Poet Biographies
Meet the authors behind Issue 10 of Gleam:
Tina Berry | Sarah Carleton | David Eisenstat | Shirley Jellum | Tara Knight | Dana McCormick | K. Alma Peterson | Charlotte Porter | Lenny Resch | Marsha Segerberg | Merril Smith | Lisa St. John | Susan Stiles | Mary Stone | John Van Pelt | Maggie Van Puten | Susan Vespoli | Sterling Warner | Jonathan Yungkans
Tina Berry
Tina Barry is the author of Beautiful Raft and Mall Flower. Her writing can be found in The Best Small Fictions 2020 (spotlighted story) and 2016, Rattle, Verse Daily, Trampset, ONE ART, A-Minor, Nixes Mate, Gyroscope Review and elsewhere. Tina is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has several Best of the Net nods. She teaches at The Poetry Barn and Writers.com.
Sarah Carleton
Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo, and knits obsessively in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Chattahoochee Review, Tar River Poetry, Split Rock Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and New Ohio Review. Her first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books.
David Eisenstat
David Elliot Eisenstat has contributed poems to THINK, The Pierian, and Rust & Moth among others. A Poetry Editor for Variant Lit, he lives in Brooklyn. Find more of his work at https://www.davideisenstat.com/poetry/.
Shirley Jellum
Shirley Jellum is a retired English teacher who publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She enjoys traveling, backpacking, gardening, and winemaking.
Tara Knight
Tara Knight is an emerging writer who lives in Northern Ontario, Canada. She is also a slush reader for Pulp Literature Magazine. Tara’s work can be found in the Literary Hatchet Magazine Issue 32, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor Issues 5,6&7 Star*Line Volume 46 Issue 3, and Synkroniciti Magazine the Vulnerable Issue 2024. Her creative non-fiction won 2nd place in the Toasted Cheese Literary Magazine Midsummer Writing Contest (published Sept 2023) Her most recent creative non-fiction appears in Sea Side Gothic (April 1st 2025)
K. Alma Peterson
K. Alma Peterson is a graduate of Warren Wilson MFA for Writers. She has published two books of poetry with Blaze Vox Books, and her poems have been widely published in online and print journals. She is also a painter of abstract art. She lives in Florida.
Charlotte Porter
Charlotte M. Porter lives and writes in an old citrus hamlet in north central Florida. As a child, she loved marine biology.
Lenny Resch
LENNY LIANNE RESCH is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Sunshine Has Its Limits (Kelsay Books). She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University. She’s been a finalist twice for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and lives in Arizona with her husband and their dog.
Marsha Segerberg
Marsha Segerberg lives and writes in Phoenix, Arizona, except during the microwave oven season, during which she relocates to a cabin on a little northern Wisconsin lake with her dog, Peggy. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Third Wednesday, New Verse News, Rogue Agent Journal, Rat’s Ass Review and other journals. She belongs to COW (Community of Writers) in Phoenix, which meets biweekly, and we have t-shirts.
Merril Smith
Merril D. Smith writes from southern New Jersey. Her work has been published widely in poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Sidhe Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Storms, The Broken Spine, Gleam, and Frazzled Lit. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social; Instagram: @mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org
Lisa St. John
Lisa St. John is a writer living in upstate New York. She is the author of two poetry books, Ponderings (Finishing Line Press) and Swallowing Stones (Kelsay Books). A Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, she also received first place in Anthology’s 2024 Poetry Award for “Through the Membrane.” Lisa is published in journals such as New Verse News, The Poet’s Billow, The Ekphrastic Review, Glassworks, The Orchards Poetry Journal, SWWIM, Light, and Entropy Magazine. Lisa believes that art is hope and that there is beauty in possibility. She is currently working on a memoir.
Susan Stiles
Susan Stiles is a freelance writer and poet who lives on an island in Croatia. Her work appears or is forthcoming in such journals as The Lake, The Dalhousie Review, Storyscape, Innisfree, Slant, and The Westchester Review. More info, including her blog “Letters from Rab,” is at susan-stiles.com.
Mary Stone
Mary Specker Stone’s poems have appeared in Image Journal; The Healing Art of Writing, vol.1; New Verse News; Gyroscope Review, Sheila-na-Gig Online, and other journals. Her chapbook, Valentine’s Dinner at Wren & Wolf, will be released in early 2024. A former medical writer and college writing instructor, Mary now serves as a spiritual director and leads poetry salons in the greater Phoenix area.
John Van Pelt
John Van Pelt is an artist and poet from Maine, USA, whose poetry has appeared in Farmer-ish Journal and EAP: The Magazine. In the almost eleven years that John and his partner have been “on the land,” they have renovated an abandoned cottage, raised sheep for fiber, and published a line of fantasy romances.
Maggie Van Puten
Maggie Van Putten writes poetry and nonfiction. She has published work in journals and anthologies, competed in poetry slams and been a featured reader at Perth Poetry Club. In 2017 she won equal first in the annual Creatrix Poetry prize. Maggie grew up in New York and lived in San Francisco before settling in Perth (Western Australia) with her Australian husband.
Susan Vespoli
Susan Vespoli believes in the power of writing poems and prose to stay sane. Her work has been published in Gleam, ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rattle, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots. She teaches Wild Writing and poetry at 27Powers.org and writers.com and is the author of four poetry collections. https://susanvespoli.com/
Sterling Warner
A Washington-based author, poet, educator, and Pushcart Nominee, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in such literary magazines, journals, and anthologies as the Galway Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Medusa’s Kitchen, and Gleam.. Warner’s volumes of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps: Poems, “Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci and Abraxas (2024)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. He currently writes, hosts “virtual” poetry/fiction readings, and enjoys fishing and boating along the Hood Canal.
Jonathan Yungkans
Jonathan Yungkans continues typing at odd hours of the night, even as he hears owls hoot and watches yet another skunk meander beneath his house’s foundation. He remains thankful his writing is less noxious than the creature under his bathroom’s floorboards. His work has appeared in Book of Matches, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sonic Boom, Synkroniciti and other publications. His third chapbook, The Ravens Will Arrive Later, will be published by Gnashing Teeth Publishing in 2026.sy romances.
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About Us
Gleam is a journal wholly devoted to the new poetic form, the cadralor, created by Gleam’s founding co-editors, Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra. The cadralor consists of five short, unrelated, highly-visual stanzas.
Get In Touch
If you are interested in submitting your own cadralor poem or if you have questions, you can reach out to our Gleam email. We look forward to hearing from you!
Meet the Editors
The cadralor was co-created by:
• Lori Howe, Editor in Chief
• Christopher Cadra, Senior Editor
Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor 