About the Staff
Oonah V’yonne Joslin (Managing Editor)
Website: http://www.writewords.org.uk/oonah
Blog: Oonahverse
Oonah taught teenagers with special needs and nearly every subject on the curriculum for 28 years. She was good at it. But then she developed a few needs of her own and left.
She’s made up stories since she was a child and started writing poetry at the age of 11. Two years ago the condition became very serious. She hopes there isn’t a cure.
Oonah was a judge in The Shine Journal’s first Poetry Competition.
Poets Oonah likes include Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wilfred Owen, Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage but there are many others. She loves Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy. “On My First Son” by Ben Jonson makes her cry. “The City in the Sea” by Edgar Allan Poe is her favourite poem to read aloud and it appeals to the Goth within. If Oonah was asked to pick an all time favourite poem, it would be “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. What a piece of work–and so was the Duke!
Oonah tends to like poetry that is gutsy rather than mushy, she hates forced rhyming and she likes humour–you have to laugh at life.
You can see examples of Oonah’s poetry in Twisted Tongue Issues 8 and 9, The Ranfurly Review, The Shine Journal, Static Movement and Bewildering Stories.
She is looking forward to reading yours.
Constance Brewer (Editor & Slush Ninja)
Website: The Periphery
Blog: Life On The Periphery
Constance Brewer is a mix of poet, writer, and artist. After college she joined the Army, saw bits and pieces of the world while alternately building or blowing things up for her country, and finally settled in Wyoming amid the alien-enticing wide open spaces. She works for the government and is here to help. Honest. Constance can usually be found sounding off on her blog about the nature of poetry, and the surrealness of living in America’s least populous state.
Constance is a member of several writer’s organizations including the Wyoming state poetry society, WyoPoets. She edited the 2007 WyoPoets chapbook, Wyoming Paintbrush, and will return to edit the 2009 chapbook, Distant Blooms. She also has work in Wyoming Fence Lines, An Anthology of Prose and Poetry put out by the Wyoming Arts and Humanities Councils. Poetic influences and favorites include: Louise Gluck, Billy Collins, Robert Creeley, Marge Piercy, Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ronald Koertge, Emily Dickinson, William Stafford, and William Shakespeare.
A fan of both rhymed poetry and free verse, Constance insists on attention to detail and poetic craft. Poems that resonate, offer a new look on a common theme, and show an awareness of language will get her attention.
Nicholas Ozment (Editor & Slushimator)
Website: http://ozment.livejournal.com
Nicholas Ozment has an M.A. in English and teaches at Winona State University.
His poetry has appeared in Weird Tales, Mythic Delirium, The Smoking Poet, Mythic Circle, True Romance, and dozens of other print and online publications.
His poetic interests range from Chaucer to Dickinson to Bob Dylan. His three favorite poets at present are Robert Browning, W.B. Yeats, and T.S. Eliot. Most recently Billy Collins has influenced his own poetry.
He begins his classes by reading a poem aloud, and rarely does a semester go by that he does not try to frighten his students with “Childe Roland to The Dark Tower Came”.
