Table of Contents


Views and Mechanics
Publisher's Note
Editor's Note
Review of The Pittsburgh That Stays Within You
Review of If Instead of Apes We Had Come from Grapes
Review of Anson County
Review of Dissolution of Ghosts
Crossword
(Solution Posted in July. Printable version in pdf format of journal.)
Mar/Apr Crossword Solution
Creative Nonfiction
1998
By Samuel Hazo
Booing the Pope
By Matthew D. Taylor
Sgt. Robert Starbuck, USMC: Elegy and Essay
By John Guthrie
Shrink Wrap, Diet Cokes and a Kazoo
By Sara J. Ford
Poetry
And the Time Is
By Samuel Hazo
In His Winter
By Wanda D. Campbell
Lester
By Thomas Reynolds
Generation Gap
By Valerie Lauria Stanske
Two Poets
By Gary C. Wilkens
Mongolia, 1930
By Gary C. Wilkens
Fiction
A Death in the Family
By John Speeking
Letters
By Suzanne Abbot
Among the Briars
By Pat Tompkins
Filling in the Angles
By Jessica DelBalzo
Miss Mary
By Beth L. Block
Cover Art
Photography by Seth Brown
About the Contributors

© 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission.

River Walk Journal, Inc.
Board of Directors

Chairman - Elizabeth Ross
Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch
Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross
Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA
Literacy Director - Bill Mausteller
Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs
Advisory Board
Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA
Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD
Samuel Hazo
Christopher Leland
Edwin Yoder
Joseph Bathanti
Journal Staff
Publisher - Elizabeth Ross
Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch
Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz
Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra
Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe
Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman
Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross

For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/submission.html.

Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org.

River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/volunteer.html.

Contributors' Bios

Samuel Hazo - The author of books of poetry, fiction, essays and plays, Samuel Hazo is the Director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he also is McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University. He has been a National Book Award finalist and received the Maurice English Poetry Prize in 2003. He was chosen the first State Poet of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by Governor Robert Casey in 1993.

Matthew D. Taylor - Matthew D. Taylor is a 38-year-old freelance writer, living and writing in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife and two children. His day job is in Washington, DC, with a legal publisher. He has lived in Maryland for 10 years, formerly residing in Vermont and California.

John Guthrie - John R. Guthrie is a student in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Antioch, Los Angeles. He spent four years as a US Marine (enlisted, infantry rifleman) early on, then garnered a formal education and practiced as a family physician in the Smoky Mountain foothills of Appalachia for years. His work (non-fiction, poetry and fiction) has appeared in publications to include The Watermark Literary Magazine, LEATHERNECK; the Magazine of the Marines, The Blue Collar Review, The Worcester Review, the Milford Daily News and POINT: South Carolina’s Independent Political Magazine as well as in other publications in the US and abroad. He lives with his Russian-born wife and eleven-year-old son in Simi Valley, CA.

Sara J. Ford - Sara J. Ford lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her partner and two boys. She teaches English at Inver Hills Community college. She is the author of Gertrude Stein and Wallace Stevens: the Performance of Modern Consciousness, (Routledge, 2002) and a handful of literary reference essays. She is currently working a book entitled Apparently I Know Who Satan Is: My Fight Against Maturity and Other Irritating Social Norms.

Wanda D. Campbell

Thomas Reynolds - Thomas D. Reynolds received an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University, currently teaches at Johnson County Community College, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, The MacGuffin, and The Pedestal Magazine. Woodley Press of Washburn University will soon publish his first full-length poetry collection, Ghost Town Almanac.

Valerie Lauria Stanske - Valerie Lauria Stanske, is 40 and lives in Shelton Connecticut with her husband and two young children. She is a fine artist and holds a Master's Degree in Art Education. She writes poetry and short stories.

Gary C. Wilkens - Gary Charles Wilkens studies in the MA in English program at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He works as a teaching assistant while actively pursuing a career as a poet and creative writing teacher. Past poems have appeared in The Texas Review and The Adirondack Review.

John Speeking - John Speeking works in Information Technology. He also worked in Geology in Africa, Canada, the US, and Mexico.

Suzanne Abbot - Suzanne Abbot received her BA in Business from the College of William and Mary and her MBA from the University of Oregon. She didn’t begin writing fiction until she and her husband sold their travel gear business, a graduate school project turned real world venture, and had their first child. Now living in Pittsburgh with her husband and two sons, she has authored a dozen short stories, two children’s books, and is currently finishing her second screenplay.

Pat Tompkins - Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her short stories and poems have appeared in flashquake, E2K, the Copperfield Review, AntiMuse, and other online publications. She has also had two nonfiction books for children published.

Jessica DelBalzo - Jessica Del Balzo is currently a student at Emerson College in Boston, but is from New Jersey. She has won several awards and had her work published in several online literary magazines, the most recent being Thieves Jargon.

Beth L. Block - Beth is an attorney and high school history teacher. She is also a self-taught musician and singer/songwriter. Her work has appeared in Cautionarytale, Red Booth Review, Pemmican Press, Identity Theory (Editor's Choice), The Dogwood Journal, Doorknobs & Bodypaint, Long Story Short, and is forthcoming in Simply Haiku, PEARL Magazine and Amarillo Bay. Many of Beth's haikus are published in the anthology, Across The Long Bridge.

Seth Brown - Seth is a 23-year-old liberal photographer/artist/musician from Irwin, PA.