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Announcements

Please welcome our new members of the Smoky Quartz team. Read the announcement here.

The Spring 2025 issue of Smoky Quartz is online. Click here to read the issue.

Smoky Quartz is currently closed to submissions.

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About Smoky Quartz

Published by the Monadnock Writers’ Group, Smoky Quartz is an online journal of literature and art, named after New Hampshire’s state gem.

Each issue features work from new, emerging, and established writers and artists with ties to New Hampshire. The journal includes poetry, short  fiction, and creative nonfiction, and a diverse selection of art and photography.

The Monadnock Writers’ Group provides fellowship and support to writers in all genres and at all levels of achievement in the Peterborough, New Hampshire region. Our free monthly speaker series features award-winning and best-selling authors, poets, scriptwriters and storytellers. Click here to learn more.

Editors

Deborah Murphy‘s poetry appears in The Mud Chronicles: A New England Anthology, Adanna Literary Journal (print version), Border Crossing, Connecticut River Review, Flint Hills Review, Third Wednesday, Soundings East, The Chrysalis Reader and other journals. Her poem “After Another School Shooting, I Drive the Back Roads of New Hampshire” was included in Bellevue Literary Review’s  “Can Storytelling Prevent Gun Violence?” event. She holds a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in English from Tufts University and taught composition for many years. Deborah joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2015 and serves as both editor and managing editor.

Fred Gerhard is one of the founders of the New Dawn Writers’ Group in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, where he leads monthly poetry workshops and open mics. He is the former editor of The Chelmsford Poetry Review and is currently an editor at Quabbin Quills, a nonprofit supporting New England writers. His poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Asylum Magazine, Black Moon Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Friends Journal, Harpy Hybrid Review, Heavy Feather Review, Monadnock Underground, Pif Magazine, POETiCA REViEW, Sylvia Magazine, Wild Musette Journal, and other magazines and anthologies. He lives in a small town in rural New England with his wife and son. Fred joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2023 as an editor.

Karen Drew is retired and living in Washington, New Hampshire, after 20 years in corporate communications and 20 years in special education. A lifelong writer, Karen’s poems have appeared in Lost & Found, The 2010 Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire, The Poet’s Touchstone, Defining Moments: An Anthology of Teachers’ Writing, Vol. 9 (Plymouth Writers Group, 2004), and Smoky Quartz Tenth Anniversary Anthology. Karen joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2024 and serves as both an editor and submissions manager.

Mame Ekblom Cudd returned to her first love–short stories and poetry–after retiring from her practice as a marriage counselor/family therapist to raise a family. Her work has appeared in Crack the Spine, Fiction, The Puritan (renamed Ex-Puritan), SNReview, Epiphany, The Broad River Review, Shark Reef, and Smoky Quartz. She received an Editor’s Choice Award from Fiction Fix (University of North Florida) for her story Calling Out To Lizzie. She attended The Community of Writers Conference in the Olympic Valley (2009 and 2011). She currently resides with her husband, Jim, in Marlborough, New Hampshire. Mame joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2024 as an editor.

Corinne Chronopoulos has served as a public librarian for fifteen years and counting. She was entrusted with overseeing the renovation of the oldest tax-supported public library in the United States, which continues to champion literacy. She is an Executive Board member of the New Hampshire Library Association. Her work has appeared in Aegis, UNH’s undergraduate literary and art magazine, and Smoky Quartz. Corinne joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2025 as an editor and coordinator for the editorial team.

Layla Thomas is a creative writing student at Southern New Hampshire University and will be graduating with her bachelor’s in December 2026. She writes short stories and poetry, and has two publications in The Manatee. Layla is also the Co-Editor-in-Chief of her university newspaper, The Penmen Press. She grew up in rural Texas but moved to Maine in 2019, eventually settling in New Hampshire for the duration of her studies. Layla joined the Smoky Quartz team in 2025 as an editor and coordinator.

Production

Linda J. Thomas is a co-founder of Smoky Quartz (2012) and former editor. She now serves as the production editor and webmaster for the journal. Linda enjoys writing and photography and her work has been published in several anthologies, including Shadow and Light—A Literary Anthology on Memory, The Mud Chronicles: A New England Anthology, The Henniker Review, and The Poet’s Touchstone. She holds Master’s degrees in Technical Writing and Educational Studies, and is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at UCLA.

Our History

Smoky Quartz was first published in the summer of 2012 by its co-founders, Candace Bergstrom and Linda J. Thomas. In 2015, they welcomed three additional editors: Sara Miller, Deborah Murphy, and Tina Rapp. Deni Dickler and Louise Werden joined the editorial team in 2019. The Smoky Quartz team has continued to evolve over the years with both returning and new editors.

We thank former editors Candace Bergstrom, Tina Rapp, Sara Miller, Louise Werden, Brian Evans-Jones, Ginny Masters, Deni Dickler, and Sharon A. Harmon for their valuable contributions to the journal. Thank you also to Bj Hertz and Shana Chartier for their work in production.

In 2022, Smoky Quartz celebrated its tenth anniversary with the publication of a print edition:
Smoky Quartz Tenth Anniversary Anthology. Click here to learn more about the anthology.