CONTRIBUTORS
Jason Carney is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.
Charlie Griggs is currently working toward his MFA in Fiction from San Diego State University where he serves as an assistant editor for the literary journal Fiction International.
Sarah Lilius graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL where she earned a degree in English-writing and Women’s Studies. She currently lives in Arlington, VA.
Some of hher publication credits include or are forthcoming from the Denver Quarterly, Heartlands, Court Green, Marlboro Review, BlazeVOX, Pulse Literary Journal, and The Avalon Literary Review. She is also the author of the chapbook Here, Hunger (NeoPepper Press), co-written with fellow poet Erin M. Bertram.
Thom Mahoney lives in the Front Range of Northern Colorado where he runs a free, community computer lab in a low-income housing complex. When not writing fiction, he cooks and eats various kinds of insects (seriously) which he insists on sharing with anyone unlucky enough to step into his kitchen and plays roots and Americana music on a bunch of strange-looking guitars for any poor sap who’s even remotely willing to listen.
Karen Mandell's work has been published in a variety of literary journals, mostly poetry, a little fiction. She's been a writing teacher at the high school and college levels, and has enjoyed both.
Tim Marsh is an aspiring writer living and working in Southern California.
Meryl McQueen is an American writer living in Sydney. Born in South Africa, she grew up in Europe and the U.S. Before turning to writing full-time, she was a social worker, counselor, college professor, researcher, and grant writer. Her poetry has been published in Clearfield Review, Dunes Review, Phoebe, RiverSedge, The Set Free Anthology, Town Creek Poetry, Vanguard in the Belly of the Beast, and Yellow Moon. Her linguistics research has been published in international journals, and her novella about Asperger’s, A Close Approximation of an Ordinary Life, is currently being used in a college curriculum for special education teachers in Pennsylvania. In 2007, she was a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award contest.
Noorulain Noor is a clinical researcher at Stanford University. She is also the poetry editor of a bi-annual literary magazine, Papercuts. Raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Noorulain now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she leads poetry workshops, blogs, and writes on the broad themes of identity, multiculturalism, and the immigrant experience. Check out Papercuts Magazine at http://desiwriterslounge.net/papercuts/ Check out her blog at http://gollgappay.blogspot.com/
Jean Ryan is a prior contributor to BLR, and her stories and essays have appeared in numerous other journals, including, among others, The Summerset Review, Euonia Review, The Drum Literary Magazine, and Four Ties Lit review. Her short story collection, SURVIVAL SKILLS, was published in April 2013 by Ashland Creek Press.
Jennifer Ryan is a non-fiction book editor, working for The Economist and the BBC. Originally from London, she now lives in Washington, DC.
Gerard Sarnat has authored two critically acclaimed poetry collections, 2010’s HOMELESS CHRONICLES FROM ABRAHAM TO BURNING MAN and 2012’s DISPUTES. Gerry’s published in over 70 journals and anthologies. Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerard’s been a physician who’s set up and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised, a CEO of health care organizations, and a Stanford professor.
Bob Shar's stories have appeared in 2 Bridges Review, Barge Journal, Stoneboat, Foundling Review, South Carolina Review, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. He's a former factory worker, newspaper reporter, magazine founder/editor/publisher (The Crescent Review, 1983-1988), bar mitzvah instructor and recently retired librarian living in Winston-Salem, NC.
