Gean Tree Press

EDITORIAL TEAM

Lorin Ford writes haiku and longer poems from her tumbling-down C19 worker’s cottage home in Brunswick, Victoria [Australia]. Much of Lorin's early childhood was spent on the foreshore and beach of a Melbourne bay-side suburb. From age nine she lived with her father, who ran the pub in a small East Gippsland timber town. She left school early, at fourteen, preferring a ‘glamorous’ career in hairdressing to her year 9 correspondence lessons. Later, she received an Honours degree in English Literature and a Dip. Ed. and subsequently taught high school English and ESL. She has remained an eternal student, enjoying her discovery of new aspects of the world, and of poetry, especially.

Lorin’s haiku have been widely published in Australian and overseas journals and anthologies. Though she has not entered international competitions, she was awarded 1st prize in the 6th and 7th paper wasp Jack Stamm awards, in 2005 and 2006. Some of her work is anthologised on haiku dreaming australia:  http://haikudreamingaustralia.info/.

Her first haiku collection, a wattle seedpod, has received excellent reviews and is available through the publishers, PostPressed, at

http://www.postpressed.com.au/

or alternatively contact Lorin herself.

H. Gene Murtha, a naturalist and poet, was born on October 19, 1955 under the sign of Libra in Philadelphia, Pa. He has won or placed high in a number of haikai contest around the world. Gene sponsored and judged the first haiku contest for the inner city children of Camden, NJ., for the Virgilio Group, of which he is an lifetime member. With renku partners Bill (Wm. J.) Higginson and Paul MacNeil, he is co-inventor of the single-words shisan renku entitled, Cobweb. His memberships include the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, Mad Poets Society, The Haiku Society of America, Tanka Society of America, HaikuOz and the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association. Gene’s recent awards and publications include: Tanka Splendor Award 2008, Contemprary Haibun 10: Red Moon Press, A New Resonance 6: Red Moon Press, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press and various print and online journals around the world. 

Grum F. Robertson was born in 1965, in Aberdeen, Scotland. From the age of 17 to 20 he worked for an engineering company as a metal failure analyst where he developed a passion for photography.

Grum studied a B.A. in Photographic Arts at Edinburgh. In his final year, Grum, produced and directed a short film, called Billy Tattoo, based in and around a tattoo artist’s shop in Leith. Billy Tattoo was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and subsequently the Piccadilly Film Festival – where it was the only short film – screened alongside Tetsuo: The Iron Man .

Grum has worked as a freelance photographer for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper and an assistant for MTV Europe. He has worked on the short films: Wheels, 1992 – shot in Nairn and set in the 1970s; Quality of Life, 2004 – screened at the Berlin Film Festival and Apocalypse Oz, 2006 – shot in and around L.A. and screened at the Sundance Film Festival; and various other independent Scottish television productions.  

Colin Stewart Jones lives and writes in Aberdeen, Scotland. He studied Gaelic language and literature at the University of Aberdeen. His final dissertation for his MA was on points of contact between Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean and the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Colin went on to study an MLitt in Irish and Scottish Studies under Professor Tom Devine at the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies.

Colin first started writing haiku in 2005 when he realised that it was not just about counting syllables. He has had some success with publishing haiku, tanka, haiga, renku and haibun; appearing in many online and print journals. His work has been anthologised in white lies : The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku 2008, contemporary haibun Vol 10 and he placed joint first in the 2008 Haiku Poets of Northern California International Rengay Competition. Colin has also been experimenting with one-word haiga which were published by The World Haiku Review.  In a recent review of Colin’s book A Seal Snorts out the Moon, Published by Cauliay, Robert Wilson, managing editor of Simply Haiku, described his writing as a cross between Bukowski and Kerouac. Colin, however, still feels his education is ongoing and is privileged to be able to learn from his peers.

Samples of Colin's published work can be read at:

http://www.colinstewartjones.webs.com/