ASSOCIATES
Since January 2000, Wakefield Brewster has been known as one of Canada’s most popular and prolific Performance Poets.
He is a BlackMan born and raised in Toronto to parents hailing from the island of Beautiful Barbados and has resided in Calgary since 2006. He has spoken across Canada, in the U.S. and makes countless appearances on a regular basis in a variety of ways, for a myriad of reasons throughout each and every single year.
One of Wakefield’s greatest and most reputable claims to fame is that you will consistently find him performing Poetry in places where you wouldn’t expect Poetry to be heard. Besides the classrooms, Featured Readings, Workshops and Lectures, you will find him at Retired Teachers Conventions, Mentoring Struggling Young Men in their youth, Pharmaceutical Conventions and Political Fundraisers.
Facebook, Facebook Fan Page, Instagram, Twitter, on the radio, online, in pictures, in video, in print, Wakefield Brewster is accessible and everywhere.
Hunt Brumby is an Appalachian storyteller raised in the small town of Murphy NC. Son to a Lawyer and Librarian, he found love for written word early in life. Following high school, he left those hollers and hills for a life in the United States Marines where he first started writing. Hunt considers himself a collector of experiences and draws upon all of them in his writing. With a love for dark comedy, his stories will find humor where most would find pain. Currently, he is working on a collection of short stories chronicling his time in the military from boot camp to his time in Iraq. He hopes to compile these into a collection that gives his honest account of a subject so often not talked about in an open manner. Hunt considers himself forever a student, a collector of ink, and most of all, willing to spin a tale for whomever will listen.
Alecia Vera Buckles is a working artist based out of Chattanooga, TN. She graduated with a BFA from Shorter University in Rome, GA in 2014. Her work is influenced by a childlike view of the world in which she brings to life throughout her bold color palette. The backbone of Alecia’s work begins with a variation of texture and line work. She taps into her inner childlike wonder by harvesting and recycling paint chips anywhere she can. Old retired palettes, tissue paper, paper towels and even urban exploring have all provided opportunity for Alecia to create with what she finds. Her subject matter is never limited due to the constant fascination of her surroundings. Her persistent experimentaton of painting, ceramic sculpture, and mixed media has only leveraged her into a more diverse art market. Check out her work and stay tuned for more.
T. C. Carter is best known as The Cowboy Poet, but he has two other favored genres, those being military themes, and southern life as he knew it growing up in the forties and fifties. Then there is a fourth body of work he simply labels “other stuff.” He prefers live readings over any other form of expression, but his work can be seen in publications such as Hobo Camp Review, The Blue Mountain Review, County Lines and others. He occasionally posts videos and audios online. He is a long-standing member of The Southern Collective Experience, a recent member of the Johnston County Writers Group and is in the process of forming a new open mic group.
Angie Dribben’s debut collection, Everygirl, a finalist for the 2020 Dogfish Head Prize, is out with Main Street Rag in May 2021. She is Contributing Review Editor at Cider Press Review. Her poetry, essays, mixed media, and reviews can be found or are forthcoming in Cave Wall, EcoTheo, Deep South, San Pedro River Review, Crab Creek Review, Crack the Spine, fatal flaw, up the staircase quarterly, patchwork lit, and others. Her poetry is widely-anthologized: Aunt Flo, I Wanna Be Loved By You (Marilyn Monroe Poems), Texas Review Press’ Virginia anthology, among others. Everygirl – Debut Collection – Available Now – Purchase Here
James H Duncan is he editor of Hobo Camp Review, co-host of the Troy Poetry Mission, and author of such books as We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine, Dead City Jazz, and What Lies In Wait, among others. He currently resides in upstate New York and reviews indie bookshops at his blog, The Bookshop Hunter. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.
Shane Etter is a former high tech sales professional who started writing fiction to improve his brain after suffering a stroke. A member of The Indie Authors Wall of Fame, and a two-time nominee for Georgia Author Of The Year, 2020 and 2021 he has eight published novels including the supernatural thrillers—Bottom Dwellers, Mind Dwellers and Trail Dwellers, set in north Georgia and A Brain In Third Person, about a serial killer in Atlanta, A War In The Bronx, about rival drug gangs in NYC, A Brain In Third Person II, The Return of The Bad Penny; and Devil’s Sympathy, an international story about a writing professor at Oxford University who’s been traveling the world killing people for forty years. His newest, World of Rage, is a timely post apocalyptic dystopian story of survival.
Born with Spina Bifida but with no visible problems, Shane is a former member of the Board of Directors of The Spina Bifida Association of Georgia, and enjoys helping the sick and less fortunate.
His first novel, Bottom Dwellers, was named the best murder mystery of 2012 by publicist/agent John Weaver. A Brain In Third Person was named by Amazon Top 300 reviewer Cyrus Webb as, “One of his twenty-five favorite novels of 2018”. He named Devil’s Sympathy one of the Top Twenty-Five Fiction Summer Reads for 2020. Shane’s latest, World of Rage, was one of Mr. Webb’s top twenty novels of 2020.
Shane was born, raised, and educated in the great literary state of Mississippi, and called Atlanta home for 30 years. His writing is compared to Jim Thompson and Cornell Woolrich. Known for his surprise endings, his latest, World of Rage raises the bar.
Rebecca Evans’ writing revolves around living with disability and overcoming trauma. Her narratives weave the raw and unfiltered perspective of a son with disabilities and those few small moments when she has felt a superhero; receiving the Humanitarian Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Southwest Asia Service Medal for her participation in Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and Operation Provide Comfort during the Persian Gulf War. And through her larger moments, pulling her son through thirty-six surgeries and lifting herself out of poverty and self-destruction after fleeing domestic violence.
She hopes to inform, in a new way, what it means to navigate this world through a broken body and spirit.
She served eight years in the United States Air Force and is a decorated Gulf War veteran. She’s hosted and co-produced Our Voice and Idaho Living television shows, advocating personal stories, and now mentors teens in the juvenile system. She is the co-host of Writer to Writer podcast on Radio Boise.
Her poems and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Entropy Literary Magazine, War, Literature & the Arts, 34th Parallel, the Blue Mountain Review, Survival Lit, and Collateral Journal, among others.
With an MFA in creative nonfiction, Evans is finishing a second MFA in poetry at Sierra Nevada University. She’s currently edited her essay collection, Body Language, and just completed her memoir, Navigation. She has served on the editorial staff of the Sierra Nevada Review and lives in Idaho with her three sons.
Hester L. (“Lee”) Furey is a poet and literary historian specializing in hidden histories and archival research. Furey is an assistant professor of English at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College. She is the author of Skeleton Woman Buys the Ticket (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Little Fish (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and the editor of Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 345, American Radical and Reform Writers, Second Series. Projects in progress include a graphic novel called Love & Revolution, an essay collection titled Laboratory, and a new poetry collection, House of Jars.
Peabody Award and Kuumba Award-winning POET/Musician/EMCEE. the 1st Poet on 106th and Park. (AJ & Free)The ONLY Poet on a CD with PRINCE (RS2 Rhonda Smith) the Gospel Choice Awards (12th Annual) I appeared on HBO Def Poetry twice (Seasons 1 & 5) 2nd Season of BETJ Lyric Cafe, Motivational Speaker.
A.B.Y.S.S. – Abyss was determined to put stretch marks on the genre we now know as spoken word. He tirelessly works on his craft, a self-taught musician, and scribe. Abyss also served 7 yrs on the board of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. He spends countless hours of community service inside jails, schools, churches, and community centers. Abyss received a Peabody Award for his appearance on HBO Def Poetry the “original series” Season 1 and returned to star on seasons 5 of HBO Def Poetry. He was the first poet to appear on BET’s 106th & Park.
Currently, Abyss has been cast for a recurring role on the “Somebodies”; the first scripted sitcom in BET’s history. He’s has made other appearances on BET J’s Lyric Café, the 12th Annual Gospel Choice Awards, and numerous NACA/APCA college events. Abyss also co-wrote a song with Rhonda Smith (Prince’s Bass Player). He’s a published author, musician, activist, motivational speaker, songwriter, actor, mentor, etc. His list of accomplishments goes on and on.
Abyss is an Artist truly in tune with perseverance and hard work. His mission is to educate and entertain simultaneously. Medicine sprinkled with sugar is a good way to describe the message that has been authored by his ray of light. With a resume like his. Abyss realizes that his gift is from God, and it’s to be used for His purposes only. Abyss has been in the company of the likes of Alicia Keys and Kanye West, yet he’ll break bread with the homeless at the Atlanta Mission. Abyss wears different hats depending on his assignment for the day.
“Team Abyss” (a coalition of artists working to maintain the virility of creativity). Abyss has a prophetic mouth for such times as the present and breathes spirit into dead art forms. If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, go, your life will never be the same. Coming to a town near you soon. A.B.Y.S.S. – A Bright Young Soul Seeking the Acid Gospel – “sometimes the truth burns”.
Casanova Green is a writer, singer/songwriter, educator, and pastor. He is a 2010 graduate of Ohio Northern University with a BA in Language Arts Education with minor in voice and received an MFA in Creative Writing at the Etowah Valley Low-Residency MFA Program at Reinhardt University in 2018. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Casanova is a member of the Southern Collective Experience and has been published in several publications including The Blue Mountain Review where he serves as Microfiction Editor, Raw Art Review, and Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review. His first poetry collection, Things I Wish I Could Tell You, is slated for publication in 2021 by SCE Press.
He has done extensive ministry work since the age of nine and has served as a worship leader and choir director for over twenty years. He released his first album, A Worshiper Mentality, in January 2016; his second, Songs from the Journey: Part I, in August 2019; and his third album, Songs from the Journey: Part II, in February 2020. He will release his four album, Songs from the Journey: Part III in 2021. You can find his music on all digital platforms.
Currently, he is the Owner of CGCreate, LLC and serves as the Lead Pastor of True Vision Christian Community headquartered in Lancaster, OH with outreaches and churches in South Carolina and India. He and his family reside in Lancaster.
Terence Hawkins was born in a coal-mining town in western Pennsylvania noted as a setting for both Night of the Living Dead and American Rust. Through an horrendous and never-to-be-repeated series of administrative errors, he was permitted not only to attend, but graduate from, Yale University. After having been seen locked in mortal struggle with his sworn foe, Professor Moriarity, on the Reichenbach Fell, his trail went cold for many years. He suddenly reappeared in New Haven as the Director of the Yale Writers’ Conference, which caromed from success to success under his wise tutelage until 2015. He is the author of The Rage of Achilles, a novelization of the Iliad in modern prose based on Julian Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind, and American Neolithic, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2014. He has also published many short stories, essays, and opinion pieces. He is now the Director of the Company of Writers, supporting authors and poets at every stage in their careers. He lives in Connecticut with his muse and keeper, the pithy and enigmatic Mrs. H.
Jerrett DeWayne Haynes was born in Fort Payne, AL the last day of April in 1993. Parented by truly southern staples of the mom and dad roles. His mother was a teacher at a local elementary school, and his father was a farmer.
Upon high school graduation, he attended the local community college and began a short-lived career in farming. Once the realization of not fulfilling his dreams began to be a reality, Jerrett DeWayne traded his stake in the farm for the food service in hopes to have more opportunities to write and live a healthier life.
You can find him throughout the Chattanooga hang-outs or via email: jerrettdewayne0133@gmail.
Award Winning Artist Debbie Hennessey’s latest cd No Longer Broken is available now and features the songs Every Song Is You, You Can’t Unpull A Trigger, Whiskey Charm, Sugar and Rain, Right For Right Now, and more. Click on the music page or the music player on every page listen.
Below is the music video for Every Song Is You! After you’ve watched that be sure to check out the video tab for more including the exclusive interview and behind-the-scenes look at the No Longer Broken cd release party and acoustic show.
Debbie Hennessey was named AC40 Female Artist of the Year by New Music Weekly as well as charting a Top 20 Hit on NMW’s AC40 Charts. Her song Believe was used in an episode of The Moment, which aired on USA and UHD Networks, and the music video for the song Good As Gone was featured on the broadcast TV shows Extra and The Next GAC Star. She has been named a multiple Finalist in the Great American Song Contest and multi-Semi-Finalist in the Song of the Year Contest, as well as multiple Honorable Mentions from the Billboard World Song Contest and West Coast Songwriters Contest.
Her songs have been included on compilation CDs including CMT’s New Music Collection, GoGirls MusicFest, Songsalive!, Beautiful-Women on the Move, among others and named Best Vocalist of the Month by SingerUniverse. Debbie is a writer for Studio 51 Music, Pacifica Music, and others providing original songs for their film and tv music libraries. She is a voting member of the NARAS/GRAMMYS, a writer/publisher member of ASCAP, as well as a member of AIMP, NARIP, and SONA. Debbie’s three full-length CDs and six singles are all available through many music outlets including iTunes, CDBaby, and Amazon, or by calling 1-800-BUY-MY-CD.
Samantha Rose Hill is the Acting Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at Bard College, and Associate Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research in New York, New York. Her translation of Hannah Arendt’s Poems is slowly forthcoming, and she has just finished a memoir about sexual violence in academia. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Seminar, OpenDemocracy, Theory & Event, Contemporary Political Theory, The South Atlantic Quarterly, The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center and Amor Mundi, among other publications. You can follow Samantha on Twitter.
Laura Ingram is poetry editor and social media manager for the Southern Collective Experience. She’s has had work published in one hundred journals and magazines, among them Gravel and Juked. She is the author of four poetry collections: Junior Citizen’s Discount, Mirabilis, The Ghost Gospels, and Animal Sentinel.
Please direct all purchasing inquiries to [email protected] .
Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collections Animal Heart (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016) and Brief Instructions (Ghostbird Press, 2017.) His work is included in the 2019 Best Microfiction anthology and his story “Barclay Station” won the Nassau Review’s 2019 Writer Award for Fiction. He is an adjunct professor of fiction writing at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He and his family live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Shanna McNair is Founder and Director of The Writer’s Hotel and Founding Editor and Publisher of The New Guard literary review. Shanna writes prose, poetry and scripts and is an award-winning journalist. She recently served as a RISCA Fiction Fellow Competition Judge, and as an Interdisciplinary Study Adviser at Lesley University. She was selected for a writing residency at Studio Faire (2022) and Gullkistan (2023) this year and has been a writer-in-residence at Hewnoaks Artist Colony, at the Thomas Lynch Cottage and at the Stonecoast Ireland Residency. She is a graduate of the Dartmouth College Creative Writing MALS program, the Stonecoast MFA program and holds a Creative Writing Certificate from Oxford University, via Dartmouth. She has worked extensively in the visual and performing arts. Her work has appeared on KGB Bar Lit online, and in Maine Magazine, DIAGRAM, Village Soup, Naugatuck River Review, Stonecoast Lines and elsewhere. Her play, “Fat Sushi” was chosen as part of Belfast, Maine’s One-Act Festival; she directed and produced. She has worked extensively in the visual and performing arts.
Nikita Nelin is the offspring of a cosmonaut and a therapist, and though he did study psychology, he has never tried to escape the earth, except through his writing. Nikita was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S in 1989. He has lived in Austria and Italy, and has traveled the U.S extensively. His work often takes on a borderless perspective, exploring contemporary culture from the fringe through his journalism, and the nature of lineage and likeness between difference through his fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. He has received the Sean O’Faolain Prize for short fiction, the Summer Literary Seminars Prize for nonfiction, and the Dogwood Nonfiction Prize. He memoir, The Fifth Season, was chosen as a finalist for the 2017 Restless Books Immigrant Prize as well as the 2018 Dzanc Nonfiction Prize. He holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and is a 2019 associate fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center. If you wish to support his work you can find him at Nikitanelin.com and through Patreon.
Dr. Kerry B. Neville is Assistant Professor of English in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing at Georgia College and State University. She is the author of Remember To Forget Me and Necessary Lies. Her fiction and essays appear in journals, including The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, and Glimmer Train. She writes for online publications, including The Huffington Post, Dame, The Fix, and The Establishment. She is the recipient of The Dallas Museum of Art’s Fiction Prize and the Texas Institute of Letters Prize for the Short Story. She is Fiction Editor of Arts & Letters and also is faculty for The University of Limerick/Frank McCourt International Writing program. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Limerick/Creative Writing MA Program in Ireland.
Website: www.kerry-neville.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KerryBethNeville/
Twitter: @mommamaybemad1
Brian Newman (who goes by Asriel as his pen name and Hebrew name) is a 38 years old resident of Cleveland, TN. He is the father of two daughters, and served in the United States Air Force Veteran during 9/11. He has a B.A. in History, B.A. in German, M.A. in Marriage and Family, and also attended Seminary for Theological Studies and the Community College of the Air Force for Personnel Management. He attended Goethe Language Institute in Munich Germany on scholarship. He is an International Student at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany. He was raised in a Log Cabin in West TN before enlisting in the military. After the military, he lived in Nashville, TN, Athens, GA, and Greensboro, NC. His current occupation is as a Certified Peer Support Recovery Specialist (Mental Health) and Founder of Hebrew Hearts Outreach. He is currently studying for his Dream Interpretation Certification. Among his books in progress, he has “Letters to the Radio: A Lyrical Healing Journey” and “Twilight Parables: Speaking the Dream Language.” He has been published by the Belmont Literary Journal, with his first published book being “Audio Poetry: Poems and Prayers for Weary Hearts.” He has contributed to the “Healing Arts Project” and has been the “Faces of Faith” interviewer for the Blue Mountain Review. Furthermore, he has been a guest author on Dante’s Old South on NPR Chattanooga.
David R. Peoples is a composer, performer, recording artist, poet, and music professor who has worked largely within the realms of traditional, experimental, jazz, and rock. Music has well and truly been David’s life work. He has a novel-worth of accolades and accomplishments, but he began simply figuring out interesting melodies and playing them on the piano – and then the horn, trumpet, and organ. By age 15, David had written his first award-winning composition for symphonic orchestra. Among other things, David’s toured extensively; lived, studied, and performed in Los Angeles, Austin, Memphis, and Atlanta (his current residence, at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains); won numerous national and international awards for composition; had his music premiered throughout North and Central America, Europe, and Asia; and heard one of his orchestral compositions performed at the Imagine Music Festival.
Dr. Peoples is currently a music professor at the University of North Georgia and is the founder of the Research on Contempory Music Conference (ROCC). ROCC has brought in performers and researchers from around the world to Georgia. He studied composition with renowned composers Kamran Ince, Jack Cooper, Jim Richens, John Mills, and Charles Richard.
David writes with a ginger ale in hand on a balcony surrounded by forest. It’s from here, surrounded by nature, that all of his music begins – before being released into and around the world.
Zach Riggs
Zach Riggs is an author just outside Atlanta, Georgia. During the 2020 quarantine he published his first book as a free gift to anyone struggling through the lockdowns. He has been published in The Blue Mountain Review, Goomba Stomp, and more. He currently works as a copywriter at a marketing agency and loves spending time with his beautiful wife and two kids. Publications: Forbes Magazine: “OK, Boomer! 5 Retirement Tips From Boomers (And Why Millennials Should Listen)”
Peter Ristuccia is an entrepreneur and author. He is the Founder and CEO of Firefly Telecommunications, LLC – an international technology start-up company.
LaVonne Elaine Roberts is a short story writer, essayist, and memoirist. She is the interview editor of a literary journal Cagibi, the 2020 Diversity Fellow for Drizzle Review, and a member of the Blue Mountain Review Southern Collective. Her work at Drizzle will include curation of a special issue on ageism, due out summer 2020. Her essays, short stories, and poetry have been published widely, including in Our Stories, Too: Personal Narratives by Women, WordFest Anthology 2019, The Blue Mountain Review, LIT Magazine, Thought Notebook, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Litro, among other publications. She is the founder of WRITE ON!, which facilitates free writing workshops for marginalized populations. She resides in New York City, where she is completing an MFA at The New School and a memoir called Life On My Own Terms.
An attorney, Michael, serves as Senior Vice President of External Affairs for Lakeland Regional Health (LRH). He oversees the strategic management of governmental relations and community partnerships. Michael also manages the LRH Corporate Compliance Program as the Chief Corporate Compliance and Integrity Officer. During his 20-year career in compliance, Michael has mitigated over $100 million in potential fines and penalties. An emerging fiction writer, Michael writes about the post-Reconstruction South and its textile industry. Michael is married with four children. From Anderson, South Carolina, he currently lives in Lakeland, Florida. At home, Michael gardens and raises chickens.
Michel Stone is a writer, speaker, educator, and community volunteer. Her critically acclaimed novels Border Child (April 2017, Doubleday/Anchor) and The Iguana Tree (Hub City Press, 2012) have been compared to the writings of John Steinbeck and both books have been optioned for film. She is the 2018 recipient of the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature, and her novels have been favorably reviewed by The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, Charleston Magazine, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Charlotte Observer, The New York Journal of Books, Kirkus (starred review), Publishers Weekly (starred review) and many others. Stone has published numerous stories and essays, and she is a recipient of the South Carolina Fiction Award. She’s a graduate of Clemson University with a Master’s Degree from Converse College, and she’s an alumna of the Sewanee Writers Conference. She’s the immediate past board chair of the Hub City Writers Project and currently serves on the President’s Advisory Council for Wofford College. Michel is a Spartanburg Regional Fellow, a Liberty Fellow, and a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and she has been awarded full fellowships to attend the Wildacres Writing Residency and the Rowland Writers Residency. She is at work on her third novel. Michel lives in Spartanburg, SC with her husband. They have three children.
Born and raised in Atlanta/Decatur, Georgia, Marcus Gregory Taylor, the one and only Brown-Eyed Soul Man, pours his soul into poetry, acting, writing, podcasting, teaching, blogging and spoken word. Marcus gives his voice and invites the audience to be his company.
With compassion for young people and for those without, Marcus writes and performs at churches, schools, venues, and events throughout Georgia with an inspirational message. Marcus has also performs poetry for cooperate functions at Georgia Tech.
Marcus currently hosts a podcast: Soul Fever. He also can be seen at various venues in Georgia sharing his poetry, performing his one man show: Being Single is Cool, and working in his community with his church or educational programs to better serve his community. He also blogs on www.lifeseek.org to share his humorous thoughts on current events. Follow Marcus on social media and bandcamp sites to be up to date on his latest adventures.
Scott Wolven is TWH Consulting Director and Consulting Editor of The New Guard literary review. He is the author of the short story collection, Controlled Burn. Scott’s stories have appeared seven years in a row in The Best American Mystery Stories Series, the most consecutive appearances in the history of the series. The title story of the collection appeared in Best American Noir of the Century. The story “The Copper Kings” (Controlled Burn) is included in the prestigious collection, 20 + 1 , an anthology of 21 new short stories “by emblematic American authors,” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Terres d’Amerique,” published by Albin Michel and edited by Francis Geffard. His short story, “Playboy,” was featured in Playboy Magazine. The film, “Hepburn” by Tommy Davis, a work based on Scott’s short story, “Hammerlock,” was featured at The New York Film Festival on the Main Stage. Scott was a Staff Writer for Season Two of “Hightown” for the STARZ TV network and Jerry Bruckheimer TV.