Artemis Speaks Jeri Rogers

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), Fire Is Your Water (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. His work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Artemis Journal, Orion, Shenandoah, Appalachian Journal, Wind, and The Sun. He serves as co-editor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel. 

Minick’s honors include the Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian Writing and the Fred Chappell Fellowship at UNC-Greensboro. Minick has also won awards from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association, Southern Environmental Law Center, The Virginia College Bookstore Association, Appalachian Writers Association, Radford University, and elsewhere. His poem “I Dream a Bean” was picked by Claudia Emerson for permanent display at the Tysons Corner/Metrorail Station. He’s garnered grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Augusta University, the Georgia Humanities Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
His newest book, The Intimacy of Spoons explores the many metaphors of the spoon: from love and marriage to the spoon of a grave that holds our bodies; from the darkness of loss and night, where “the Big Dipper is nothing but / the oldest spoon pointing us home”; to the darkness of lungs transformed into art. The poems cover a wide variety of topics—cultural, political, familial, and natural—and always, underlying these poems is the song of birds—with broken wings or clear voices, avian muses filling our forests now or long gone. There are nods to Basho and Thoreau, to Eliot and Frost, Dickinson and Milton, this last, a long poem that retells the story of Adam and Eve from the point of view of Mal, the apple. Likewise, The Intimacy of Spoons shares a variety of forms, from sonnet, sestina, and villanelle to syllabics, lyrics, and a ballad. At the center of the book is the long poem, “Elegy for My Body,” which uses wordplay and contrasting voices to explore mortality, because “You can’t really do time; / it simply does us, / or undoes us, / us beings in the time being being beings / on Times Squared / waiting for the big ball to fall.” The poems of The Intimacy of Spoons return us to everyday stories and objects, common yet profound.

Sarah EK Muse, a native Virginian, is an award-winning artist, jewelry designer, and goldsmith known for her exquisite bespoke jewels that celebrate personal narratives and strengthen connections to the past, present, and future. 

Serving as the backdrop for her inspirations, her private atelier, Studio 12, formerly a two-stall stable, is nestled in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, where she plays with dreamy gemstones and the finest metals. You can also find her meditating in the woods or growing food in her organic garden, hanging with her chickens, or cozied up to a fire with a good book.
With over 25 years of experience making fine jewelry, Sarah’s ability to infuse soulful sentiment and style into her bespoke pieces sets her apart. She ensures that each jewel speaks directly to the heart of its wearer. Working hand in hand with her clientele, she creates a personal connection to design pieces that transcend the ordinary, weaving their story into an exceptional artistic vision and future heirloom.

https://sarahmuse.com/

Michele Evans, a fifth-generation Washingtonian (D.C.), is a poet, writer, high school English teacher, and adviser for her school's literary magazine, Unbound. Before becoming an educator, Michele Evans studied at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts; King’s College in London, England; and the Graduate School at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. This 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of The ASP Bulletin poetry contest has been published in Artemis, The Write Launch, Tangled Locks, Sky Island Journal, Maryland Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poem "anticlea" won first place in the 2023 ASP Bulletin poetry contest sponsored by Alan Squire Publishing. purl, her debut collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. You can find her at www.awordsmithie.com or @awordsmithie on Instagram.


"Working in a school system is “heart” work. You keep our students at the center of every conversation, decision, and in everything you do. You know every student by name and by need and go above and beyond to provide students with what they need to succeed."
Dr.  White, Roanoke City schools

Linda Atkinson is a sculptor living and working in Botetourt County.  She taught art history for 21 years at Virginia Western Community College, as well as studio courses for University /Santa Cruz, Hollins College,  Roanoke College, and Radford University among others.  Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta.  She spent 15 years in California and taught sculpture and 3-D design at the University of California/Santa Cruz.  “I believe that the artist is an envoy of the human spirit whose job it is to reestablish the “enchanted” dimensions at the core of human existence—poetry, myth, passion, imagination, true love, magic, the marvelous, dreams.”


linda.atkinson111@gmail.com

A. J. Gnuse is the bestselling author of Girl in the Walls, published in 2021. 
He received an MFA in fiction from UNC Wilmington, and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, Gulf Coast, Literary Hub, Los Angeles Review, and other venues. 
A native of New Orleans, he lives in Texas, where he is a literary co-editor of Artemis Journal alongside his wife, Donnie Secreast.

“The novel begins as an eerie meditation on grief, family dysfunction, and things that go bump in the night. But about halfway through, Gnuse’s masterfully crafted slow burn ignites into a hair-raising thriller that is as unnerving as it is unexpected.”
            - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Girl in the Walls poses the question — how well do we really know where we live? . . . Gnuse tugs the seemingly insignificant into the spotlight and holds it there. He makes the forgotten and easily brushed-away threads of the story crystal clear while entwining a narrative of growing up and learning to live with, while not clinging to trauma. It is a story focused on the psychological without prescribing itself as such; it entertains while providing a mirror to analyze the fears that make us leave our lights on just a little bit longer each night.”
            - Southern Review of Books 

The Moss Center in Blacksburg, Virginia presented a live performance and historic collaboration between renowned poet and Virginia Tech legend Nikki Giovanni and saxophonist-composer and former Jazz Messenger Javon Jackson. Their collaboration for over a year has yielded the CD The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni.

For an intimate jazz performance, Jackson brought his bold-toned, Trane-inspired tenor lines to bear on a series of hymns, spirituals, and gospel numbers hand-picked by Giovanni. The live performance also included jazz singer, Nnenna Freelon. This collaboration with Nikki Giovanni produced Jackson's fifth album for his Solid Jackson Records label. 

With a remarkable career as a Jazz saxophonist, Jackson released a potent tribute to a towering influence, Celebrating John Coltrane. His inaugural release on Solid Jackson Records featured the venerable drummer and former Coltrane collaborator Jimmy Cobb. He followed later in 2012 with Lucky 13, which featured the great soul-jazz keyboardist Les McCann and included a mellow instrumental rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry' Bout a Thing" along with a version of McCann's 1969 hit, "Compared to What." 

That same remarkably productive year, Jackson received the prestigious Benny Golson Award from Howard University in Washington, D.C., for recognition of excellence in jazz. Jackson's debut on the Smoke Sessions label, 2014's Expression, was a live quartet recording from the Smoke Jazz & Supper Club in Upper Manhattan. 

https://javonjackson.com/