Poetry Jurors

Meg Files is the author of Meridian 144, a novel; Home Is the Hunter and Other Stories; Write From Life, a book about using personal experience and taking risks in writing; The Love Hunter and Other Poems; and Galapagos Triptych, poems and art. She is the editor of Lasting: Poems on Aging. Her awards include a Bread Loaf Fellowship. She was the James Thurber Writer-in-Residence at Ohio State University. She teaches at Pima College in Tucson and directs the Pima Writers' Workshop.

Josh Rathkamp’s first collection of poetry, Some Nights No Cars At All, was published by Ausable Press and is now distributed by Copper Canyon.   He received his B.A. in creative writing from Western Michigan University and an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University.  He has been named a Virginia G. Piper writing fellow.  He has received awards from the National Poetry Society and the Arizona Commission for the Arts.  His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Indiana Review, Meridian, Passages North, Puerto Del Sol, Gulf Coast, Sycamore Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Verse Daily.  He is currently the Coordinator of Creative Writing at Mesa Community College. 

Patricia Friedrich is an Associate Professor of English at Arizona State University. She is the author of Language, Negotiation and Peace and the editor of Teaching Academic Writing, both by Continuum Books. She is currently the Interim Director of ASU’s MA program in Social Justice and Human Rights. She is the past coordinator of the Writing Certificate Program at the West Campus of ASU. Besides her academic work, Patricia is also a fiction writer. She teaches writing courses as well as seminars in Linguistics and Cross-cultural communication.

ELIZABETH EVANS is the author of five books of fiction.  Her two story collections are Suicide’s Girlfriend (HarperCollins) and Locomotion (New Rivers Press).  Her novels are The Blue Hour (Algonquin), Rowing in Eden (HarperCollins) and Carter Clay (HarperCollins), which was selected by The Los Angeles Times for “The Best Books of 1999.”  She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a James Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa, a Lila Wallace Award, and The Four Corners Award; and has been a fellow at MacDowell, Yaddo, Hawthornden International Retreat in Scotland, and other foundations.  Evans makes her home in Tucson, where she is Full Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Arizona.

Lori Hicks is a proud member of the Scottsdale Society of Women Writers and The Arizona Authors Association. Lori can be found on the internet at www.LoriHicks.com.

Studied with Pamela R. Goodfellow, PhD – Editor, Publisher, Writing Coach

Guest Columnist for Echo Magazine

2010 Best of Anthology - Published short story with Alyson Books

Pushcart Prize Nominee

2008 Arizona Literary Magazine - Real Justice, First Place - Short Story

Marielle Marne has been a freelance editor and writer since 1993. Currently, she writes features and business articles for Sonoran News. Other publications for which Ms. Marne has contributed include Atlantic Flyer, Pacific Flyer, Aviation History, the Foothills Sentinel, Foothills Chronicle, Foothills Focus, Canyon Country News and artZbeat. She brought the picture book Scooter Saves the Day to life in collaboration with Cave Creek's Patrick Trotter. She works with A-1 Complete Writing and Editing Services and Eloquent Book publishers.