Writing the Life Poetic Zine Columnist Bios

Writing the Life Poetic
Tune into the poetry of your life--and get it down on the page
E-zine published ten times a year with double issues in July and November.

Publisher & Editor: Sage Cohen

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writer's Digest Books, March 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. She writes three monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as poetry editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Sage has won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Co-curator of a reading series at Barnes & Noble, she teaches the online class Poetry for the People. Learn more at sagesaidso.com and writingthelifepoetic.com

COLUMNISTS:

Brittany Baldwin

Brittany Baldwin runs a small catering and personal chef company that maintains its own organic garden. She has written poetry in Portland for eight years while starting her own business and self publishing her own poetry collection, Broken Knuckles Against Knives, Cutting The Food To Feed Me Through This (2005). In 2002 she received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. Her poetry has appeared in local poetry collections Ephemeris and Broken Word: Alberta Street Anthology Volume 1 and 2. She has appeared on KBOO's Talking Earth,  won an honorable mention in the Oregon State Poetry Associations fall 06 contest and was featured in the 2006 and 2007 Silverton Poetry Festival.

Dale Favier

Dale Favier has taught poetry, chopped vegetables, and written software for a living. Currently he works half-time as a massage therapist and half-time running a database for a non-profit in Portland, Oregon.  He is a Buddhist, in the Tibetan tradition.  He writes about meditation and poetry, and whatever ever else he may be interested in at the moment, at Mole.

He has an M.Phil. in English Literature from Yale, but he never wrote much poetry until he began blogging, a few years ago, and fell in with bad companions.  With them he eventually brought out an anthology, Brilliant Coroners.  His poems have also appeared in Qarrtsiluni and The Ouroborus Review.  His first chapbook, Opening the World, will be coming out next year from Pindrop Press.

Sara Guest 

Sara Guest, a native mid-westerner, has been tripping the light wowtastic in Portland, Ore since 2004. A longtime producer and editor, Sara works as a program coordinator for Write Around Portland and volunteers with Literary Arts and VoiceCatcher (currently as board chair). She writes poetry and fiction and is a voracious reader and lover of Powell's City of Books.

Jenn Lalime

Jenn Lalime is a northwest native, a writer and editor, a mother and a wife.  She’s lucky to work with the following organizations to bring the words of fellow writers out into the world: Portland Women Writers, VoiceCatcher, and Tin House Books.  She thanks the universe every day for President Obama whose presence in the White House gives her the peace of mind to stay focused on her first and true love: reading great fiction.

Christopher Luna

Christopher Luna is an poet, editor, artist, teacher, and graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Publications include Cadillac Cicatrix, eye-rhyme, Exquisite Corpse, and the @tached document. Chapbooks include tributes and ruminations, On the Beam (with David Madgalene), and Sketches for a Paranoid Picture Book on Memory. GHOST TOWN, USA, which features poems and observations of Vancouver, WA, is available through Cover to Cover Books  and Angst Gallery, or from the author.

POETRY AVAILABLE ONLINE
Poem in Exquisite Corpse
Poem in For Immediate Release
Profile for Here Comes Everybody: Writers on Writing

Email: christopherjluna@gmail.com
Blog: www.christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com

M

M has served as an Associate Poetry Editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection for the past one hundred years or so. More than a few editors have found her poems acceptable, and included them in their journals. She received her B.A. in Literature so long ago, she’s pretty certain her diploma has crumbled to dust. She also serves as an administrator of on online poetry workshop called Wild Poetry Forum. If you cannot find her (she never answers her cell phone), call Powell’s Books. The employees there know exactly what room she’s in. And most importantly, she is very grateful for the enormous amount of love in her life.

Toni Partington

Toni Partington lives and works in Vancouver, WA. Her poetry has appeared in the NW Women’s Journal, the Anthology of the River Poets’ Society, VoiceCatcher 3, the Cascade Journal, and others. Toni’s other work includes career/life coaching, editing services for new and emerging writers, and grant writing. This winter she joined the editorial collective for VoiceCatcher 4. She holds a BA in Social Work and an MA focused on Literature and Literary Editing.  Before that, Toni was a high-school drop out, pregnant and then married at age 16 whose life came faster than it should have and toughened her into a self-described survivor. Today, her circle includes family, friends, dogs and poets, not in any particular order.

Blog: www.poettone.blogspot.com
Email: tpartington@earthlink.net

Shawn Sorensen

Shawn Sorensen writes the "Discover New Poetry Markets and Get Published" column for the Writing the Life Poetic zine. Shawn is a published, award-winning poet whose work can be viewed at manequinenvy.com, Winter 2008 edition. His poem called “The Yard” won 1st Place in the Oregon State Poetry Association's spring 2009 contest, New Poets category. Shawn's poetry submission goal is to send something in at least every other week and get published/recognized a few times per year.  He's written dozens of complete book reviews, many of them for poetry titles, on goodreads.com and braves a perilous river crossing to be the Community Relations Manager at Barnes & Noble in the hinterlands of Vancouver, WA. He plans and hosts an every-2nd-Wednesday Poetry Group event that's always at 7 pm, always features the area's best poets and always has a great open mic.

Steve Williams

Steve lives and works in Portland with a lovely woman who writes and edits much better than he but refuses to admit it.

Comments

[nikki]

I was hoping someone might be able to help me. I am writing a prose treatment for a film at the moment and I was told to make it poetic. I have thought about this alot and I was wondering whether you might have any ideas on what makes a sentence poetic? I am pretty prone to be too literal - is there a composition of nouns or adjectives that makes a sentence poetic?

Best Regards,
Nikki Wieland

[Literature Review]

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