Poetry BIO's:
Tamara Nicholl-Smith’s poetry has been featured on two Albuquerque city bus panels, one parking meter, numerous radio shows, a spoken-word classical piano fusion CD, and in several publications, including the Mutablis Press anthology Enchantment of the Ordinary, Kyoto Journal Issue 95, The Examined Life Journal Issues 8 and 9, and Catholic Arts Today. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston. She enjoys puns and likes her bourbon neat.
Tamara Nicholl-Smith – Check out: www.QuarterMileSmile.com – a Resource for Walkable Places, Twitter: twitter.com/tnichollsmith
Chris Wise is a poet, novelist, voice actor and television host. He has published in various poetry anthologies and literary magazines. He was a featured author in Cowboys and Indians Magazine in issues with Kevin Costner, Jewel, and Ted Turner. He was featured in the Huffington Post’s Video Reading series; was animated as a cartoon, appearing as himself in the comedy series The Damn Show. He hosts The Crawl, where he travels to wineries, distilleries, and breweries tasting flavors and meeting the people who make them. He has performed at the Moth, was a feature poet for Houston Poetry Month, and had one of his interviews syndicated by NPR.
His major publications include Colliding with Orion (an innovative textbook on writing poetry and short stories, Weasel Press, 2017), Smirk of Fortune (an outlandish satirical novel, The Atomic Underground, 2020), and Thirsty Earth (a journey through addiction and heartbreak in a full-length poetry collection, The Atomic Underground, 2021). He has many music collaborations; the major ones are writing the lyrics to “Hypocrite’s Delight” on Tex Allen’s album Tex Allen and the Sunshine Friends, as well collaborating with musician Ryan Harris for the album Two Line: Beggar’s Dozen, and performing audio selections for the Colliding with Orion CD which accompany the textbook. He is a veteran of the US Army, earned an English degree from Texas A&M, a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from UHD, and currently lives in Houston, TX.
Glenn Burns (BGK) has performed spoken pieces for over 20 years. In 2005, he relocated from DC to Houston and has continued to self-publish numerous books of poetry, philosophy, and comedic abstractions and observations that, he feels, “follows consciousness where it must go.” In 2021, he returned to DC. BGK’s latest works include The Summer of Granite, Overflow, Good Nature, I’m In Your Area (Revenge of The Napkin Poems), and Terra.
Debra Matthes has a Creative Writing degree from the University of Houston, and has been writing short stories and poetry all of her life.