Our second reading of the semester featured faculty members from local community colleges.
Hershman John is a full-time faculty member at Phoenix College and teaches part-time at ASU. John has been published in a wide variety of magazines, including Hayden's Ferry Review, Journal of Navajo Education, Arizona Highways, Puerto del Sol, and Family Matters: Poems of Our Families. His book of poetry, I Swallow Turquoise for Courage, was released in Fall 2007. His writing is deeply embedded in the Navajo Indian culture in which he was raised. To read more about John visit: http://www.hershmanjohn.com.
Patrick Michael Finn's first book, the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich, was published in 2008 by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center as winner of the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Competition. A winner of several fiction awards, including a Pushcart Prize Distinguished Story Citation, the AWP Intro Award, and the Third Coast Fiction Prize, Finn's fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Quarterly West, Third Coast, Punk Planet, and Houghton Mifflin's Best American Mystery Stories 2004. Finn completed his M.F.A. at the University of Arizona. In 2007, he founded and currently coordinates the Creative Writing Program at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.
Lois Roma-Deeley has taught creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 25 years and is the author of two collections of poetry. Rules of Hunger, her first full-length poetry collection, earned her a National Book Award nomination. Roma-Deeley has won numerous awards and honors for her poetry, including awards for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Competition and the Emily Dickinson Poetry Competition. She has published in seven national anthologies, including the American Book Award winner Looking For Home and Letters to the World. To read more about Roma-Deeley visit: www.loisroma-deeley.com
Josh Rathkamp received degrees from Western Michigan University and Arizona State University. His first book of poetry, Some Nights No Cars At All, was published by Ausable Press in September 2007. His poems are forthcoming or have recently appeared in Meridian, Gulf Coast, Prism International, Indiana Review, Puerto Del Sol, Passages North, Rosebud, Rhino, and Sycamore Review. He is the coordinator of creative writing at Mesa Community College. To read more about Rathkamp visit: http://joshrathkamp.blogspot.com/