<%@ Language=VBScript %> Contributors - Mused - the BellaOnline Literary Review Magazine
MUSED
BellaOnline Literary Review
Kooki Kool 2 by Mark Berkery

Contributors
Nicola Belte Nicola Belte

Nicola Belte lives in Birmingham, U.K, and currently writes fiction in-between pulling pints for a living. When not scribbling notes on beer mats and eavesdropping in on her customers/characters, she is working on a selection of short stories and a novel; usually both at the same time. You can find her here: http://nicolabelte.blogspot.com/

Sandy Benitez Sandy Benitez

Sandy Benitez is the founder and editor of Flutter Press and Red Poppy Review. She´s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2010), Dzanc´s Best of the Web (2010), and Best of the Net (2006). Most recently, Sandy´s poems have appeared in Symmetry Pebbles and Subliminal Interiors. She resides in California with her husband and their 2 children. Sandy maintains her own personal blog at http://www.sandybenitez.blogspot.com.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a photographer and artist who has won contests with National Geographic,The Woodland Trust, The World Photography Organisation, Winstons Wish, Papworth Trust, Mencap, Big Issue, Wrexham science , Fennel and Fern, Postal Heritage, Bailey Matthews Shell Museum 2011 , New Mill´s Biodiversity contest 2011, Cheshire East Photography contest 2011 and Nature´s Best Photography. Her work is published on calendars, books, magazines and in public art displays.

Mark Berkery Mark Berkery

Mark was born to itinerant Irish parents which set the scene for a restless life. Like the Gypsy, he couldn´t accept the moribund values of a soulless society, what passed for important or posed as spiritual. The resulting roller-coaster of experience and inner conflict eventually gave way to a love of the simple sense of nature that he now lives - the best he can - as a form of meditation. He expresses his ongoing exploration of nature´s spiritual value through his writing and pictures at www.beingmark.com

Tabitha Bird Tabitha Bird

Tabitha Bird is a freelance writer, kick ass boxer, runner and aspiring photographer. In another life she may well have been Super Woman. She is currently writing her second book, The Exquisiteness of Seeing, a work of woman´s fiction. You can view both her writing and photography on her blog: THROUGH MY EYES http://tabithabird.blogspot.com/

Christine Catalano Christine Catalano

Christine is an English major who slipped into publishing by tapping into her artistic muse. She worked happily as a graphic artist and art director for many years. Now liberated from daily deadlines, she keeps her muse satisfied with camera and Photoshop. Some of her artwork has been published in the East Hampton Star, Fiction at Work, the San Pedro River Review, and Mused.

Amanda Daly Amanda Daly

Amanda Daly is a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University (FAU), located in Boca Raton, Florida. She holds a Bachelor´s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. Amanda currently works at a dance studio, where she also attends classes in ballroom, modern, and hip-hop dance. In her limited free time, Amanda attends various writers´ workshops around her community. She is preparing for the spring of 2012, when she will begin her studies in FAU´s MBA program.

Stacey Dye Stacey Dye

Stacey writes to touch people. Her favorite subject is the human condition. Her love affair with words is life long and she collects them on rocks, jewelry and through music and memorable quotes. She lives in Georgia with her husband Dennis and her critters Izzy and Elly. Credits include Touch: The Journal of Healing, BluePrintReview and previous issues of Mused. www.stace-onawhim.blogspot.com

Lee Evans Lee Evans

Lee Evans was born in Maryland, spent most of his life in that state, and is currently living in Bath, Maine. His poems have appeared in such journals as Four and Twenty, Poetry Porch, The Christendom Review and Anon. He has produced four poetry collections, which are available on Lulu.com.

Rebecca Clay Haynes Rebecca Clay Haynes

Rebecca´s short stories have appeared in The Binnacle, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and Bartleby Snopes, and she has work forthcoming in The Zodiac Review and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Before turning to fiction, Rebecca was a journalist and author of non-fiction children’s books. In May, she embarked on a multi-year literary journey around the world, staying mostly at writer residencies. She is now residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. www.rebeccaclayhaynes.blogspot.com

Lois Elaine Heckman Lois Elaine Heckman

Lois Elaine Heckman grew up in Los Angeles, receiving a degree in Italian from UCLA. She lives in Milan, Italy, where she has been a Red Cross nurse and first aid instructor. Some of her past and upcoming credits include Boston Literary Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, Tilt-a-Whirl, Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, LightenUp Online, and Prole. In 2010, she won the New England Shakespeare Festival Rubber Ducky Sonnet Contest.

Duncan Madaris Hill Duncan Madaris Hill

Duncan Madaris Hill is a documentary and fine art photographer based in Washington, DC. Hill focused on cinematography while earning his B.A. in Film Studies from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His photographs have appeared in Digital Photo Magazine, Photography Monthly, Side B, and F8 Magazine. To see more of his work, visit www.duncanhillphoto.com.

D. Cooper Ho D. Cooper Ho

Donna Cooper Ho is a 9th grade English teacher. She has been writing since she was a young child but has only recently started sharing her work with the outside world. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found with a book in hand, or in the garden trying to make things grow. Her short stories are forthcoming in Bartleby Snopes and Corpus Pretereo, an anthology by The Escape Collective. Donna lives in Central Florida with her husband and their morkie*, Olive. * Maltese/Yorkie mix

Samantha Hunt Samantha Hunt

Samantha lives in Warwickshire, England, where she spends her time looking after two small children, taking photographs and writing poetry. She has set up a small business selling photographic cards and prints, www.samanthas-cards.co.uk. She has had poetry published before in Mused, and in a few anthologies.

JackiGail JackiGail

JackiGail began taking pictures to have unlicensed art for her website business. In 2005, she started to show her art work at art shows and fairs. A member of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, she participates in their Art At the Source program each year. She enjoys the whole process of photography from making the picture to printing to framing. Her work is unaltered and what she sees is what you get.

Ella Joseph Ella Joseph

Ella Joseph lives in Australia. She was once a nurse, became a social worker, and now works as an advocate for people with leukodystrophy. In her late forties she signed up for an online writing course, through which she developed the confidence to share her poems with others. Her first published poem, Benediction, appeared in ‘page seventeen’ (2010), and the flash fiction piece, The Fish Market, will appear in an upcoming anthology, ‘100 Lightnings’ (Paroxysm Press).

Jude Jude

Jude is obsessed with physics, philosophy, religion, and the spinal tap of Hades drum. Originally from New York, but now lives with the magic of the coral reefs in the swamplands of Florida.

Dennis Maulsby Dennis Maulsby

Dennis Maulsby’s poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first book of poetry, Remembering Willie, and all the others won silver medal book awards from the Military Writers Society of America and the Branson Stars & Stripes organization. A U.S. Army veteran, Maulsby served with the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam. In 2011 one of his poems received a Pushcart nomination. He is currently President-elect of the Iowa Poetry Association.

Terry Michelsen Terry Michelsen

Terry Michelsen is a native of Chicago. She moved to Western North Carolina just before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After ten years of living in the mountains, she considers herself a native. She and her husband have no children except for three dogs and many fish. She believes in what she creates with all her heart, mind, and soul. She is also a pastel artist, and her work is on display in many venues, including her favorite book store, City Lights where her chapbooks are for sale.

Neleigh Olson Neleigh Olson

Upon completing her creative writing degree at Eastern Washington University, Neleigh Olson drove to Louisville, Kentucky looking for racehorses, where she has worked as a Thoroughbred exercise rider for the past four years. A writer and actor, she spends much of her time in imaginary worlds, an endeavor she hopes will help to illuminate the trials and truths of the nuisance of reality.

Andriana Pohja Andriana Pohja

Andriana Pohja is a bit of an eccentric who works forensics and has an inherent passion for the creative arts. Her admiration for the beauty of natural and man-made surroundings, along with personal experiences and just a touch of morbid darkness, are her inspirations for her photos, art, jewelry, poems, and stories.

Coral Kelly Ragognetti Coral Kelly Ragognetti

Coral Kelly Ragognetti graduated from Lynchburg College in Virginia with a BS in Biomedical Science and a minor in English. She has published non-fiction in The Prism Literary Magazine of Lynchburg College, Mused Literary Magazine and a research piece in the Journal of Microbiological Methods. Coral works as a Home Healthcare Clinical Sales Liaison in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL with her husband and an entourage of rescued pets.

Al Rollins Al Rollins

Al Rollins is a retired Local Government Budget Manager. Al loves to travel the USA with his wife, Janet, and photograph all the wonders of this great country.

Margaret Rumford Margaret Rumford

Margaret Rumford, a retired children´s librarian, has taken to writing in an almost obsessive way. Born in England, she was educated there, New Zealand and the States. With her husband, she has spent many winters in New Zealand, researching her Irish ancestors for her recently published memoir, Sailing Through War and Peace.

Sue Russell Sue Russell

Raised in Montana and transposed to the mid-west, Sue Russell finds her inspiration in the mountainous wilderness of her childhood. As a practicing psychologist/psychoanalyst, she brings the richness of human emotional experience and dream symbolism to her writing.

Maury Schulman Maury Schulman

Maury Schulman is passionate about nature photography and is outside with his camera whenever he isn´t teaching 7th grade science. A housefire displaced him from Fairbanks, Alaska and he landed in Tucson, Arizona (from one extreme to another). He lives with his wife Sherry, but has unleashed his children on the rest of the world in Alaska, Hawaii, and Oregon.

Donna Sciandra Donna Sciandra

Donna has always been adventurous and loved to travel. She spent two years in Jamaica (as a teacher trainer in Kingston) and five years in the Solomon Islands on Guadalcanal (as a Community Developer in a rain forest living in a leaf house) with the Peace Corps. Donna is now a retired elementary school teacher who is enjoying her “free” time traveling and photographing North America.

Bob See Bob See

Bob See has been actively interested in photography for many years. He enjoys taking images of air shows, wildlife, and landscapes. The camera used for all photos in this issue of Mused was a Canon 40D. Bob can be reached at his golfing site at http://enjoyma.com/golf/.

Lisa Shea Lisa Shea

Born in Maryland, Lisa Shea has been contentedly nestled in the rolling hills and mossy forests of Massachusetts for the past fifteen years. She is drawn to the ocean and cherishes quiet evenings as the orange glow of sunset glistens across wooden docks. Lisa relishes the challenge of conveying meaning and memorable characters in a measured bounding of time and space. Her stories, poems, and images celebrate natural beauty and serenity. Enjoy thousands of her photos at http://www.lisashea.com

Rob Spiegel Rob Spiegel

Robert Spiegel is a journalist who also writes poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in a wide range of publications, from Rolling Stone to True Confessions.

Leslie Tribolet Leslie Tribolet

Leslie Tribolet lives on Kauai with her husband and animals. She studied at Santa Barbara Art Institute back in the 70’s concentrating on pencil portraits. She was introduced to the Genesis Heat Set Paints in 2007 and loved them because they are dried with heat, which speeds up the process of portrait painting. She has always been drawn to faces, so she decided to try her hand at painting them with Genesis with some good results. She hopes you enjoy what she does whether faces or fruit.

Phibby Venable Phibby Venable

Phibby Venable´s work has been published in 2River, Poetrybay, Southern Ocean Review, Sow´s Ear, Voices, the Appalachian Journal and various other national & international magazines. Venable has published three chapbooks & four collections of poetry. A book of poetry, The Wind Is My Wine, is due out in September, from Key Publications. Women of the Round Table, a first novel, by All Things That Matter Press, will also be published this year.

Joanna M. Weston Joanna M. Weston

Joanna M. Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty five years. Her middle-reader, ‘Those Blue Shoes´, was published by Clarity House Press. Her poetry, ‘A Summer Father’, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary. http://www3.telus.net/public/west34/

Leah Abrahams
Leah Abrahams submitted the work Misty Winter Morning.


Christine Amezquita
Christine Amezquita is a native to the Chicagoland area. She is a student at Northeastern Illinois University studying English Literature. This is her first publication.


Radha Bantwal
Radha Bantwal submitted the work The Gift.


Purnendu Chatterjee
Purnendu Chatterjee is a research scholar and teacher. His areas of interests are postcolonial, subaltern and gender studies. Purnendu has been awarded the Issac Sequeira Memorial Award, 2010 by the Multi Ethnic Literature of the United States, India Chapter for excellence in critical writing. He has published verses in many national and international print and electronic journals.


Patty Cole
Patty Cole is poet living in rural North Carolina where she raises chickens with her husband. Her credits are The Sound of Poets Cooking, The Melancholy Dane and Clippings. She counts among her blessings living in a bucolic setting where she is currently at work on her very first chapbook. She enjoys lots of walks in the woods and dutifully obeys her border collie, Frodo.


Rachelle Crockett
Chelle is a 22-year-old happily married woman living in small-town America. She has a passion for God, family, animals, and photography. Her dreams are to have a small family farm with her husband, inspire people to enjoy the great outdoors, and to capture every moment possible. Encouraged by her husband after he spotted her creative eye and love of photography, Chelle grabbed her camera and jumped in with both feet. She now travels around the Oregon Coast shooting nature and events.


Michael Harty
Michael Harty lives in Prairie Village, Kansas, where he writes poetry and practices psychoanalysis, not necessarily in that order. His poems have appeared in Texas Poetry Calendar, Third Wednesday, Pearl, and elsewhere, and have received awards in the Inter-Board Poetry Competition online.


Betty Jo Huff
Betty Jo Huff photography is a great passion. Betty Jo love to take pictures of Nature and it really love to go out in the Black Hills where I live to see what the beauty I can capture. She has lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota most of my life.


Kristin Roedell
Kristin Roedell is a retired attorney. Select poems appear in Switched on Gutenberg, Tacoma’s City Arts Sierra Nevada Review, Ginosko, and Amoskeag, She was nominated for DZANC’s best of the Web, 2010, and the Pushcart Prize, 2010. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Seeing in the Dark (Tomato Can Press 2009) and Girls With Gardenias, (Flutter Press 2011). She serves on the editorial board of the annual VoiceCatcher Anthology, and is Associate Editor for Flutter Press.


Jefferson Rowland
Jefferson began putting pen to paper, now and then, to ´off-load´ strong feelings during quiet, solitary moments. Connecting with like-minded, passionate people was difficult for the 6´2" linebacker and wise-ass from Queens. The poet or essayist is not the first thing you see. Herein is an essay on the delicate balance between what you know now, what you thought then, and the undeniable right, and need at times, to cherish, or bury, your memories.


Kim Rumford
Kim Rumford submitted the works Before Sun-up in the Desert and Last light in Sabino Canyon, Arizona.


Andrew Sciandra
Andrew Sciandra submitted the work Donna in Dali Landscape.


Vicki J. Vogt
Vicki Vogt has been a librarian at the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library in Watertown, MA for 26 years. Although she has written poems most of her life, she has never submitted any poems till recently. Vicki is a member of a poetry group that started three years ago. Her poems have appeared in MOLT Journal, Haiku Journal and The Bashful Beaver. Her hobbies are writing poetry, reading, going to movies, calligraphy and loving her roommates’ seeing-eye dog.


Cynthia Weitz
Cynthia Weitz studies creative writing and belongs to a writing and critique group. Two short stories were recently published in The Wall and Reflections, both publications of Saddleback College. She is currently writing a grey panther mystery entitled Feisty Old Ladies. A former Docent at the Laguna Art Museum, she leads summer tours for the Laguna Beach Festival of Art. She has traveled extensively throughout the world. View her website: www.feistyoldladies.com




Winter Solstice 2011 Table of Contents