CONTRIBUTORS

Jean Anderson's most recent collection of stories is Human Being Songs: Northern Stories (University of Alaska Press, 2017). She's lived in Fairbanks since 1966 and has published stories and a few poems in journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Kalliope, Prairie Schooner, Northern Review, Permafrost, and Cirque and has won several awards for her fiction.

Amuqan Julia Jimmie. I was raised in Tuntutuliak. When I was growing up, the population was about 300. When I moved away the population was close to 350. As with all my classmates, Yup'ik is my first language. We learned to speak English at the Tuntutuliak Day School as it was called back then. Our parents encouraged us all to speak Yup'ik. My mom would tell me that our language is what our people have always had. That with our language, our ancestors taught us how to live, and with it we will teach our children how to live and survive. It was never written down, only spoken, so it is how Yup'ik wisdom has been passed down for generations. Talking to loved ones was encouraged to teach our way of life and they would say that a person who has love in their heart is the one who talks, tells stories and is also the one who teaches.

Julien Appignani: The National Park Service brought me to Alaska, where I met my wife and spent several cold, wet and (in hindsight) adventurous years. I found out about Cirque at the 2018 Kachemak Bay Writers Conference, which I’d attended in the hopes of finding a home for a novel. Not long after the conference, my wife and I moved to Big Bend National Park, southwest Texas; we’ve since moved again, to New England, close to where I grew up. I currently teach Humanities at a small, cool STEM school in Nashua, New Hampshire. It’s a joy to see that Cirque has found value in my writing, even at such a great distance, and I look forward to submitting work to the journal again. In a way, Cirque gave me a start; now that the relationship has spanned a few years, it seems likely it will do the important thing – and just keep me writing. While I keep my writing side a bit of a secret from my students, I try to bring to the classroom the literature, music and art that I’ve found most urgent and most sustaining over the years. This carries a certain personal (and, perhaps, professional!) risk, but it’s given me a chance at one and the same time to share and to get deeper into the works of art I care about most, as a reader and as a writer. If only now it would give me a chance to do some more writing!

Constance Bacchus lives with her daughter in the Pacific Northwest. She has writing in The Wild Word, Re-Side, The Gorge Literary Review, Silver Pinion, City Brink, Revolute, IceFloe Press, Salmon Creek Journal, mineral lit, and Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal. And her book, Lethe came out this year.

Tim Barnes taught in the English Department at Portland Community College for twenty-five years, where he was the chair of the creative writing department and advisor on the literary magazine Alchemy. He is author of several poetry collections, most recently Definitions for a Lost Language. He co-edited Wood Works: The Life and Writings of Charles Erskine Scott Wood (OSU Press, 1997) and is the creator and compiler of the children’s book, Everyone Out Here Knows: A Big Foot Tale, words by William Stafford, illustrated by Angelina Marino-Heidel (Arnica Creative Services, 2014). He has been the editor of the "Friends of William Stafford: A Journal & Newsletter for Poets & Poetry" since 2011. He lives in SE Portland with his wife Ilka and their cat Lorca.

Gabrielle Barnett is an Anchorage based writer. Her work appears in Cirque Journal, Alaska Women Speak and the anthology Building Fires in the Snow

Katie Bausler is a storyteller—aloud and on the page. Published written work includes columns, poems and essays in Alaska Dispatch, Edible Alaska, Stoneboat, Tidal Echoes, Alaska Women Speak, Wildheart, Motherwell and Insider. A former broadcast journalist and public relations and marketing professional, she hosts and produces the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast with writers on these pivotal times. She also writes a newsletter focused on alpine skiing and is volunteer DJ on public radio. She has an MFA in Creative Writing Nonfiction from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Katie and her husband Karl live on Douglas Island, near Juneau, Alaska’s capital.

Christine Beck is a trans writer from Yakima, WA. She has been published in such magazines as Vallum: Contemporary Poetry and 50 Haikus, and recently earned a BA in English from Eastern Washington University. She currently resides in Spokane with her wife and two cats.

Toni La Ree Bennett’s verbal and visual work has appeared in Cimarron Review, Caesura, Gold Man Review, Cirque, Gravel, Puerto del Sol, Hawaii Pacific Review, december, and Memoir with a poetry chapbook publication by Finishing Line Press, Solar Subjugation, among other publications. She lives with a feisty finch named Petey. Photography and writing samples can be seen at www.tonibennett.com.

Originally from New York City, Robert Bharda has resided in the Northwest U.S. where for the last 35 years he has specialized in vintage photographica as a profession, everything from salt prints to polaroids. His illustrations/artwork have appeared in numerous publications, both in the U.S. and abroad, and are current on covers of Naugatuck River Review, Blue Five NoteBook, book covers and within recently published Catamaran and Cirque. His portfolios of images have been featured in Cahoodahoodaling, Blue Five, Superstition, AADUNA, Serving House Journal, The Adirondack Review, Ekphrastic Review, The Critical Pass, Cold Mountain Review, Santa Clara Review and more. Also a writer, his poetry, fiction and critical reviews have been published in The North American Review, Northwest Review, Shenandoah, Quarterly West, Willow Springs, ACM, Cutbank, Fine Madness, Kansas Quarterly, Yellow Silk, Poets On, Cimarron Review and many others, including anthologies.

Kristina Boratino has been published in Compassion International Magazine, Cirque Literary Journal, Erase MS, and more. She resides in Edmonds Washington with her two children.

Nicholas Bradley is the author of Rain Shadow, a volume of poems published by the University of Alberta Press. He teaches in the Department of English at the University of Victoria.

Jeffery Brady writes from his cabin on West Creek on the traditional lands of the 'Lkóot in Dyea, Alaska. He reached the honors class in creative writing at the University of North Carolina in the late 1970s before discovering Alaska and branching off toward a nearly 40-year career running a community newspaper. Now retired, he has returned to his love of poetry and fiction, drawing from south and north.

Jack Broom is a Seattle native who retired in 2016 after 39 years as a reporter and editor at The Seattle Times. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in 1974. His work in photography began in the 1970s as a reporter/photographer for The Wenatchee World, where he worked before going to The Seattle Times in 1977. In recent years, his photographs have won awards at state-fair competitions in Washington and have been featured in previous issues of Cirque. He is a past president of the Edmonds-based Puget Sound Camera Club.

Thomas Brush: My first poems appeared in Poetry Northwest in 1970. I've published widely in magazines and anthologies. My most recent books, from Lynx House Press, are God's Laughter, 2018, Open Heart, 2015 and Last Night, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize, in 2012.

Annis Cassells is a writer, poet, and teacher who lives half-time in Oregon and in California. Her work has been published in print and online journals. In 2019 Annis published her first poetry collection, You Can’t Have It All. She is a contributor in the social justice anthology, Enough, Say Their Names: Messages from Ground Zero to the WORLD, which features photography and artwork from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Passionate about the legacy of family stories, Annis teaches memoir classes and personal writing workshops. She is currently composing poems for her next collection and writing motorcycling stories for her own memoir.

Dale Champlin, an Oregon poet with an MFA in fine art is the editor of the Oregon Poetry Association’s poetry journal Verseweavers and the "OPA Newsletter." Ever since her daughter married a bull rider, Dale’s been writing cowboy poems. Memories of her early days hiking in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the bleachers at Pendleton Roundup, and summers camping at Lake Billie Chinook imbue her poetry with the scents of juniper and sage. She has had poems published in Willawaw, Visions International, San Pedro River Review, catheXis, The Opiate, Pif, Timberline Review and elsewhere. Her first collection, The Barbie Diaries, was published in 2019. Callie Comes of Age, Dale’s second full-length collection, was published with Cirque Press in 2021. Champlin’s next collection, Medusa, is due out soon.

Susan Chase-Foster writes poemoirs and magical realism in Raven’s Roost, her Japanese-style cottage in Bellingham, WA when she isn’t visiting family and friends in Alaska, Taiwan, New Zealand and Mexico. Her work has appeared Cirque, Noisy Water, Heron Clan and other publications. She is the author of Xièxiè Taipei, a collection of poems and photos from Taiwan, and Co-Editor of This Uncommon Solitude, an anthology of poems written by Pacific Northwest poets during Covid. Susan is currently working on a novel set in a fishing village in Mexico. Her blog has been hibernating for a while at stilllifewithtortillas.com.

Michael Christenson has read his poetry in bars, parks, libraries, jails, classrooms, auditoriums, coffee shops, rooftops, and at the VFW Post in Robert Bly’s hometown. Three-time Alaska state slam finalist, he is also the reigning Woosh Kinaadeiyí Grand Slam Poetry Champion. He has been a bus driver, a beer bottler, an NPR newsreader and occasional playwright, theater critic, director and producer. And improviser. He is either job adverse or has a very short attention span. His hobbies include going into the woods and snorting the underarms of the trees.

Nancy Christopherson's poems have appeared in Abandon Journal, Aji Magazine, Amethyst Review, Circle of Seasons, Cirque, Free State Review, Helen Literary Magazine, Hole In The Head Review, Kosmos Quarterly Spring Gallery of Poets, Molecule Tiny Lit Mag, Peregrine, Raven Chronicles, The Cape Rock, The Stillwater Review, Third Wednesday, Verseweavers, VoiceCatcher, and Xanadu, among many others. Author of The Leaf, she resides in Oregon and serves on the executive board of the Oregon Poetry Association. Visit https://www.nancychristophersonpoetry.com. On Instagram @ nancychristophersonpoetry.

Nard Claar, nardclaar.com, is an artist and also works with non-profits who value the environment, arts, and community. An avid cyclist, skier and artist. His work is currently exhibited in Colorado at 45 Degree Gallery, Old Colorado City, Academy Art & Frame, Colorado Springs, Manitou Art Center, Manitou Springs, and Stone, Bones, & Wood, Green Mt. Falls, as well as at Stephan Fine Arts in Anchorage, AK, Attic Gallery in Camas, WA, and the Encaustic Art Institute in Santa Fe, NM. Nardclaar. com.

Mary Eliza Crane lives in the Cascade foothills east of Duvall, WA. She has participated in readings throughout Puget Sound and the

US, as well as with Siberian poets in Novosibirsk, Russia. Mary has two volumes of poetry, What I Can Hold In My Hands (2009) and At First Light (2011), published by Gazoobi Tales. Her work has appeared in many journals and northwest anthologies, including WA129 Poets of Washington (2017) and Bridge Above the Falls (2019), and has been translated into Russian. She is currently working on translations of contemporary Siberian poetry into English.

Alice Derry is the author of six volumes of poetry, most recently Asking (MoonPath 2022), along with three chapbooks, including translations of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. She taught for 30 years at Peninsula College where she curated the Foothills Poetry Series, holding some 12-15 readings per year. Since retirement, she has been active in helping local tribal members access poetry and has taught a number of community workshops in poetry. She has printed the first in a series of essays on native plants, collaborating with artist Fred Sharpe. Raymond Carver chose her first poetry manuscript, Stages of Twilight, for the King County (Seattle) Arts Prize. Strangers to their Courage was a finalist for the Washington Book Award. In July 2022 she was faculty at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. She lives and works on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Her website is www.alicederry.com. Cirque nominated “The Genesis of Life Lay Deep and Anticipant Under the Sky, 1944” for the Pushcart Prize.

Nancy Deschu lives in Alaska and writes nonfiction and poetry based on science and sense of place. She also takes photos as she travels around Alaska.

Steve Dieffenbacher has lived in the North Pacific Rim most of his life. Its landscapes and people are continuing inspirations for his poetry and photography. His full-length book of poems, The Sky Is a Bird of Sorrow, was published by Wordcraft of Oregon in 2012, winning a ForeWord Reviews award. He won the Cloudbank poetry prize in 2010. He also has three chapbooks, At the Boundary (2001), Universe of the Unsaid (2010), and Intimations (2018), and he has won honors in writing and photography as a journalist. He lives in Medford, Oregon.

Peg Edera is a native of Portland, Maine. She migrated to Portland, Oregon 35 years ago. Peg writes in community most days of the week. She is the author of a collection of poetry Love Is Deeper Than Distance: Poems of love, death, a little sex, ALS, dementia, and the widow’s life thereafter (Fernwood Press). Her work has also appeared in Friends Journal, Untold Volumes: Feminist Theology Poetry, and the Oregon Poetry Association anthology Pandemic, among others. In 2023, one of her poems will be included in the anthology The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, edited by James Crews.

Gene Ervine grew up on a wet hundred acre woods in Washington State. His childhood was barely damaged by television. He read books and imagined. Gene split, stacked and moved a lot of firewood. All of that seasoned his poetry and helped keep him happy. His poetry was encouraged in high school and college writing courses, he became a National Park Service exhibit planner and interpretive writer after other adventures. His delight in nature continues to grow since making Alaska his home. He writes poetry and lives in Anchorage with his dear wife, Nancy. They have two grown children.

Nadine Fiedler has had a long career in communications and as a freelance writer and editor. Her poems have been printed in the Oregon Poetry Association yearly journal and Windfall: A Poetry of Place, and she was an invited reader at the Portland Winter Poetry Festival.

Natasha Aġnaŋuluuraq Gamache is an Iñupiaq and Yup’ik woman who descends from the Iġaluiŋmiut, or Fish River Tribe Inupiat, of Council, White Mountain, and Golovin, Alaska. She is the proud mother of 6 children and currently resides on the unceded traditional lands of the Iñupiat (Nome, Alaska).

Mary Fogarty George is a writer living in southwest Alaska along the Kuskokwim River. When she was a young woman, she lived along the Bering Sea coast and raised a family there until a time came and she moved up into the river country. Mary lives with her husband and their twenty five dogs. She enjoys solitude and village life.

Matthew Gigg is settled on Treaty 7 Territory in Calgary, Canada. His writing has been published in Grain Magazine, Blank Spaces, The Hopper, and elsewhere. He is currently working on his first novel.

Lenora Rain-Lee Good, a Vietnam-era veteran of the WAC was born & raised in Portland, OR and now lives in Kennewick, WA. A member of the New Mexico State Poetry Society, she is the author of three published books of poetry—Blood on the Ground, Marking the Hours, and The Bride’s Gate and Other Assorted Writings. She co-authored Reflections: Life, the River, and Beyond, with Jim Bumgarner and Jim Thielman. She may be reached through her website https://coffeebreakescapes.com

David A. Goodrum lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His photography has been juried into many art festivals in cities such as St. Louis, Missouri, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana, and Madison, Wisconsin. His intent is to capture images that might instill in others - as they do for him as he makes them - a sense of calm and tranquility. He hopes to create a visual field that momentarily transports you away from hectic daily events and into a place that delights in an intimate view of the world. Additional work can be viewed at www.davidgoodrum.com

Karen Gookin grew up in the wheat farming country of North Central Montana. Her poems recall family times in that Big Sky land, along with life and loss in the shrub steppes of Washington State where she has lived now for 41 years. In her “working” life she wrote and edited for two newspapers, played flute/piccolo in Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and taught English at the public school and university levels. Karen and her husband Larry, both musicians and retired CWU professors, live in Ellensburg.

Donald Guadagni is an international educator, author, and writer currently involved with Human Rights Defender research and projects. His publication work includes human rights, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, prose, myth, science fiction, fantasy, humor, academic, romance, humor, true crime, internationally published photography, and his artwork.

A child of the Azores and Europe, Paul Haeder ended up in Arizona, in the Chiricahua Mountains as a newspaper reporter in Bisbee. He followed that avocation to Washington, Oregon, Mexico, Vietnam, Central America. He’s widely published as a nonfiction writer, storyteller and poet. His collection of short stories, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing From Vietnam, was published by Cirque Press in 2020. He’s got novels under his belt, and lots of narratives from south of the USA border ready for unpacking. His penchant for social and environmental justice takes him places most people fear to travel. He’s been a college teacher, social worker, homeless veteran advocate, and faculty union organizer. He lives on the edge of the Pacific, in Oregon, with a wife, snake and cat. He is Projects Editor for Cirque

Kay Haneline has studied art at University of Alaska, Anchorage, the Oregon School of Arts & Crafts in Portland, Oregon, Hui Noeau on Maui, and with Sonia King in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Janice Mason Steves, J.C. Hickok, Jerry McLauglin and Lisa Cootsona. Her art "Reds" was the cover image for Issue # 22 of Cirque

Jim Hanlen taught 20 years in Washington state. He retired to Anchorage, Alaska.

Annekathrin Hansen grew up near the rugged Baltic Sea beaches in North East Germany. She attended Waldemar Kraemer’s drawing and painting classes at Art School in Rostock and Heiligendamm, Germany. She studied and received an Engineering degree and worked in Germany and Australia. Anne interpreted aerial photos and created many types of maps in land surveying. She is skilled in sculpturing, photography, print making, painting, mosaic and Mixed Media. Anne graduated from various workshops. Further self-studies led to her recent artwork. In 2010 she moved to Alaska. Her artwork can be seen at Georgia Blue Gallery and IGCA.

Scott Hanson is a writer, philosopher, poet and student of the Tao Te Ching who lives in Kingston, WA. He was raised taking ferries to and from Vashon Island and the San Juan Islands, graduated from University of Washington, and loves the mountains and waters of the Pacific Northwest. Although he has been a writer of journals, poetry, family vignettes, short stories and film reviews throughout his life, his first published book, Infinite Meditations for Inspiration and Daily Practice will be released by Cirque Press in the first half of 2023.

Corinne Hughes is a queer poet and fiction writer. Her work has been supported by Tin House and the National Book Foundation. Her poetry can be found in Passengers Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, Cirque Journal, and is forthcoming in the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase IX and the next SMEOP Anthology by Black Sunflowers Poetry Press. She currently serves as a poetry reader for Palette Poetry and studies in the Poets Studio at the Attic Institute in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her two blue Finnish gerbils.

Rob Jacques resides on a rural island in Washington State’s Puget Sound. His poetry has appeared in dozens of literary journals, including Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, The Healing Muse, and American Literary Review. Two collections of his poems have been published: War Poet (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) and Adagio for Su Tungp’o (Fernwood Press, 2019). A third collection, Dust and Dragons, was published in late 2022.

Brenda Jaeger born and raised in Alaska, has her work in collections such as the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Standard Oil, Ketchikan Pioneers' Home, Copper River Seafoods, and others. She shows through the Georgia Blue Gallery, Anchorage, and Parsons Art Gallery in Independence, Kansas. She is listed in Who's Who in American Art. She paints en plein air and teaches online at the Brenda Jaeger Art Studio, http://www.brendajaegerartstudio.com.

Marc Janssen has been writing poems since around 1980. Some people would say that was a long time but not a dinosaur. Early decrepitude has not slowed him down much; his verse can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project - a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry Festival, and was a nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate.

Jill Johnson splits her time between Alaska and Eastern Oregon. Feels lucky.

Penny Johnson: In the last few years my poems have been published in WA 129, Yakima Coffeehouse Poets, Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal and Yakima Herald-Republic. I do have an MFA from Goddard College. I've lived under this mountain with my animals in Ellensburg for 12 years and moved to WA as Mt. Saint Helens blew.

Martha Jackson Kaplan grew up in Seattle, and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a Pushcart nominee, as well as the recipient of the Zylpha Mapp Robinson International Poetry Award, editor-in-chief awards from Möbius, The Poetry Magazine, and has received two Poets Choice Triad awards from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She publishes both poetry and flash fiction, most recently at Night Heron Barks, Cirque #23 Vol.12, No.2, and Nixes Mate. More about her can be found at marthakaplanpoet.com

Sarah Kersey earned her MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University in 2022. Her work has been published or is upcoming in

Atlanta Review, Rock & Sling, Sunspot Literary Journal, and more. She was a finalist in Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Contest, as well as a finalist in Sunspot Literary Journal’s 2022 Geminga contest. She currently teaches English at North Idaho College.

Nancy Knowles teaches English and Writing at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, OR. She has published poetry in Toyon; Eastern Oregon Anthology: A Sense of Place; Torches n' Pitchforks; War, Literature, & the Arts; Oregon East; Willawaw Journal; Grand Little Things, Amethyst Review, and Wild Roof Journal. She earned first place for her Shakespearean sonnet “Diamond Craters” in 2022 from the Oregon Poetry Association.

Nathalie Kuroiwa-Lewis is a Professor of English at Saint Martin’s University, a private, Benedictine, liberal arts university located in the Pacific Northwest. She is also a board member of the Olympia Poetry Network. Her poems have been published in periodicals such as The Madrona Project, The Wild Word, and The Tiger Moth Review, among others. She currently lives in Olympia, Washington.

Eric le Fatte was educated at MIT and Northeastern University in biology and English. He has worked correcting library catalog cards in Texas, and as the Returns King at Eastern Mountain Sports in Massachusetts, but currently hikes, writes, teaches and does research on tiny things in the Portland, Oregon area. His poems have appeared in Rune, The Mountain Gazette, The Poeming Pigeon, The Clackamas Literary Review, The Raven Chronicles, Windfall, Verseweavers, US#1 Worksheets, Perceptions, Clover, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Clade Song, Deep Wild, Pangyrus, and happily enough, in Cirque

Kelly Lenox’s (she/her) poetry, translations, and prose appear in Poetry Daily, Cold Mountain, Gargoyle, Hubbub, SWIMM, EcoTheo Review, and elsewhere in the U.S and abroad, with Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Her debut collection, The Brightest Rock (2017), received honorable mention in the 2018 Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Kelly holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and works as a science editor for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (www.kellylenox.com)

Sherri Levine is an artist and poet living in Portland, OR. Her poems have been published in local and national magazines and journals, such as Cirque, Wooster Review, Calyx, Poet Lore, Jewish Literary Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, Driftwood Press, and others. Her first fulllength collection of poems, Stealing Flowers from the Neighbors (Kelsay Press) was published in 2021. She is the creator and host of Head for the Hills, a monthly poetry series and open mic. Ordinally from upstate New York, she escaped the harsh winters and is now soaking in the Oregon rain.

Sue Fagalde Lick, a former California journalist, is a writer/musician/ dog mom living with her dog Annie in the woods on the Oregon coast. Her books include Stories Grandma Never Told, Childless by Marriage, Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both, the novels Up Beaver Creek and Seal Rock Sound, and two poetry chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano. She blogs about childlessness at https:// www.childlessbymarrige.com and life on the Oregon coast at https:// www.unleashedinoregon.com. When not writing, she is a Catholic music minister.

Tigard Oregon is where artist Julie Lloyd calls home. It all began more than twenty years ago using pressed flowers to arrange into images. She now adds common objects and computer layers to diversify colors and texture to her work. Julie’s art has been viewed in Las laguna art gallery, Eros and Eros, Cirque Journal, and The Closed Eye Open. Her love of flowers and nature inspire creativity.

Janis Lull is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has published poems in many literary journals over the years.

Wallace McDonald was born at Fort Ord, California, in 1950. After graduating from high school in the Los Angeles area, he intermittently attended classes at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He settled in Petersburg, Alaska, in the early 1970’s where for several years he made his living as a crewman and gear operator in several commercial fisheries, then built a related small business from which he recently retired.

Ron McFarland lives & writes in Moscow, Idaho. His most recent books are Professor McFarland in Reel Time: Poems and Prose of an Angler (2020) and Gary Soto: A Career in Poetry and Prose (2022).

Mark Muro is a writer and actor who lives in Anchorage Alaska.

David McElroy lives in Anchorage and Halibut Cove, Alaska. In winter he travels abroad. He recently retired as a commercial pilot of small planes in the Arctic in support of wildlife research, industry, and wild fire control. Before that he attended the Universities of Minnesota, Montana, and Western Washington. He taught English in Guatemala, and Seattle’s community colleges. To pay for college he has worked as a smokejumper in the western states and Alaska. He also worked as a taxi driver in Seattle. He has been published in national journals including Cirque and The Alaska Quarterly Review. He has four books of poems called Making It Simple, Mark Making, Just Between Us, and Water the Rocks Make. He is a recipient of grants from the National Council on the Arts and the state of Alaska Council on the Arts and Humanities. He has given readings at the New School of Social Research in New York and the universities of Alaska, Western Washington, Montana, and Arizona.

Thomas Mitchell: I studied with Richard Hugo and Madeline De Frees at the University of Montana where I completed my MFA in creative writing. My poems have appeared in numerous journals including The New England Review, New Letters, California Quarterly, The New Orleans Review, Quarterly West, and The Chariton Review. My two collections of poetry, The Way Summer Ends (2016) and Caribou (2018) were published by Lost Horse Press. My new collection, Where We Arrive, was released in the Spring of 2021. I was recently selected as the recipient of the Cloudbank Poetry Award.

With deep New England roots, Rebecca Morse has spent most of her adult years living apart from a place that figures strongly in her writing. Her career in teaching and administration spanned over thirty years and took her to North and South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Vermont, and Interior Alaska. She has lived in Fairbanks since 1990 where she enjoys fiber arts and book arts informed by landscape and its inhabitants. Her prose and poetry has appeared in Cirque and her letterpress chapbook, Fielding Lake Perspectives I was published by Northwoods Press in 2021.

Born in the Ohio River Valley, Anne Murphy migrated west to the call of the Pacific and its wildness. A career in non-profit conservation and education kept her in the milieu of citizen-driven work on the shores and watersheds of the Salish Sea. Since retiring in 2013, she has shifted from technical, persuasive writing to settle in with another calling –poetry, bringing along a cache of stories and lessons learned from Northwest people, creatures and dynamic earth processes. She lives along a creek on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula.

My name is Jesse Nee-Vogelman, and I am a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Montana's fiction MFA program. There, I received the university's highest creative writing award, the MerriamFrontier Prize. My work has been previously published or is forthcoming in the New Haven Review, Reckoning, the Tampa Review, and the Harvard Advocate, where my story won the Louis Begley Prize, selected by Jamaica Kincaid. Previously, I served as the Artist-in-Residence at the Signet Society of Arts and Letters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I currently live and work in Missoula, Montana.

David Oates writes about the arts, nature, and urban life from Portland, Oregon. He has recently had poems in Orion, Rattle, and December. “The Heron Place” won the 2015 Poetry Award and publication from Swan Scythe Press (San Francisco). A longform prose+poetry hybrid was finalist for the Iron Horse Trifecta. He is author of six books of nonfiction, including The Mountains of Paris: How Awe and Wonder Rewrote My Life (November 2019, Oregon State University Press) and Paradise Wild: Reimagining American Nature. His essays have appeared in Georgia Review, Creative Nonfiction, and Orion, winning nonfiction awards and two Pushcart Prize nominations.

Mary Odden’s essays and articles, along with a few poems, have appeared in the Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Alaska Magazine, and Cirque. Her book of memoir/essays, Mostly Water: Reflections Rural and North, was published in June 2020 by Boreal Books/Red Hen Press. Her current project is an episodic novel about western Alaska.

Douglas Scott Oltrogge is a literature teacher, writer, and performance poet native to Montana; however, he has spent many years wandering throughout the greater Pacific Rim. His writing reflects the vast open expanses, the loneliness, and the independence familiar to all who have the greater Northwest in their blood. He currently lives on the family homestead in central Montana where he and his wife raise their children in the same way his family has done for the past 140 years.

Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon. She enjoys gardening and wilderness hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility caring for raptors and wolves. Her poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Ariel Chart, Jefferson Journal, Isacoustic, Cirque, Windfall, Allegro Poetry, Trouvaille Review, Front Porch Review, Turtle Island Quarterly and others. Her first book of poetry titled What Remains was published by Flowstone Press in October 2021.

Bruce Parker holds an MA in Secondary Education from the University of New Mexico. His work appears in Triggerfish Critical Review, Pif, Blue Unicorn, Cerasus, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and is an Associate Editor at Boulevard. He has published a chapbook, Ramadan in Summer (Finishing Line Press, 2022).

Justine Pechuzal is a writer, artist and educator living in Seward, Alaska. Wilderness is her muse and creative work the means to explore. Both thoughtful and expressive, Mrs. Pechuzal's vivid words and images convey universal themes. Her work has appeared in Alaska Women Speak, Cirque Journal, Adventure Kayak Magazine and the 49 Writers 2021 Poetry Broadside Invitational. Her poem "Pilgrims" was selected to represent Caine's Head State Park for the Alaska Poems in Place program, and her essay "Dual Citizenship" was awarded the Grand Prize for the Alaska Dispatch News Creative Writing Contest. She holds an MA in Art Education and a BA in Creative Writing and Art History from the University of Arizona.

Tami Phelps is an Alaskan mix-media artist using cold wax, oil, photography, assemblage, and fiber. Her work has exhibited in national and international exhibits and is included in the permanent collections of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, and the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM. She is a regularly invited Artist-inResidence at McKinley Chalet Resort, Denali National Park, Alaska. She grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, where she works in her studio loft. Online at www.tamiphelps.com

Timothy Pilgrim, Pacific Northwest poet, has a few hundred acceptances from U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Cirque, and the Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review and Toasted Cheese in Canada, Prole Press in the United Kingdom, and Otoliths in Australia. Pilgrim is the author of Seduced by Metaphor (2021).

Shauna Potocky is a poet and painter who calls Seward, Alaska home. Shauna has a deep love of high peaks, jagged ridgelines and ice. She has a strong connection to the natural world—the landscapes and seascapes with their rough or subtle edges where life unfolds. Shauna’s work has appeared in publications such as Alaska Women Speak, Beyond Words International Literary Magazine, Cirque Journal, and her forthcoming book of poetry, Yosemite Dawning, is scheduled to be published by Cirque Press in early 2023.

Mandy Ramsey is an artist, mother, photographer, and yoga teacher who loves to create and write. She self-published her first book Grow Where You’re Planted in 2019, which blends her poetry, photography and love of yoga through the seasons in the Alaskan landscape. She holds a MA in Yoga Studies and Mindfulness Education and has been living off the grid in Haines, Alaska since 2000 in the timber frame home she built with her husband. She believes that flowers and the natural world can heal, connect, inspire and sprout friendships. Find out more on mandyramsey.com

Native New Yorker, Diane Ray writes from a hill overlooking a lake in Seattle. During the covid era her work appears in: Cirque, Canary, Sisyphus, What Rough Beast, Poems in the Afterglow, and the anthologies Voices Israel, Sheltering in Place, and Civilization in Crisis. Ray curated and moderated two international poetry readings for Voices Israel

M. Ann Reed teaches the Organic Unity Study of Literature in support of the Deep Ecology Movement globally and locally. Awarded a doctorate in Theater Arts/Performance Studies and a keen reader of C. G. Jung, her more than ten literary essays are cited or remarked in the disciplines of medicine, literature, and psychology. Rowman & Littlefield published her co-authored book, Strange Kindness. Her poems support various literary arts journals – Antithesis, Azure, Burningword, Eastern Iowa Review, Parabola, Proverse, Hong Kong, Psychological Perspectives and The Poeming Pigeon. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook, making oxygen, remaining inside this pure hollow note

Ellen K. Reichman, M.Ed, is a former teacher, counselor, and writer since winning a school wide writing contest in second grade. She attended Rutgers University, Seattle University, City University, and Bellevue College. She and her husband of 53 years live with their standard poodle in Kirkland. Proud parent and grandparent of two children, and two grandchildren. Former contributing columnist for local newspaper. Published in various newspapers and the following journals: Cure, Heal, Cirque, Persimmon Tree, Common Ground Review, and Passager. Writer of children’s books; lover of children, nature, exercise, and mostly connecting with others.

Brenda Roper is letting life unfold at the moment. Comfortable in the not knowing. A lover of beauty, wine, walking and travel. Maybe she’ll be a writer one day. Or simply a walker of the world sharing words and photos along the way. www.brendaroper.com

Dave Rowan’s story Idaho, which appears in this edition, is only his second short to be published. The first one found print in the University of Puget Sound’s 1974 edition of Crosscurrents. During the forty-nine years since then, Rowan graduated from UPS with an English degree, logged eight seasons on the Olympic Peninsula, wrote two novels, became a Civil Engineer, worked at Seattle City Light for twenty-eight years and then retired. During the spotted owl crisis, being an exlogger helped him freelance articles to The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Weekly, and Northwest Editions. In 2008, he self-published the guide book Around the Edge of the Olympics on a Mountain Bike. Cirque Press published his first novel, Loggers Don’t Make Love, in 2020, and he is currently working on a novel about the United States Air Force Academy titled Bright Power, Dark Peace. Rowan is a native Seattleite and now lives on Hood Canal. He has two children and two grandchildren.

Katharine Salzmann lives in Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in Windfall, Slipstream, Salt River Review, and Sojourner, among others. She has two chapbooks published by the pop-up persian pony press, Hemopoiesis, 1995 and Prayer Ceremony, 2007.

Tom Sexton spends his days walking his Irish Terrier, Murphy, writing poetry, and making breakfast for his wife. Many years ago, he began the Creative Writing program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage and was the English Department Chair for many years. He is proud to say Mike Burwell was his student. His poetry collection Cummiskey Alley: New and Selected Lowell Poems was published in 2020 by Loom Press. Snowy Egret Rising from Chester Creek Press is coming out in 2023.

Anchorage nature writer Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and the author of more than a dozen books, including Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey and Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife

Kit Sibert: My poems are informed by a childhood in Cuba and life in the East and West United States, by my loves, the stages of my life, and my ever surprising creative unconscious. I now live in Eugene, Oregon. These poems are driven by memory and imagination, by death of loved ones, by the Covidian Age, and by a lurking existentialism. I have two chapbooks: Beyond Me (integral to a multimedia art show at Maud Kerns Gallery), What You Have Become (Finishing Line Press) and a book of my poetry and paintings How the Light Gets In (lulu.com). I have poems in Passager, Cirque, and Gyroscope Review among others.

Craig Smith is a retired Seattle newspaperman who spent the final 32 years of his career as a sportswriter at The Seattle Times. He is a native of Kenmore, WA, and a graduate of Bothell High School and the University of Washington, where he was editor of The Daily

Mary Lou Spartz is a poet, playwright, and long-time Alaskan and Juneauite. Poetry, writing, or reading never ceases to challenge and delight her. Capturing the joyful and the not-so-joyful never loses its appeal.

Cheryl Stadig lived in Alaska for 18 years, calling several places home including Anchorage, Teller, Ketchikan, and Prince of Wales Island where her two sons were raised. Running the wilds of Maine in her youth helped prepare her for life in rural Alaska. Her Alaska resume includes work at a 5-star hotel, a university, a village general store, and as a 911 dispatcher/jail guard. She would happily consider the job of hermit should a dot on the northern map be in need. Her work has appeared in previous issues of Cirque, Inside Passages, and other publications.

Cynthia Steele, Cynthia Steele serves as Associate Editor for Cirque and as a dog whisperer. She has an MA in English and a BA in Journalism. Her new work appears in Cirque, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, The Blue Mountain Review, and in the Anthology on Domestic Abuse: When Home is Not Safe.

R. Brett Stirling moved to Alaska in 1997 because he never wanted to live anywhere else. He retired in 2022 after 21 years as an Alaska educator and principal. He worked for 17 of those years in rural Alaska in the Yup'ik and Inupiaq communities off the road system. He currently lives in Delta Junction with his wife and two children.

Richard Stokes is a Juneau resident of over 50 years. His prose and poetry work usually reflects his love of nature, his aging or his boyhood in the sharply defined black-white world of rural Georgia in the 1940s-50s. He graduated from Emory in Atlanta in 1961.

Sheary Clough Suiter grew up in Eugene, Oregon, then lived in Alaska for 35 years before her relocation to Colorado in 2011. Her encaustic fine art is represented in Anchorage, Alaska by Stephan Fine Art, in Camas, Washington by the Attic Gallery, in Santa Fe, New Mexico by the Encaustic Art Institute, in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado by Stones, Bones, & Wood Gallery, and in Old Colorado City, Colorado by 45 Degree

Gallery. When she's not traveling the back-roads of America with her artist partner Nard Claar, Suiter works from her studio in Colorado Springs. Online at www.sheary.me

Mercury-Marvin Sunderland (he/him) is a transgender autistic gay man with borderline personality disorder. He's been published by University of Amsterdam's Writer's Block, University of British Columbia's Decomp, UC Davis' Open Ceilings, UC Riverside's Santa Ana River Review, and UC Santa Barbara's Spectrum. His visual art can be followed as @ RomanGodMercury on Instagram and TikTok.

Emily Kurn Tallman is a graphic designer, writer and musician living in Anchorage, Alaska. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, from University of Alaska Anchorage and a BA from Brandeis University. Her work has been published in Cirque Journal, Catamaran Literary Reader, Anecdote Magazine and The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss

Kathleen Tarr is the author of the memoir, We Are All Poets Here. A frequent contributor to Cirque since its inception, her writing has also appeared in The Alaska Quarterly Review; Eco-Theo Review; Anchorage Daily News; America Magazine; Tri-Quarterly, Sewanee Review; the peerreviewed journal, The Merton Seasonal, and in numerous anthologies. She has received fellowships from the University of Southern California’s Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and a William Shannon research grant from the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. For five years, Kathleen served as the program coordinator of the University of Alaska’s low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. She earned an MFA in literary nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh where she was also awarded a full, three-year teaching assistantship. She is a member of the Alaska Historical Society and was recently elected to serve on the national board of the International Thomas Merton Society. A long-time Alaskan, she lives and writes under the Chugach Mountains surrounding Anchorage.

Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press, 2018). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize. Her work has been published both in Ireland and the United States. Carey holds a Master of Arts degree in School Counseling and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. https:// careyleetaylor.com

Jan Tervonen grew up in a Finnish-American family in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan surrounded by the beauty of Lake Superior before settling in Seattle over 30 years ago. She was taught the values of simplicity, organization, and a good pun. She developed a minimalistic abstract style with a wry sense of humor representative of her Finnish-American roots. Her paintings have been featured in numerous solo and group shows in the Pacific Northwest including the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation Gallery, Lynnwood Convention Center, Kirkland Library, Overlake Hospital, Renton’s Carco Theatre, and Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Jim Thiele worked as a photographer for a biological text book company for several years before moving to Alaska in 1974. He has worked for The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the University of Alaska as a biologist. He is a recently retired financial advisor. His photographs have been seen in several publications, including Alaska Magazine, Alaska Geographic, and Cirque. He lives in Anchorage with his wife Susan. Taking photos forces him to stop and really see the world.

Gary Thomas: I am a retired mental health professional who enjoys taking the time to see the world through the lens of the camera and my brain. I also like to dabble in poetry as a further expression of myself. I live and play in Oregon and Washington.

At the University of Michigan, Thomas A. Thomas, poet/photographer, studied with Donald Hall, Gregory Orr, and Robert Bly. He won Minor and Major Hopwood Awards in Poetry, and his poem "Approaching Here" was choreographed and performed at UM. His works appear in print and online, most recently in Cirque Journal, Gyroscope Review,

Blue Heron Review, Vox Populi Sphere, TheBanyanReview.org and FemAsiaMagazine.com, as well as in translation to Spanish, Serbian, and Bengali. His book of collected works, Getting Here is available on Bookshop.org and other sellers. He was nominated for both Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize for 2022.

Pepper Trail: My poems have previously appeared in Cirque, as well as in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Ascent and other publications, and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. My collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. I write and explore the world from my home in Ashland, Oregon.

Lucy Tyrrell’s writing and photography is inspired by nature and wild landscapes, outdoor pursuits (mushing, hiking, canoeing), and travel. After 16 years in Alaska, she traded a big mountain (Denali) for a big lake (Superior). Lucy lives the spirit of Alaska deeply, even in Wisconsin. She was Bayfield Poet Laureate 2020–2021.

Emily Wall is a Professor of English at the University of Alaska. She holds an MFA in poetry. Her poems have been published in journals across the US and Canada and she has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. She recently won the Minerva Rising Dare to Be chapbook prize. She has five books of poetry: Fist and Flame are chapbooks published by Minerva Rising Press. Liveaboard and Freshly Rooted have found homes in Salmon Poetry. Her most recent book Breaking Into Air: Birth Poems is published by Red Hen Press. Emily lives and writes in Douglas, Alaska and she can be found online at www.emily-wall.com.

Margo Waring lives in Juneau where she hikes, gardens and grows old. Her book, Growing Older in This Place was published by Cirque Press. We are all looking forward to the next spectacular issue of Cirque

Sandra Wassilie has spent most of her life in Alaska, most recently Seward. Currently she resides in Oakland, California, migrating north as circumstance allows. Her first collection of poems, The Dream That Is Childhood: A Memoir in Verse, about her childhood at Lake Minchumina during the 1950s, was published by Cirque Press (2020). Her poetry also appears in a chapbook, Smoke Lifts (2014), and in several literary publications. Wassilie has served as a managing and poetry editor for Fourteen Hills, and cofounded the Bay Area Generations Reading Series. She has received the Ann Fields (2011) and Celestine (2014) Awards for poetry.

Toby Widdicombe was educated at Cambridge University and the University of California. He has been a professor at UAA for thirty years after stints at the University of California Irvine, the University of California Santa Barbara, and the New York Institute of Technology on Long Island. His major research fields are American literature, Tolkien, textual studies, Shakespeare, and utopianism. He has published ten books and numerous articles. He was an editor of an international journal for several years. He teaches a wide range of English courses, principally to majors. He writes poetry, nonfiction, children’s fiction, plays, and academic argument.

Richard Widerkehr’s fourth book of poems is Night Journey (Shanti Arts Press). At The Grace Cafe (Main Street Rag) was his previous one. His work has appeared in Sweet Tree Review, Writer’s Almanac, Atlanta Review, and many others. He won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan and first prize for a short story at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. He reads poems for Shark Reef Review.

Poet, Paul Winkel, is a retired Engineer. He has lived in Alaska for 40 years and loved every minute. He has published a number of poems in Cirque

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His photography and writing may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com. He has been Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, AbsarokaBeartooth Wilderness Foundation, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Mesa Refuge, and PLAYA at Summer Lake, Oregon. He is a contributor to Writers on the Range

Robin Woolman has long been a performer and teacher of circus skills in Portland, Oregon. She loves backpacking in the high country of the Pacific Northwest or strolling the neighborhood, while playing with words in her head. She dates her passion for writing back to Miss Mataroli’s second grade class…More recent poems and plays have appeared in Global Poemic, Deep Wild, Cirque, Poeming Pigeon, Westchester Review, and, coming this fall, Red Shoe Press’s 2023 Oregon Poetry Calendar