Memoir Pat Sylvia, Editor

MARY BONINA

Mary Bonina has published poetry, memoir, and fiction in literary magazines and on-line journals. She is the author of Living Proof, a chapbook of poetry from Cervena Barva Press (2007) and widely published in literary magazines. Bonina received a full fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center and has also been a fellow since 2002 at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where she was named first alternate for the Goldfarb Family Fellowship in non-fiction. She holds an M.F.A. from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

READ: from MY FATHER’S EYES: A MEMOIR >>

DAVID J. BOOKBINDER

David J. Bookbinder was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1951. At age 6, inspired by the launching of Sputnik, he imagined himself a future space scientist and spent his first year of college at Cornell as an engineering student. In the '70s, he worked in a semi-professional capacity as a reporter and photojournalist. After a long hiatus, he has resumed writing and photography, and has also re-invented himself as a mental health counselor.

David now lives in Beverly, Massachusetts. He has published four non-fiction books and hopes to eventually complete and publish a memoir about coming back from a near-death experience. As a therapist, Bookbinder works primarily with artists, children, and people with addictive behaviors. His photographic accomplishments include a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for his work with mandala-like images derived from flower photographs. He currently runs a blog on the spirituality portal Beliefnet.com (http://blog.beliefnet.com/flowermandalas),where he hopes to promote the use of art as a means for healing and personal transformation -- the primary purposes it has served for him.

Read ELECTROCUTING THE ANTS >>