2017 Rhysling Poets’ Showcase #19

Huzzah! Welcome to the Nineteenth 2017 Rhysling Poets Showcase, the penultimate post of this inaugural series to highlight the many talented nominees who appear in this year’s Rhysling Anthology.  But as all speculative writers know, endings are only beginnings: you can revisit the work of these exemplary poets in full—along with ALL of our uber-talented Rhysling nominees— in 2017 Rhysling Anthology, which will appear like magic in mailboxes (virtual or otherwise) of all SFPA members, and/or which can be purchased by anyone who so desires, in PDF or print formats, here.

With no further ado, please meet on our  next six Rhysling poets—and thank you for coming along on this journey with us.

• Kathleen A. Lawrence. • “Dorothy Delivered” • Altered Reality Magazine 1
• B.J. Lee • “Riding the Dark” • Frost Fire Worlds, February 2016
• Mary Soon Lee •  “First Lesson” • Silver Blade 30 •  “Not Like This” • Apex Magazine, August 2016 • “Returning” • The Open Mouse, May 6
• Sandi Leibowitz • “Im Wald” • Mythic Delirium 3.2
• Rose Lemberg • “The Ash Manifesto” • Strange Horizons, October 2016 •  “The Journeymaker to Keddar (II)” • Marginalia to Stone Bird (Aqueduct Press)

Kathleen A. Lawrence was born in Rochester—home of the Garbage Plate, Kodachrome, and Cab Calloway—and spent most of her youth in a plaid jumper.  She left briefly to get a pesky Ph.D., then returned to Central NY in 1992, where she has been an educator for 30 years – teaching Communication, Popular Culture, and Gender Studies at SUNY Cortland. Kathleen has had poems appear recently in the HIV Here & Now 2015-2016 poem-a-day countdown; two Prince memorial anthologies – A Prince Tribute from Yellow Chair Review and Delerious: A Poetic Celebration of Prince from NightBallet Press; The Muses’ Gallery on the Highland Park Poetry website; and the third issue of Crow Hollow 19.

B.J. Lee writes for both children and adults. Her speculative poems have been published in Frostfire Worlds, Beyond Centauri and Spellbound magazines. This is her 6^thRhysling nomination. She is also an award-winning children’s poet whose first picture book has recently been accepted for publication. She has over 80 poems published/forthcoming in children’s anthologies and magazines. Her children’s anthology credits includeThe National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry, The National Geographic’s United States of Poetry (2018) and One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown), and she is widely published in children’s magazines. In a former life, she was a music librarian at The Boston Conservatory. She enjoys singing jazz, drumming on the beach and photographing wildlife. She lives in Florida with herhusband and toy poodle. For more information, please see www.childrensauthorbjlee.com.

Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but now lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, two children, and two cats. Several poems from her 2016 Elgin-award winning collection, Crowned (part I of the epic story of King Xau, The Sign of the Dragon) may be read at thesignofthedragon.com, including “Interregnum”, winner of the 2014 Rhysling Award for the Long Poem.

Sandi Leibowitz is a classical singer, school librarian and friend to dragons. Her speculative poetry and fiction appear in Metaphorosis, Polu Texni, Not One of Us, Mithila Review and other magazines and anthologies. She has ridden in a hot-air balloon over the Rio Grande, traveled in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela and visited with Arthur in Avalon. She lives next door to bogles in a raven’s wood in New York City. She invites you to visit her at www.sandileibowitz.com.

Rose Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Lightspeed’s Queer Destroy Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny, and other venues. Rose’s work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Tiptree, Elgin, Rhysling, and Crawford awards. Their debut poetry collection, Marginalia to Stone Bird, is available from Aqueduct Press (2016). For a full bibliography, please visit http://roselemberg.net

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