EDITORIAL REPUBLIC (WordCity Monthly)
SYLVIA PETTER (WordCity Fiction Editor)
Vienna born Australian Sylvia Petter trained as a translator in Vienna and Brussels. Founding member of the Geneva Writers´ Group. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from UNSW (2009). Her stories have appeared online and in print since 1995, notably in The European (UK), Thema (US), The Richmond Review, Eclectica, Reading for Real series (Canada), the anthology, Valentine´s Day, Stories of Revenge (Duckworth, UK), on BBC World Service, as well as in several charity anthologies, and flash-fiction publications.Her latest book of short fiction, Geflimmer der Vergangenheit (Riva Verlag, Germany, 2014), includes 21 stories drawn from her English-language collections, The Past Present (IUMIX, UK, 2001), Back Burning (IP Australia, Best Fiction Award 2007), and Mercury Blobs (Raging Aardvark, Australia, 2013), and translated into German by Eberhard Hain, Chemnitz. She has led flash fiction workshops in Vienna and Gascony, France.Writing as AstridL, several erotic stories appeared in anthologies in the US (Alyson Books) and the UK (Xcite) and subsequently in her collection of 17 erotic tales, Consuming the Muse, (Raging Aardvark, Australia, 2013.)In 2014, she organized in Vienna the 13th International Conference on the Short Story in English. In March 2020, her debut novel, All the Beautiful Liars was published as a Lightning Bolt eBook by Eye & Lightning Books, UK. In July, 2020, she served on the jury for English-language flash fiction for the Vienna Poetry School’s second literary magazine to be issued in October.Sylvia works part-time at the University of Vienna in education science, and blogs on her website at www.sylviapetter.com where there is more on her and her writing.
NANCY NDEKE (WordCity Poetry Editor)
Clinics Moderator.
Nancy Ndeke is a multi-genre writer. She writes poetry , hybrid essays , reviews , commentary and memoir.Ndeke is widely published with four collection of her full writings Soliama Legacy, Lola- Logue , Musical Poesy and May the Force be With you. She has recently collaborated with a Scotland based Writer and Musical Artist Dr. Gameli Tordzro of Glasgow University on the Poetry Collection Mazungumzo ya Shairi and also co-authored poetry anthology ,I was lost but now am found with USA Poet Renee Drummond -Brown . She contributes her writings to the Atunis Galaxy Poetry ( Belgium), TUJIPANGE AFRICA( Kenya, USA), Ramingo Porch, Africa Writers Caravan , WOMAWORD Literary Press, BeZine for Arts and Humanities( USA). Andinkra Links 5. Wild Fire Publication ,Williwash Press , The poet by day webzine ,Writers Escape at Poetry Different Truths , ARCS PROSE POETRY . Nancy Ndeke also works a literary arts consultant , Copyeditor and Writers Clinics Moderator.
JANE SPOKENWORD (Word City Interviews Editor)
Street poet Jane SpokenWord’s performances represent the spoken word as it is meant to be experienced, raw, uncensored and thought provoking. From solos, to slams, duo’s, trios, and bands, including a big band performance at The Whitney Museum with Avant-Garde Maestro Cecil Taylor which garnered All About Jazz’s Best of 2016. Other collaborations include: Min Tanaka, Miguel Algarin, Beat Poet John Sinclair, her son HipHop musician/producer DJ Nastee, and her partner in all things Albey onBass. Combining the elements of spoken word, music, sound and song “Like those of the Jazz poets, the Beats, The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and others – she is usually accompanied by Albey onBass Balgochian’s moaning, groaning, rumbling contrabass – adding double the gut-punch to her words.” (Raoul daGama) To preserve the cultural heritage of wording to document life, and foster a broader collective community, she brings her poetry and spoken word to a diverse set of venues including museums, festivals, libraries, slam lounges, art galleries, clubs, busking street corners and living rooms everywhere. She has authored two books of poetry with art and music by co-author Albey onBass: Word Against the Machine and Tragically Hip. Publications include: TV Baby A collection of Lower East Side artists – OHWOW, Shadow of The Geode, Bonsia Press, Stars in the Fire and Palabras Luminosas – Rogue Scholars Express and We Are Beat the National Beat Poetry Anthology.
GERALDINE SINYUY (Critical Reviews and Commentary Editor)
Cameroonian born Dr. Sinyuy Geraldine earned her PhD in Commonwealth Literature from the University of Yaoundé in 2018. Dr Sinyuy started writing poems in her teens and most of her poems and folktales were read and discussed on the North West Provincial Station of the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) Bamenda where she was often a guest writer for the programme: Literary Workshop: A Programme for Creative Writing and Literary Criticism. Sinyuy Geraldine has had the following awards; Featured Storyteller on World Pulse Story Awards, May 2017; Prize of Excellence as Best Teacher of the Year in CETIC Bangoulap, Bangangte, 23 October, 2010; Winner of the British Council Essay Writing Competition, Yaoundé, 2007; Winner of Short Story Runner-Up Prize, Literary Workshop: CRTV Bamenda, 1998. Her publications include: “Stripped” FemAsia: Asian Women’s Journal; “Invisble Barriers: Food Taboos in V. S. Naipaul and Samuel Selvon.” Tabous: Représentations, Functions et Impacts; “Migration related malnutrition among war-instigated refugee children in the northern part of Cameroon.” South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition; “Cultural Translocation in Three Novels of V. S. Naipaul.” International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities. Vol. IV, Issue XII; “Journey without End: A Closer Look at V. S. Naipaul’s Fiction.” International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities. Vol. IV, Issue IV; “Which Other Way? Migration and Ways of Seeing in V. S. Naipaul.” Migration, Culture and Transnational Identities: Critical Essays. Some of her poems are featured on Time of the Poet Republic; Africa Writers Caravan; For Creative Girls Magazine; and Fired Up Magazine.. She is currently working on her collection of folktales and her first novel.
OLGA STEIN (Creative Non -Fiction Editor)
Olga Stein holds a PhD in English, and is a university and college instructor. She has taught writing, communications, modern and contemporary Canadian and American literature. Her research focuses on the sociology of literary prizes. A manuscript of her book, The Scotiabank Giller Prize: How Canadian is now with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Stein is working on her next book, tentatively titled, Wordly Fiction: Literary Transnationalism in Canada. Before embarking on a PhD, Stein served as the chief editor of the literary review magazine, Books in Canada, and from 2001 to 2008 managed the amazon.com-Books in Canada First Novel Award (now administered by Walrus magazine). Stein herself contributed some 150 reviews, 60 editorials, and numerous author interviews to Books in Canada (the online version is available online at http://www.booksincanada.com). A literary editor and academic, Stein has relationships with writers and scholars from diverse communities across Canada, as well as in the US. Stein is interested in World Literature, and authors who address the concerns that are now central to this literary category: the plight of migrants, exiles, and the displaced, and the ‘unbelonging’ of Indigenous peoples and immigrants. More specifically, Stein is interested in literary dissidents, and the voices of dissent, those who challenge the current political, social, and economic status quo. Stein is the editor of the memoir, Playing Under The Gun: An Athlete’s Tale of Survival in 1970s Chile by Hernán E. Humaña.
LORI D ROADHOUSE (Word City Consulting Editor)
Lori D. Roadhouse is a Calgary poet, writer, aphorist and singer. She has been a member and supporter of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society, the Red Mile Revenge poets, Passion Pitch Poetry and the Magpie Haiku Poets. She co-created the 2003 Writing Toward the Light Poetry Contest/Poetry Concert.Since 2007, Lori has been a Board member of the Single Onions Poetry Series. From 2008 – 2010 she was co-artistic director, performer and MC of Lotus Land at South Country Fair.She was the 2009 Poet in Residence for Radiant Lights eMagazine. She is a featured reader at a number of poetry and spoken word events and radio programs. She has been published in a variety of anthologies, magazines, newsletters, websites and CDs. Her recent publications include: Tap Press Read by the Calgary Public Library and Loft 112; POP YYC, the project of Calgary’s recent Poet Laureate, Sheri-D Wilson; The Time of the Poet Republic, curated by Darcie Friesen Hossack and envisioned by Mbizo Chirasha; and the upcoming (M)othering Anthology, to be published by Inanna Publications in 2021.
CURATORIAL REPUBLIC
DARCIE FREISEN HOSSACK (Associate Editor and Special Projects Curator)
Darcie Friesen Hossack is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. Her short story collection, Mennonites Don’t Dance, was a runner-up for the Danuta Glede Award, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading Evergreen Award for Adult Fiction. Citing irreverence, the book was banned by the LA Crete Public Library in Northern Alberta.Having mentored with Giller finalists Sandra Birdsell (The Russlander) and Gail Anderson Dargatz (Spawning Grounds, The Cure for Death by Lightening), DARCIE is now completing her first novel where, for a family with a Seventh-day Adventist father and a Mennonite mother, the End Times are just around the corner. DARCIE is also a four time judge of the Whistler Independent Book Awards, and a career food writer. She lives in Northern Alberta, Canada, with her husband, a chef.
MBIZO CHIRASHA (REPUBLIC Founder AND Curator)
FREEDOM Voices PRIZE JURY MEMBERS
