Jamie hails from Southern New Jersey but for the last 27 years has lived in Central Jersey with her husband, two daughters and numerous cats. A plethora of life experiences influences her work. She chases light to create scenes for memories. In 2018 she was part of a group show at Gallery of Division in Somerville. This showcased several members of the Raritan Photographic Society. Her other exhibitions include Alfa Art Gallery in New Brunswick in 2016 & 2017, as well as Guild of Creative Art’s Eyesights 2017 & 2019 Juried Art Exhibit.
Ileana, our Ducts essays editor, is a Romanian-American writer. She has a master’s degree in comparative literature and a doctorate in women’s studies. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Ducts, Mulberry Fork Review, The Rumpus, and edited collections. She has performed as part of the Trumpet Fiction series and is at work on a collection of essays on borders, love, and life in a second language. She teaches writing and women’s studies courses at Rutgers University and writes under the pen name Ileana Florian.
Joanna is a recovering lawyer turned nurse and works at a tiny community hospital on the front lines of caring for the poor and the disadvantaged. Her areas of practice include hospice, detox and oncology. When she realized she could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance between her inner life and the practice of law, she began writing as a way to find a path forward. She writes personal essays and has produced a full-length memoir and a medical-legal murder mystery. Select personal essays can be found on her blog at applesblue.com. Follow her on twitter @joannaclymer.
Barbara is a child neurologist and native New Yorker. She and her late husband, Joseph Pasternak, also a child neurologist, raised their two daughters on the North Shore of Chicago and practiced and taught together on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine for 25 years. Now retired, Barbara continues to pursue a lifelong passion as a “recreational ballerina,” and studies creative non-fiction with Laura Zinn Fromm. “A Widow’s Bed” is her first published personal essay.
Vijay is a supervising librarian and host of the LIVE talk show, The Truth to Power Show, that streams online via Radio Free Brooklyn on Mondays at 8 am. He published two poetry collections including Escape from Samsara (2016) and Celebrity Sadhana, Or How to Meditate with a Hammer, Book 1 of The Paparazzo Poet Meditations (2018) that imagines meditative moments in celebrity lives. He has been previously published with Newtown Literary, Oddball Magazine, Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, and Volume 2 of Fearsome Critters.
Marlene completed her bachelor’s degree in English literature at Barnard College and received her master’s degree from Tufts University. She continued her education at George Washington University, where she earned her PhD in English literature, and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a certificate in business administration.
Vivian’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than fifty literary journals and anthologies, from Adanna Literary Journal to Xavier Review. For a full list of her publications, visit her website, vivianlawry.com. In addition to her short pieces, she has three books: Dark Harbor and Tiger Heart—installments in the Chesapeake Bay Mystery Series—and Different Drummer: a collection of off-beat fiction.
Colin is a freelance science and nature educator and a wildlife photographer. More photographs can be seen at dabblingduck.smugmug.com.