EDITORIAL STAFF

(Left to right) Front row: Mary Flinn, Susan Settlemyre Williams, Hilty Hazzard, Gregory Donovan; Second Row: Mary Lee Allen, Melody J. Randolph, Matt Bybel, Beth Burton; Third row: Memuna Sillah, Boz Bowles, Chris Terry, Jeff Lodge; Fourth row: Tucker Lichtenberger, Julia Taylor, Michael Keller; Back row: Pir Rothenberg, Maria Hagan, Meghan Hoyle. (Not pictured: Diana Woodcock)

Gregory Donovan, editor-in-chief of Blackbird, Vol. 2 No. 2, 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.

Mary Flinn, senior editor, 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.

M. A. Keller, managing online editor, is a technologist and writing instructor for Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of English. His poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, New Virginia Review, and other publications. He has presented in the computers and writing community on issues of technology and writing pedagogy, creative and informational hypertext, and New Media.

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.

Maria Hagan, associate editor, is a second-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.

Susan Settlemyre Williams, associate literary 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 been published or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, DIAGRAM, Aethlon, Calyx, Earth's Daughters, and other journals; and her interviews and book reviews have appeared in several issues of Blackbird.

Mary Lee Allen, volunteer reader for Blackbird, is Secretary for the Center for Palladian Studies in America, an organization which studies Palladian architecture and its influence in the United States. She holds a Master of Humanities degree from the University of Richmond and an MA in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University and is retired from the Assistant Directorship of Gunston Hall, a historic house museum built by George Mason.

Beth Burton, assistant editor, 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.

Boz Bowles, intern, is in his final year in the MFA program in fiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is currently revising a collection of short stories and working on his first novel. He received his BA from VCU in 2000.

Matt Bybel, intern, is a senior transfer student from the University of Maryland majoring in criminal justice.

Hilty Hazzard, intern, originally from Birmingham, Alabama, received her BA in English from the University of Virginia. She is a first-year poetry student in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Meghan B. Hoyle, intern, is a first-year MA English student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Meghan received her BA in English from VCU in summer 2003.

Tucker Lichtenberger, intern, is a first year graduate student in English at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is originally from Pennsylvania, and did his undergraduate work at Edinboro University.

Melody J. Randolph, intern, is a third year undergraduate honors student at Virginia Commonwealth University majoring in English.

Pir Rothenberg, intern, received a BS in Anthropology from Loyola University in Chicago. He is a first-year MFA student of fiction and currently works in the Writing Center at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Memuna Sillah, intern, will receive her MFA in Creative Writing from Virginia Commonwealth University in December, 2003. She is a Jacob Javits fellow, and has recently published work in Natural History Magazine and Anthropology. She is currently working on her first novel, an autobiography of her childhood in Africa.

Julia Taylor, intern, holds a BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a first year MA student in Writing and Rhetoric. She currently freelances for Filmfax Magazine and its sister publication, Outre.

Chris Terry, intern, holds a BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has published fiction in Millennium.

Diana Woodcock, intern, is a third-year poetry MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her BS in psychology from VCU in 1974 and has worked in the US as a juvenile probation counselor, magazine editor, ESL teacher, and freelance writer and editor. She has taught English in Tibet and Macau and has worked with refugees on the Thai-Cambodian border. Her poetry has appeared in Small Brushes, White Heron, Creative Juices, Pudding, and other small journals.