We'd like to thank everyone for contributing to this issue. We look forward to working with all of you in the future again soon. Be sure to submit your work for the next issue, too! See Journal Guidelines for details.

Esther Altshul Helfgott
Esther's The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices, a chap-book length conversation about homelessness and schizophrenia, was published by KotaPress in Jan 2000. Other appearances include The American Psychoanalyst, Baltimore Jewish Times, Chrysanthemum, The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review, SheSpeaks and Switched-on-Gutenberg. She teaches in Seattle, Washington.
EAHelfgott@aol.com

Charles Adés Fishman
He served as director of the SUNY Farmingdale Visiting Writers Program for 18 years and was the originator of the Paumanok Poetry Award. His books include Mortal Companions (1977), The Firewalkers (1996), Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (1991), and The Death Mazurka (Texas Tech, 1989), which was listed by Choice as one of the outstanding books of the year. Fishman currently serves as poetry editor for Gaia (www.whistle.org) and Cistercian Studies Quarterly, and he is a poetry consultant for the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. His many awards include a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1995), the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize of the Southern California Anthology (1996), and the Eve of St. Agnes Award from Negative Capability (1999). His new collection of poems, Country of Memory, will be published by Rattapallax Press in Spring 2001.
fishman@SNYFARVA.CC.FARMINGDALE.EDU

Janet Mae Best
She has been writing poetry for about 20 years. Her poems come from a lot of different aspects in life including: survival, dreams, knowledge. Her objective is to capture the audiences senses with her poetic talents. To instill hope, empathy, and confidence into her admirers. To let them know that even though life is hard, it is not impossible, and while there is evil in this world, there is also goodness.
To email Janet, send your note to info@kotapress.com and we'll forward the message on to her.

Chris Ryan Bordeaux
The author is a twenty-four year old PhD student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology in the United States. He considers himself a good writer, but a bad poet.
slightly_rumpled@hotmail.com

Louis Brletich
I grew up on a farm in eastern Ohio. I learned at an early age about life, and death. And the joy and sorrow they may bring. At the age of 34, I've come to appreciate all that life has shown me and I take great pride in being able to show the world life, as I see it, through the poems that I write.
lvb@raex.com

Jose Jason L. Chancoco
I am taking up BS Medical Technology at the Far Eastern University-Dr. Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation in the Philippines. I plan to become a surgeon and a lawyer. I was features and literary editor first, and then later became associate editor of The Advocate; the official campus press of FEU. My poems have been in the following: An Maogmang Lugar, Transition, Pilosopong Tasyo, Philippine Star, The Researcher, Philippines Free Press, Cader Poetry Anthology, Sparrowgrass Poetry Anthology: Treasured Poems of America, Pen Pusher's Poetry Anthology: Echoes of the Century, Esoreric.Com, JMW Publishing Poetry Anthology: Seasons of Change, Poetry Web Ring, Nuvein Magazine, and Kota Press Poetry Journal. Prizes: - First Prize, Transition Literary Contest in English (One-Act Play). - Gold Medal, Samahang Kayumangi (Camaraderie of the Brown) Poetry Contest. - Silver Medal, Fr.. O Brian Essay Writing Contest in English.
jason_poetis@yahoo.com

Ruth Daigon
Winner of the Ann Stanford Poetry Award, in 1997 also the "The Eve of St. Agnes Poetry Award in 1994 and runner up in 1995 Prior to her career in poetry she was a professional singer: a Columbia Recording Artist, a guest artist on CBS's Camera Three, a soloist with the New York Pro Musica. In the late seventies, she made the transition to full time poet, editor, performance artist. She was founder/editor of the poetry publication Poets On: for the 20 years of its lifetime. Daigon is a regular on the Internet with 3 chapbooks on Web Del Sol, Pares Cum Paribus (Chile) and The Alsop Review plus numerous publications in hard copy magazines and anthologies. Her most recent book Between One Future And The Next, Papier- Mache Press, was published in 1995. Her latest book "The Moon Inside" has just been published Gravity/Newton's Baby. A selection of her poems entitled "Ruth Daigon's Greatest Hits" is forthcoming from Pudding House publications as part of their Gold chapbook series web page:

http://www.freeyellow.com/members/lyric chapbook http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/Ruth_Daigon chapbook http://www.alsopreview.com/daigon/daigon.htm

Diane Cornell-Drury
A resident of Seattle and midwest native, is finishing her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois. Prior to giving birth to her daughter Devon, Diane lived a year in Santiago, Chile, meeting and interviewing women musicians. Diane is also a classical musician, performing recently as a singer with the choir, The Esoterics. Her current job is as Development Assistant for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. cornelldrury@home.com

Carla Traylor Griswold
She has always been a writer, but when her father died in 1993, she turned to poetry to discover how "death gives life its clarities" (H. McHugh). She enjoys playing with the mystery of edges, borders, fences, grief, and all the colors loss comes in. Her collection titled Missing Women 1969-1993 was published by C. J. Ink in 1998. She is a media producer, public school advocate, and soccer mom, and resides in The Center of the Universe (the Fremont neighborhood) in Seattle, Washington.
ctgwold@jps.net

Eryn Huntington
A professional writer, mom, and poet who lives in Bellevue, Washington. A former journalist, freelance business writer, and editor, her work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the International Association of Business Communicators, the Washington Press Association, and the National Federation of Press Women. In 1994, her nonfiction novel The Zero-Sum Game won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference Literary Competition. She has ghostwritten books for managers on organizational change and energizing human beings in the workplace for one of the nation's most prominent business consulting firms. She is currently exploring and writing poetry and working on a book about spirituality and gifts discernment for the Catherine of Siena Institute.
eryn@halcyon.com

Hawk
He has been singer, composer, and song writer since Hector was a pup.  You can often find him in various Seattle venues performing his music live with his poet wife. 
He also enjoys his day job of creating web sites. If you like what you see here, then you like his work.  He and his wife started KotaPress in memory of their son Dakota. hawk@kotapress.com

Jerrilynne Jankowski
Send questions or comments to info@kotapress.com and we'll forward your message to her.

Kara L.C. Jones
Friend to turtles, Speaker of the word "NO!", Tamer of ludicrous thoughts, Mother of a dead child, Goddess of Hawksville, Huntress available for Catwomyn's productions at a moment's notice, and Taker of absolutely no more bullshit.
ladyh@kotapress.com

Alyssa A. Lappen
Ms. Lappen's poems have been published--in International Poetry Review, Blueline, Touched by Adoption: Stories, Letters and Poems, (Green River Press, 1999), Kudzu: A Digital Quarterly (www.etext.org/Zines/Kudzu), Switched-on Gutenberg (http://faculty.washington.edu/jnh/), New Works Review (www.new-works.org), Out of Line, Earth Beneath Sky Beyond (Outrider Press, 2000), Major Signs, Poetry & Story magazine (www.poetrystory.com) and Ruah: A Journal of Spiritual Poetry in Berkeley, Calif. She won honorable mention 2000 New Millennium Writing competition, has acceptances from HEArt Quarterly and Poetry Motel and in July will be a featured reader at the Phoenix series in New York.

Ms. Lappen was a staff journalist for 25 years for such publications as The New Haven Register, Forbes, Working Woman, Corporate Finance and Institutional Investor. She currently writes for a major money management firm.
aalappen@aol.com

Michael Francis Leary
He is a writer and artist. He is owner and principal designer at Galapagos Design Group, a digital design and type foundry in Massachusetts. Michael is a published author, having written "Web Designer's Guide to Typography", a primer for graphic artists and webmasters, in the proper use of typography for successful web site composition.

Michael has written poetry and prose most of his life.
mleary@galapagosdesign.com

Barney F. McClelland
He has published numerous short stories, articles, and poems. In 1979 he was the recipient of the Mary Reid McBeth Memorial Award for Fiction. He currently works as a freelance writer in Cincinnati,Ohio.  
barneymac17@irishabroad.com

Claudia Mauro
She is, among other things, a first generation New York Italian Amazon leather Buddhist butch in recovery. She holds Federal Aviation Administration commercial pilot certificate number 131407693, and certainly knows how to stall, and how to recover. Her goal is to embody the sacred, the profane and the moment they ride in on.

Claudia has been employed as an Alaskan bush pilot, merchant mariner, street junkie, fisheries science technician, hypnotist and computer programmer.

Her first collection of poems, Stealing Fire, was nominated for the 1997 Lambda Book Award. Her second book, Reading the River, was released in October 1998 and has also been nominated for the Lambda Book Award. She was awarded a Hedgebook fellowship in 1997. She is the founder and managing editor of Whiteaker Press.

She currently writes and teaches in Seattle, Washington and occasionally moonlights as a pilot in Southeast and Western Alaska. 
info@kotapress.com (We'll forward your messages to her.)

Russ Mead
He was raised on the edge of the Arizona desert. The childhood magic of the desert lives on through the Coyote Bill stories. Russ Mead practices employment and business law on a boat dock in Seattle. Other Coyote Bill Stories are available at www.fatbrain.com

Richard E. Messer
He grew up in Glenwood Springs, a small town in the Colorado Rockies and earned his Ph. D. at the University of Denver. He has pursued post-graduate work in Analytical Psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. A poet, fiction writer, and literary critic, he has made his living by teaching at various colleges. Presently, he is Professor Emeritus in the Creative Writing Program at Bowling Green State University. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Nation, Psychlogical Perspectives, The Sun, The Black Warrior Review and many other magazines. In 1995 his book of prose and poetry, Murder in the Family, was published by Bottom Dog Press. His works can also be found online at both:

http://www.interlog.com/~ascent/home3.html
http://www.cameron.edu/okreview/
rmesser@wcnet.org

Susan Mello
She sprouted up in the suburbs of New York City and got the-hell downtown as soon as possible. During her time in New York, she took up black & white photography, and gleefully burned negatives during her 8 years there. City burn-out brought her to the Pacific Northwest to be soothed by plantlife, mountains, and mild weather. Here, creativity bloomed again in the form of musical studies, jazz singing, piano & flute. Baking and gardening became passions. A recent trip to Kenya produced images, sounds, and stories which will be featured in her upcoming website. Comments, questions, requests for prints, mailing list membership to:
spmello@hotmail.com

Jess Mills
I was raised in North Carolina but have been a Northwest "native" for thirty-five years. I've recently retired from my job as manager of a medical clinic and am enjoying freedom of body and spirit. My husband and I have spent much of the past year traveling to out of the way places in our small camper - hiking, skiing, listening and learning. My poems have been published in a number of journals throughout the country, including Seattle Review, Tar River Poetry, Connecticut River Review, and Snowy Egret to name a few of my favorites. This is my first on line publication.
jkmills@email.msn.com

Alysson B. Parker
She is a poet and fiction writer for real and a secondary school English teacher for awhile.  She has published in print as well as in online journals.  Presently working on a Ph.D. in African-American literature, she and her partner and daughter live in New Zealand.
a.b.parker@alumni.unh.edu

Rebecca Page
She was born in 1981, and resides in Sydney Australia. She is currently studying Information Technology, and pursuing a career in Web Design, while writing poetry on the side. Poetry however is her number one passion, and she has been writing for as long as she can remember. The poetry she writes reflects the beauty she sees in life, and her spiral in and out of depression.
earthangel_48@hotmail.com

Ken Shiovitz
Has been a professional student of animal behavior and bird song, and had previously worked in public health, surgical nursing, teaching, and consulting.  For the past 14 years and he has been an Associate Broker with Windermere Real Estate in Seattle. More poems at:
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/shiovitz
shiovitz@sprynet.com

MaryLee Smith
I was born in upstate New York, but moved to Florida as a child. I went to Catholic school there and have recovered! (I think, ///*-*\\\) I met and married my former husband, had a family, divorced, and traveled the world (and I think other women should, too!). I have lived in Costa Rica, Jamaica, W.I. (Peace Corps) and visited Europe, Asia, Canada and more. Settling near my son in Seattle, I enjoy teaching, and writing about my relationships and travels. Published in "Small Women Who Think Big", C.J. Ink, Seattle, Washington.
maryleesmith@prodigy.net

Todd Schneider
He's a 95% self-taught photographer, 12 years after receiving a 35mm camera for high school graduation. "I've primarily used photography as just another element in other artworks (illustrations, sculptures, graphics, fanzines) but, in recent years, I've been treating it as itself by studying the finer points of the image and experimenting with infrared and recording films. My current, never ending, photo study is collapsing, and consequently disappearing, homestead and farm buildings." He makes his base on the south shores of Bainbridge Island, Washington from where he creates, hikes, cycles, snowboards, travels, and searches out great music.
tmschneider666@hotmail.com

Nancy Talley
Crone, Grandmother, poet and crabby old woman. Her new collection titled The Crone's Notebook: The Second Edition was released by KotaPress in April 2000. Send questions or comments to info@kotapress.com and we'll forward your message to her.

David Sutton
He is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Auburn University. His life partner is Charlotte Decker Sutton, an associate professor in the College of Business at Auburn University. The Suttons have two children (Scott and Alison), one dog (Sandy), and two cats (Princess and Shadow).
suttoda@auburn.edu

Katie McAllaster Weaver
INK BLOTTER, AMERICAN POETS & POETRY, HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS, CITY SCRIPTUM, INKY BLUE, CHANCE, WEST WIND REVIEW, VILLAGE IDIOT, WRITERS' FORUM, etc.
mkmwe3@aol.com

Anne Wideman
I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Dec 27, 1944. I graduated from St. Clair High School in 1962. I obtained an EMT license from East Central College in Union, MO. I worked for Wal-Mart for 8 1/2 years. Since retiring from Wal-Mart, I have been doing crafts, painting, and reading a lot until last year. Last year, I got my computer and got into genealogy which takes a major part of my spare time now. You can contact Anne by sending e-mail to us at info@kotapress.com and we'll forward it on to her.

Allegra Wong
She has a B.A. in English Literature from Wheaton College (Norton), and has done extensive graduate work in English and American literature at Harvard University. Her poetry and prose have been published in numerous journals including Oyster Boy Review, Turnstile, The 2River View, The Kota Press Journal, The Montserrat Review, Brevity, 3rd Bed, Thunder Sandwich, and (Harvard) Scriptorium. She is the creative writing moderator at SayStuff.com (http://www.saystuff.com), and teaches courses in autobiography, the literature of mourning, and erotica at Writers On The Net (http://www.writers.com). She has one son.
ah@meganet.net