Elder Mountain

Matthew Brennan teaches at Indiana State University and has contributed poems to such journals as Sewanee Review, South Dakota Review, Notre Dame Review, and Poetry Ireland Review. His most recent book of verse is The Sea-Crossing of Saint Brendan (Birch Brook Press, 2008).

Andrea Hollander Budy, Writer-in-Residence at Lyon College, is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Woman in the Painting (Autumn House, 2006). Her first book won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Other awards include a Pushcart Prize for memoir and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Billy Clem earned the M.A. in English at Missouri State University – Springfield and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English at Northern Illinois University. He teaches writing, Multiculturalism, Women’s Studies, and Disability Studies at Waubonsee Community College. His work has appeared in Lodestar Quarterly and is forthcoming in Moon City Review.

Katie Estill is the author of two novels: Evening Would Find Me and Dahlia’s Gone. She was a finalist for the 2008 Dashiell Hammett Prize. Her stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Mid-American Review, Ontario Review, and Surreal South. She makes her home in the Ozarks with her husband, the novelist Daniell Woodrell.

Gary Guinn has published fiction and poetry in The Mid-America Poetry Review, Poesia, Ghoti, The Bryant Literary Review, Carve Magazine, and others. One of his poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first novel, A Late Flooding Thaw, was published by Moon Lake Publishing in 2005. He lives in Arkansas with his wife, Mary Ann, and his dog, Seamus, and teaches literature and writing at John Brown University.

Art Homer was born in the Missouri Ozarks, and raised there and in the Pacific Northwest. He has taught in the Writer’s Workshop of the University of Nebraska at Omaha since 1983.Publications include Sight is No Carpenter (WordTech Press) and The Drownt Boy (University of Missouri Press), published as a runner-up in the Associated Writing Programs Awards for Creative Nonfiction. His awards include a Pushcart Prize, an NEA Fellowship, and a Regents Professorship from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Jane Hoogestraat was educated at Baylor and the University of Chicago, and is Professor of English at Missouri State University – Springfield. Her chapbook Harvesting All Nightwon the Finishing Line Press Open Competition and will appear late in 2009. Her poems have appeared in Southern Review, Poetry, Potomac Review, and Image.

A native Iowan who has put down roots in Missouri and Illinois, Zachary Michael Jack is the author or editor of many books of imaginative writing and scholarship on place, sport, and the environment. He is an assistant professor of English at North Central College, where he teaches courses in writing and rural and urban studies.

Gary Kolb holds a BA in Religions from Northwestern University and a MFA in Photography from Ohio University. He is Dean and Professor of Photography in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. His landscape work of the Shawnee National Forest and other environs has been exhibited internationally.

Dave Malone is a poet and playwright. He lives a charmed and nomadic life but calls the Ozarks his home. He has published two books of poetry, and his journal publications include the Writer’s Digest anthology Red Heart/Black Heart, New Millennium Writings, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, and Red Rock Review.

Matt Meacham is a public folklorist with the West Plains (Missouri) Council on the Arts and teaches courses at Missouri State University – West Plains. Originally from southwestern Illinois, he is a graduate of Centre College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He held a one-year position with the West Virginia Humanities Council before returning to mid-America in 2007. Having tried to play traditional music for many years, he admires John Hartford, who actually succeeded.

Jan Roddy has family roots in the Missouri Ozarks dating back to before the Civil War. She has taught in the Department of Cinema and Photography at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale for over twenty years. She has had photos, video and text pieces exhibited and published internationally, including two books based on community photography projects which deal with historically marginalized populations and regions.

Marideth Sisco is a veteran journalist, teacher, author, musician and student of folklore who created Elder Mountain Press as a venue for publishing stories relevant to Ozarks culture and history. She holds a BFA degree from Missouri State University and a MA from Antioch University. She currently is host of the public radio show “These Ozark Hills” on KSMU and is putting finishing touches on a novel in which the Ozarks is featured prominently.

Kristine Somerville works at The Missouri Review as the marketing coordinator and teaches creative nonfiction, fiction, and literary studies at Stephens College. Her short stories, nonfiction and prose poems have appeared in various magazines, including The North American Review, Hayden’s Ferry, Passages North, and Quarterly West. Her essay “Katie Suber” received notable mention in Best American Essays 2000, and her fiction has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her visual and “Found Text” features appear regularly in The Missouri Review.

Ryan Stone grew up in Licking, Missouri, and later moved to St. Louis where he earned the M.F.A. from the University of Missouri- St. Louis in 2004. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in South Carolina Review, The Madison Review, Natural Bridge, RE:AL, and others. He teaches creative writing and literature for Danville Area Community College.

Barbara Williams graduated from Missouri State University, and from Southern Illinois University with the MFA in painting. Her art work of Ozarks theme has been shown in galleries in England, Italy, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and the United States. In recent years she has focused on a theme of Ozarks rock masonry architecture which will culminate in a book. She is an art instructor at Missouri State University – West Plains.

Jo Van Arkel is the author of four books, including Give Me a Hat To Wear and The Things I’ve Got Growing Deep Down Inside. She has published short stories in magazines such asBig Muddy, The Rockford Review, the Northwest Review and The Literary Review. She lives in Springfield, Missouri, with her husband and two sons. As a native Ozarker, Jo has spent many afternoons in or near an Ozark river. At present she is working on a story cycle set in the Ozark Mountains.