Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry

Vikas K. Menon is a poet and playwright whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as burntdistrict, diode, The Literary Review, and the New Delta Review. His poetry manuscript godflesh was a finalist for the 2010 Kinereth Gensler Award and semifinalist for the Beatrice Hawley award, both from Alice James Books. His poetry has been featured in Indivisible: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry and is forthcoming in The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry by Indians. He is a board member of Kundiman, the first organization of its kind dedicated to supporting Asian-American poetry and is the Resident Playwright of Ruffled Feathers Theater company. He received his M.F.A (Poetry) from Brooklyn College and his M.A. in Literature from St. Louis University.

Pos L. Moua is a Hmong American writer, editor, English teacher at Merced College, and Hmong/English teacher at Merced High School. He and his family live in Merced, California. He has written several short poems about his childhood experience during the Vietnam War and about living in and around the Central Valley region. His chapbook, published by Swan Scythe Press, Towards the World Where the Torches Are Burning, gives “an account of love and family and identity in the poet's new land.” Additionally, his work has been included in How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology (Heyday Books, 2010); Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing (New Rivers Press); the UC Davis Poetry Review; and Sacramento's Poetry Now.

Issue 3 | Summer 2011

Hong-Thao Nguyen graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. She currently attends the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Monica Ong is a multi-media artist and poet whose recent work explores the medical-emotional landscape of culture and public health. She received her MFA in Digital Media at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her fellowships include summers at the Oral History Summer Institute at Columbia University, and the Kundiman poetry retreat at Fordham University. Her work has been exhibited internationally and most recently at the AC Institute Gallery in the Chelsea arts district of New York City.

Natalia Ricotta is a visual artist currently living in her hometown of Colorado Springs. She holds a BA in Art Practice with a minor in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University. Her work aims to invite viewers to explore themes of restoration, stillness, mystery, beauty, and even the supernatural expressed in nature, dreams, and words. To view more of her work, please visit her online portfolio.

As a graduate of the University of Southern California, Melissa R. Sipin is the first person in her family to attend college. She co-founded TAYO Literary Magazine and has won three awards for her writing. Professionally, she is a production editor at Arcadia Publishing.