Contributor Update: John Findura

Book Cover SubmergedToday we are pleased to announce that past contributor John Findura has recently released his first poetry collection. The collection has already received praise from poet Billy Collins, who says, “John Findura’s Submerged is a series of short, clear meditations on the beauty, the power, and the terror of water. It’s a striking collection, reader-friendly, but unflinching in its treatment of personal fear and wonder.” Submerged is now available to purchase from Five Oaks Press.

John’s poem “Shipbuilding in New Jersey” can be read in Issue 1 of Superstition Review.

Congratulations, John!

#ArtLitPhx: Phoenix Poetry Series. Jia Oak Baker & Lois Roma-Deeley

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The Phoenix Poetry Series showcases some of the best poets in our community. This month, Jia Oak Baker and Lois Roma-Deeley will be reading their work at The Coronado. The event takes place on Friday, October 28 at 7 p.m. 2201 N 7th St, Phoenix, Arizona 85006. For more information, please visit the Facebook event.

Jia Oak Baker is the author of two chapbooks, Well Enough to Travel (Five Oaks Press) and Crash Landing in the Plaza of an Unknown City (Dancing Girl Press). She is the recipient of a 2015 grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and is a literary teaching artist for the City of Phoenix. She has been awarded residencies from the Wurlitzer Foundation and from Hedgebrook. Jia earned a MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches at Paradise Valley Community College.

Lois Roma-Deeley is the author of four collections of poetry, the latest being The Short List of Certainties (Franciscan University Press, 2017), which won the Jacopone da Todi Poetry Book Series Award. High Notes, her third collection was a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist forms the basis of a music drama for which she wrote the book and lyrics. Her first and second collections are Rules of Hunger and North Sight. She was named 2012-2013 U.S Professor of the Year-Community College by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and CASE. She’s published in twelve national anthologies including Villanelles (Everyman’s Library, Pocket Poets Series). Roma-Deeley has won numerous awards and honors for her poetry, and her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the U.S. and Canada. She’s taught creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate levels and served as poetry co-editor for PKP Forum for ten years.