Table of Contents


Views and Mechanics
Publisher's Note
Editor's Note
Review of Coventry
Review of Virginity Or Death!
Review of Imperial Reckoning
Poetry
Politico
By Beth L. Block
Peonies
By Natasha S. Garnett
A Foreigner in the Street
By Tony Zurlo
Sand Hill Cranes and Other Eccentricities
By Jaqueline Powers
On Sleepless Nights
By Joy Harold Helsing
I Don't Want To Be Hughes
By Joe Koch
Fiction
Baseball Games and One-Eared Cats
By Pete Laffin
Beige
By Dawn Merrow
Geezer Cage
By Scott W. Alten
Sandlot
By J. Conrad Guest
Dinosaurs and Barbie Dolls
By Michelle McMahon
Burlesque Show
By Stanley P. Anderson
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 - Vacant
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
Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster
Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross

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Contributors' Bios

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

Natasha S. Garnett - Natasha S. Garnett writes poetry, fiction, and essays at home in Connecticut. She is the wife of one, and mother of four. When she is not wrestling at the keyboard, she likes reading, running, playing tennis, and walking the dog.

Tony Zurlo - Tony taught in Nigeria with the Peace Corps in his careless youth. His quest to repel middle age routed him through China. There his students convinced him he'd accumulated too much negative karma in his previous life as a corrupt Qing Dynasty official. So his punishment was reincarnation as an American trapped in Texas. To conceal from editors his age, gender, size, race, religion, politics, and other private predispositions, Tony survives folded up in a back room in Arlington, Texas, working on Alice in Cyberland, his anxiously-awaited history about 21st century American foreign policy.

Jaqueline Powers - Jacqueline Powers’ work has been published in anwehaveourballback, [plug].poetry, Delirium Journal, kaleidowhirl, Poesia, Chronogram, California Quarterly, Blood Orange Review and Storyglossia. Her play, “Swimming Upstream,” was produced in Ithaca, N.Y.

Joy Harold Helsing

Pete Laffin - Pete Laffin is a senior at SUNY New Paltz, majoring in philosophy. He's 23 years old and started writing stories about a year ago.

Dawn Merrow - Dawn Merrow is somewhere in-between amateur and up-and-comer. With a self-published compilation of her poetry and shorts available online, Merrow is starting to take steps toward making this legit. She's nineteen years old, lives in LaVergne Tennessee, but grew up in New England surrounded by snow and Robert Frost references. She'd like to do her home region some credit with this writing thing.

Scott W. Alten - Scott Alten lives and teaches English in southern New Jersey. He has been featured in the 2005 Poetry is Alive Festival and has had work previously published in the Margie Review (Sept. 2006).

J. Conrad Guest - J. Conrad Guest’s writing credentials include January’s Paradigm, first published in 1998 by Minerva Press, London, England. He recently completed One Hot January and has commenced work on January’s Thaw, the third book in the January series. Several of his short stories and non-fiction pieces have appeared on Internet publications, including Cezanne’s Carrot, Saucy Vox, River Walk Journal and Redbridge Review. Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine published Guest’s Mother’s Day: Coming to Terms with the Cruelty of Parkinson’s, a memoir chronicling his mother’s battle against Parkinson’s. J. Conrad Guest also provides manuscript evaluation and editorial services at j.c.guest@att.net, and is on the editorial staff at insolent rudder as well as fiction editor for The Smoking Poet.

Michelle McMahon

Stanley P. Anderson - Stanley P. Anderson has been writing poetry and fiction for about 35 years, has published poetry in various literary journals, including Whole Notes, descant, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Kansas Quarterly, Forgotten Ground Regained, The Raintown Review, Contemporary Rhyme, and Prairie Poetry, and have published flash fiction in VerbSap. He has worked as an editor for the United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, since 1974. Anderson has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland, is married and has three sons.