News, press releases, biographies, and related links for The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer.
Shawna Chandler (now Shawna R. Van Arum) is a writer whose mind wanders between the confines of time and space even as her body is chained to a desk in Lubbock, Texas. A full-time mother and part-time literary adventurer, Shawna has contributed to All Write Stuff, Zoetrope, The Peralta Press, 3AM Magazine, The Journal of the Blue Planet, Coil Magazine, The Lubbock Magazine, and other print or online publications. Visit Shawna and her work at: http://srchandlertx.tripod.com.
Huda Orfali’s collections of poetry and short stories explore the complexities of human society. She published her books Blue Fire in 1999, Flower in The Cold
in 2000 and Fisher Prince in 2006. Having grown up in the Middle East, an area torn apart by war and violence, Orfali focuses her intense poetic scrutiny on the terrors of war and the struggle for peace. The creative impulse for the poems is equally idealistic and humanitarian for the large part. Her poems are predominantly concerned with social and political issues that contribute to universal well being and to the common good. Orfali is a graduate of Peace Studies and Conflict Transformation. She received her MA from Bradford University, UK and was also a Fulbright scholar at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA.
Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories. He received a Ph.D. in English from Texas Tech University and lives in Lubbock, Texas. His books include Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and the critically acclaimed West Texas fiction collection The Acorn Stories. Some of the characters in The Acorn Gathering first appeared in The Acorn Stories, but The Acorn Gathering strictly stands alone. Reviews of The Acorn Stories appear at Kirkus, Amazon.Com, bn.com (2nd edition reviews), and bn.com (1st edition).
Timothy Morris Taylor is an elementary special education resource teacher in Texas. He is a life-long, devoted fan of movies, music, and the arts. A period of time as a classic film projectionist at a historic movie theater in Texas was one of the great highlights of his life. Because of the personal loss of a loved one to cancer, Timothy is a strong advocate of the race to find a cure. He lives in Houston with his two cats.
Bill Wetzel is an enrolled Blackfeet Indian and a native of Cut Bank, Montana. He received his A.A.A. in Video Production from the Art Institute of Seattle (Fall 2001) and is, currently, a Creative Writing major at the University of Arizona. He is a published poet and has worked on various video and film projects. Wetzel was the 2001 AIS Student Show winner in Video Production for his efforts as Assistant Director and Co-Screenwriter on the short digital film Claustromania. He is currently researching his first novel, as well as working on several short stories and a screenplay idea. He has written for the Arizona Daily Wildcat and Red Ink Magazine. His essay about Blackfeet Indian author James Welch will be in the Studies In American Indian Literature series.
Special thanks to John Mudd for The Acorn Gathering’s publicity campaign!
