Though born in Florida, educated in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Beirut, Lebanon, Marcia Breckenridge claims New Hampshire as home. Marcia and her husband raised three sons in Rindge. She taught English at Milford High School for 35 years; in her retirement, she has taught 16 courses at Keene State College. She is a Rindge Zoning Board member and a Peterborough Summer Lyceum Committee member. Most enjoyably, she is inextricably connected to the land of New Hampshire by her two acres of flowers, vegetables, and herb gardens. Not an official native, but close!
Ann B. Day moved into a cottage at the RiverMead Retirement Community in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 2013. She and her family owned a working guest farm in Mad River Valley of Vermont, where they raised Highland cattle, taught skiing, and held writing retreats for 50 years. She belongs to the Monadnock Writers’ Group, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, and the Poetry Society of Vermont. Ann writes a nature column for the weekly Valley Reporter and publishes nature books and annual engagement calendars with her poetry and photos. Her poems have been printed in many publications, including Time Magazine, The Lyric, Green Mountain Trading Post, New England Memories, and The Poets’ Touchstone.
Elizabeth (Beth) Derby is a longtime resident of Eliot, Maine. After retirement from a career in Information Technology, she rekindled her love of art in both visual and written forms. She is an active member of New Hampshire Art Association and in the past was a frequent reader at the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Poetry Hoot. Beth is a painter in both oils and acrylic. Her work is in private collections both nationally and internationally. She is also a poet and has had several poems published locally and nationally.
Julie A. Dickson is a poet and writer of YA Fiction who has lived in New Hampshire since 1980. Her work encompasses rescue efforts for elephants and birds of prey, nature, and teen issues. Her YA books, Bullied into Silence (Piscataqua Press 2014) and A World Without Ivory (Sunrise Press 2018) are among many that may be found on Amazon or in local bookstores. Dickson was nominated for a Push Cart Prize in 2018 for her poem The Sky Must Remember. Her poems have appeared in The Harvard Press, Avocet Nature Poetry Journal, Poetry Quarterly, among others.
William Doreski has published three critical studies and several collections of poetry. His work has appeared in many print and online journals. He has taught at Emerson College, Goddard College, Boston University, and Keene State College. His most recent books are Water Music and Train to Providence, a collaboration with photographer Rodger Kingston.
Michael Keshigian, from New Hampshire, had his fourteenth poetry collection, What To Do With Intangibles recently released in January 2020 by Cyberwit.net. He has been published in numerous national and international journals, recently including Edison Literary Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Oyez Review, Bluepepper, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Pudding Magazine. He has also appeared as feature writer in over 20 publications with seven Pushcart Prize and two Best of the Net nominations. His website is michaelkeshigian.com.
Vern Maine arrived in the Granite State in 1972, after military service and college. He raised his family in Weare, and later lived in each of Merrimack, Nashua, and Amherst. He resides now in Rindge with his wife, Suzy. His three adult children all live in New Hampshire, too. Along the way he built log homes, engineered control systems, converted printing systems, and sold handheld computers and night vision equipment. He attended Franklin Pierce Law Center and started an intellectual property law practice in Nashua. He is also a pilot, and has written several songs and published two novels.
Brenna Manuel’s childhood education began with Dick, Jane and Sally and ended with watching riots in Detroit. In 1971, she packed a large box and headed to the Northwest to see the Noguchi sculpture on the Western Washington University campus. Her focus on academics waned, and she began visiting Indian reservations and canning beets. Nine years later, she received her BFA in painting and moved to Brooklyn. She put up sheet rock and fought legal battles, and eventually got her MFA in sculpture from CUNY. She occasionally writes stories and poems in New Hampshire now, as well as teaches college students.
Rodger Martin’s book of poems, For All the Tea in Zhōngguó, in two languages, was published by Hobblebush Books in 2019. His poetry volume The Battlefield Guide (Hobblebush Books) uses locations on battlefields of the Civil War to reflect upon America today. Small Press Review selected his chapbook The Blue Moon Series (Hobblebush Books) as its bi-monthly pick of the year. A translation of his work On The Monadnock appeared in China in 2006.
Daniel Miess is a graduate student at Chapman University and is part of their Master of Arts in English/Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. His work has been published in the Harbinger Asylum, The Henniker Review, Smoky Quartz, The Mud Chronicles: A New England Anthology, Anastamos, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. From 2013-2018, Daniel lived in New Hampshire, both in Lebanon and in Concord. Often, the language of the changing seasons is reflected in his poetry, which was shaped by his experiences living there. He lives with his husband of six and a half years, Kelly Bellimer and when not writing or in class, enjoys traveling, reading, and going to museums.
Jennifer Migotsky grew up in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, writing for fun on an old Olympia typewriter. Last year, she received her B.A. in Creative Writing from Wheaton College with a double minor in French and Music History. Her poems have been published in Rushlight, An Anthology of Emerging Poets (2018), America’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology (2018), and New Hampshire’s Best Emerging Poets (2019).
Montana Rogers is a writer and educator. She moved to New Hampshire when she was eleven and grew up in the Monadnock Region. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Sea Letter, Dream Noir, honey & lime, and other publications. She is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio.
Jessie Salisbury has been a resident of the Monadnock Region for over 70 years and was an original member of Monadnock Writers’ Group. She is the author of several romance novels and has work included in several local anthologies.
Hilary Sideris spent her nineteenth summer living in Woodstock, New Hampshire, with her grandparents, and working at the Jack-O-Lantern Hotel and Resort. She has recently published poems in The American Journal of Poetry, Bellevue Literary Review, Free State Review, Gravel, The Lake, Main Street Rag, Salamander, Sixth Finch, and Southern Poetry Review. She is the author of Most Likely to Die (Poets Wear Prada 2014), The Inclination to Make Waves (Big Wonderful 2016), Un Amore Veloce (Kelsay 2019) and The Silent B (Dos Madres 2019).
Susan Levin Wessels has been taking photographs for over 30 years. Early photos were of vividly colored buildings and structures in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, where she lived and worked. More recently, Susan has focused on photographing flowers, capturing the subtleties of color, structure and form. Susan’s path to artist has spanned decades of work in psychology, artificial intelligence, personal computers, organizational development, and marketing. She has been a marketing consultant for 20 years offering content, graphic and web development. More of Susan’s flower photographs, many taken in New Hampshire where she now lives, are at interiorblooms.zenfolio.com.
Smoky Quartz 