s love of language as well as music. She performed on many instruments including flute, recorder, krummhorn, fife, penny whistle, guitar, ukulele, mandolin, tenor banjo, 5-string banjo, psaltery, guitarrón, keyboard, folk harp, and dulcimer. One of her greatest joys was seeing the professional successes of her flute and guitar students. Her poetry collection, Sisypha Larvata Prodeat, was re-published by Madville in 2018. This poetry collection was first published in 1987 when Jan Cole lived and worked in San Francisco, but the poems were written over the course of many years, beginning with her time in university at the Newcomb College of Tulane University and at the Sorbonne. Many of the poems are set in the town of Huntsville, Texas, where Jan was raised. She died in 2019.

Susan Cushman

Susan Cushman was co-director of the 2013 and 2010 Oxford (Mississippi) Creative Nonfiction Conferences.  She was director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop. She was a panelist at the 2017 Decatur Book Festival, the 2012, 2017, and 2018 Southern Festival of Books, the 2017 and 2018, and 2021 Mississippi Book Festival, the 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019 Louisiana Book Festival, the 2018 Mississippi Writers Guild Conference, the 2018 Alabama Writers Conclave Conference, the 2018 Pat Conroy Literary Center Visiting Author Series, the 2019 Southern Literary Festival, and the 2020 AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Professionals) annual conference. Her published books include five she has written: Pilgrim Interrupted (essay collection), John and Mary Margaret (novel), Friends of the Library (short stories), Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s (a memoir), and Cherry Bomb (a novel). She has edited three collections of essays: A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be,  Southern Writers on Writing, and The Pulpwood Queens Celebrate 20 Years! In addition, she has over a dozen essays published in five anthologies and various journals and magazines. She is the editor of the Madvillan forthcoming anthology, All Night, All Day: Life, Death & Angels, which will be released by Madville Publishing in June 2023. Much of Susan’s writing is infused with elements of her own life, including the very mystical spirituality of her Orthodox Christian faith and the personal demons she has been chasing since childhood. Her essays, short stories, memoir, and novels all reflect what she has learned through many dark nights of the soul, but also contain elements of hope and healing and honor her Southern roots.

Kimberly Davis (Editor)

Madville Publishing founder Kim Davis reads at the Offsite Reading at The Chieftain Irish Pub: Madville Publishing, Iris Press, and Stephen F. Austin State University Press. Photo by Lee Zacharias.
Kimberly Davis is the director and founder of Madville Publishing. She sometimes teaches English Composition, Creative Writing, and Technical writing, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, and a BA from Columbia College-Chicago in Arts and Entertainment Media Management. She spent five years on the editorial staff of Texas Review Press. She also edited Ron Kenney’s memoir, An Englishman in Texas. Kim has been engaged in freelance web design for over 20 years. See her design portfolio at Sublime Design Studio. Her poetry was featured in the 2019 anthology By the Light of a Neon Moon: Poetry Out of Dance Halls, Honky Tonks, Music Halls, and Clubs by Madville Publishing.

Susanne Davis

Susanne Davis, author of Gravity Hill. She has chin-length blonde curls, and she is wearing a relaxed cotton button-up shirt.
Susanne Davis is the author of the short story collection, The Appointed Hour  (Cornerstone, 2017), and Madvillan novel Gravity Hill (Madville Publishing 2022), which won second-place in the Blue Moon Novel Competition. Davis grew up on a dairy farm in Connecticut, still owned and operated by her family. Davis has taught creative writing at colleges, universities, in private workshops, and this year, at Asnuntuck Community College. She loves the dynamic exchange of the writing and teaching life. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her stories and essays are published in American Short Fiction, Notre Dame Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review and numerous other literary journals.

David Deutsch

David Deutsch smiles for the camera.
David Deutsch studied medieval literature early in his career and now writes cultural studies of British literature, classical music, and queer American poetry and prose. In his own fiction, he prefers to take a break from historical subjects so as to explore actions and events that never quite happened but that have moral resonances within contemporary gay life. At present, he is working on a monograph on twenty-first-century American gay painting and a second novel set in New York and Oxford that focuses on modern classical music and genetics. His novel, Once Before Sunset, is his first publication with Madville Publishing.

George Drew

George Drew was born in Mississippi and raised there and in New York State, where he currently lives. He is the author of seven collections, most recently Pastoral Habits: New & Selected Poems (2016), Down & Dirty (2015) and The View from Jackass Hill (2011, winner of the 2010 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize), all published by Texas Review Press. His eighth collection, Fancy’s Orphan, was published in 2017 by Tiger Bark Press, and his ninth, Drumming Armageddon was published in 2020, by Madville Publishing. His work was featured in the anthology Muddy Backroads: Stories From Off the Beaten Path, edited by Luanne smith and Bonnie Jo Campbell (Madville Publishing, 2022). George has published widely, with poems, reviews and essays appearing in journals around the country. His work also has been anthologized, most recently in The Southern Poetry Anthology, II: Mississippi (Texas Review Press, 2010), Down to the Dark River: An Anthology of Poems About the Mississippi River (Louisiana Literature Press, 2015), The Great American Wise Ass Anthology (Lamar University Literary Press, 2016), Like Light, (Bright Hill Press, 2017), Birchsong: Poetry Centered in Vermont, II (The Blueline Press, 2018), and the Madvillan collection By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Publishing, March 2019).

Andrew Dunn (Illustrator)

A photo of illustrator Andrew Dunn by Jacqui Davis.
Andrew Dunn is an award-winning Texas filmmaker, screenwriter and artist. His work as a freelance illustrator and concept artist led him to experimental film, 3D animation, and documentary film making. His illustrations appeared in Johnathan Paul’s Madvillan novel, Fairview Chronicles (Madville Publishing, 2020).

Michael Gills

Author, Michael Gills. Photo shows a White man with gray hair and beard wearing a quilted vest and button up shirt with sleeves rolled up--all in brown tones. He has a pair of glasses slung around his neck on a granny cord.
Arkansas native Michael Gills is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel New Harmony (forthcoming Raw Dog Screaming Press) Book 4 of the Go Love Quartet. A fourth collection of short fiction, Burning Down My Father’s House will be published by Texas Review Press in 2023. He co-edited the 2020 Runaway anthology along with Luanne Smith and Lee Zacharias, released by Madville Publishing. His fifth and his first Madvillan novel, Before All Who Have Ever Seen This Disappear, will be published by Madville Publishing in 2023. Other work has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and won the Southern Humanities Review’s Theodore Hoefner Prize for Fiction, Southern Review’s Best Debut of the Year, recognition in the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize Anthology, and inclusion in New Stories from The South: The Year’s Best. His undergraduate novel writing workshop has been featured in USA Today, and several of his students have gone on to publish books of their own, including Emi Wright’s, Alegría (Madville Press, 2021). Gills is a Distinguished Honors Professor at the University of Utah, where he lives in the hills with his wife of thirty-four years, Jill.

Pauletta Hansel

A photo of author Pauletta Hansel.
Poet, memoirist, teacher and editor Pauletta Hansel is author of nine poetry collections including the Madvillan Heartbreak Tree, released in March 2022 by Madville Publishing. Heartbreak Tree is a poetic exploration of the intersection of gender and place in Appalachia. An interview in Salon.com about the book can be found here. Read three poems from the collection published in Still: The Journal here. Reviews of the collection can be found here and here.

Jeff Hardin

Tennessee poet, Jeff Hardin. You can just see him from the neck up staring at the camera with a straight, close-lipped mouth. He stands under a tree with green leaves for a background.
Jeff Hardin is the author of six previous collections of poetry, including two Madvillan collections, most recently Watermark by Madville Publishing, A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being (Madville Publishing), No Other Kind of World (Texas Review Press), and Small Revolution. His work has been honored with the Nicholas Roerich Prize, the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, and the X. J. Kennedy Prize. Originally from Savannah, Tennessee, he has taught for almost three decades at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tennessee.

Karen Head (Editor)

A photo of author Karen Head.
Karen Head is the author of Disrupt This!: MOOCs and the Promises of Technology (UP New England, 2017), She has published five books of poetry (Lost on Purpose, Sassing, My Paris Year, Shadow Boxes and On Occasion: Four Poets, One Year), co-edited the poetry anthologies (Teaching as a Human Experience: An Anthology of Poetry), and Madvillan collection Madville Publishing’s (Mother Mary Comes to Me). Her poetry was featured in Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, edited by Julie E. Bloemeke & Dustin Brookshire (Madville Publishing, 2023) and By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019). She has also exhibited several acclaimed digital poetry projects. In 2010, she won the Oxford International Women’s Festival Poetry Prize. She also creates digital poetry; her project “Monumental” (part of Antony Gormley’s One and Other Project) was detailed in a TIME online mini-documentary. She is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech, and is the Editor of Atlanta Review.

Mike Hilbig

A photo of author Mike Hilbig.
Mike Hilbig is an English professor at the University of Houston-Downtown and at Lone Star College. Sometimes, he picks up a bass guitar and plays for punk rock bands. Sometimes, he just hangs out with his wife, two step kids, and dog. His first book, the Madvillan Judgment Day & Other White Lies, was released by Madville Publishing in February of 2022.

Bobby Horecka

Bobby Horecka reading from his collection, Long Gone & Lost, in San Antonio in 2020.
Bobby Horecka holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston—Victoria, and taught at Victoria College. He has numerous works of short fiction, prose and poetry, published in literary magazines and anthologies like Amarillo BayBluestem MagazineScribe, and The Ocotillo Review. Horecka spent 25 years in print journalism, working newsrooms large and small across Texas. His Madvillan short fiction collection told in vignettes, Long Gone & Lost: True Fictions & other lies, was published by Madville Publishing and was a finalist for the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters’ Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction.

Collin Kelley (Editor)

A photo of poet Collin Kelley.
Collin Kelley is the author of the poetry collections Midnight in a Perfect WorldRenderBetter To Travel and Slow To Burn. He is also the author of the Venus Trilogy of novels, Conquering VenusRemain In Light and Leaving Paris. A recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award, Deep South Festival of Writers Award and a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, Kelley’s poetry, reviews, essays and interviews have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies around the world. He was the co-editor along with Karen Head of the Madvillan poetry collection Mother Mary Comes to Me, released by Madville Publishing in November 2020. His poetry was featured in Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, edited by Julie E. Bloemeke & Dustin Brookshire (Madville Publishing, 2023.)

Ron Kenney

A photo of author Ron Kenney.
Ron Kenney authored the Madvillan memoir An Englishman in Texas, which tells the story of his life as an English jockey who came to the United States in 1960. His autobiographical account begins with his childhood in the northeast of England during WWII. He goes on to describe how, with no knowledge of horses, he was sent four hundred miles from home at 14 years of age to apprentice as a jockey. He’d been turned away by the foreman at the coal mine because he was too small. The story follows Kenney through his coming of age to his coming to America when he was 30. It follows his fortunes in pursuit of the American Dream. Kenney tells of riding horses for some of the wealthiest and most famous horse trainers in Texas. He tells of his loves and his betrayals, and he introduces the people who helped him along the way. Ron Kenney passed away in 2021 at the age of 91.

Bob Kunzinger

A photo of author Bob Kunzinger.
Bob Kunzinger is the author the Madvillan memoir The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia that was published by Madville Publishing. He has also published nine collections of essays, including A Third Place: Notes in Nature, and Penance: Walking with the Infant. He co-edited the Being Home anthology along with Sam Pickering. He lives in Virginia.

Michael Kunzinger (Photographer)

A picture of photographer Michael Kunzinger.
Michael Kunzinger’s photography has appeared in publications such as KestrelBlue Planet Journal, and St Anthony Messenger, and has been in solo and group shows in Virginia, New York, and Galway, Ireland. His abstract work was featured for a solo exhibition at the renowned Quick Center for the Arts in New York, a finalist in an International Competition featured at The Louvre in Paris, and he is the author of the photo essay book, Across The Wild Land: A Photographic Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Blurb Books. He did the photography featured in the Madvillan memoir The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia.

Gerry LaFemina

Gerry LaFemina, author of The Pursuit: A Meditation on Happiness. Black and white photo shows LaFemina wearing a fedora and a leather jacket with stout apartment blocks over his left shoulder, and white sky with power poles over his right.
Gerry LaFemina’s poetry collections include Madvillan The Pursuit: A Meditation on HappinessBaby Steps in Doomsday PreppingThe Story of Ash and Little Heretic. His essays on prosody, Palpable Magic, came out in 2015 and Kendall Hunt recently released his textbook, Composing Poetry: A Guide to Writing Poems and Thinking Lyrically. His poetry was featured in By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019). He teaches at Frostburg State University and in the Carlow University MFA Program.

Devi S. Laskar (Editor)

A photo of author Devi S. Laskar.
Devi S. Laskar is the author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, winner of 7th annual Crook’s Corner Book Prize (2020) for best debut novel set in the South, winner of the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (selected by APALA); selected by The Georgia Center for the Book as a 2019 book “All Georgians Should Read,” finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award, long-listed for the DSC Prize in South Asian Literature and the Golden Poppy Award. The novel was named by The Washington Post as one of the 50 best books of 2019, and has garnered praise in BooklistChicago Review of BooksThe Guardian and elsewhere. Laskar’s second novel, CIRCA, was published on May 3, 2022, by Mariner Books. Her third novel, MIDNIGHT, AT THE WAR, will be published by Mariner Books in early 2024. In 2022, USA TODAY named Laskar among “50 AAPI authors” to read and Goop selected CIRCA as its June Goop Book Club pick. Laskar holds degrees from Columbia University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is an alumna of both TheOpEdProject and VONA, among others. In 2017, Finishing Line Press published two poetry chapbooks. A native of Chapel Hill, N.C., she now lives in California with her family. Laskar co-edited Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings along with Luanne Smith and Kerry Neville.

Sarah Leamy

Sarah Leamy is the author of G’Dog, HiddenWhen No One’s LookingLucky Shot, and Lucky Find, as well as Van Life. Her shorter work has been published in Los Angeles Review, Hunger Mountain, Santa Fe Writers Project, and others. Her memoir, STAY, was released by Madville Publishing in May 2023.

Cooper Levey-Baker

Cooper Levey-Baker is a writer and journalist. His fiction has appeared in the Sierra Nevada Review and Burrow Press’s Fantastic Floridas series, and his journalism has won multiple awards from the Florida Magazine Association and the Florida Society for Professional Journalism. His first novel, Dead Fish Wind , was released by Madville Publishing in 2022.

Angela Liu (Chinese Translator)

Angela Liu obtained a BA in Foreign Languages and Literature from the National Taiwan University in 1972. She later got an MA in English Education from the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas, and a CAGS (Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study) in Educational Media and Technology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts in 1974 and 1978 separately. After a short stint of teaching English as a second language in California and Boston, she switched career to a scientific field, and took literature and writing only as a hobby. In 2014, she retired and moved back to Taiwan with her husband. The following year, she was unexpectedly connected with Lorrie Lo in Texas through a common friend, thus had a chance to try translating English poems to Chinese for the first time for Jan Cole’s anthology, Sisypha Larvata Prodeat (Madville Publishing 2018.)

Swep Lovitt

A photo of author Swep Lovitt.
Swep Lovitt was born and raised in Mississippi. After college, he worked for 30 years in Memphis and now resides in Brookhaven, Mississippi. He played college golf and took a Masters in Modern European History from the University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry collection, This Fierce Afterglow, was published by Madville Publishing in 2021. His publications include two volumes, A Boy’s Face with Swan Wings, and Sometimes the World is Too Beautiful, and 75 poems in magazines and literary journals including: The Texas ReviewMississippi ReviewPoem, and Visions-Internatonal. Lovitt has two grown sons and a daughter, each with poems of their own.

Janet Lowery (Editor)

A photo of poet Janet Lowery.
Janet Lowery is a poet, and the editor of the 2019 Madvillan poetry collection By the Light of a Neon Moon by Madville Publishing. Her poetry has been published in journals such as Poetry EastGreensboro ReviewConcho River Review, and in anthologies such as Mutabilies Press’s 2015 Untameable City and the 2011 Improbable Worlds (edited by Martha Serpas);  By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019), Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2020), Texas in Poetry 2 (TCU Press, 2002), the Poetry East collection Who Are the Rich and Where Do They Live? (2000), and Womanblood (Continuing Saga Press, 1981).

Sue Mell

Author Sue Mell, a study in black and white. She rests her chin on one hand, her assymetrical hair lies in waves on the same side. She wears glasses and has just a hint of a smile, or is it a smirk?
Sue Mell is a writer from Queens, NY. Her 2022 novel, Provenance, won the Madville Blue Moon Novel Competition. She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College and was a 2020 BookEnds fellow at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton. Her collection of micro essays, Giving Carewas a semi-finalist for the Digging Press 2020 Chapbook Prize. Other work has appeared in Brilliant Flash FictionCleaver MagazineDigging Through the FatJellyfish ReviewNarrative MagazineNewtown LiteraryThe Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Whale Road Review.

Charles Moody (Illustrator)

Self-portrait of artist Charles Moody
Charles Moody’s work has appeared in venues all over Texas. His art has also been featured as the cover for numerous literary and musical publications, most notably works by Naomi Shihab Nye, Randall Watson, and the German group, Beehover. Moody did the artwork for the graphic novel version of No Evil is Wide, which will be published by Madville on August 1st, 2023. Charles Moody also did the cover art for the non-illustrated version of No Evil Is Wide that Madville published in 2018, and which subsequently won a Distinguished Favorite award which was presented by the NYC Big Book Awards in 2022.

karla k. morton

poet karla k. morton with a dazzling smile and her hair flowing. She wears a blue denim shirt and stands between tall tree trunks in the woods.
karla k. morton is a professional speaker, award-winning author, photographer. She was the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate, and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. She co-wrote The National Parks: A Century of Grace along with fellow former Texas Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach. Her poetry was featured in the 2020 Madvillan anthology, Some Notes You Hold, published by Madville Publishing, andBy the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019). Her most recent poetry collection, Turbulence & Fluids, will be released by Madville Publishing in April of 2023.

Adelina Moya (Illustrator)

A picture of illustrator Adelina Moya with her arm around poet Jan Cole.
Mexican born artist, Adelina Moya (pictured at right with Jan Cole) studied graphic design at the Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla, Pue., Mexico. She studied watercolor with Lopez Oliver in Monterrey, Mexico, and she studied various styles of painting at the Universidad de Monterrey. Since then, Moya has continued her artistic studies continually incorporating new styles and media. Moya’s art has been shown in Puebla, Pue, Mexico, Atlixco, Pue, Mexico, Mexico City, and at numerous galleries in Texas. She did the illustrations for Jan Cole’s Madvillan poetry collection, Sisypha Larvata Prodeat.

BettyJoyce Nash

A photo of author BettyJoyce Nash
A MacDowell fellow in 2013, BettyJoyce Nash won the Fitzgerald prize in 2015. She earned an MSJ, with distinction, from Medill Journalism (Northwestern) and an MFA in fiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Her fiction has been recognized with fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and VCCA-France. She teaches fiction at WriterHouse in Charlottesville; she’s also taught writing in college and jail. Her Madvillan novel, Everybody Here is Kin, will be released by Madville Publishing in 2023.

Kerry Neville (Editor)

A picture of author Kerry Neville.
Kerry Neville is the author of two short story collections Remember to Forget Me, and Necessary Lies which received the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize in Fiction and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year. Her work has appeared in various journals, including The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, and Triquarterly, and online in publications such as The Washington PostThe Huffington Post, and The Fix. She has twice been the recipient of the Dallas Museum of Art’s “Arts and Letters Prize for Fiction,” and has also been awarded the Texas Institute of Letters Kay Cattarulla Prize for the Short Story and the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize from Crab Orchard Review. Her essays and short stories have been named Notables in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. She is the recipient of a Tyrone Guthrie Centre Artist’s Residency in Ireland and has been on faculty for the Frank McCourt/University of Limerick Summer Writing Program at New York University. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Scholar/Ireland where she was Visiting Faculty in the MA in Creative Writing at University of Limerick. She is the Coordinator of the MFA Program at Georgia College and State University where she is also on faculty. Neville co-edited Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings along with Luanne Smith and Devi S. Laskar.

Juan Ochoa

A photo of author Juan Ochoa.
Juan Ochoa authored Mariguano, a novel set in the drug trafficking world of the Texas/Mexico border circa 1980s. His short stories and essays appear in numerous journals. He teaches writing at South Texas College in McAllen. Ochoa is a licensed Mexican lawyer with an MFA in creative writing. He is currently writing the final volume in the trilogy El Penal. His novel P’al Otro Lado and other tales of bad hombres & nasty women launched September 2023 from Madville Publishing. P’al Otro Lado serves as a prequel to Mariguano.

Bruce Overby

Author Bruce Overby. He's smiling and has a thick head of white hair. His face seems kind.
Bruce Overby is a fiction writer with particular interest in issues of loss and belonging, family and relationships, the human condition in a technology-driven world, and addiction. His debut novel, The Cyclone Release, was released in November of 2022 by Madville Publishing. The Cyclone Release was a finalist in the Blue Moon Novel Competition.

Lisa J. Parker

Lisa J. Parker, poet and photographer. This photo is in full color and shows Lisa smiling with a joyous face. She has straight blond hair, glasses and a bright turquoise scarf.
Lisa J. Parker is a native Virginian, a poet, musician, and photographer. Her work is widely published in literary journals and anthologies, including This Gone Place (2010 Winner of the Weatherford Award) and The Parting Glass (Madville Publishing, Winner of The 2021 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize). Her photography has been on exhibit in NYC and published in several arts journals and anthologies. She has worked in the Department of Defense for nearly twenty years, worked as a first responder for 15 years, and currently serves as a crisis and disaster response volunteer with Team Rubicon. Some of her poetry may be found at www.wheatpark.com.

Linda Parsons

A photo of poetry editor Linda Parsons.
Linda Parsons is a poet and essayist. She is the author of the poetry collections Home Fires (1997), Mother Land (2008), Bound (2011), and Candescent (2019). Her subjects include gardening, childhood, and family history—five generations, from her granddaughter through her own grandmother, are depicted in Bound. Her poetry was featured in Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology, edited by Karen Head & Collin Kelley (Madville Publishing, 2020). Parsons is a member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. She has received grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission and the Knoxville Arts Council as well as a Tennessee Writers Alliance award in poetry. She works as an editor and a policy analyst for the University of Tennessee’s internal audit department. She is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing. Her latest poetry collection, Valediction, will be released by Madville Publishing in June of 2023.

Johnathan Paul

A photo of author Johnathan Paul by Jacqui Davis.
Johnathan Paul is an award-winning Texas filmmaker, screenwriter and artist. His work as a freelance illustrator and concept artist led him to experimental film, 3D animation, and documentary film making. Johnathan wrote the first story set in the fictional town of Fairview in 1998 and has quietly expanded that world ever since. His 2020 novel released by Madville Publishing, Fairview Chronicles Vol. 1: A Wayward Proposition, is the first of many titles set in this fantastic universe filled with mystical horrors. Johnathan Paul is a Professor at the University of North Texas where he teaches film production, visual effects and screenwriting. He also has a long history as a journalist and op-ed writer, having written for various film industry websites. Among his greatest influences are Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, and Terry Gilliam. You can follow the Fairview Chronicles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with @FairviewChronicles.

Brian Petkash

Brian Petkash Headshot
Brian Petkash is the author of the collection Mistakes by the Lake (Madville Publishing, 2020) and was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Tampa and his stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic and Southword, among other publications. He currently lives in Tampa, Florida, where he remains an avid fan of Cleveland sports.

Sam Pickering

Sam Pickering smiles at the camera on the beach
Sam Pickering is writer and professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut. His unconventional teaching style was an inspiration for the character of Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society. Pickering specializes in the familiar essay, children’s literature, nature writers, and 18th and 19th century English literature. Pickering has published many collections of non-fiction personal essays as well as over 200 articles. His collections for Madville Publishing are The World Was My Garden, Too (May 2019), Terrible Sanity (January 2021), Being Home , an anthology edited along with Bob Kunzinger (September 2021), and The Gate in the Garden Wall.

Rita Sims Quillen

Rita Quillen, author of Some Notes You Hold, playing her guitar
Rita Sims Quillen is an author, poet, and musician. Her novel Wayland, a sequel to Hiding Ezra, was published by Iris Press in fall 2019. Her full-length poetry collection, The Mad Farmer’s Wife, was published in 2016 by Texas Review Press and was a finalist for the Weatherford Award in Appalachian Literature from Berea College. Hiding Ezra, released by Little Creek Books, was a finalist for the 2005 DANA Awards. One of six semi-finalists for the 2012-14 Poet Laureate of Virginia, she has received three Pushcart nominations and a Best of the Net nomination in 2012. Her latest collection of poetry, Some Notes You Hold, was released by Madville Publishing in October of 2020. It was a finalist for the 2022 American Writing Awards and a bonus pick for the 2023 Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club Selection.

JC Reilly

Picture of poet JC Reilly.
JC Reilly is a Louisiana writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She writes across genres and has received Pushcart and Wigleaf nominations for her work, as well as awards from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, the Georgia Poetry Society, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts. She is the author of the chapbook La Petite Mort and a contributing author to an anthology of occasional verse, On Occasion: Four Poets, One Year, and of the poetry collection What Magick May Not Alter, released by Madville Publishing in April of 2020. Follow her on social media @aishatonu. Her poetry was featured in Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology, edited by Karen Head & Collin Kelley (Madville Publishing, 2020).

Francine Rodriguez

Francine Rodruiguez smiles at the camera from the bottom left corner. A city spreads out behind her. There is a yellow/sepia filter over the whole image.
Francine Rodriguez is an author who grew up in and around downtown Los Angeles and later worked as a Civil Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity Investigator in the Federal sector. She has worked in the fields of law and psychology for over thirty years, and her experiences in these fields have informed her writing. Her work was featured in the anthology Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings, edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, & Devi S. Laskar (Madville Publishing, 2021). Her short story collection, A Woman’s Story, was published by Madville in 2021.

Andrew Rooney

Author A. Rooney, photo by Jacqueline Davis on the street in Portland Oregon during AWP 2019
Andrew Rooney is an associate professor who teaches writing at Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India when not in Denver, Colorado. He has published a collection of stories, The Colorado Motet (Ghost Road Press) and a novella, Fall of the Rock Dove (Main Street Rag). His stories and poems have appeared in journals, magazines and websites all over the world. His novel, The Autobiography of Francis N. Stein, was published by Madville Publishing in February of 2019.

David Rothman

A photo of poet David Rothman.
David Rothman teaches writing for the City University of New York. A novella, The Lower East Side Tenement Reclamation Association, won the Omnidawn 2018 fabulist fiction prize and was published in 2020. A short story, “Guided by Voices” won a fiction prize with Glimmer Train. Other short stories were published in such journals as HybridoThe Prague ReviewNewtown LiteraryThe Piltdown Review, among others. He is the drummer for the NYC-based band, The Edukators, and is a proud resident of Jackson Heights, Queens.

Gianna Russo

Poet Gianna Russo, photo by Lou Russo. Gianna is sihlouetted on a white background. She has shoulder length, thick, dark hair, dark rimmed glasses and a winning smile. She wears large hoop earrings and a gray sweater. Her arms are draped casually over the back of a chair in front of her.
Gianna Russo is the inaugural Wordsmith of The City of Tampa (2020-22). She is the author of the poetry collections,  All I See Is Your Glinting (Madville Publishing, 2022),One House Down (Madville Publishing, 2019) and Moonflower (2011), winner of a Florida Book Award. She has published poems in Green Mountains ReviewGulf StreamNegative CapabilityCrab Orchard ReviewApalachee ReviewThe SunPoet LoreSaw PalmThe MacGuffinFlorida ReviewTampa ReviewEkphrasisFlorida Humanities Council ForumKaramuThe Bloomsbury Review, and Calyx, among others. Her poetry was featured in By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019). She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University, where she directs the Sandhill Writers Retreat. A third-generation Tampa native, a mother and grandmother, Gianna lives in an almost 100-year-old bungalow with her husband Jeff Karon and their cat Gingko.

Kate Saunders

Katie with the kids on the terrace in Kathmandu
Kate Saunders is a first-time author, but a life-long writer and avid entrepreneur. Following spinal surgery and a subsequent near-death experience, she felt compelled to reevaluate her life and reinvent herself through activism and writing. She views her 2020 Madvillan memoir, Stand in the Traffic, as a subtle path to raise her readers’ awareness.

Tom Shachtman

Tom Schachtman Headshot
Tom Shachtman holds a B.S. in animal behavior, an M.F.A. in playwriting, and has a body of published and produced work that includes eighteen non-fiction books, such as The Day America CrashedRumspringa: To Be Or Not To Be Amish, and the latest, The Founding Fortunes; short novels, including Beachmaster and The Eagle’s Claw; books for children, such as Growing Up Masai; and documentaries for ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS, the most recent being Absolute Zero and the Conquest Of Cold, a two-hour Nova based on his book of the same name. He has also collaborated on a dozen books, among them Whoever Fights Monsters (with Robert K. Ressler), considered the definitive study of serial killers. His novel, The Memoir of the Minotaur, was released by Madville Publishing in September of 2020.

Michael Simms

Author, Michael Simms. portrait in black-and-white. Michael is wearing a plaid shirt and a black hat.
Michael Simms is an American poet, novelist and literary publisher. His satiric Madvillan novel Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy and his YA fantasy novel The Green Mage (releasing March 2023) were published by Madville Publishing, and his most recent poetry collections are American Ash and Nightjar, both published by Ragged Sky Press.

Katherine Smith

Poet Catherine Smith shares a wide open smile in this black and white photo. She has dark, shoulder-length hair.
Katherine Smith’s poetry publications include BoulevardNorth American ReviewCincinnati ReviewMissouri ReviewPloughsharesThe Southern Review, and many other journals. Her first book, Argument By Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems, Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. Her third collection, Secret City: Poems, was released by Madville Publishing in August of 2022. A Tennessee native, she works at Montgomery College in Maryland.

Luanne Smith (Editor)

Luanne Smith is an author and a native Kentuckian who now lives between New Jersey and Florida. She taught English for 30 years at West Chester University. Her most recent publication is a short story anthology she co-edited with fellow author Bonnie Jo Campbell titled Muddy Backroads in June of 2022. She also co-edited Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings along with Kerry Neville and Devi S. Laskar, and the 2020 Runaway anthology along with Michael Gills and Lee Zacharias, released by Madville Publishing. Her poetry was featured in By the Light of a Neon Moon, edited by Janet Lowery (Madville Publishing, 2019).

Kate Sweeney

Poet Kate Sweeney with arms and legs crossed and grinning from the porch swing in a little black dress. She has a blond bob haircut and a cheerful smile.
Kate Sweeney is the author of the chapbook Better Accidents (Yellow Jacket Press, 2009) and Worrisome Creatures (Madville Publishing, 2022). Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, MeridianTampa Reviewand Poet Loreamong others.

John Talbird

John Talbird is the author of the chapbook, A Modicum of Mankind (Norte Maar) and the novel The World Out There (Madville Publishing 2020). His fiction and essays have appeared in PloughsharesGrainJukedThe Literary ReviewAmbitPotomac Review and many others. He is on the Editorial Board of Green Hills Literary Lantern and a frequent contributor to Film International. An English professor at Queensborough Community College-CUNY, he lives in New York City with his wife, artist Melinda Yale.

Jessica Temple

Jessica Temple earned her PhD in poetry from Georgia State University. She co-directs the syndicated poetry college radio program melodically challenged and teaches at Alabama A&M University. Her work has appeared in ThemaCrab Orchard ReviewCanyon Voices; and Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems from Negative Capability Press, among others. She is the author of the chapbook Seamless and Other Legends (Finishing Line Press, 2013). She attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and was named Alabama State Poetry Society’s 2019 Poet of the Year.  Her poetry collection, Daughters of Bone, was released by Madville in February 2021.

Mark Tulin

Mark Tulin Headshot
Mark Tulin’s formative years were spent in Philadelphia playing baseball and getting into mischief with his friends. He parlayed his experiences growing up in a dysfunctional family to become a successful marriage and family therapist. Once he retired and relocated to California, his interest in creative writing flourished. His stories have appeared in anthologies, journals, and podcasts. He has published in Page & Spine, Cabinet of the Heed, and Fiction on the Web, among others. His poetry chapbook, Magical Yogis, was published by Prolific Press in 2017, and his collection, The Asthmatic Kid & Other Stories, was released by Madville Publishing in August of 2020.

Susan O’Dell Underwood

author Susan O'Dell Underwood
Susan O’Dell Underwood is a poet and a fiction author, and has been teaching at Carson-Newman University since 1990. She is a Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program. Her areas of interest are poetry, Appalachian literature, and contemporary American poetry and literature. Her most recent novel, Genesis Road, was released by Madville Publishing in June 2022. Genesis Road was awarded the prestigious Kirkus Star.

Amit Verma

Author Amit Verma
Amit Verma is a resident of Houston, TX, where he divides his time among things he Is passionate about, Including molding captive Impressionable minds and conducting research as a professor In Electrical Engineering, a perfect family, and a never perfect yard. His two works on literary fiction, The Lives and The Times, and The Lives and The Times II have been variously called, “rare find,” a “page-turner,”, and “…Is refreshing and does a humorous take on some of the pressing Issues…” His latest novel, A Quiver in the Purlieu, was released by Madville Publishing in November of 2021.

Randall Watson

Author Randall Watson
Randall Watson is the author of No Evil is Wide(Madville Publishing), which received the Quarterly West prize in the novella, The Geometry of Wishes (Texas Review Press), a finalist in the Juniper and Tampa Review Poetry Prizes, The Sleep Accusationswhich received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize at Eastern Washington University, (currently available through Carnegie Mellon University Press), and Las Delaciones del Sueñotranslated by Antonio Saborit with an Introduction by Adam Zagajewski, published in a bi-lingual edition by the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico. The graphic novel version of No Evil is Wide with art by Charles Moody was released by Madville Publishing in August of 2023.

Lorrie Lo Wagamon (Editor)

A picture of editor Lorrie Lo Wagamon.
Lorrie Lo graduated from the National Cheng Chi University in Taiwan with a BA in journalism. She and husband Dr. Charles H. Wagamon, Jr. were dedicated to broadening English horizons in Taiwan for years. She edited various magazines and published several English learning books. She even established a service agency, Nova International Cultural & Educational Services (NICES) to promote cultural exchanges. Lorrie’s special passion, however, is publishing multi-lingual poetry books. She once helped Patricia Hu, a renowned professor of French literature and a poet in Taiwan, to publish her poetry books, The Falling Flowers and Tang Poems of Ancient Melodies in Chinese, English, and French. Those two books made great impressions on Jan Cole, a popular and well respected musician and poet of Huntsville, Texas, where Lorrie lived since 2014. Lorrie and Jan met and became dear friends. Jan wished to see her English and French poems also shown in Chinese, and Lorrie promised to make her dream come true. The path toward that dream has not been without obstacles, but Lorrie has been lucky to be in contact with a volunteer translator thousands of miles away, and with whose help she was, in the end, able to keep her promise and happily see the tri-lingual Sisypha Larvata Prodeat on its way.

Dana Wildsmith

A photo of author Dana Wildsmith
Dana Wildsmith is the author of six collections of poetry, a novel, Jumping, and an environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South, which was the finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. Wildsmith has served as Artist-in-Residence for Devils Tower National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Everglades National Park. She is a Fellow of the Hambidge Center for Science and Creative Arts. Her seventh poetry collection, With Access to Tools, will be released by Madville in May 2023.

William Woolfitt

A picture of author William Woolfitt.
William Woolfitt’s fiction chapbook, The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (2014), won the Epiphany Editions contest judged by Darin Strauss. He has also written several books of poems, including Spring Up Everlasting (Mercer University Press, 2020). His short stories and essays have been published in Tin House, Best Small Fictions, The Cincinnati Review, Appalachian Review, Epoch, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. After growing up in West Virginia, Woolfitt relocated to another part of Appalachia—Cleveland, Tennessee, where he lives with his family and teaches college writing classes. His short story collection, Ring of Earth, will be released by Madville Publishing in September 2023.

Emi Wright

Emi Wright
Emi Wright is a graduate of Michael Gills’ Novel Writing Workshop which is taught at the University of Utah. Her novel, Alegría, was released by Madville in October of 2021.

Barbara Young

A photo of poet Barbara Young with her collection, Heirloom Language.
Barbara Young was born in a Nashville, Tennessee that was nothing like today’s city. She wrote poetry in high school, won a contest with a disappointing prize, went away to a small Baptist college. The nineteen-seventies are a blank during which she gave up writing in the belief that poetry should have something important to say, and she had nothing. Years later she discovered writing prompts, decided that important things were over-rated, and eventually—having found no other calling—began to admit to being a poet. She, husband Jim, and their two cats live in White Bluff, near Nashville. Her poetry collection, Heirloom Language, was released by Madville Publishing in May 2021.

Lee Zacharias

Lee Zacharias before the Sir Walter Raleigh Award Dinner in 2019.
Lee Zacharias is the author of three previous novels, LessonsAt Random, and Across the Great Lake, a 2019 Notable Michigan Book, as well as a collection of stories, Helping Muriel Make It Through the Night, and a collection of essays, The Only Sounds We Make, in addition to her 2021 novel with Madville Publishing, What a Wonderful World This Could Be. She co-edited the 2020 Runaway anthology along with Luanne Smith and Michael Gills, released by Madville Publishing. She has received two silver medals from the Independent Book Publisher Awards, won North Carolina’s Sir Walter Raleigh Award, and held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work has been reprinted and frequently cited in the annual volumes of The Best American Essays Her work was featured in Being Home: An Essay Anthology, edited by Sam Pickering & Bob Kunzinger and the anthology Taboos & Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings, edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, & Devi S. Laskar (Madville Publishing, 2021). What a Wonderful World This Could Be has been named an NYC Big Book Awards Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction, an American Fiction Awards finalist, and winner of the 2022 Independent Press Award.

Jianqing Zheng

Author Jianqing Zheng
Jianqing Zheng is the author of A Way of Looking and two poetry chapbooks, editor of Conversations with Dana Gioia, Sonia Sanchez’s Poetic Spirit through Haiku, and five other books. He received the 2019 Gerald Cable Book Prize and two literary arts fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, among other awards and honors. He is professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University, where he serves as editor of the Journal of Ethnic American Literature and Valley Voices and is the former editor of Poetry South. A reeducated youth in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Zheng has lived in Mississippi since 1991. His latest poetry collection, The Dog Years of Reeducation, was released by Madville Publishing in February 2023.
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