SpokenWordBios

Spoken Word Artists

Fred McBagonluri (October 4, 2009) Fred is a Director of R&D at BD Medical. Fred
graduated from Central State University, Wilberforce, OH with a BS in Manufacturing
Engineering (summa cum laude) in 1996 and holds an MS and PhD from Virginia
Tech and University of Dayton, respectively. He has published extensively in
technical journals, conference proceedings and book chapters and has over 26 US
and European patent applications in the areas of advanced imaging technologies and
hearing instruments design. Fred is the 2008 recipient of the Black Engineer of the
Year: Most Promising Scientist, 2008 NJBiz Healthcare Innovator Hero Awards and
2009 Astronaut Candidate Finalist. He is the author of three novels: (A) Woman to
Marry, Dusk Recitals and When Tears Stand Still.
www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=54064919759&ref=ts

Deborah Ager (September 13, 2009) Her first book, Midnight Voices, was published
in 2009. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2006, New
South, and The Georgia Review. She's received fellowships from the MacDowell
Colony, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and is a 2009 Walter E. Dakin fellow at the
Sewanee Writers' Conference. She is founding editor of 32 Poems Magazine
(www.32poems.com). Many poems first appearing in 32 Poems have been honored
in the Best American Poetry and Best New Poets anthologies and on Verse Daily
and Poetry Daily. www.deborahager.com

Jessica G. de Koninck (November 1, 2009) Her first collection Repairs, a series of
poems about loss, was published by Finishling Line Press. Among numerous
journals and anthologies, her poems appear in print in The Ledge, Bridges, the
Paterson Literary Review, the Edison Literary Review and US 1 Worksheets and
on-line in The Valparaiso Poetry Review and elsewhere. She has been nominated for
a Pushcart Prize. A former Councilwoman and resident of Montclair, New Jersey,
she is pursuing an MFA at Stonecoast. Also an attorney, Jessica is counsel to the
South Orange and Maplewood Public Schools.

Linda Radice (December 6, 2009) is a poet and essayist, and has had her work
published numerous journals and anthologies. She is the second place recipient of
the 2007 Allen Ginsberg Award, and Honorable Mention in 2008. She is a member of
the Fanwood Arts Council, and assistant director of the Baron Arts Center Poets
Wednesday reading series. She works by day to keep the lights on, and is a furious
scribner by night in the home she shares with her husband Sam and a cat named
Shakespeare. She owes her writer/poet friends and mentors her undying gratitude,
and never forgets how blessed she is to have them in her life.
lindaradice.blogspot.com

Farrah Field's (February 7, 2010) poems have appeared numerous publications,
including Pebble Lake Review, Mississippi Review, Margie, Chelsea, The
Massachusetts Review, Harpur Palate, and Pool, and are forthcoming in Sojourn and
Another Chicago Magazine. Her first book of poems "Rising" won the 2007 Levis
Poetry Prize from Four Way Books. She teaches high school in New York City.
www.cortlandreview.com/issue/37/field.html

Joan Cusack Handler (March 7, 2010), psychologist, publisher and poet,
embodies a commitment to disseminating the arts. Co-Founder and Director of
Presenting Poetry & Prose, a literary reading series, she has extensive experience
reading and teaching creative writing workshops. A member of the resident faculty of
The Robert Frost Place Poetry Festival in Franconia, NH, she is also founder,
publisher and editor-in-chief of CavanKerry Press, a not for profit literary press that
serves both art and community. Her poems have appeared in Agni, The Boston
Review, Poetry East, Southern Humanities Review, and The New York Times, and
in her collections GlOrious and The Red Canoe: Love in Its Making. Five times
nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her essay, "Poems and the Psyche: The Threat
of Making Art, One Writer's Journey" addresses these issues and appeared in
Tampa Review in Spring, 07. www.joancusackhandler.com

Tom Plante (April 11, 2010) Tom grew up on Long Island in East Rockaway, NY.
After a couple false starts at college, Tom traveled to the West Coast, where he
earned a B.A. in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley. Tom
published a literary magazine, Berkeley Works, and labored in the wholesale book
business before moving to New Jersey in 1986. He continued his journalistic work
with the Irish Echo in New York City, the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times, and the
Courier News in Bridgewater, NJ. In 1996, he was awarded a first prize for editorial
writing by the New Jersey Press Association. Since 1988, Tom has edited EXIT 13
Magazine, an annual journal of poetry that he publishes in Fanwood, New Jersey.
As an editor, he has participated in a variety of festivals and workshops, including
the Union County Teen Arts Festival, the Long Branch Poetry Festival, the Walt
Whitman Poetry Festival in Ocean Grove, and the annual Celebration of New
Jersey's Literary Journals held in West Caldwell. Tom is a co-director of the
Fanwood Arts Council. The most recent collection of his poetry is My Back
Yardstick (CC Marimbo Communications, Berkeley, 1998).