The Editors:

Arnold Johnston lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he is chairman of the English Department and teaches in the creative writing program at Western Michigan University. His plays, and others written in collaboration with his wife, Deborah Ann Percy, have won awards, production, and publication across the country. His poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translations have appeared widely in literary journals. His publications include a collection of poetry, What the Earth Taught Us (March Street Press, 1996). His other works include The Witching Voice: A Play About Robert Burns (WMU Press, 1973) and Of Earth and Darkness: The Novels of William Golding (University of Missouri, 1980).  Johnston’s The Witching Voice: A Novel About Robert Burns will be published in 2007 by Wings Press (San Antonio). A recipient in 1986 of Kalamazoo’s Community Medal of Arts, Johnston is also a member of the Dramatists Guild and a resident playwright with the Off-Off Broadway theatre company AAI Productions.

Deborah Ann Percy earned the MFA in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University. Her plays, and those written in collaboration with her husband, Arnold Johnston, have won many awards and productions nationwide, including numerous stagings by Love Creek Productions and AAI Productions in NYC. Ms. Percy and her husband have together won the Sunset Center Festival of Firsts, the Dogwood and Market House One-Act contests, and the Writer’s Digest Playwriting Competition. An administrator with the Kalamazoo Public Schools, where she has won the Medallion of Excellence, Ms. Percy has taught playwriting at the graduate and undergraduate levels for several institutions, including Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College.  Winner of major playwriting grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Gilmore Foundation, she was named as a 1999 recipient of Kalamazoo’s Community Medal of the Arts. Ms. Percy is also a member of the Dramatists Guild and a resident playwright with AAI Productions.

The Playwrights:

Constance Alexander has extensive publication and production credits. Grants and awards from Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kaiser Foundation, Poets & Writers, Ragdale Foundation, Pilgrim Project and Pew Center for Civic Journalism have supported the development of her creative work. She lives in Murray, Kentucky, and is Faculty Scholar in Arts & Humanities at Murray State University’s Teacher Quality Institute.

Claudia Barnett teaches playwriting at Middle Tennessee State University, where students performed Devoted at the Women and Power Conference luncheon in 1997. Her first full-length play Feather won the 2004 Brick Playhouse Award. She is currently writing Another Manhattan, a historical drama set in 1642-43.

Gaylord Brewer is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the journal Poems & Plays. His recent books of poetry include Barbaric Mercies (Red Hen, 2003) and Exit Pursued by a Bear (Cherry Grove, 2004). Dreidel Daze is one of a series of shorts collectively titled The Holidays Play.

Kent R. Brown is a playwright, director and editor who lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife Gayle. His works, including Hope ‘n Mercy, The Phoenix Dimension, Valentines and Killer Chili, and The Seduction of Chaos among others, are published by Dramatic Publishing.

Boston-based Joe Byers is the author of Heideman Award finalist Pee Shy (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Foundation Competition winner Shakerman, and Palm Springs National Short Play Fest winner The Woman with No Nose. His plays have been produced from New York to Mexico. Next up: Pocket Pool: the Life and Loves of Masturbatin’ Melvin Armstrong, TV Sex Guru!

Carey Daniels has an MFA in playwriting from Western Michigan University. “Hands for Toast” is part of a series of plays about the different people associated with the main character.

Jim Daniels’s most recent books include Show and Tell: New and Selected Poems (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003) and Detroit Tales, fiction, (Michigan State University Press, 2003). He also wrote the screenplay for No Pets, an independent feature film. Heart of Hearts was produced at the 13th Street Repertory Theater in New York.

Lisa Dillman’s plays have been produced at such venues as Steppenwolf Theatre, American Theatre Company, and the O’Neill Playwrights Conference. She has received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Ragdale, Millay Colony, Blue Mountain Center, and the William Inge Foundation. Her work is published by Dramatic Publishing, Heinemann, and Smith & Kraus.

Christopher Farran was born in New York, grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He has two children’s books published by HarperCollins, a parenting book published by Scribner’s, and an adult mystery published by Salvo Press. His short fiction has appeared in two anthologies and he’s had nonfiction in magazines such as Parents, Road & Track, and others.

Steve Feffer’s plays have been produced by theatres that include the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre (New York), and Stages Repertory Theatre (Houston). They are published by Faber and Faber, Applause Books, and Dramatists Play Service. Steve is an Assistant Professor of English at Western Michigan University.

Bethany Gibson lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she earned her M.F.A. from Western Michigan University. She’s had productions with the Paw Paw Village Players and All Ears Theatre and, most recently, was a semi-finalist in Lamia Ink’s international one-page play competition. Currently, Gibson is at work on several projects—including a collaboration with her fellow playwright (and husband), Nick Gauthier.

Michael Hemmingson’s plays have been produced by the Fritz Theater and the Alien Stage Project in San Diego, Moving Arts and Tyburn Theater in Los Angeles, Ventana Productions in San Francisco,Theater Babylon and Mae West Fest in Seattle, Love Creek and Nada in New York, and elsewhere. Iraq was in the 2000 Samuel French One-Act Fest. His first feature film The Watermelon, will be relased in fall 2007 by LightStorm Films and his movie of the week The Date, will see TV time from Lifetime at the same time.

Michael Hohnstein wrote The Artist in 1983, and it was first produced at the York Arena Theatre, Western Michigan University, in 1984. Another of his plays, The Contract, has also been published and produced, and he is a published short-story writer as well. He is married and lives in Stevensville, MI, where he works as a construction superintendent.

Lewis Horton’s stories and essays have appeared in several magazines, including Cutbank, and three anthologies. A nonfiction book, Escape From Mexico, came out in 2001, an adventure which Rick DeMarinis describes as “a hilarious tour of Hell.” Lewis, born in Detroit, Michigan, currently resides in Sacramento, California.

Richard Keller's one-acts have been produced at numerous theatres in New York City and at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is a 2004 recipient of a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in playwriting and is a past recipient of a Creative Artist Grant from the Michigan Council of the Arts. Richard lives in Ithaca, New York.

Holly Walter Kerby teaches chemistry, physics, and playwriting at Madison Area Technical College. Attention was written for Mercury Players' production of Computers in Love in January 2002. Kerby teaches lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, two teenage daughters, and a retired greyhound.

Judy Klass: Eighteen of Judy Klass’s one-act plays have been produced, all over the country. Several have appeared in small magazines; one is published in the textbook Access Literature. Her full-length plays Damage Control and Transatlantic have been produced in New York City. She also co-wrote the Showtime version of In the Time of the Butterflies.

Maryann Lesert’s play productions include Superwoman, The Music In The Mess, and Natural Causes, a finalist for the 2001 Princess Grace Foundation’s National Playwright’s Fellowship. Maryann completed her first novel while earning her M.F.A. from Spalding University in Louisville. Currently, she teaches English at Grand Rapids Community College.

James Magruder is a playwright and award-winning translator of the works of Marivaux, Molière, Lesage, Labiche, Dancourt, and Gozzi. He also wrote the book for the Broadway musical Triumph of Love and teaches translation and adaptation at the Yale School of Drama, where he received his doctorate.

Gloria G. Murray’s work has appeared in many literary journals, including CQ Quarterly, Poet’s Guild Journal, Blue Unicorn, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pearl, and others. She has received several awards for poetry and has published two chapbooks, Walking on Eggshells and The Tasting of Cherries.

Rich Orloff has written ten full-length plays, mostly comedies, and oodles of one-acts. His plays have won the 1994 Playwrights First Award, 1995 Festival of Emerging American Theatre, 1997 InterPlay International Play Festival, 1998 Tennessee Williams Playwriting Competition, 1999 Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest, 2000 Abeles Foundation Playwrights Award, 2002 Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence, 2004 New Voice Play Festival, and a few others. Four of his one-act comedies have been published in the annual Best American Short Plays anthology and Playscripts (www.playscripts.com) has published six collections of his work. For more on Rich’s plays, visit www.richorloff.com.

Steven Schutzman: Over the past six years, more than thirty productions of Mr. Schutzman’s one-acts have been mounted in theatres across the country. His play Tree Man won 1st prize in the First Stage L.A. One-Act Contest/2004. Recently published one-acts include Blue and Darker Blue and Where Things Are in Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Bank in Post Road. Driver's Ed. is available in acting script form from Brooklyn Publishing (brookpub.com).

Danny Sklar teaches writing at Endicott College where he tries to get his students to write in a natural and spontaneous way. Recent publications include Poetry East, Square Lake, The Village Rambler, bowwow, Paper Street, and the Mid-America Poetry Review.

Bill Teitelbaum’s work has appeared in U.S. journals such as Bayou, Crab Creek, The Oregon Literary Review, and Riversedge, as well as abroad in Arabesques Review and Carillon. His play The Death of Saul is the first in a cycle of one-acts called Kings about the early monarchs of Palestine. Bill lives in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a small Midwestern village adjacent to the larger Midwestern village of Chicago.

Troy Tradup is the author of nine plays, including award-winners The Desired Effect and Chuckling in Limbo. His anthology contribution, We All Give Thanks, was a finalist for the 2003 Heideman Award, and his stage adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau was recently published by Playscripts, Inc. Troy’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times premiered in the Twin Cities.

Allison Williams is a partner in the physical theatre company Commedia Zuppa and an actor, director, and aerialist. Her plays include The Tale of Tsuru (adapted from the Japanese), Hamlette, Mmmbeth, Miss Kentucky, and the radio plays Dead Men Don’t Carry Handbags, Dead Men Don’t Jay Walk, and Scanners. Her solo show, True Story, is currently touring.

Jana Duchova (translator) is a graduate of Charles University and lives in Prague. She is a writer, translator, and interpreter of Japanese and English, and spent nearly two years in Japan.

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
| Home | Book Index |