Fall 2019 – Volume 5, Issue 3
Photo by Oziel Gomez
Bill Diamond is a writer in Evergreen, Colorado where the Rocky Mountains are both an inspiration and distraction.
Emily James is a teacher and writer in New York City whose work can be found or is forthcoming in Guernica, River Teeth, CHEAP POP, Pithead Chapel, Pidgeonholes, Hippocampus, the Atticus Review, The Rumpus, JMWW Journal and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2019 Bechtel Prize from Teachers and Writers’ Magazine.
Roberto Loiederman has been a merchant seaman, journalist and television scriptwriter. His nonfiction memoir pieces were nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014 and 2015 and he is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny.
Kathleen McGuire lives in Denver with her husband and son. In addition to writing about real, raw human experience, she is a songwriter and fronts an indie rock band.
Anne Moul is a retired music educator living in southcentral Pennsylvania pursuing her second act as a writer with essays published in Hippocampus, Episcopal Café, Mused Online Literary Journal, Kitchen Work and others. She won first place for nonfiction in the 2018 Pennwriters writing contest.
Rachel Peters lives in southside Richmond, VA with her husband and dog. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various publications, including Fiction Southeast and the 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology. She still cleans swimming pools from time to time.
Summer 2019 – Volume 5, Issue 2
Photo by Swanson Chan
Debra Borchert’s work has been published in periodicals including The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Journey, Stitches, StringTown, The Writer, and True Girl. Her short stories appear in And All Our Yesterdays (Dark House Press, 2015), Unsavvy Traveler (Seal Press, 2005), X Files (Flying Trout Press, 2006). She is currently at work on a novel of historical fiction.
Joanna Greenberg lives and writes in Southern California where she is an MFA candidate at the University of California, Riverside. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Metropolitan Review.
Kent Jacobson taught for nearly 20 years in Bard College’s Clemente Course in the Humanities and is a 2015 winner of the National Humanities Medal. His nonfiction has appeared in Under the Sun, New England Watershed, Brown Alumni Magazine, and Brandeis Review, among others.
Susannah Mintz is chair of the English Department at Skidmore College, author of a memoir entitled “Match Dot Comedy” (Kindle Single, 2013) and winner of the 2014 South Loop National Essay Prize. A collection entitled Paper Cranes was a finalist for the Epiphany essay chapbook contest in 2015. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2016, American Literary Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Birmingham Poetry Review, Epiphany, Ninth Letter, Life Writing, Michigan Quarterly Review, Sycamore Review, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2010 William Allen nonfiction prize and is the recipient of a Best American Essays 2010 Notable mention and a 2018 Pushcart Prize special mention. Current projects include a collection of creative essays and a scholarly study of disability in crime fiction.
Rebecca Tirrell Talbot received an MFA in creative writing from Roosevelt University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Solidago Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal and Contrary. She lives in South Florida.
Kelly Sinclair is a Grass Valley, CA multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores imagination and world-building as strategies for creative resilience. In 2016 she co-founded Dream Logic, a production company that creates experiential art events. Her work has appeared in Bay Area museums, zines, and Stanford literary journals. She is a graduate of Stanford University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Sierra Nevada College.
Spring 2019 – Volume 5, Issue 1
Photo by Noah Rosenfeld
Chelsey Clammer is the author of the award-winning essay collection, Circadian (Red Hen Press, 2017) and BodyHome (Hopewell Publications, 2015). Her work has appeared in Salon, The Rumpus, Hobart, Brevity, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Normal School and Black Warrior Review. She teaches online writing classes with WOW! Women On Writing and is a freelance editor. Her collection of essays, Human Heartbeat Detected is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.
Scott Hubbartt is a writer and 28-year combat veteran who lives in South Central Texas.
Kimberly Lee left law some years ago to focus on motherhood, community work and creative pursuits. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Mama, (mac)ro(mic), Toasted Cheese, Toyon and Foliate Oak. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.
Lee Haas Norris has published nonfiction in Passager, The Gettysburg Review, Persimmon Tree, The Literary Bohemian, The Boston Globe, Cargo Literary,and other publications. A graduate of Barnard College, she served in the United States Peace Corps in Moldova in her sixties and later earned an M.A. in English from the University of Maine.
JH Palmer is a Chicago based writer and performer. From 2012-2017 she produced the live lit show That’s All She Wrote, and she has performed at numerous storytelling and live lit events, including The Moth, 2nd Story, Story Club, Write Club, and You’re Being Ridiculous. Her work has appeared in The Toast and Story Club Magazine. She earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia College Chicago.
Denise Roma is a Chicago writer with short fiction appearing in After Hours, New Town Writers and Off the Rocks.
Fall 2018 – Volume 4, Issue 3
Photo by R. Mac Wheeler
Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in ths Wheeling World, and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film “Outside In,” and with the MIRC film collective, made the film “Por Que Venimos.” His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California.
Sharon Goldberg is a Seattle writer whose work has appeared in New Letters, The Gettysburg Review, The Louisville Review, Cold Mountain Review, Under the Sun, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Dalhousie Review, Gold Man Review, three fiction anthologies, and elsewhere.
Tom McGohey is a retired professor who taught Composition and directed the Writing Center at Wake Forest University and lives in Newbern, Virginia. His essay published in Fourth Genre was selected as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Lynn Mundell’s work has appeared this year in apt, Bird’s Thumb, Fanzine, Permafrost, and elsewhere. Her stories have been recognized on the “Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions” long lists of 2017 and 2018. Lynn is co-editor of 100 Word Story and its anthology “Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story.” Learn more about her at lynnmundell.com.
Maria Terrone’s nonfiction has appeared in such journals as Witness, Green Mountains Review, The Common, Briar Cliff Review, Potomac Review, The Evansville Review and Litro (U.K.). At Home in the New World (Bordighera Press), her first essay collection, publishes in fall 2018. Also a Pushcart-nominated poet, she is the author of Eye to Eye; A Secret Room in Fall (McGovern Prize, Ashland Poetry Press); The Bodies We Were Loaned, and a chapbook, American Gothic, Take 2. More at mariaterrone.com.
Natalie Tomlin is a freelance writer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her recent poetry, nonfiction, and journalism appears or is forthcoming in Canary,The Hopper, J Journal, Midwestern Gothic and Rapid Growth Media.
Summer 2018 – Volume 4, Issue 2
Photo by Gregoire Bertaud
Marie DeLean lives in Chicago with her husband, two children, and a bearded dragon named Harold. A former marketing executive, fine art photographer, and aspiring writer, she spends a significant amount of her free time staring into the backyard while waiting for winter to end. When not writing, she likes to travel to faraway lands and take long naps in sunny spots.
Matt Forsythe teaches in the English Department of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. His writing has appeared in Mid-American Review, Fiction Southeast, The Pinch, and War + Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life and Writings.
Roberto Loiederman has been a merchant seaman, journalist, and TV scriptwriter. His work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014 and 2015, and he is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny www.eaglemutiny.com.
Susan V. Meyers has lived and taught in Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. She earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of Arizona, and she currently directs the Creative Writing Program at Seattle University. Her fiction and nonfiction have been supported by grants from the Fulbright foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, as well as several artists residencies. Her novel Failing the Trapeze won the Nilsen Award for a First Novel and the Fiction Attic Press Award for a First Novel, and it was a finalist for the New American Fiction Award. Other work has recently appeared in Per Contra, Calyx, Dogwood, The Portland Review, and The Minnesota Review, and it has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Noriko Nakada writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking works of creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Publications include two book-length memoirs: Through Eyes Like Mine and Overdue Apologies, and excerpts, essays, and poetry in Meridian, Specter, Hippocampus, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Linden Avenue.
Heather Siegel is the author of the award-winning memoir Out from the Underworld (Greenpoint Press, 2015). Her work has appeared on Salon.com, in The Flexible Persona and The Chaos Journal of Personal Narrative. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing and lives in New York with her family. More about her can be found at www.heathersiegel.net.
Spring 2018 – Volume 4, Issue 1
Photo by Ruben Bagues
Magin LaSov Gregg lives, writes, and teaches in Frederick, Maryland. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Washington Post, The Manifest-Station, Literary Mama, The Rumpus, Bellingham Review, Under the Gum Tree, and elsewhere. She blogs about life after loss on her personal website www.maginlasovgregg.com and swears she will finish her first memoir in 2018.
Patrice Gopo is a 2017-2018 North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellow, and her essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging will release this summer. Please go to patricegopo.com/receive-updates to read more of her work and sign up for updates about her book.
Jill Howe is the founder of Story Sessions in Chicago, a showcase featuring true stories and live music. Jill has told numerous stories on many stages, teaches writing retreats and has presented a Tedx Talk on vulnerability.
Quentin Paquette is a Northern Virginia native now living in Philadelphia, crafting narratives to bring understanding to chronic pain patients. His writing can also be found in Eunoia Review and Deep Water Literary Journal.
John Julius Reel, born and raised in Staten Island, NY, has lived for 12 years in Seville, Spain. He is the author of a memoir in Spanish, ¿Qué pinto yo aquí?, and has collaborated as both writer and editor in El derbi final, an award-winning book about the Seville soccer derby. His essay, “My Darlings,” was recognized as “notable” in Best American Essays 2015. Reel’s Sevillian andanzas have appeared in Cleaver Magazine and Gravel.
Fall 2017 – Volume 3, Issue 2
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
Julie Chernoff is a Chicago-area food journalist. Her work has appeared in Make It Better, NS Modern Luxury, CS Modern Luxury, LDEI Quarterly, Yale Alumni Magazine, and Weight Watchers Magazine.
Jane Donaldson grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and currently lives in Wilmette, IL. This is her first published piece.
Richard Holinger’s work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Iowa Review and Boulevard His collection, Not Everybody’s Nice, won the 2012 Split Oak Press Flash Prose Chapbook Contest. He writes a newspaper column, teaches high school, and facilitates a writing workshop in the Fox Valley, west of Chicago.
Ann V. Klotz is a writer and headmistress in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, Mutha, the Brevity Bog, Mothers Always Write, the Feminine Collective and in the anthology What I Didn’t Know published by Creative Nonfiction.
Juan Alvarado Valdivia’s work has been published in The Acentos Review, The Bay Bridged, Black Heart Magazine, Somos en escrito and is forthcoming from Origins Journal. His book, ¡Cancerlandia!: A Memoir, received an Honorable Mention for the 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Biography in English. For more information, check out his website at www.juanalvaradovaldivia.com.
Jillian Schedneck is the author of the travel memoir Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights and runs the website Writing From Near and Far. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in Gender Studies. She lives in Adelaide, South Australia, with her husband and daughter.
Spring 2017 – Volume 3, Issue 1
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Edd B. Jennings runs beef cattle on the banks of the New River. His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines.
Helen Sloss Luey, a retired social worker, is a community volunteer in San Francisco. Her work has been published in Reform Judaism, Aging Today and Western States Jewish History.
Will McMillan was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. His work has been featured in Nailed, Sweet and Sun.
M.P.Nolan is an English professor and writer of identity-driven poetry, creative non-fiction and academic texts. She is author of Stratification. For more information, visit mpnolan.com.
Hallie Palladino is a playwright and essayist. Her most recent essay appears in The Point Magazine and her play, Infatuation, was workshopped at the Dandelion Theatre. Previous plays have been featured in Idle Muse’s Athena Festival, PFP’s Lez Play and Something Marvelous. She lives and writes on the north side of Chicago.
Peter J. Stavros’s work has appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Hippocampus Magazine and The Courier-Journal. More can be found at peterjstavros.wordpress.com. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Fall 2016 – Volume 2, Issue 3
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Rick Bailey is a writer who divides his time between Michigan and the Republic of San Marino. His collection of essays, American English, Italian Chocolate, will be published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2017.
Gina DeMillo Wagner is an award-winning journalist and writer. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Hakai, The Mid, Role/Reboot, and The Best of Philadelphia Stories.
Nina Kavin grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa and currently lives in Evanston, Illinois. This is her first published piece.
Bill Levine is a freelance writer residing in Belmont, Massachusetts. His essays have been published in Animal Wellness, The Boston Globe and Praxis Literary Journal.
Mike Nagel’s work has appeared in The Awl, Hobart, Salt Hill, and The Paris Review Daily.
AP’s visual and literary work can be found in Gargoyle, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and Calyx. Originally from Bucharest, Romania, she currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland.
Summer 2016 – Volume 2, Issue 2
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Blake Brunson is a writer and interior decorator living in New York City. Her work has appeared in House Beautiful.
Marie Davidson is a writer and psychologist living in Glenview, Illinois whose essays have been published in From Oy to Joy and From There to Here.
Jacqueline Doyle‘s essays have appeared in PANK, Monkeybicycle, Sweet, 100 Word Story and Quarter After Eight and forthcoming in Post Road and The Pinch. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Annette Gendler is a writer and photographer in Chicago whose forthcoming memoir, Jumping Over Shadows will be released by She Writes Press in 2017. Find out more at www.annettegendler.com.
Michael C. Keith is the author of eleven story collections, a memoir and two dozen non-fiction books. Find out more at www.michaelkeith.com.
Michelle Menting’s creative nonfiction has appeared in Quarter After Eight, Bellingham Review, Ocean State Review and Superstition Review. She lives in Maine.
Spring 2016 – Volume 2, Issue 1
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Cynthia Briggs is a teacher, writer, and documentarian in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She is the creative non-fiction editor of Snapdragon Journal (snapdragonjournal.com) and can be found at waywardsister.com.
John Hahm is a writer who grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii and currently lives in Chicago and teaches AP English in the Chicago Public School system.
Ellen Hainen is pursuing a master’s degree in Creative Writing at Northwestern University. Originally from Memphis, she currently lives and writes in Wilmette, Illinois.
Roberto Loiederman has been a merchant seaman, journalist, and TV scriptwriter. His work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014 and 2015, and he is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny at www.eaglemutiny.com.
Tom McGohey is a retired professor who taught Composition and directed the Writing Center at Wake Forest University and lives in Newbern, Virginia. His essay published in Fourth Genre was selected as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Sheri Reda is a writer, editor, life-cycle celebrant, restaurant host, youth librarian and storyteller who participates in many live literary events near her home in Chicago, Illinois.
Fall 2015 – Volume 1, Issue 3
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
bokeen is a Chicago writer, storyteller, avid dater and a former avid drinker. His book, Near Mrs: Essays About Dating, will be published later this year. You can find more of his work at bokeen.com.
Betsy Fuchs is the author of the prayer memoir, Pulling the Pieces into Prayer: And Bringing Their Blessings into a Jewish Life (or Any Life) and features prose poetry, photography and other writing experiments at her blog, http://betsywblog.blogspot.com/.
Ona Gritz essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including The Utne Reader, MORE magazine, Bellingham Review, and, most recently, The Truth of Memoir: How to Write about Yourself and Others with Honesty, Emotion, and Integrity by Kerry Cohen. She is the author of two children’s books, two collections of poetry, and the eBook memoir, On the Whole: a Story of Mothering and Disability.
Randy Osborne’s personal essays have appeared in various online literary journals, print anthologies and several have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Atlanta. Randy’s essay in Thread, “Seaside Bohemia” earned a place on the Best American Essays 2016 Notable List.
Gay Pasley is an award wining community leader and photographic artist whose work is featured in the most recent edition of Loud Zoo at Bedlam Publishing. She is a graduate student at the Oklahoma City Red- Earth MFA Program and this is her first published essay. For more, go to http://gaypasley.com.
Marta Wilmes is a writer and storyteller in Chicago.
Summer 2015 – Volume 1, Issue 2
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Eileen Dougharty has shared her essays at numerous live lit shows in Chicago and has contributed to Chicago Public Radio’s “Pleasure Town” podcast. She has written for Nvate, Story Club Magazine, and Tattooed Heroine. She’s currently playing around with mixed media in hopes of creating stories for all of the senses.
Trudi Goodman is an abstract expressionist painter whose work has been juried into The Art Institute of Chicago Sales and Rental Gallery and hangs in Chicago’s Willis Tower. Her essay, “Whose Looking Anyway?” was published in the Seasons of Our Lives anthology.
Ellen Fowler Hummel writes creative nonfiction and the occasional short story. She is managing editor of mutterhood.com, an online literary and photography magazine that she cofounded, and she writes about creativity on her blog, Jump the Page.
Jeremy Owens is the creator, host and producer of “You’re Being Ridiculous,” a quarterly reading series on Chicago’s Far North Side. He is a food writer for Gapers Block and Oy!Chicago. He has been featured in JUF Magazine and Story Club Magazine.
Robert Root is the author of the essay collections Postscripts: Retrospections on Time and Place and Limited Sight Distance: Essays for Airwaves, the memoir Happenstance and other books. He teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Ashland University.
Ruth Sterlin is a psychotherapist specializing in early attachment and family relationships. She is also author of several articles in her field but recently changed her writing focus to personal essay and memoir.
Spring 2015 – Premiere Issue (Volume 1, Issue 1)
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
WRITERS
Ann Fiegen is a joyously retired mother and grandmother, who at long last has the luxury of time to devote to writing and the soul satisfying creative outlet that it provides.
Robert Grubbs is a clinical psychologist who provides therapeutic services to children, adolescents and families. Previously published in several academic journals, this is his first publication in creative nonfiction. Robert currently works and lives in Chicago with his partner and their dog, Lucy and he spends his free time writing and wishing for the warm weather of his childhood in the South.
Anne Heaton is a singer-songwriter and pianist who has shared the stage with Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and jazz drummer Max Roach and has been featured by the New York Times Music Podcast and NPR. Anne is the mother of two daughters and this is her first essay.
Timothy Parfitt grew up outside Chicago and in Hannover, Germany. His film and music reviews have appeared in TimeOut Chicago, Wassup. This is his first published essay.
Lee Reilly’s essays have appeared in Hunger Mountain and the Florida Review and she has published two nonfiction books. You can catch her occasional blog about caregiving.
Tom Wolferman is a Chicago freelance copywriter in marketing and business communications. His humor has been published in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader and he has shared stories at live venues throughout the city.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Ellen Blum Barish, except where noted.
Rick Rasmussen is the recipient of numerous photography awards, including two international awards in Nature’s Best Magazine. His photos have been published in NEBRASKAland, Nebraska Life, Wyoming Wildlife, Nature’s Best and Ducks Unlimited. Rick’s favorite place to photograph is at home in Central Nebraska, where he lives on an acreage along the Platte River Valley with his wife and two dogs.
Curt Chandler is a senior lecturer in the College of Communications at Penn State University. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1978 and worked as visual journalist for three decades before becoming an educator. For more about Curt, click here.
Jen Clar studied photography at DePaul University. Her photographs have been exhibited and published in many Chicago-based publications and galleries.
WEBSITE
Steve Stern is Thread’s web wizard. If there’s something special you want your website to do, Steve will figure out how to make it happen. Check out his work here and here.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Amanda Good is a freelance graphic designer with a variety of great clients, including Thread, and is always looking for the next great client. Check out her work here.
MARKETING
Jenny Barish is a content acquisition manager at Stitcher, a Midroll Media company in the field of podcasting. She has worked at The Atlantic, Panoply at Slate and Acast AB.
EDITORIAL/PRODUCTION INTERN
Alexandra Yetter is a second-year student at Columbia College Chicago where she is majoring in journalism. She writes weekly articles for the Columbia College Chicago Her Campus chapter and is helping to launch a Society of Professional Journalists chapter at Columbia which she will preside over as president. She has been an author assistant to nonfiction writer Rob Elder and a newsroom intern at Blockchain News in Chicago.