BIOS



David Annwn lives in West Yorkshire. He has taught on the MA programme for the Open University in Manchester, Dublin, Cardiff and Leeds. His books include The Spirit / That Kiss (North & South 1993), Blake’s Kayak (IsPress 2000) and Euro6oros (Ispress 2002) and a number of critical works including several studies of David Jones.

Tony Baker edited and published the magazine Figs from 1980 to 1989. He has written a book on the history of mycology and co-authored another on creative work with autistic children. He is responsible for several volumes of poetry, and has contributed widely to anthologies and magazines. He currently lives in France where he works as a musician. His favourite word is ‘tilth’.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes began writing Death’s Jest-Book in 1825. The ‘finished’ version of 1829 remained unpublished until 1851, two years after his death. In the intervening years he had continued to revise it and wrote many additional passages. A text of the revised and expanded version was established by H.W.Donner for the Works (Oxford UP 1935) but had not appeared as a single volume until the West House edition in 2003, a few months before his 200th birthday.

Sean Bonney’s Notes on Heresy appeared from Writers Forum in 2002. Of his West House collection Poisons, their antidotes Martin Corless-Smith wrote ‘These glass-sharp graffiti collages of political spin and half heard blah blahs rage with humour. Bonney records a mercurial London self in cityscape portraits – and the language sizzles with such a palpable fury – I can’t tell if he’s a vandal or a witness.’

Carole Buggé's short fiction has appeared in numerous St. Martin's Press and Doubleday anthologies. Her first novel, The Star of Indi was published by St. Martin's in 1998.   She is the author of the Claire Rawlings mystery series.  Her plays and musicals have been presented in New York City at The Players Club, Manhattan Punchline, The Van Dam Street Playhouse, Love Creek, and many other venues.

Richard Caddel 1949-2003; born Bedford, grew up in Kent. He was a student at Newcastle upon Tyne University, went on to study Postgraduate Librarianship and from 1972 worked at Durham University Library. Retired in April 2000 with leukaemia. Died 1st April 2003. Richard Caddel was a widely-acclaimed poet and editor as well as the publisher of many other poets under the imprint of Pig Press. He was the founder of Colpitts Poetry and the co-founder of the Basil Bunting Poetry Centre and Archive at Durham University. His latest publications were his selected poems, Magpie Words, and the posthumous work Writing In The Dark, both published by West House Books in 2002 and 2003.

Blaise Cendrars, one of the great literary vagabonds, was born Frédéric Sauser, in 1887. Before he was twenty he had visited or worked in Switzerland, Egypt, Italy, Russia, Germany. He was variously a bee-keeper, juggler, smuggler, legionaire, novelist; he shared lodgings with Charlie Chaplin in London, lost an arm fighting at Champagne in 1915, collaborated with Abel Gance, Arthur Honneger and Apollinaire. The Dix-neuf Poémes élastique were nearly all written around the outbreak of the first world war. In an afternote Cendrars remarked ‘born from a chance meeting, a friendship, a painting, a polemic or a reading … [these are] … poems of circumstance …’ Refused by the literary revues, he added, ‘at that time, it wasn’t done, in France, to be young and authentic amongst “the new breed”.’ He died in 1961.

Adam Clay lives in Northwest Arkansas and co-edits Typo Magazine (http://www.typomag.com). His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Black Warrior Review, can we have our ball back?, Milk, storySouth, and Octopus.

Kelvin Corcoran was born in 1956. His most recent book, the ninth to date, Your Thinking Tracts or Nations (West House 2001) was a response to pictures by Alan Halsey. The Empire Stores is a reading of Alan Halsey’s Dante’s Barber Shop (De Vulgari Eloquentia); a complete version will be included in New and Selected Poems (Shearsman 2004). In the minds of some Kelvin Corcoran’s work is associated with the Essex School.

Martin Corless-Smith was born and raised in Worcestershire. He is currently living in London with his wife Catherine Wagner and their son Ambrose, where he is painting small oil panels. His books include Nota (Fence Books), Complete Travels (West House Books) and Of Piscator (University of Georgia Press).

Ian Davidson lives on Ynys Mon in North Wales, where he has been for most of his life. He is currently completing a PhD in the relationship between ideas of space and poetic form. New collections are forthcoming from Shearsman and Spectacular Diseases; previous publications include Human To Begin With (Poetical Histories) and The Patrick Poems (Amra).

Johan de Wit suspects that the guilty will not listen and his answer is to create formally autonomous literary texts, a pure poetry that is as solid as the world. Its formalism, along with its brilliant wit, drives it further into the resources of language … The co-existence of the text and footnotes splits the poem along two axes of reading in a way which creates a multi-systemicity and opens up language itself as a medium.’ (Robert Sheppard on Hippototescopo.)

Joshua Edwards is an editor at the Canary.  He is currently a student at the University of Alabama.

Lisa Fishman teaches as Beloit College.  She is the author of two books: Dear, Read (Ahsahta Press, 2002) and The Deep Heart's Core is a Suitcase (New Issues, 1996).  She has published poems in American Letters & Commentary, The Colorado Review, and many other magazines.

Andrew Foster was educated at the University of Vermont and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.  His poems have recently appeared Can We Have Our Ball Back?  He will be pursuing an MFA in fiction in the fall.

Bill Griffiths was born in Middlesex, 1948, currently lives in Seaham, Co. Durham. Published in 1970s in Bob Cobbing’s little press Writers Forum and in Poetry Review (edited by Eric Mottram), his latest work is Tyne Txts, with Tom Pickard, published by Bill’s own Amra Imprint (2004).

Dustin Hellberg lives in a rustic cabin in Colorado.  His work has appeared recently in The Colorado Review.

Alan Halsey’s collections include Five Years Out (Galloping Dog 1989) and Wittgenstein’s Devil: Selected Writing 1978-1998 (Stride 2000). Memory Screen MS is the text-only variant of an ongoing work which is only fully realised in graphic form: ‘an impossible book which by now exists in at least five distinct versions each of which begins with a snapshot of a graffito on a garage door beneath Castle Market in Sheffield.’

Lisa Isaccson is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, and her poems have most recently appeared in Colorado Review, Fence, Volt, Denver Quarterly and friendly (www.atfriendly.net).

David Kennedy lives and writes in Sheffield where he edits the magazine of innovative poetry and poetics The Paper. Recent publications include: The Dice Cup (Atlas 2000), translations of early twentieth century French surrealist Max Jacob’s prose poems with Christopher Pilling, which was shortlisted for the Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2001; Cornell: A Circuition Around His Circumambulation (West House 2001); Eight Excursions (Cherry On The Top 2003), with Rupert Loydell; and The President of Earth: New & Selected Poems (Salt 2002).

Lee Klein edits Eyeshot.net.

Joshua Kryah is currently a Schaeffer Fellow at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.  His poems have recently appeared in The Iowa Review, lyric, Chelsea, Phoebe, and Verse.

Corinne Lee's work has been published in dozens of literary magazines, including PuertoDel Sol, Gulf Coast, and The Cimarron Review. Many of her poems are forthcoming in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Fine Madness, Many Mountains Moving, and other journals. She has been a multiple nominee for the Pushcart Prize and was educated at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Karen Mac Cormack is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry. Implexures (Volume1) has just been co-published by Chax Press (USA) and West House. Housepress published her collaboration with Steve McCaffery, From A Middle, in 2002 and BookThug recently reprinted her first book, Nothing By Mouth (both titles distributed by West House in the UK). She lives in Toronto.

Shane McCrae lives in Iowa City with his wife Erica Fiedler and their son Nicholas.  Both Shane and his wife are students at the Writers' Workshop. His work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, American Letters
and Commentary, Orion, and Candelabrum (U.K.).

Geraldine Monk’s poetry has appeared in many anthologies including Conductors of Chaos, Other and Anthology of 20th Century British and Irish Poetry. Noctivagations, her 2001 collection of poetry and other texts from West House Books, was described as ‘wild, erotic and deeply strange. A poetry that reveals the unspeakable weirdness of the everyday.’ It has also been written that she ‘writes with a sense of fury that is almost drowned out by laughter.’ Her Selected Poems was published in 2003 by Salt Publishing.

Lance Phillips lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children. He is the author of Corpus Socius (Ahsahta Press, 2002).

David Rees is a visual artist living in London. Frame Books published To The Ut in 2000.

Peter Riley has been writing and publishing poetry in Britain for forty years. He now lives in Cambridge where he sells books. Passing Measure, a selection of poems 1966-1996, appeared from Carcanet in 2000. The latest books are The Dance at Mociu (prose sketches of Transylvania) from Shearsman, Aria with Small Lights (a quite long poem) from West House, and Alstonefield (a really very long poem) from Carcanet. The Gig (Toronto) issue 4/5, 1999-2000, was devoted to discussion of his poetry, with a detailed bibliography.

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino edits eratio postmodern poetry.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY. His poems have been published in jubilat, Washington Review, Xcp, can we have our ball back?, and Word/For Word..  His chaps include igne (1993), Ekphrasis (1993) and Go (1994).  He can be reached at StThomasino@nyc.rr.com

Liana Scalettar’s fiction has appeared in Arts & Letters and Washington Square, her poetry in Nidus, and her criticism in Mujeres Fuera de Quicio and Queer Frontiers. Her stories have earned a Glimmer Train fiction award and a residency at the MacDowell Colony. She lives and teaches in New York.

Gavin Selerie was born in London in 1949. His books include Azimuth (Binnacle Press 1984), Roxy (West House Books 1996) and, with Alan Halsey, Days of ’49 (West House Books 1999). Le Fanu’s Ghost, a work-in-progress, was begun in 2001. Exquisite Corpse combines alternate lines from J.S. Le Fanu, The Room in the Dragon Volant and Frances [Chamberlaine] Sheridan, The History of Nourjahad.

Amy Shearn's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salt Hill, Passages North, Lyric Poetry Review, 3rd Bed, and elsewhere. She lives in lovely Minneapolis where yes, even now, the neighbors are shouting.

A native of Portadown, N. Ireland and currently teaching as a lecturer at UNC Greensboro, Marcus Slease has served as a poetry editor for Bellingham Review and The Greensboro Review.  Recent poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in: Hayden's Ferry Review, can we have our ball back, Spork, Diagram, and Octopus.  He recently received an honorable mention in the Davoren Hanna Poetry Competition (Ireland). This year's judge was Charles Simic.

Christine Stewart is from Vancouver. She works and protests at the University of British Columbia. She lives with Haeden, Manfred and Ruby and writes there.

During the last quarter of a century Glenn Storhaug has concentrated (at Five Seasons Press) on other peoples’ poems rather than his own. The turn of the millennium reminded him that it was perhaps time for another airing of his own stuff (the last having been in 1975). Thus the 2003 publication of his long poem for silver see blue and more to follow.

Thomas Swan was born near Droitwich, Worcestershire, in 1653. Little is known of his life; he is recorded as a student at Oxford University in 1670/71 but seems to have retired to the family estate, which had been much reduced during the Interregnum. His brother William’s letters refer to his ‘languor’ and ‘imbecility’, possibly symptoms of an illness which led to his early death. The Worcester City Records Office MS. 8911 provided the text for the Worcester Antiquarian Society’s edition of his Poems (1876) and the West House Selection (2001). The poems contained in MS. 9583 have only recently been identified as Swan’s; Hic Jacet is the first to be published.

Catherine Wagner’s second book, Macular Hole, will be published in spring of 2004 by Fence. Recent poems appear in The Gig, Shearsman, American Letters & Commentary, Kiosk, EPR (www.poetry.org), Slope (www.slope.org) and other journals. She lives in Boise, Idaho.

Max Winter's poems have appeared recently in The Boston Review, Volt, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He has published reviews in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and other newspapers. He is one of the Poetry Editors of Fence.

Allyssa Wolf is a graduate of the College of Neglected Science. She lives in Los Angeles, and recently completed her first book of poems.

Antoine Wilson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Teaching-Writing Fellow and Maytag Fellow. He was the 2000-2001 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his stories have been published in Quarterly West, StoryQuarterly, and Best New American Voices 2001, among other places. His short story “Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses,” was just adapted into a short film. He has just completed a novel about Americans living in Saudi Arabia.