Poet Biographies
Meet the authors behind Issue 8 of Gleam:
Rose Mary Boehm | Jamey Boelhower | Becky Boling | Sarah Carleton | Kate Copeland | Jane Dougherty | Rob Hardy | Bob McAfee | Dana McCormick | Ann Michael | Kathy Peterson | Merril D. Smith | Lisken Van Pelt Dus | Maggie Van Puten | Susan Vespoli | Sterling Warner | Thomas Williams| Jon Yungkans
Rose Mary Boehm
Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a ‘Pushcart’ and once for ‘Best of Net’. Her eighth book, LIFE STUFF, has just been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
Jamey Boelhower
Jamey Boelhower is a husband and father of six children. He has spent the past 20 plus years in education as a high school English teacher, coach, professional developer, and college instructor. Jamey’s writing expresses his view of the world, both the joy and the pain. He explores the depths of life with a unique style that challenges the reader to see the world on a deeper level. He is the author of a number of books of poetry: And I Never Told You, From My Years, Farther and Son: Words Apart, April 2020: A Poetic Time Capsule of Writing and Living During a Pandemic, and his newest release These Words Believe in Ghosts.
Becky Boling
An Ohio-Valley Hoosier & “naturalized” Minnesotan, Becky Boling has published prose, dramatic monologues, & poetry in online and print journals: Agates, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, Lost Lake Folk Opera, Misfit, Moss Puppy, Persimmon Tree, and Willows Wept Review, as well as anthologies: We Look West (Shipwreckt Press, 2024) in which she is one of the contributing 5 poets;Little by Little, the Bird Builds Its Nest (Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid) (forthcoming Paris Morning Publications); her first poetry collection, Here Beyond Small Wonders (Finishing Line Press 2025). Twice, she’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Boling and D. E. Green were recently Northfield’s Co-Poets Laureate, 2023-24.
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.
Kate Copeland
Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to teaching, her love for art & water to poetry. Please, find her pieces @The Ekphrastic Review, WildfireWords, Gleam, First Lit. Review-East, AltPoetry, a.o. Her Insta reads: https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/. Kate is curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review, and runs linguistic-poetry workshops for The International Women’s Writing Guild & TER. She was born @harbour city, and adores housesitting @the world.
Jane Dougherty
Jane Dougherty’s poetry has appeared in publications including Gleam, Ogham Stone, Black Bough Poetry, Ekphrastic Review and The Storms Journal. Her short stories have been published in Prairie Fire and Lucent Dreaming, and her first adult novel will be published in 2025 by Northodox Press. She lives in southwest France and has published three collections of poetry, thicker than water, birds and other feathers and night horses.
Rob Hardy
Rob Hardy is the author of the full-length poetry collection Domestication and two chapbooks, Shelter in Place and The Collecting Jar (winner of the 2005 Grayson Books Poetry Chapbook Competition).
Bob McAfee
Bob McAfee is a retired software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston. He recently discovered the cadralor form. His style is eclectic, but his goal is producing poems with both fierceness and a reluctant sense of optimism. He has written six books of poetry including “Natural Worlds” poems illustrated with color photographs 2021, “Love Songs” 2022, available through bookbaby.com. Website: bobmcafee.com. Poems have been accepted by The Lyric, The Blue Mountain Review, Poetry Super Highway, The Society of Classical Poets Journal and many more.
Ann E. Michael
Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest collection is Abundance/Diminishment. Her book The Red Queen Hypothesis won the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Prize; she’s the author of Water-Rites (2012) and six chapbooks. She maintains a long-running blog at http://www.annemichael.blog
K. Alma Peterson
K. Alma Peterson is a graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She is the author of two books of poetry, published by Blaze Vox Books: Was There No Interlude when Light Sprawled the Fen; and The Last Place I Lived. She lives and writes and does abstract painting in Florida and in Minnesota.
Merril D. Smith
Merril D. Smith lives in southern New Jersey. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press.
Lisken Van Pelt Dus
Lisken Van Pelt Dus is an award-winning teacher of writing, languages, and martial arts, who lives, writes, and translates in western Massachusetts. Her poetry appears in many journals and anthologies, including recently Naugatuck River Review, Third Wednesday Magazine, and Sky Island Review. Recent translations can also be found in Epiphany. Books include What We’re Made Of (Cherry Grove 2016) and a chapbook, Letters to My Dead (Three Bunny Farms 2022).
Maggie Van Putten
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 writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her poems have been published in cool spots such as Gleam Journal, Rattle, NVN, and Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. She is the author of three books, Blame It on the Serpent (Finishing Line Press), Cactus as Bad Boy (Kelsay Books), and One of Them Was Mine (Kelsay Books). https://susanvespoli.com/
Sterling Warner
An award-winning author, poet, and emeritus English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in many international literary magazines, journals, and anthologies such asAnti-Heroin Chic, Gleam: The Journal of the Cadralor, The Ekphrastic Review, Sparks of Calliope and The Fib Review. Warner has written ten book of poetry, including Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Edges, Rags & Feathers, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems (2024), as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys boating and fishing in Washington. —as well as Masques:Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, he writes, turns wood, and hosts virtual poetry readings in Washington State.
Thomas Williams
Thomas Williams is a software engineer with a creative writing background. He recently audited a Poetry Workshop and rediscovered his love of writing, which he attributes to the workshop style used by Dr. Stephanie Dugger in this course. He recently discovered the cadralor form in a poetry reading with Joanna Grisham, a prior contributor to Gleam, and found the loose restrictiveness of the form compelling. He is also drawn to other forms, such as the ghazal and the tritina and sestina, as well as free verse.
Jon Yungkans
Jonathan Yungkans writes in the wee hours of what some call morning and others some mild form of insanity while listening for owls and watching a large skunk meander under the foundation of a century-old house. He is thankful when his writing is less noxious than the latter, jittery creature on the other side of those floorboards. He works as an in-home health-care provider, fueled by copious amounts of coffee while finding time for the occasional deep breath. His poems have appeared in Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Panoply, Unbroken and other publications.
Ready to write your own cadralor?
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 