NewPages Reviewer Bios

Aimee Nicole is a native Rhode Islander who recently finished up a YA manuscript and received a BFA in creative writing. She has been published in a variety of journals and is the lead editor for the 22 Magazine.

Alyse Bensel, a native of York, received her MFA in poetry from Penn State in 2012. Her poetry has appeared in Cider Press Review, MAYDAY Magazine, and Word Riot, among others. She now lectures in English at Penn State, volunteers for a cat rescue, and participates in a work-share program at a local CSA farm in State College. Her first chapbook, Shift, was published in Fall 2012 from Plan B Press.

Ann Beman earned her MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts: Whidbey Writers Workshop. She is nonfiction editor for The Los Angeles Review, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Bombay Gin, Stymie, and Canoe Journal, among others. A Duke grad, Beman kayaks, skis, and runs in California’s Kern River Valley, where she lives with her husband and two whatchamaterriers. Only recently has she become a small dog convert; it's still a little weird.

Anne Graue lives and writes in Mahopac, New York. Her poetry has been published in literary journals including The Westchester Review,  Ginosko Literary Journal, The Fem, Random Sample Review, Yellow Chair Review, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly. Her chapbook, Fig Tree in Winter, is forthcoming in 2017 from Dancing Girl Press. 

Cara Bigony is a Cape Cod native who has been reviewing for NewPages since 2011. Her writing has been published in FutureClaw magazine and Forty-Three North among others. She is head fiction editor for Red Weather, has worked at Langton’s International Literary Agency in NYC and Pearson Publishing in Boston. A senior at Hamilton College, she is majoring in Comparative Literature, concentrating on French and Russian literature.

Cheryl Wollner is an asexual feminist whose writing has appeared in Unbuild Walls, Polychrome Ink, GNU, Voices and Visions, The Best of Loose Change Anthology, and others. She is Fiction Reader for Five on the Fifth, as well as the Blog Managing Editor for Luna Station Quarterly, a journal dedicated to emerging female writers of speculative fiction. Most recently, she has become an editor for Polychrome Ink, a journal featuring diverse voices. Follow her asexual feminist blog here. 

Courtney McDermott earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame. She has written book reviews for NACADA Journal, Warscapes, and Literary Laundry. Her fiction and essays have appeared in various journals, including the Berkeley Fiction Review, Daily Palette, Little Village Magazine, A Few Lines Magazine, and Italy from a Backpack anthology. Currently, she is an English lecturer at Tufts University.

Daniel Klawitter is the lead singer/lyricist for the indie-rock band Mining for Rain, and currently works as an Admissions Counselor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO. He is the author of two full-length poetry collections: A Poet Playing Doctor (2015) and Plato Poetica (forthcoming, 2017), both published by White Violet Press.

David is a high school English teacher and a writer of short fiction. His work has appeared in Confettifall magazine, From the Depths, and the Midnight Diner. You can reach David either on Twitter (@DMatteri) or at .

H. V. Cramond is the Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, lectures at Loyola University Chicago and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago's Community Arts Assistance Program. She currently reads for XYZ Festival of New Works at About Face Theatre and for Pegasus Players' Young Playwrights Festival. Recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Keep Going, Wunderkammer, Ignavia, death hums and in the anthology Pandora's Box (Southport Press 2011). You can read more of her writing on her website.

Jenny Mark is a graduate of California State University of San Bernardino and lives in Southern California. She is an adjunct professor for Baker College and an associate professor for the University of Phoenix, teaching composition, creative writing, and essential college skills. Follow her blog at: http://jennysuemark.com

Jodi Paloni’s short stories appear or are forthcoming in Whitefish Review, R.kv.r.y Quarterly, Carve Magazine, upstreet, Monkeybicycle, Spartan, and The Lascaux Review. She placed second in the 2012 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest. She lives and writes in southern Vermont and holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Jodi curates the forum 365 Short Stories in 2013 in which she reads and comments on one short story a day at Rigmarole.

John Palen's Open Communion: New and Selected Poems was published by Mayapple Press in 2005. Since then he has had poetry chapbooks out from March Street Press and Pudding House, and has recent work in Sleet, Citron Review, Poydras Review Blog and elsewhere. His first collection of short fiction, Small Economies, came out from Mayapple Press in January 2012. A Michigander for more than 35 years, he is now living and writing in Central Illinois.

Justin Brouckaert's fiction, non fiction and poetry has appeared in The Rumpus, Passages North, Hobart, Gigantic Sequins and Amazon's Day One, among other publications. He serves as fiction editor at Yemassee and Banango Lit. A Michigan native, he's currently a James Dickey Fellow at the University of South Carolina. Find him at jjbrouckaert.tumblr.com or on Twitter @JJBrouckaert.

Kelly Sauvage Angel is the author of Om Namah... (published under Kalyanii), a collection of poetry, two stage plays, dozens of short stories and hundreds of articles. She enjoys wiling away her free time within the kitchen, the dance studio and the great outdoors.

Kimberly Ann Priest is an MFA graduate in Creative Writing from New England College, with an MA in English Language & Literature from Central Michigan University. A proud Michigan native, she has taught composition and creative writing courses for Central Michigan University and Alma College, and participated in local initiatives to increase awareness concerning sexual assault and domestic violence issues. Her academic and creative writing carefully observes the intersections between motherhood, domesticity, abuse, religion, sexual identity, and sexual trauma; and her poetry has appeared in several literary journals including The 3288 Review, ArLiJo, Borderlands: The Texas Poetry Review, Critical Pass, Storm Cellar, Temenos, Ruminate Magazine and The Berkeley Poetry Review. In 2018 her first chapbook White Goat Black Sheep will be published through Finishing Line Press. Kimberly currently teaches at the University of North Texas in Denton where she enjoys AcroYoga & Instragramming, collects 90s music CDs, & keeps up with the lives of her two teenagers via text messaging.

Lesley Dame is co-founder of and poetry and nonfiction editor for damselfly press. Author of the poetry chapbook Letting Out the Ghosts, her poems have also appeared in many online and print journals. Dame happily lives, writes, and edits in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. For more information, visit her website, www.wix.com/lesleydame/poet

Lydia Pyne is a writer and historian of science based in Austin, TX. (http://pynecone.org @LydiaPyne)

Mary Florio, pictured here in Telluride, has written for NewPages for more than two years. She currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband John. She has won local and regional awards for her writing and has been published in newspapers, magazines and literary journals. She is grateful to the talented writers and editors of the journals she reviews and to her colleagues at NewPages.

Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works at Gleeson Library at USF. He is the author of “There are people who think painters shouldn’t talk”: A GUSTONBOOK (Post-Apollo, 2011). Recent writings of his have appeared in: Amerarcana, Barzakh, Big Bell, The Critical Flame, Fulcrum, Galatea Resurrects, House Organ, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Polis, and Rain Taxi. In addition to his own poems and book reviews, he’s currently working with Persian poet Ava Koohbor co-translating her work from Farsi.

Pia Aliperti is a poet from Atlanta, who lives in New York City. Her poems and reviews appear in THEthe Poetry Blog and the Best American Poetry blog, among others. She was a finalist for the 2011 RATTLE Poetry Prize.

Ryo Yamaguchi’s first collection, The Refusal of Suitors, will be published by Noemi Press in spring 2015. He lives in Chicago, where he works at the University of Chicago Press.

Sarah Carson was born and raised in Flint, Michigan but now lives in Chicago with her dog, Amos, who has recently learned to swim. She is the author of the chapbooks Before Onstar (Etched Press, 2009), Twenty-Two (Finishing Line Press, 2010), and When You Leave (H_NGM_N, forthcoming in 2012).

Shannon Smith has a BA from Columbia University in New York and an MA in English and an MLIS in Library Science and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She plays music under the name Pataphor.

Reviewer Bio: Sheelonee Banerjee is Editor of Propel, the YA imprint of Pulse. Her poems have appeared in Indian dailies as well as in literary journals of USA. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is a confirmed bookworm and writes from San Diego.

Tamara Miles teaches college English in South Carolina and works on her doctoral dissertation when she isn’t writing poems. Her writings and art work have appeared in Fall Lines; O’Bheal Five Words; Love is Love; Auntie Bellum; Pantheon Magazine; UnLost Journal; Subprimal Poetry Art; The Tishman Review; and Apricity. She is a proud member of Irish writer Jane Barry’s online creativity salon known as That Curious Love of Green and a 2016 contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Travis Laurence Naught is an author who happens to be a quadriplegic wheelchair user. He has received his bachelor's degree in psychology (2005) and completed coursework for a graduate degree in sports psychology (2007), both at Eastern Washington University. Full-length volumes of his confessional style poetry, The Virgin Journals (ASD Publishing, 2012) and Still Journaling (e-book, 2013), are widely available. Other individual pieces of work by Travis are available online and in print. Basketball and outdoor sporting activities of all kind are counted among his passions, with coffee topping the list!

Trena Machado's interest is writing prose and poetry that experiments with language to develop content in new ways, especially writing that constructs the various territories of subjective identity (imaginative and factual). She is always interested in how grammar can be bent/fragments formed making new structures capturing awareness to relay meaning. She is a small press publisher and is involved in the San Francisco Bay Area writing community.

Wendy Breuer's prose and poetry have appeared in CALYX, Inkwell Journal, Pirene's Fountain, Rattle, The Battered Suitcase, Literary Mama, Noö Journal, and other sites. She lives in Berkeley, CA.