2014 Bill Holm Co-Winner, Katharyn Howd Machin
Katharyn Howd Machan, Professor of Writing at Ithaca College, holds degrees from the College of Saint Rose, the University of Iowa, and Northwestern University. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines; in anthologies and textbooks such as The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Poetry: An Introduction, Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now, Sound and Sense, Writing Poems, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience; and in 32 collections, most recently Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox (Finishing Line Press, 2014), H (Gribble Press, 2014—national winner) and When She’s Asked to Think of Colors (Palettes & Quills Press, 2009—national winner). Former director of the national Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, Inc., in 2012 she edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press).
Jeanine Stevens studied poetry in the Creative Writing Program at U.C. Davis and has an MA in Anthropology. She is the recipient of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, and a finalist for the William Stafford Award. She has other first place awards from Ekphrasis, The Bay Area Poet’s Coalition and Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference. Her work has appeared in Evansville Review, Poet Lore, North Dakota Review, Pearl, Sentinel Quarterly, Bardsong, and Cider Press Review. She is the author of Sailing on Milkweed, Cherry Grove Collections. Her latest chapbook, Needle in the Sea, was published by Tiger’s Eye Press. Besides writing, Jeanine enjoys collage, Tai Chi, Romanian folk dance, and hiking in the Sierras. She was raised in Indiana and now lives in Sacramento and Lake Tahoe with her husband, photographer Greg Czalpinski.
Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art. You can find out more about Joan at