Notes On Contributors
by Larry Gaffney

REMORA BLACKWOOD lives and writes in Turnip Junction, Oregon. Her work has appeared in Slacker Times, Dogsbody, Blowgun, Amplified Heat, That Great Literary Magazine, Conjunctions, Elsewhere, and elsewhere. This is her first appearance in Sow Bug.

LON HARTWICK teaches Creative Writing at the University of Texas, El Paso. “I live on the range with three dogs and a moribund pickup, and I play bass and keyboards in a Zydeco band.” Good for you, asshole.

ALLYSON DOMBROSKY’S chapbook, Yodeling to Byzantium, received the 2005 Darla May Jenkins Prize for Hillbilly Poetry. Her work has appeared in Swelterfish, Nostril Agony, Cthonic Boom, McSweeney’s, Lemon Pepper, and White Spasms.

PAUL SCIACCA is the publisher of Duckburg Press and has written the introductions for two of their most successful books: R. Crumb’s Cavalcade of Big Fat Asses and The Coffee Table Book of African Warlords. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Topper, Short Forrest Review, Albedo, Zombie Harlequin, and Schoolmarm. “Cry of the Shuttlecock,” a short story, is forthcoming in Ooh-la-la. Forthcoming—I love it! Could be out any day now, right, Paul?

DAWSON DELANEY, a non-prize-winning poet and essayist who lives in Los Angeles, can see Grauman’s Chinese Theater from his bedroom window. His work has been rejected by The New Yorker, Paris Review, Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, and many other fine magazines.

The stunningly beautiful LORI LIGHT was the gem of my most recent poetry workshop, and I am honored that this final issue of Sow Bug features her work in a folio, which is also her first publication ever! 

THOM STILES writes:  “Egoless, I find myself where I am, or am not.  Each poem represents a cellular meltdown, a flowing into Brahman.” Have another hit, Thom, and put on some Iron Butterfly.

CRAIG CZUGASCH, an M.F.A. dropout at Emerson College, says that only the most obscure zines will print his stuff. Proudly, he states that his self-published chapbook, Hairy Palm at the End of the Mind, was called “a phantasmagoria of scatology and madness” by the only reviewer who bothered to read it. Welcome to Sow Bug, Craig!

RYAN HALSTEAD used to be a big deal after his book, Daughters of Tantalus (Wombat Press, 1999), won some dopey prize I can’t remember the name of. One would hear tales of his sexual conquests on the reading circuit, where he would prey upon starry-eyed, empty-headed coeds. Not anymore, though. I saw his picture recently, and he has not aged well. Oh, why beat around the bush. He's a fat pig! 

ANNE KERCHNER has published short stories in Lepton, Behind the Moon, Salt Hill, En Passant, Georgia Review, Quack Quack, Third Bed, Dark Hamburger, and Follow Me Home. She lives way up in Alaska with her husband and two sons. Stay right there, Anne. I’ve seen your picture, too.

SHANNON CRYER’s chapbook, Revenge of the Meatatarians, actually had some funny stuff in it. But here she is, alas, drowning with all the other saps in this sinking ship. 

Our token person of color and ethnicity, KEISHA WONG-HERNANDEZ, fits the bill, and how! And it doesn’t hurt that she’s a chick. Soon as I saw that name on the MS I started typing up her acceptance letter. Her work has appeared in Blue Salad, Ploughshares, Tell No One, Bumbershoot, Fever Cry, Smokelong, and Uncle Fester’s Sweet Shoppe & Literary Review. 

Rounding out the quota is queer theoretician SIMON GREGG, who has graced us with an excerpt from Men in Nightshirts: Homoeroticism in the Films of Laurel & Hardy, which Truffle House will publish in 2006. Yes, Simon, exactly! Why were they always in the same bed, and when Stan’s feet ended up in Ollie’s face, what the fuck was that all about?

MAITLAND CARRUTHERS is director of the creative writing program at South Dakota College of the Arts. His novel, Stop the World, I Wanna Go Shopping, was shortlisted for the Othella Strange Terwilliger Fiction Prize. 

ANDY FEINBERG has published four books of poetry: Godzilla Was Here, Encyclopedia of Bad People, That Darn Antichrist!, and Zodiacticon, all available from Ankle-Biter Press. 

MARINA SKENK is the editrix of Hi, God! and a part-time Bettie Page impersonator. She lives in San Francisco with her significant other, an iguana named Dagmar, and twelve cats.

DUANE LEVESQUE’S long poem, One Shoe by the Roadside, won the 2004 Turtle Breath Review Poetry Competition. He resides in Ann Arbor with his wife and daughter and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. He’s had poems in Spillage, Petals in the Abyss, Mood Ring, Exquisite Corpse, Carson City Review, Infinite Pudding, Monkey Bites, Quare Fellow, Karaoke of the Mind, Salmagundi, Fred’s Magazine, and Too Much Cake. Yeah, yeah, whatever. 

Look, Sow Bug is indeed kaput, but I’m starting a new, even better litmag—it’s called Paramecium Dreams, and for our first issue, we’re having a contest! Send us your best poems and short stories. The entry fee for each work is $20 (cheap!). Make checks payable to Cash. Send all MSS to Paramecium Dreams, General Delivery, Cheesequake, NJ 45802

Namaste, dudes!