ISSUES | Contributing Authors

Valerie Laken received an MA in Russian literature and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where she currently teaches creative writing and composition.  Her stories have…    read more

Sam Shepard is the man responsible for Chicago, Tooth of Crime, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, True West, Curse of the Starving Class, Simpatico, A Lie of the Mind, the…    read more

Michael Cohen is professor emeritus of English at Murray State University. He is an essayist who divides his time between western Kentucky and Tucson, Arizona. [2009]

Jonathan Johnson’s books include the poetry collections In the Land We Imagine Ourselves (Carnegie Mellon, 2010) and Mastodon, 80% Complete (Carnegie Mellon, 2001) and the memoir Hannah and the Mountain (Nebraska, 2005). He teaches in the…    read more

Erin Flanagan is the author of the short story collection The Usual Mistakes, published as part of the Flyover Fiction Series by the University of Nebraska Press. She is an…    read more

Jerry Gabriel’s first book of fiction, Drowned Boy, won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and was published in 2010 by Sarabande Books. It was a Barnes and Noble…    read more

Regina DiPerna received her MFA from the University of North Carolina–Wilmington. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, Boston Review, Cincinnati Review, Meridian and Redivider. In 2014…    read more

Kim Coleman Foote grew up in New Jersey and now calls Brooklyn home. Her fiction, essays, and experimental prose have appeared in Obsidian, Crab Orchard Review, the Literary Review, and…    read more

Jonny Diamond is the editor in chief of Literary Hub and founding editor of The L Magazine and Brooklyn Magazine. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

Gulchin Ergun is a proud Turkish American and an Ohio native. Her essay “Sleeping with the Dead” won first prize at the 2013 Literature and Medicine conference. She is a…    read more