TalkWithME

Raphael Maurice, poet, teacher, translator

In life and in writing, Raphael highlights the beauty in people and places; beauty that might otherwise be missed. He has received a Pushcart nomination and is a recipient of the Stanley Hanks Award. His poetry appears in Likestarlings, U City Review, Vending Machine Press, Split Lip, and other publications. He is co-editor at U City Review. Raphael resides in Washington, MO where the river keeps its secrets. He periodically reads in St. Louis and heads west to read at the April 2017 Kansas City Poetry Throwdown. Follow Raphael at http://www.facebook.com/raphael.maurice.3192

Jessica Elise, Spoken Word Poet

Jessica says her life is an open book these days. She is a Writer of Words, a Live-er of Life, a Lover of Friends-Family. She adores Macey Webb, reading, music and nature. And is a self-described “dirty hippie.” Jess is also a person receiving treatment for cancer. She is an artist of words, print-making, and more, who founded Ladyfire, a monthly gathering for female (cis & trans) artists of all media. Follow and support Jess’ adventures via https://www.gofundme.com/throat-punch-melanoma-with-jess and http://www.facebook.com/jessica.elise.75

Bree, Writer and Visual Artist

Bree is a poet, memoirist, visual artist and upstart living in the farmland of Pleasureville, KY, by way of Cleveland, OH. Her Green Panda Press has put out hand-made anthologies, chapbooks and ephemera since 2001. In 2015 she began Least Bittern Books which turns out paperbacks by poets with strong, singular voices, such as Charles Potts, John Swain and Victor Clevenger. Bree received a 2016 Artist Enrichment Grant for from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her latest poetry collection “I Am Also Invasive” is by Birds and Bones Press. Her work has also been published by Ecstatic Peace, Night Ballet, Temple Books and Crisis Chronicles. Follow Bree at http://www.theartistbree.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/poetBreeart/

Jameson Bayles, Poet, Correspondent, Poetry Advocate

Jameson is a writer by trade, a writer by profession. From his Kansas City home base, he travels a lot in an effort to keep the Muse happy and entertained, finding the small hideaways most intriguing. He is a Roving Correspondent for Poetrybay http://www.facebook.com/poetrybay.1152611418123138 and the Co-Curator for the April 2017 KC Poetry Throwdown http://www.spartanpresskc.com/throwdown His work has been published in numerous literary journals and magazines and his solo work “legends of doe hoe” was released by Spartan Press in Feb 2017. Follow Jameson at http://www.facebook.com/dharmabum1945 and https://jamesonbayles.wordpress.com

Ashley Loftin & Dese’Rae L. Stage: Writers, Suicide Prevention Advocates & More

Ashley is the 2016 winner of the Paul G. Quinnett Lived Experience Writing Prize. She an essayist & mental health advocate specializing in suicide prevention & obsessive-compulsive disorder education. On Twitter @OCDwrangler On Instagram OCDwrangler Her personal blog documenting her experience as a self-proclaimed “OCD wrangler” is http://TheBraveOnes.org/

Dese’Rae is the 2015 winner of the Quinnett Prize. She is an award-winning artist, suicide awareness activist, & public speaker. After struggles with self-injury, a suicide attempt, losing friends to suicide, & an abusive relationship, Dese’Rae was inspired to create Live Through This, a collection of portraits & true stories of 180 suicide attempt survivors. LTT has received extensive media coverage, including features in the NYT, Associated Press, & more. Dese’Rae speaks at universities, conferences, & events nationwide. http://lLiveThroughThis.org/

Submissions for the 2017 Quinnett Prize are accepted online through February 27. More info & past prize winning essays are at http://www.suicidology.org/writing-contest

Rudy Caseres, Mental Health Advocate

Rudy is a public speaker, writer, and vlogger who shares his story of living with bipolar. He travels the country to work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Project Semicolon, This is My Brave, and Active Minds. Interviewed for the Fall 2016 edition of BP Magazine. Creates video content for HealthyPlace.com. Featured on “The S Word” (documentary) blog. Rudy has proudly lived in San Pedro, CA his entire life. Follow him on Twitter @RudyCaseres and on Facebook www.facebook.com/rudycaseres

Harriet Lerner, clinical psychologist and author

Harriet is one of America’s most respected relationship experts, and the author of numerous scholarly articles and popular books, including the New York Times bestseller The Dance of Anger, which has sold several million copies. Newest book, WHY WON’T YOU APOLOGIZE?: Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts, shows us how much the apology matters and why we so often muck it up. Harriet provides a unique perspective on what the good apology requires and how we can restore compromised and broken relationships. More at www.HarrietLerner.com

Jenny Molberg, MO Poet & Assistant Professor

Jenny is a poet who teaches at the U of Central MO. She is Co-editor of Pleiades www.PleiadesMag.com/ Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Poetry International, North American Review, Copper Nickel, Best New Poets, and other publications. Her debut poetry collection, Marvels of the Invisible, won the 2014 Berkshire Prize and is now available through Tupelo Press www.tupelopress.org/product/marvels-of-the-invisible/ More about Jenny at www.JennyMolberg.com

M. Scott Douglass, NC Poet-Biker-Publisher

Scott is a poet who loves solo bicycling & motorcycling trips. He enjoys all the parts of publishing a journal & other people’s books through Main Street Rag Publishing Company. MSRP is the biggest publisher of poetry in NC. His poetry has appeared in such places as The Asheville Poetry Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, and Sundog and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He also received an Emerging Artists Grant from the NC Arts & Science Council in 2001 which was used to publish his first book of poetry, Auditioning for Heaven. Other books include Balancing on Two Wheels (2003), STEEL WOMB Revisited (2005), and most recently, Hard to Love (2012). In 2006, he was the recipient of the Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award. In 2010 the Poetry Council of NC awarded him a Certificate of Dedication. His cover design work has won two PICA Awards along with several Indie Press nominations. Follow his adventures at www.facebook.com/MScott.Douglass and http://MainStreetRag.com/

John Grochalski, Brooklyn-Pittsburgh Poet-Novelist-Activist

John is a white American male who is not complacent! Currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough. Author of poetry: The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014); and novels: The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Writers & more are urged to email John at WineDrunkSideWalk@gmail.com to be included in the blog reflecting the Trump days, http://WineDrunkSideWalk.blogspot.com/

Daniel Crocker, MO Poet-Podcaster

Daniel is a poet of the April 2017 Kansas City Poetry Throwdown. He shares openly & with dark humor about real life, mental health challenges & all. His poetry collections “Like a Fish” & “The One Where I Ruin Your Childhood” are from www.SundressPublications.com His work has appeared in New World Writing, The Los Angeles Review, The Chiron Review, The Mas Tequila Review, Night Train, Juked, Nerve Cowboy, & more. He’s the co-editor of “Trailerpark Quarterly” and the host of the podcast “Sanesplaining” http://Sanesplain.com

Matt Spezia, National Poetry Awards Slam Poet of 2016

Matt performs slam poetry across the country, because “Words are the expression of the spiritual.” Part of The P.O.E.T. Movement, Matt co-hosts several live-streamed P.O.E.T. Radio shows. Matt lives in Topeka, KS while completing a business degree at Washburn University. He hosts “The Faces by Mayfield Poetry Series” monthly in Topeka. His poetry collection from Spartan Press will be released May 2017. For info on P.O.E.T. Radio and more, www.IAmPoet.org or MattSpezia.Spezia@gmail.com

Nathanael William Stolte, Buffalo, NY Poet-Editor

Author of four chapbooks: A Beggars Book of Poems, Bumblebee Petting Zoo, Fools’ Song & Unformed Creature, with more in-progress. His poems have appeared in Ghost City Review, Guide to Kulture Creative Journal, Five-to-One Magazine #thesideshow, Rusty Truck Zine, Poems-For-All, The Buffalo News & Plurality Press. Acquisitions Editor for CWPCollective Press. Voted best poet in Buffalo by Artvoices’ “Best of Buffalo” in 2016. A madcap, punk-rock, D.I.Y. Buffalo bred & corn-fed poet. Follow Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective at www.facebook.com/CringeWorthyPoetsCollective

Taurean LaCharles, Actor, V.2017, No.1

Taurean LaCharles is a native of Lawrence, KS and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied classical theatre. As an androgynous gay African-American male, Taurean has known discrimination throughout his life. Taurean and host Marcia Epstein engage in a lively conversation about Performance Arts in Lawrence, KS. And about Racism in Arts in the USA. Follow Taurean at www.facebook.com/Taurean.LaCharles

Crista Siglin, Multi-Media Artist

Crista grew up in Iowa. BFA in Painting and Creative Writing from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2015. Visual work has been show at the Dodge Painting Gallery, Blue Djin Gallery, Vacant Farm, Green Lady Gallery, ArtsBar, Night Blooms Darkroom and Bookstore, H&R Block ArtSpace, and LUMA Westbau museum in Zürich, Switzerland. Poetry has been published in Sprung Formal, KCAI’s Compendium, Not Sorry Zine, and Retrograde Craft. First book of poetry, Fleeting, Sacred on Spartan Press in 2015. Her practice—paralleled in both visual and written works—is an exploration of the body and the mind’s relationship to environment, trauma, time, and phantasmagoria. More Crista at https://www.instagram.com/bansheelaundry/ and https://www.instagram.com/cristasiglin/

Ezhno Martin, Poet & Publisher of EMP

Ezhno doesn’t believe in pronouns! And is a long-time member of the Poetic Underground in Kansas City, with roots at Prospero’s Books and the Uptown Arts Bar. Ezhno’s collection Beautiful & Abominable is by Spartan Press. Ezhno is the founder of EMP, a growing empire specializing in publishing poetry. #Beer by Ezhno was their inaugural project. In 2017, EMP releases books by Samantha Slupski and others. www.facebook.com/EMPzine

Mark Hennessy, Poet-Musician

Mark is and has been a FORCE in the Midwest-and-More Music and Poetry scenes for years. As a teacher at the university and high school levels, he challenges minds to expand. Expose yourself to his books, CD’s, performances. More about his current band at
http://www.godzillionaireband.com/

Annette Billings, Topeka Poet, on Descants For A Daughter

Annette is an African-American Kansas poet, playwright, actress and nurse, who now offers by sharing her poetry and prose. She has written two collections of poetry, one-act plays and numerous short stories.

Her book of poems, A Net Full of Hope, garnered the Topeka, Kansas, 2015 ARTSConnect Arty Award for Literature.

More information can be found at: http://anetfullofhope.com/

“Descants for a Daughter, a collection of affirmations/meditations, reads like a blessing for all daughters, for all humanity. It inspires us to recognize our own worth, to resist the forces that threaten to diminish us as we move along life’s path, and to remind the people we love to do the same. It is a collection to be returned to many times.”

Buy here: https://www.amazon.ca/Descants-Daughter-Annette-Billings-ebook/dp/B01MQQAYO0