The Americas

MEET THE MOBSTERS

Click on an author photo to link to  the FLASH MOB story!

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Kelly Grotke TOP 15 FINALIST (left). Reader, writer, likes hummingbirds, martinis and treeforts.

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Susan Gibb (right), recipient of the 8th Glass Woman Prize, two Pushcart nominations and on the storySouth Million Writers Award long list of notable short stories 2010, writes one blog on literature analysis and another on hypermedia writing and reading. She is listed in the Electronic Literature Directory, the ELMCIP Knowledge Base, and her hypertext has been included in college syllabi and translated into other languages. Her fiction, poetry, and digital art have been published in many fine publications.

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John Wentworth Chapin (left) teaches writing and runs a writing center in Baltimore. You can find him on the web at angryshark.net and johnwentworthchapin.com. John is a founding editor of 52|250: A Year of Flash and A Baker’s Dozen. He’s currently at work on CollectedPoopStories.com, which you should totally go visit.

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Sue Borgersen (right) writes rather than do chores around her Nova Scotia home surrounded by ukuleles and unruly dogs. www.sueborgersen.com

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Jennifer Grant (left) is a recovering journalist who quit a perfectly good job to write fiction. When she’s not writing, she can be found homeschooling her teenage son, or sitting on her yoga mat seeking serenity. She lives in Gainesville, FL with her husband, son, a high strung dog, an ill tempered cat, and a bunch of rowdy reptiles near the Swamp.

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Tonette dela Luna (right) first started weaving tales in utero and hasn’t stopped since. After success with NaNoWriMo and its various incarnations last year, she’s been writing full time. Recent workshops had her fall in love with the shorter form and she looks forward to building a repertoire of short pieces as well as novel-length works of fiction. Tonette received an honorable mention for her flash humor and three pieces were published on Dave Fox’s website during his 100 Hours of Humo(u)r blogathon. She currently lives outside of Raincouver, BC, where she’s working on a Young Adult Fractured Fairytale Series.

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A lawyer by background, Gary V. Powell (left) currently devotes most of his time to writing fiction and wrangling a 12-year old son. His stories have appeared at Pithead Chapel, Mainstreet Rag, Prime Number, Carvezine, and other online and print publications. In addition, several of his stories have placed or been selected as finalists in national contests. Most recently, his story “Super Nova” received an Honorable Mention in the Press 53 2012 Awards Contest. His first novel, “Lucky Bastard,” released in December 2012   is available through Main Street Rag Press at http://www.mainstreetrag.com/GPowell.html.

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Laurie Kolp (right) is an award-winning poet with numerous publications, some of which include MiOPesias, Miller’s Pond, Writer’s Digest, The Fib Review, Full of Crow, Red River Review. Her first full-length poetry collection is slated for release March 2014 through Winter Goose Publishing. She is the vice-president of Texas Gulf Coast Writers. Laurie lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, three kids and two dogs.

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Mark Kerstetter TOP 25 (left) is a self-taught artist/writer. He is the winner of the Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award and several awards for his drawing and painting. His poems have appeared in such journals as Evergreen Review, Unlikely Stories and Connotation Press and he is the former poetry editor of Escape into Life. Currently his art made out of salvaged wood can be seen at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. Visit him at markkerstetter.com

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Author Catherine Russell (right) shares her life with her high school sweetheart, their son, and two ferocious puppies in the Wilds of Ohio while writing short stories, editing her novel, and learning more about the craft every day. Her work has been published in Flash Me magazine, Metro Fiction, Twisted Tales, Beyond Centauri, and the Best of Friday Flash: Volume One and Volume Two anthologies. She also contributes regularly to the Friday Flash and the Functional Nerds websites.

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Leslie Muzingo (left) is proud to be a Southern-transplant who sometimes misses her Iowan roots.  She writes for Etherbooks, and has participated in several NYC Midnight Short Story and Flash Competitions as well as numerous screenplay comps where she has made the finals but never makes it to the winner’s circle – always a bridesmaid, never a bride.  To quote Kurt – “So it Goes.”  She has, however, won prizes for her beautiful beadwork, and her dogs love her unconditionally. Stupid dogs.

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Vincent Mackay (right) is a full-time writer, full-time ER doctor, full-time father, and accomplished bender of the space-time continuum.

Stephen Hastings-King TOP 25 (left) lives by a salt marsh in Essex, Massachusetts where he makes constraints, works with prepared piano and writes entertainments of various kinds. His short fictions have appeared in Sleepingfish, Black Warrior Review, elimae, Metazen and elsewhere. This contribution is part of a series, so once you arrive at the blog scroll down to “The Intrepid Explorer is Dreaming Again”.

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Michael Gillan Maxwell WINNER! FIRST PLACE! (below, left) writes and creates visual art in the Finger Lakes Region of New York state. A teller of tales & singer of songs, he’s prone to random outbursts, & may spontaneously combust or break into song at any moment. He is occasionally found ranting and raving on his website, Your Own Backyard.

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Joani Reese TOP 15 FINALIST (below, right) writes for herself, and sometimes others think her writing works. She lives in a red state and imagines stories about vanished friends who are traveling in time.

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Tantra Bensko TOP 15 FINALIST (below, right) teaches fiction writing through UCLA Ex. Writing Program, Writers College, and her own academy online. She obtained her MA from FSU, and her MFA from Iowa. She has 200 stories and poems in journals, 4 chapbooks, 2 full length books, with 2 more slated, from Dog Horn Publishing and Make-Do. She maintains the Experimental Writing resource site, FlameFlower Experimental Story Contest, and LucidPlay Publishing. She lives in Berkeley. She likes to play a lot.

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Ann Bogle‘s Country Without a Name with illustrations by Daniel Harris (Argotist Ebooks, 2011) is forthcoming in a limited-edition, fine art print version from Veery Books. Her story “Meryl Streep Laughed at That” (at Altered Scale, also a broadside) was named in Wigleaf‘s Top 50 2013. Ann is pictured to the left.

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John Riley (below, left) has published fiction and poetry in several print and online journals. He has grown to dislike writing about himself.

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Taree Belardes (right) is a writer, poet and live performance storyteller whose environmental activism,  studies of metaphysics, quantum  theory and  mind/body medicine lay fertile ground for the tales she weaves. Her inspirations are guided by the collective consciousness, the wonders of nature, and the absurdities and magical moments of life.

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Gessy Alvarez (below, left) earned her MFA from Columbia University and taught fiction in the New York City public school system and at Columbia University Medical Center. Her short stories have appeared in Camroc Press Review, Thrice Fiction, Bartleby Snopes, Pure Slush, Black Heart Magazine, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Lost In Thought, Letras Caseras, and Pank. She’s currently at work on her first novel.

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Writer and consumer of all things Science Fiction, Space Opera and Futuristic Romance, CE Kilgore (below, left) spends her days as a web developer to keep the lights on, her nights typing away at a keyboard in the hopes of capturing those brief, beautiful sparks of human creativity and getting it onto paper before it disappears.

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Robert Walton (right) taught middle school for thirty-six years and is a mountaineer. He and Phyllis, his wife of 40 years, reside in King City. His short story “Dogwood Dream” won first place in New Millennium Writing’s 2011 short fiction contest. His novella “Vienna Station” won the 2011 Galaxy prize. Most recently, his Civil War novel Dawn Drums was published by Moonlight Mesa Associates.

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Robert Vaughan (left) leads writing roundtables at Redbird-Redoak Writing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His writing has appeared in over 400 print and online journals. His short prose, “10,000 Dollar Pyramid” was a finalist in the Micro-Fiction Awards 2012. His story, “A Gauze, A Medical Dressing, A Scrim” won 2nd place in the Flash Fiction Chronicles String-of-Ten Five contest, 2013. Also, “Ten Notes to the Guy Studying Jujitsu” was a finalist for the Gertrude Stein Award 2013.

He was the former editor at Thunderclap! and is senior flash fiction editor at JMWW and Lost in Thought magazines. His book, Flash Fiction Fridays, is at Amazon. His poetry chapbook, Microtones, is from Cervena Barva Press.

His chapbook from publisher Deadly Chaps in summer 2013, Diptychs, Triptychs, Lipsticks and Dipshits, will include 36 short-form pieces, combinations of his signature prose poetry style. For a sample, here is his published story, “The Lost and Erasable Parts of Us:” Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Duet: Robert Vaughan and Meg Tuite – Used Furniture Review.

Also, he has a full-length collection, Addicts and Basements, to be published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in February 2014! Robert Vaughan’s contribution to the Flash Mob is of course a non-competing entry since he is one of the judges. THIS STORY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED AT METAZEN.

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Kari Nguyen TOP 25 (right) writes from New Hampshire, where she lives with her daughter, dog, and husband. Her work has received recognition from Glimmer Train, the Glass Woman Prize, The Binnacle, and New Hampshire Writers Magazine, and two of her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the nonfiction editor at Stymie Magazine. Kari can be found online at karinguyen.wordpress.com and on twitter as @knguyenwrites. THIS STORY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED AT METAZEN.

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Bud Smith TOP 15 FINALIST (left) lives in Washington Heights, NYC. He has all the windows open and is listening to Devo: “Girl You Want”.

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Derek Osborne TOP 15 FINALIST (below, right) lives in eastern Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in Bartleby-Snopes, PicFic/Folded Word, Pure Slush and Boston Literary among others. His debut novel, Gadabout, made it into the final round of Amazon/Penguin’s First Novel Competition and is currently in re-write. A collection of his stories is due out this fall. To read more or contact, visit: http://gertrudesflat.blogspot.com.

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William Doreski WINNER, 2nd PLACE! (below, left) teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent books of poetry are City of Palms and June Snow Dance, both 2012. He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Atlanta Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Worcester Review, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, and  Natural Bridge.

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Gloria Garfunkel (right) is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and has a Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Relations. She has been a therapist for thirty years. She writes and publishes flash fiction. This story from her blog appeared on Fictionaut. Her blog is called Querulous Squirrel’s Daily Microfiction Quarterly.

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Walter Bjorkman (below, right) is a writer and photographer from Brooklyn, NY now residing in Rome, NY. He also believes he plays a mean acoustic blues. His poems and short stories have appeared in online and print journals such as Word Riot, Scrambler, Poets & Artists, THIS Literary Magazine, Blue Fifth Review, A-Minor Magaine, Olentangy Review and many others. His collection of short stories, Elsie’s World, was published in January 2011. Walter is currently managing editor at A-Minor Press.

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W.F.Lantry TOP 15 FINALIST (left) received his Maîtrise from L’Université de Nice and PhD in Creative Writing from University of Houston. His poetry collections are The Structure of Desire (Little Red Tree 2012), winner of a 2013 Nautilus Award in Poetry, a chapbook, The Language of Birds (Finishing Line 2011), a lyric retelling of Attar’s Conference of the Birds, and a forthcoming collection The Book of Maps. Recent honors include the National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry, CutBank Patricia Goedicke Prize, Crucible Editors’ Poetry Prize, Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (Israel), Atlanta Review International Publication Prize, and in 2012 the Old Red Kimono LaNelle Daniel Prize and Potomac Review Prizes His publication credits encompass print and online journals and anthologies in more than twenty countries on five continents; his fiction can be found at Valparaiso Fiction Review, BLIP, StepAway, Eclectica and Connotations Press. He currently works in Washington, DC. and is an associate fiction editor at JMWW.

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Alison Barker‘s work has appeared in Switchback, Monkeybicycle, Fwriction: Review, dislocate, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Anemone Sidecar, and elsewhere. She (left) is a critic, food blogger in these places: Chicago Reader, Philadelphia Inquirer, Paste Magazine, Bookslut, and the blog nolastudiola.com.

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Much to his parents surprise, Michael J. Solender (below, right) did not grow up to be a no-good-bum with no prospects and even fewer friends. He is not ferschtunken, a gonnif, a yutz or  particularly lazy though he enjoys a good afternoon nap on occasion. While he may not have always listened to Miss Apple, she was his  favorite teacher and he fantasizes about her to this day. If you must know more about him go here: http://michaeljwrites.com/

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David Feela (left), formerly a contributing editor and columnist for the Inside/Outside Southwest magazine, currently writes monthly columns for The Four Corners Free Press and The Durango Telegraph. A chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the 1998 Southwest Poet Series. A full length poetry collection, The Home Atlas, appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches, released through Raven’s Eye Press, was a finalist for the 2012 Colorado Book Award.

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Laurie Stone (right) is author of the novel Starting with Serge (Doubleday), the memoir collection Close to the Bone (Grove), and Laughing in the Dark (Ecco), a collection of her writing on comic performance. A longtime writer for the Village Voice, she has been theater critic for The Nation, critic-at-large on Fresh Air, a member of The Bat Theater Company, and a regular writer for Ms. and New York Woman, among others.

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Kyle Hemmings TOP 25 (left) is the author of several chapbooks of poetry and prose: Avenue C, Cat People, and Anime Junkie (Scars Publications), and Tokyo Girls in Science Fiction (NAP). His latest e-books are You Never Die in Wholes from Good Story Press and The Truth about Onions from Good Samaritan.  His latest collection of prose/poetry is Void & Sky from Outskirt Press.

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Rachel Van Blankenship WINNER! 4th PLACE! (below, right) is a poet and writer raised in Northern California. She studied Photojournalism and Creative Writing at The University of Montana, Missoula and has recently relocated to Phoenix, Arizona to daylight as a Features Designer. Her nomadic tendencies also have taken her to Oklahoma, Texas and Pennsylvania. Her poems have been published in “Menacing Hedge” and “Gather Kindling” and she is working on her first poetry manuscript. Visit her website and blog at www.rachelvb.com. THIS STORY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED AT JMWW!

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Max Werner (not pictured) is a graduate of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona, while writing 50 word shorts, running, and drawing.

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Andrew Stancek (left) writes flash frequently and has had it published here and there and everywhere.

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Nathan Alling Long. HIGHLY COMMENDED, TOP 15 FINALIST. Long’s stories and essays have appeared in over fifty journals, including Tin House, Glimmer Train, Story Quarterly, The Sun, Crab Orchard Review, Salt Hill, Camera Obscura, and Indiana Review.  His work has also appeared on NPR, in a dozen anthologies, and in a chapbook of short stories published in 2005 by Popular Ink Press.  He lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Richard Stockton College of NJ.  Nathan is pictured to the right. THIS STORY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED AT JMWW!

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