Lindsey Martin-Bowen

James Benger has written a bunch of stuff. Some of it has even been published in print and on the interwebs. He is the resident slacker on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place, and is the most truant member of the Riverfront Readings Committee. He is also the admin of an online poetry workshop called 365 Poems in 365 Days, which has produced four anthologies and counting. He lives and Kansas City with his wife and children.Sarah Worrel works as a paraeducator and is a mother, a video gamer, and a bookworm. She co-authored her first and second books of poetry with James Benger: Misfits in the Front Row and Ravenous and Salivating. She also writes short stories that have been published in Coal City Review, James Gunn's Ad Astra, and the anthology The New Normal.On Halloween 2023, redbat books released Lindsey Martin-Bowen's seventh poetry book, CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison. Her poetry collection, Where Water Meets the Rock (39 WEST PRESS 2017) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, her CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison (in chapbook form) was a semi-finalist in the QuillsEdge Press 2015-2016 Chapbook Contest., and in 2017, it won the Kansas Writers Association award, "Looks Like a Million." In 2016, Writer's Digest gave her "Vegetable Linguistics" an Honorable Mention in its 85th Annual Contest. Her Inside Virgil's Garage (Chatter House Press 2013) was a runner-up in the 2015 Nelson Poetry Book Award, and a poem from it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. McClatchy Newspapers/The Kansas City Star named her Standing on the Edge of the World (Woodley Press/Washburn University) one of the Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. It was nominated for a Pen Award. Her poems have run in Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry, New Letters, I-70 Review, Thorny Locust, Tittynope Zine, Coal City Review, Amethyst Arsenic, Silver Birch Press, Flint Hills Review, Bare Root Review, The Same, Phantom Drift, Porter Gulch Review, Rockhurst Review, 21 anthologies, and other literary magazines. She taught at the University of Missouri- Kansas City 18 years, often concurrently at JCCC, MCC -Penn Valley, and MCC-Longview 25 years, and she taught writing, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and American Court Systems (online) for Blue Mountain College in Pendleton, Oregon (2019-2024), . She holds an MA from the University of Missouri and a Juris Doctor degree from the UMKC Law School. While teaching at UMKC and MCCU-Longview, she concurrently taught creative writing, World Literature, and other writing classes at MCCC--Penn Valley for (1993-2005) and Johnson County Community College (1988-2005.) In a previous life, she was a full-time newspaper reporter for The Louisville Times (Louisville, Colorado) and for The SUN Newspapers Johnson County, Kansas), an associate editor for Modern Jeweler Magazine and the Editor for The National Paralegal Reporter.

In today's world, actual money (i.e. cash) has become more of an existential concept."CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison offers a surreal cascade of archetypes from, among others, ancient Greece, the Bible, American Literature, and pop culture. Moving through it is the speaker's companion spirit and guru, Jim Morrison-Lizard King, Narcissus/Adonis. Set in a world where, in Albert Einstein's words, 'reality is merely an illusion, ' Lindsey Martin-Bowen's poems are alive with wit, evocative imagery, insight, and sometimes downright playfulness. Through heeding Morrison's counsel to 'go weirder, ' she's made this collection reader-friendly."-William Trowbridge, Missouri Poet Laureate, 2012-2016 Author, Call Me Fool (2022)"In Lindsey Martin-Bowen's CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison, I relish every word, compelled by the poet's stories and singing voice. Fantasy and fact merge in these invocations of the seminal American rocker Morrison and of his spirit. Join me as a reader in exploring this exciting testament to the power of language to resurrect history and wonder."-Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate, 2007-2009 Poetry Unbound Featured Poet

The Book of Frenzies reverberate with the ghosts of Kenneth Patchen and Kenneth Koch as the poet invents a universe of whimsical revelations. These poems powerfully reject ordinary logic, moving instead by sheer negative capability. Gritty and zany as an early Bob Dylan song, the poems delight, full of iguanas, crocodiles, and people living on the edge. Lindsey captures the absurdity of the bright light of our days and the deep darkness of our nights. Lindsey Martin-Bowen's comic, often moving, These poems powerfully reject ordinary logic, and I find myself indulging in the poet's lofty imagination. These poems paint pictures, sing songs, tell jokes, and sometimes cry over spilled milk, as they walk their fanciful tightrope in a pink taffeta tutu, smiling, but only for serious effect.

The Book of Frenzies reverberate with the ghosts of Kenneth Patchen and Kenneth Koch as the poet invents a universe of whimsical revelations. These poems powerfully reject ordinary logic, moving instead by sheer negative capability. Gritty and zany as an early Bob Dylan song, the poems delight, full of iguanas, crocodiles, and people living on the edge. Lindsey captures the absurdity of the bright light of our days and the deep darkness of our nights. Lindsey Martin-Bowen's comic, often moving, These poems powerfully reject ordinary logic, and I find myself indulging in the poet's lofty imagination. These poems paint pictures, sing songs, tell jokes, and sometimes cry over spilled milk, as they walk their fanciful tightrope in a pink taffeta tutu, smiling, but only for serious effect.