The Petigru Review
Meet the Judges
Fiction
T. LYNN OCEAN
A freelance writer for more than ten years, T. Lynn Ocean’s work regularly appears in magazines nationwide. Her novels include Sweet Home Carolina, which Booklist says, “perfectly captures the eccentricities and warm-heartedness of small-town life.” Her newest novel, Southern Fatality, featuring security specialist Jersey Barnes, is the first in a fun mystery series, which Publisher’s Weekly praised: “Ocean’s tightly woven, fast-moving plot keeps readers entertained right up to the explosive ending.” Next in the series, Southern Poison will be released this fall.
When not vacuuming up dog hair, T. Lynn enjoys doing absolutely nothing anywhere with a fabulous view, going on road trips and eating out. Heck, she’ll even go on a road trip just to eat out. Visit the author at www.tlynnocean.com.
JANNA MCMAHAN
A native Kentuckian, writer Janna McMahan has lived in South Carolina for twenty years. Her new novel, Calling Home, is set in the drug-fueled, rock-’n-roll days of the late 1970s in rural Kentucky. Calling Home was released by Kensington in February to five-star reviews. Her next novel, due in May 2009 from the same publisher, is set in present-day Georgetown County, SC. Janna’s short fiction has won numerous awards including the SC Fiction Project and the Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open. Visit: www.jannamcmahan.com.
JASON OCKERT
Jason Ockert has won several national fiction awards and his stories have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, and McSweeney’s. His work is included in the 2007 anthologies New Stories from the South and Best American Mystery Stories. He teaches in the English Department of Coastal Carolina University. You can read about his short-story collection, Rabbit Punches, here: www.lofipress.com/rpunches.php.
Nonfiction
HELEN CORONATO
As a former middle-school English teacher and children’s librarian, Helen Coronato designed and facilitated literary workshops for parents and children. She now enjoys a successful career as an author, talk-show host, and full-time mother. She is proud to announce the publication of her first book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Reading with Your Children, Alpha Books, which offers hands-on strategies for creating a literacy-rich home using great stories, age-appropriate activities and manageable goal-setting. Winter 2008, she looks forward to the release of The Only Real Estate Investing Book You’ll Ever Need, Adams Media, which is a must-have handbook for beginner investors, drawing on her expertise as a real-estate professional and investor. Eco-Friendly Families, Alpha Books, will be released summer 2008 as a guide to going green with family-fun activities for toddlers through teens. Helen hosts the monthly radio talk show, A Novel Idea: Behind the Bookshelves at www.homegrownradio.com, where she welcomes authors, agents, and editors to share their expertise. Her articles and press releases have appeared in dozens of publications, while her Stories to Grow on: Picture Books for All Ages and Stages is published at the nationally renowned site www.holisiticmoms.org. An active member of LaLeche League and co-leader of the Warren, NJ chapter of Holistic Moms Network, Helen and her family divide their time between homes in New Jersey and Wyoming where she is happy to share her knowledge and expertise at writing conferences and workshops. Helen’s future writing interests include more family activity orientated books, humorous and inspirational writing for mothers, and tips and strategies for sustainable living. Please visit the author at her website: www.helencoronato.com.
RONALD DAISE
Ronald Daise is an author, actor, educator, and TV performer. His productions about Gullah heritage began after the publication of his first book, Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage, in 1986. Gullah Branches, West African Roots, his newest publication, has been cited as “an unabashed celebration of a vibrant culture” and “a meditation on and celebration of the author’s Gullah heritage and an account of his two pilgrimages to West Africa . . . held together by Ron Daise’s engaging authorial personality and infectious enthusiasm for his material.”
From 1994-1999, Ron and his wife Natalie starred in Nick Jr. TV’s award-winning Gullah Gullah Island, for which they also served as cultural consultants. As Vice President for Creative Education at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina (www.brookgreen.org), he presents a weekly Gullah/Geechee Program Series.
He is a recipient of the 2008 South Carolina African American Heritage Commission’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the 1996 South Carolina Order of the Palmetto, the 1997 State of South Carolina Folk Heritage Award, and his Alma Mater’s 1988 Hampton University Print Media Award. For more information, visit his website: www.gullahgullah.com.
LYN RIDDLE
Lyn Riddle is editor of the Community Journals newspapers in Greenville, Anderson, and Spartanburg, SC, and teaches journalism at Furman University in Greenville, SC. She began her newspaper career as a staff writer for The Rock Springs Daily Rocket-Miner in Wyoming, followed by stints as a reporter for The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Greenville Piedmont. Before joining The Journal in October 2004, she was projects editor and city editor of The Greenville News. She is the author of four books and a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
The Journal newspapers have won numerous awards under her direction, including first place two years in a row for investigative journalism from the Suburban Newspapers of America, a national contest, and from the South Carolina Press Association.
As a reporter, Lyn has won awards for investigations, public service, and feature writing. She also teaches workshops in creative nonfiction for the Writing Room, sponsored by the Emrys Foundation in Greenville, SC.
She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution and her work has appeared in Newsweek, Readers Digest, and Down East magazine.
Poetry
LAUREL BLOSSON
Laurel Blossom is the author of five books of poetry, the latest of which is Degrees of Latitude, a book-length narrative poem published by Four Way Books (www.fourwaybooks.com) in November, 2007. Laurel is co-founder of The Writers Community of the YMCA National Writer’s Voice. She serves on the Board of the Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation in Vero Beach, Florida and on the editorial board of Heliotrope: a journal of poetry (www.heliopoems.com). Her own website is www.laurelblossom.com.
CATHY SMITH BOWERS
Cathy Smith Bowers was born and reared, one of six children, in the small mill town of Lancaster, SC. She received her BA and MAT in English at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. She went on to do graduate work in Modern British Poetry at Oxford University in England. She hides out in the Appalachian foothill town of Tryon, NC, with her gifted and talented Border collie, Manna.
Cathy‘s poems have appeared widely in publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. She is a winner of The General Electric Award for Younger Writers, recipient of a South Carolina Poetry Fellowship, and winner of The South Carolina Arts Commission Fiction Project. She served for many years as poet-in-residence at Queens University of Charlotte where she received the 2002 JB Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award. She now teaches in the Queens low-residency MFA program. She also does private consultation and teaches at writers’ conferences throughout the United States and in Canada.
Cathy is the author of three collections of poetry: The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas, Texas Tech University Press, 1992; Traveling in Time of Danger, Iris Press, 1999; and A Book of Minutes, Iris Press, 2004. Her fourth collection of poems, The Candle I Hold Up to See You, is forthcoming in Spring 2008, also from Iris Press.
Of Traveling in Time of Danger, Poet Jane Hirshfield says, “Cathy Smith Bowers’ new book possesses a sensuous intelligence, a tongue both observant and precise, a brave and vulnerable heart. Bowers brings to the page powerful grief-stories, the witness of fully open eyes. Reading her poems, I find myself instructed, awakened, and moved.”
RAY MCMANUS
Ray McManus was born in Columbia, SC, and was raised in a rural community just outside of Lexington, SC. Needless to say, he did not fit in. After high school, Ray moved back to Columbia and attended the University of South Carolina (USC) where he received his B.A. in English in 1997, his M.F.A. in poetry in 2001, and his Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric in 2006. While at USC, Ray won numerous awards for academic excellence and teaching in the classroom.
Ray is the author of Driving Through the Country before You Are Born. The book won the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize in 2006, sponsored by the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, and was published by USC Press in April 2007. His poems have appeared in Nimrod International Journal, Crazyhorse, Jabberwock, Natural Bridge, Los Angeles Review, and many other journals and anthologies throughout the United States and Canada. Ray is the winner of the 1997 Academy of American Poets award at USC, the 2000 James Dickey award in poetry at USC, and the 2002 Academy of South Carolina Author’s fellowship for his poetry.
Not only is Ray a successful poet, he is an award-winning teacher. He teaches poetry writing, composition, literature, and business writing at USC. As a teacher, Ray has won several awards including the 2002 Cile Moise Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2002 Most Exciting Classroom Presence Award, and the 2006 Two Thumbs Up Award from the Office of Student Disability Services. Ray has served as Writer in Residence for the Palmetto Center for the Arts at Richland Northeast High School from 2003-2006, and has been the Director of Creative Writing at Tri-DAC since 2002. Since 2000, Ray has taught poetry writing to South Carolinians of all ages through a program he co-founded called Split P Soup. Split P Soup has served more than seven thousand South Carolina teachers and students.
Despite all the conservative viewpoints and humidity that South Carolina has to offer, Ray still calls it home. He lives in Columbia with his amazing wife, Lindsay, and his two beautiful, slightly crazy children, Sean and Morgan.
