98 Born & raised in Vancouver, BC, kjmunro now lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. She has poems forthcoming in Lake: A Journal of Arts and Environment. Her poem “gift of the land” won the 2007 Whitehorse Poetry Festival poetry contest. Monica O’Keefe photographs and paints both distant vistas and close-up views of the natural world, using her digital photos both loosely as inspiration and more exactly for details of paintings. Jeremy Pataky earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Montana. His work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Southeast Review, Anchorage Daily News and many others, and he won the 2011 Fairbanks Arts Association’s statewide poetry contest. His chapbook, Fata Morgana, is available digitally by Blue Hour Press. Jeremy is a founding Director of the 49 Alaska Writing Center and is the Executive Director of the Wrangell Mountains Center. James Petit grew up on Willapa Bay, an estuary of 20 rivers on the southwest Washington coast. He received an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is a fisherman, teacher, poet, and writer living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry Northwest, Illahee and other journals. His chapbook, Willapa Bay, was published by Limner Press. Deborah Poore was born in Alaska before Statehood, and grew up on her family’s homestead beside the Kenai River at Eagle Rock. She comes from a long line of teachers, farmers and carpenters. Schooled as a teacher in Alaska and Massachusetts, she taught in Homer for twenty-one years before retiring from the classroom and now spends time gardening, writing and traveling. She lives along Kachemak Bay in Homer with her husband and family. Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan living in Kodiak, Alaska. She holds a PhD in Cross Cultural Studies and will receive her MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2011. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have recently appeared in Cirque, Turtle Quarterly and Arcadia. Her first book of poetry, The Hide of My Tongue, will be published by Plain View Press in the winter of 2011. I’m Deric Saffell. I’m a part time student at UAA who majors in English and Art, with a minor in Creative Writing. I love to write. Scot Siegel’s second full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry of Ireland in early 2012. In addition to Cirque, he has recent work in High Desert Journal, Naugatuck River Review, and Open Spaces: Voices from the Northwest, edited by Penny H. Harrison (University of Washington Press, 2011). www.redroom.com/author/scot-siegel Suanne Sikkema lives in Anchorage, Alaska and finds inspiration in writing and photography. She has a passion for plants, owns the small company Arctic Sun Gardening, and loves to travel and eat delicious food. In December 2010, Cynthia Lee Sims received an MA in English Literature from the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she teaches composition; she is grateful that the CPDS (PREP) and English Departments employ scribblers. She has served on the board for Understory, UAA’s undergraduate literary journal, for the past three years, and her writing has appeared in Red Ink Magazine (The U of AZ Indigenous Journal) and Anchorage’s community journal F Zine (2010). Leslea Smith has deep Alaska roots and is an attorney and manager of a legal aid office in Hillsboro, Oregon. Her poems have been published in Verseweavers and Cirque. Patty Somlo has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut collection, From Here to There and Other Stories, was published by Paraguas Books in 2010. David Stallings was born in the U.S. South, raised in Alaska and Colorado before settling in the Pacific Northwest. Once an academic geographer, he has spent many years promoting public transportation in the Puget Sound area. His poems have appeared in several U.S. and U.K. literary journals and two anthologies. Ben Stanton is a geologist and rock climber. He lives in central Washington with his wife and takes photos while out enjoying Nature. Kathleen Tarr lives in Anchorage and works as the Program Coordinator for UAA’s Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. At present, she is working on her first book, a spiritual memoir involving Thomas Merton. She hopes to finish the draft manuscript before it finishes her.
CIRQUE Jim Thiele graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Biology. He worked as a photographer for a biological text book company for several years, before moving to Alaska in 1974. He has worked for The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the University of Alaska as a biologist, but now is a financial advisor in private practice. His photographs have been seen in several publications, including Alaska Magazine and Alaska Geographic. He lives in Anchorage with his wife Susan, and has a daughter and two grandchildren who also live in Anchorage. Taking photos forces him to stop and really see the world. Doris Horton Thurston: Born in Kelso, WA before the last Depression, grew up in Woodland, WA during the Depression. Attended college at the University of Oregon, finished my BA at Evergreen State College. Raised five children in Marin County, CA and indulged in weaving, painting, photography and some writing and story-telling. Moved to Port Townsend, WA in 1975. Published in Minotaur, Tidepools, Frog Pond, Northwest Literary Forum, and Bottle Rockets. Georgia Tiffany, a native of Spokane, Washington, now lives in Moscow, Idaho. Her work has appeared in such publications as Weber Studies, The Xavier Review, Athena, Tar River Poetry, Flint Hills Review, Willow Springs, Malahat Review, Poetry Ireland, and North Dakota Quarterly. Her chapbook, Cut From The Score, was published by Night Owl Press. Tim Troll is a 32 year resident of Alaska. His artwork was recently included in an exhibit that he organized with his brother Ray entitled “Art Brothers” at the gallery of the Ketchikan Arts Council featuring seven pairs of brothers who do artwork in Alaska. His poetry has appeared in various small journals including Kansas Quarterly, Ice-Floe and Painted Bride Quarterly. His most recent publication is an historic photo collection entitled Sailing for Salmon: The Early Years of Commercial Fishing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay – 1884 1951. Flory Vinson is a pioneer Alaskan. She has hunted, fished, picked berries and gardened for 46 years in this great land. Flory enjoys the bounty of Alaska and the diversity of its people. Matthew Wappett is a displaced Alaskan, living, writing, and teaching on the north Idaho Palouse; he’s a professor at the University of Idaho by day and a poet by night. He writes poetry to combat the mind-numbing side effects of academia. Paul Winkel is a retired engineer who wonders what he will be when he grows up. His poems appeared in the 2008 anthology 50 Poems for Alaska, Understory, and in the first three issues of Cirque. Paxson Woelber is a professional artist, graphic and web designer, and award-winning animator. His animations have been featured on the home page of YouTube and on Spike; commercial clients include Governor Parnell, Lt. Governor Treadwell, nationally-distributed magazines, business startups, and law firms. To see his work, please visit www.paxsonwoelber.com Tonja Woelber is a 30-year resident of Alaska. She likes country music, fishing, gardening, and long hikes with her Mountain Poodle. Her poetic inspirations are Anna Akhmatova, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and the Tang Dynasty poets. Kate Worthington takes her best photographs while on shipwreck-related projects in Alaska, where she lived for seventeen years. Douglas Yates is a writer and photographer. Raised in Boise, he moved to Alaska in 1975. His work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, UTNE, Whole Earth Review and Crosscurrents North, Alaskans on the Environment. His images of the Tanana River flood plain are part of an art and science collaboration sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the US Forest Service and the University of Alaska. Barry S. Zellen is the author of three books on Arctic politics and history: Breaking the Ice: From Land Claims to Tribal Sovereignty in the Arctic (Lexington Books, 2008); On Thin Ice: The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty (Lexington Books, 2009); and Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic (Praeger, 2009). He is also author of the four-volume bookset: States of Mind: The Realist Tradition and Foundation of Western Order forthcoming from Praeger in August 2011; his newest book, State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb and the Birth of the Bipolar World is soon to be published by Continuum.