Featured Contributors

COVER ARTIST: RETURA CLAAR

Retura Claar is a designer, visual artist and emerging writer based in San Francisco. Her work explores color, form, and texture inspired by mountain ranges and deserts across the West. Mediums such as film photography and illustration are utilized to document her travels in the backcountry and little moments of joy in the city. She’s showed illustrations in Denver, Colorado and has had poetry previously published in Humana Obscura. Connect with her on Instagram @returaclaar.

FEATURED ARTIST: DERRICK BREIDENTHAL

Derrick Breidenthal’s paintings have been showcased throughout the US and abroad. His art is heavily influenced by rural America. His paintings are confident depictions of atmospheric spaces that balance an interesting line between familiar scenes and specific events. His painting methods enhance the perfection of a dream, as well as hold up to the roughness of reality. In 2021, Derrick debuted a solo museum exhibition covering over five years of his Nocturnal oil paintings. See more of his work at www.breidenthalart.com.

FEATURED POET: LUKE LEVI

Luke Levi graduated from Texas State University with a BBA in finance. He lives in the Texas Hill Country, and many of his poems are about animals and other natural elements in the region. His poems can be found or are forthcoming in Presence, Akitsu Quarterly, Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Wales Haiku Journal, Failed Haiku, Trash Panda Haiku, Cold Moon Haiku Journal, and elsewhere. Follow him on Instagram @lukelevipoet.

INSIDE THE FRONT COVER

TREES, BUFFY DAVIS

BUFFY DAVIS is starting the second act of her life through the lens of her camera and an interest in the alternative photography processes from cyanotype, a historic process from 1842 where photography is developed in a cyan blue tone, digital intentional camera movemen (where photographs look like abstract paintings), glitch photography, deconstructing photographs, and digital manipulation of her work adding unique color hues giving an other worldly look to landscapes. Davis has a photography love of botanical, landscape, and items with lots of contrast and imperfections which makes for beautiful photographs.

ON THE BACK COVER

FROZEN ECHOES, VANESSA PEJOVIC

VANESSA PEJOVIC is a photographer living and working in southwestern Ontario, Canada. She’s drawn to the shapes, tones, and moods of the natural world. Self-taught, Pejovic enjoys wandering her neighborhoods, practicing the art of noticing.

Follow her on Instagram @vanessa.pejovic.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

BRI BRUCE (B. L. Bruce) is an award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee once deemed the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies and literary publications, including The Wayfarer Journal, Canary, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, The Monterey Poetry Review, and the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, among many others. Bruce is the recipient of the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize and the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, as well as the author of four books: The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude, The Starling’s Song, and Measures. In addition to writing, Bruce is a painter and photographer, with work that has been featured in The Sun Magazine, Near Window, and others. Follow her on Twitter @the_poesis and on Instagram @thepoesis.