Issue One – Author Biographies

I asked the authors to send me auto-biographies.  
Here's what they sent me.

Andrew Pack

"Andrew Pack knows how to make Absinthe ice-cream. When he is not writing to Jerry and Ben in Vermont, he writes stupid but diverting fiction at abctales.com and it remains his life-long ambition to direct a gangster movie starring Tommy Steele in the lead."

Jo Valdes

"As diverse as my background (Spanish, German, French and I'm sure a bit of who-knows-what) my photos tend to capture the diversity of the world around us that we usually miss as we go about our usual hectic days.  A candid look from a stranger, a moment of rest for a street performer, a shot of the sky you missed as you walked with your eyes to the ground; whatever the random moment, I try to freeze those events that most will miss and which I hope to remember through my lens.

More diverse than my family background is my list of studies and hobbies.  Currently in graduate school for mass communication in the States (no worries, I'm not voting for Bush), I received my undergraduate degree in art history, minored in fine arts and journalism;  worked as a dancer, writer, curator and artist and am now concentrating on work as a freelance writer and photographer. Feel free to email me if interested in my work MARIEL80@msn.com "

Shane Allison

"Shane Allison poems have appeared in countless e-zines, magazines and anthologies such as Absinthe
Literary Review, Plum Ruby Review, Tattoo Highway, Suspect Thoughts, Velvet Mafia, Mind Caviar, Coal City Review, Mississippi Review, New Delta Review, Blind Man's Rainbow, can we have our ball back?, Surgery of Modern Warfare and many others. His books "Black Fag" (Future Tense Press), and "Cock and Balls" (Feel Free Press) are out. He has a story forthcoming in Best Black Gay Erotica this winter from Cleis Press. The poet Jarret Keene is in his will."

Abi Hirschmann

"Abi Hirschmann has had work published in the poetry anthology 'Of Wider Things' (1998), exhibited "Travelling Without Packing" a multimedia work (2000), written and performed for perfomance poetry duo Abi Hirshmann + Steve Skinner (2001-2). She is a community artist and sexual health educator. She is currently designing kites."

Jane Alexander

"Currently studying for an M.Phil in creative writing at Glasgow University and working at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. Has published poems and short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and is working on a first novel set in the Highlands. Inspired by steel guitars and songs about love, god and murder."

Swindon Ocotal Link

"These recipes were taken from SOL’s Nicaraguan recipe book. SOL is a charitable organisation linking the communities of Swindon (England) and Ocotal (Nicaragua). For more information or to order a recipe book please visit www.swindonocotal-link.org ."

James Paul Wallis (editor)

"It's hard now to remember how the idea of the Orphan Leaf Review came. 

In part from discussing Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night, a Traveller... with friends. Their desire to read the message of the whole made me reflect on my love of the orphan chapters as discrete glimpses of narrative. 

On the other hand, I've always had a love of the snapshot, the atmospheric moment. It's a habit of mine to scribble down images that occur, such as "carrying a boat across dunes, then meeting the water: the weight suddenly gone". These I always took to be song ideas (they've never been written).  Perhaps each was in fact a nascent orphan leaf.

I live in Bristol, England."