EDITORIAL STAFF

(Left to right) Mary Flinn, Tara Moyle, Maria Hagan, Gregory Donovan, Susan Settlemyre Williams, Dona Young, Michael Keller, Unoma Azuah, Rebekah Moore, Dani Vukovic, Jeff Lodge. (Not pictured) Beth Burton, Ashley Kistler, Scott Reynolds, William Tester.

Mary Flinn, literary editor and editor-in-chief of Blackbird, Vol. 2 No. 1, has been the Director of New Virginia Review, Inc., since 1985 and is the editor, with George Garrett, of Elvis in Oz, New Writing from the Hollins College Creative Writing Program (1992). She also facilitated the editing of The Gazer Within by Larry Levis (2001), and she has served as the Poetry and Fiction editor of 64 Magazine and as editor of New Virginia Review. She has participated on editors' panels, as a literature fellowship judge for numerous art councils, and as a review panelist for the National Endowment and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She was the first recipient of the Theresa Pollack Award for Words presented by Richmond Magazine.

Gregory Donovan, literary editor, has won the Robert Penn Warren award in the poetry competition sponsored by New England Writers (judged by Rosanna Warren), as well as two grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and fellowships from the Ucross Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Donovan's poetry collection, Calling His Children Home, was the 1993 Devins Award winner from University of Missouri Press. Donovan is the writer-in-residence for the Virginia Commonwealth University Glasgow Artists and Writers Workshop.

William Tester, literary editor, is the author of Darling, a novel, Head, a collection of stories, and fiction and poetry in numerous publications. He has taught in the writing programs at Columbia University and SUNY/Oneonta, and he is the recipient of The Mary McCarthy Prize for Fiction, a literature grant from the NEA, fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and the Hob Broun Prize and PEN/Syndicated Fiction awards.

Ashley Kistler, guest arts editor, has been Curator of the Hand Workshop Art Center in Richmond, Virginia, since 1999. From 1984-1999, she served as Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Since joining the Hand Workshop, she has organized more than fifty exhibitions and a wide array of special programs, from symposia and artists' residencies to numerous film/video programs and performing arts events. Her exhibitions, some of which have traveled nationally, have featured the work of regional, national, and international artists in solo and thematic presentations. Kistler received a BA in Art History from Dickinson College and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Tara Moyle, associate editor, is a second-year poetry MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her BA in English from Northern Illinois University in 1996. She has edited and founded a number of zines, including browsing room and a perzine titled My Mother's Fashion. Tara also collaborated on two video projects while living in Chicago, one of which screened at the Women in the Director's Chair Film Festival. Before coming to VCU she worked as a licensed massage therapist, a freelance copyeditor and writer, and in technical services at a public library.

Michael Keller, managing online editor, is a technologist and writing instructor for Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of English. He has presented at regional and national conferences on computer and writing issues ranging from teaching creative and informational hypertext to reading new media Web texts in the tradition of the lyric sequence. His poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, New Virginia Review, and other publications.

Jeff Lodge, managing online editor, is the author of the novel Where This Lake Is (1997) and fiction, poetry, and essays in GSU Review, Persona, Pleiades, and other publications. He coordinates the graduate programs in the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of English, where he teaches literature and writing. He also reviews fiction and nonfiction for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Susan Settlemyre Williams, assistant managing editor, is an MFA student in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a JD from the University of Richmond, and is retired from the practice of real estate law.  Her poetry has appeared in Aethlon, Calyx, Pudding, Earth's Daughters, and other small journals, and her interviews with Eleanor Ross Taylor and George Garrett were featured in the inaugural issue of Blackbird.

Unoma N. Azuah, intern, is in her final year in the MFA program for fiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. At Cleveland State University, where she received her MA in English, she was awarded the Hellman/ Hammett award for her writings on women's issues as well as the 2000 Leonard Trawick Award. Ms. Azuah has served as the secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA Lagos) and as the publicity secretary of Women Writers of Nigeria (WRITA).

Beth Burton, intern, is the Customer Service Manager of the Circulation and Information Division of James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds a Master of Theological Studies from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, with concentrations in feminist theology and religious education.

Maria Hagan, intern, is a first-year poetry candidate in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her BFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. Before coming to Richmond, she owned and operated a marketing firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rebekah Moore, intern, is a recent graduate in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She plans to apply to MFA programs in fiction in a year, and to travel in the meantime.

Scott Reynolds, intern, received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of
Arizona. He taught high school English for two years in Lexington, Virginia, and for a semester in Cuenca, Ecuador. Currently, he is pursuing an MA in Writing and Rhetoric at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dani Vukovic, intern, is originally from Ontario, Canada, and is a first year MFA candidate in poetry. She holds a BA in History from Trent University, a BLS in Liberal Studies from University of Maine, and an MA in Composition from Northeastern University. Dani is also a singer/songwriter and performed with a folk/alternative band for three years.

Dona Young, intern, is a second-year MA student in Literature at Virginia Commonwealth University. She currently teaches at John Tyler Community College. She attended the Glasgow, Scotland, Writer's Workshop during the summer of 2000 and holds a BA in English from VCU.