Summer is officially here tomorrow and let the reading begin!  If you haven’t had time to peruse the contents of Walloon Writers Review Fourth Edition, featuring amazing writers and photography inspired by Northern Michigan and the UP, you are in for a treat!  We have an exciting and eclectic collection of poetry, short stories, an elegy, creative writing and beautiful  and interesting nature photography by talented contributors.

Included in our Fourth Edition is Tom Conlan, who we got to meet in person at the Local Authors Night event hosted by Petoskey’s McLean & Eakin Bookstore this winter.  Tom’s poem North Woods Dream opens our Fourth Edition.  He is a second time contributor to Walloon Writers Review:  his short story Black Fly is published in Volume 3.

Tom Conlan lives, writes and tends his grape vines in the highlands of Northern Michigan.  He has captained a Coast Guard Cutter, sailed the world’s lakes and oceans, and now searches for the elusive brook trout in backwater streams.  Tom’s prose has  appeared in print in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Issue #12, Tulip Tree Review, in the anthology The Water Holds No Scars, QU Literary Review and in Volume 3 of Walloon Writers Review.  (His) poetry has been included in The Avocet and Outlaw Poetry.   His work was chosen as a finalist for the Annie Dillard Prize in the Bellingham Review.

His lyrical memoir My Journey Begins Where The Road Ends…was released inn June, 2017 from Mission Point Press.  Tom attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and a Master of Science from the US Naval Postgraduate School of Monterrey, California.

Nancy Hirschenberger’s magical tale Why The Bull Elk Bugles captured our imagination and our hearts.  Nancy grew up on a farm near Flushing, Michigan.  She frequently traveled north to the family cabin near Atlanta, MI and experienced many adventures which shaped her love of nature.  One night in the Autumn, she experienced an amazing incident involving elk bugling.  This influenced her writing.

Nancy graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education.  After teaching Fifth Grade in Shepherd, MI for two years, she moved to Crooked Lake near Petoskey, where she and her husband resided with their two daughters and son.  She was a paraprofessional in the Petoskey Public Schools and obtained her Master’s degree in Reading.