Editors

“Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,” is the thought that comes to Martha Highers when she reflects on her life with literature. She is grateful to the many writers who have contributed to Under the Sun for giving her new, uncharted territories to explore. She is equally grateful to her sister/fellow readers for helping guide the craft on these adventures. She has worked as a teacher, reporter, newspaper editor, waitress, campaign coordinator, administrative assistant, grant writer, chairperson of nonprofits, translator, farm worker, and nurse, sometimes simultaneously, but not necessarily in that order. She has published numerous stories, poems, and essays. She has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and an MA in English, a BA in French, a BSN in nursing, and a BA in political science from other institutions. She looks forward to the day when she will finish paying her student loans.

 

Nomi Isenberg taught English language arts and creative writing in the United States and Israel for four decades. She was on staff at Michlalah College of Jerusalem where she taught methodology of TEFL and creative writing. Nomi holds a BA in Spanish literature and history from the University of Pennsylvania and an MS in educational linguistics and language acquisition from the State University of New York at Albany. She also holds an MA from Bar Ilan University in English literature and creative writing. Nomi is certified by David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem in editing and editorial analysis. Nomi is a freelance editor who has recently edited a book of short stories, a novel, and a memoir and is a currently editing a book of poetry. She is also a writer whose fiction, creative nonfiction, and prose poetry have been published online.

 

Cindy Bradley is an essayist/memoirist who received an MFA in creative writing, nonfiction, from Fresno State University. Her writing has appeared in 45th Parallel, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Empty Mirror, Essay Daily, Front Porch Journal, among others, and she is a three-time contributor to Under the Sun, where her essay “Death, Driveways, and Dreams” was a Best American Essays Notable 2017, and “July, Exhaling” was a 2020 Pushcart nominee. Cindy is a former assistant nonfiction editor for Pithead Chapel, a reader for Split/Lip Press chapbook and essay/memoir/nonfiction-hybrid contests. Cindy is currently at work on an essay collection exploring desire and discontent, family, nostalgia in California during the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and beyond. Her website is CindyBradleyWriter.com/, and she can be found on Twitter @cindysea429.

 

Editorial Board

Jere Mitchum is Associate Professor Emeritus of English at Tennessee Technological University having taught courses in American Literature and Technical/Professional Writing during his tenure at Tennessee Tech. He has been with Under the Sun since 2014. His interests include computer graphics, vocal music, and travel. He has sung in choirs, Barbershop quartets and community choruses for more than thirty years. His travel destinations include Europe, Australia and the Far East.

 

Miriam Mandel Levi is a writer and editor living in Israel. Her work has appeared in CreativeNonfiction’s anthology, Same Time Next Week, Brain,Child, Literary Mama, Under the Sun, Poetica, bioStories, Sleet, Tablet, Blue Lyra, Chautauqua, Random Sample, Sky Island, JMWW, MoonPark, the Sunlight Press, and Persimmon Tree.

 

Born and raised in Georgia, Monic Ductan now lives in Tennessee, where she teaches creative writing and literature at Tennessee Tech University. Monic’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Southeast Review, Shenandoah, Oxford American, South Carolina Review, Water~Stone Review, The Fourth River, and Arkansas Review. She received the 2019 Denny C. Plattner Award in nonfiction from Appalachian Review for her essay “Fantasy Worlds,” which was also listed as notable in Best American Essays 2019. Her short story collection, Daughters of Muscadine, will be out this fall, and she is at work on a novel.

 

A retired Professor of Anthropology, Elizabeth Bird has published seven books (most recently Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife’s Story), and now focuses on creative non-fiction. Her workappears in Under the Sun (winner, Readers’ Choice Award 2022),Tangled Locks, Biostories, Streetlight, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Ariel’s Dream, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She placed third in the 2022 International Human Rights Art Festival’s Creators of Justice Literary Awards.

 

Alida Winternheimer is an award-winning writer, developmental editor, and teacher living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her works have appeared in Confluence, Water~Stone Review, Midwestern Gothic, and other journals. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches fiction classes to incarcerated writers through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and hosts the Story Works Round Table & Reading Series podcasts. When she is not writing, reading, or teaching writing, you can find Alida kayaking, cycling, or being walked by her golden retriever. Connect
with her at www.alidawinternheimer.com.

 

Readers

Phyllis Brotherton, a memoirist and essayist, holds an MA and MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Fresno State University. Her work has appeared in Under the Gum Tree, Entropy, Anomaly, Pithead Chapel, Essay Daily, Brevity Blog and elsewhere. Her essays have received two Best of the Net nominations, the most recent from Under the Sun for her essay, “The Year of Assassination.” Her essay, “Water,” a collaborative work co-authored with Armen D. Bacon, recently won third place in Streetlight Magazine’s 2021 Essay/Memoir Contest. She is currently marketing her memoir-in-essays collection, “Creating Artifacts,” for publication. She lives with her wife of twenty-five years in Reno, Nevada.

 

Anthony J. Mohr served twenty-seven years as a judge on the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, and now sits there part-time. In January 2021, he became a fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. His memoir, Every Other Weekend—Coming of Age With Two Different Dads (Koehler) was published in 2023. A five-time Pushcart nominee, Mohr’s work has appeared in, among other places, The Christian Science Monitor, Cleaver, Commonweal, DIAGRAM, Hippocampus Magazine, Main Street Rag, North Dakota Quarterly, Superstition Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and ZYZZYVA. Once upon a time he performed with the L.A. Connection, an improv comedy theater.

 

Originally from Colorado, Krista Beucler received a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. She was the Editor-in-Chief for Issue 7.2 of the Rappahannock Review. Krista is a winner of the Julia Peterkin award, and her creative work has been published in Kelp Journal, Bangalore Review and South 85 Journal. You can find her online at her website (KristaBeucler.com) or on Instagram
                                                                      (@authorkristabeucler).

 

Richard Doran is a consulting engineer in the British construction industry, an admittedly somewhat unconventional career path after earning his BA in English. He has worked with some of the world’s premier architects and been involved in the design of many notable buildings in London, the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the US. Despite all that, he has managed to fit in stints of Formula Ford racing and playing guitar in rock bands on the London circuit. Aside from literature and music, his interests are travel, history, art, motor racing (regular at the Le Mans 24 Hours), photography and flamenco. He also possesses an as yet unfulfilled aspiration to lower his golf handicap. He writes occasional poems and reviews for his own (and very close friends’) amusement. He lives in southwest London.

 

Terri Sutton holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College and has taught writing courses and workshops in the Milwaukee area and written critical reviews for Next Act Theatre and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her essays have appeared in Solstice Magazine, The Best of Milwaukee Writer’s Circle Anthology, and Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife. Currently she is working on a collection of essays about family and politics.

 

 

Elana Dorfman is a writer, story teller and social activist. For over forty-five years she has organized, volunteered and worked to bring about social change around issues of feminism, Arab-Jewish shared living and peace. She has a Masters degree in creative writing from Bar-Ilan University and has been leading creative writing workshops for the past nine years. Elana lives in Haifa with her husband and is the mother of two grown sons. You can hear her stories on the Whywhywhy- True Stories from Israel podcast.

 

Emma Mitchell is a senior at Tennessee Tech University studying physics, astronomy, and English. In her free time, she can be found rock climbing, ballroom dancing, contemplating a new story idea, or watching the sunset (however cliché it might be, it’s true). She is an aspiring sci-fi author and has had two poems published in the Iris Review.

 

 

Summer Writing Contest Judge

Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of seven works of creative nonfiction and poetry. Her most recent book, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, won the gold star in Foreword Reviews INDIE Book of the Year Award as well as the 2021 Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. Other nonfiction books include Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, made into a Lifetime TV movie; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which won the AWP Award; The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew; and Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir. She teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. www.SueWilliamSilverman.com.

 

Summer Contest Readers

In addition to the readers listed below, regular reading season readers Phyllis Brotherton and Miriam Mandel Levi also read for our summer contest.

 

Renee Atlas is a U.S and Israeli lawyer and former civil rights judge. She is also a writer of fiction and earned a Masters of English Literature from Bar Ilan University in Israel. She has taught English Editing for several semesters at David Yellin College, and is a reader for literary prizes such as the Sami Rohr Prize.

 

 

 

Shalva Ben-David has been working in the fields of writing and editing for over twenty-five years. In 1993, she co-founded Connections, an English-language newspaper for her hometown of Beit Shemesh, Israel. While serving as co-editor of Connections, she worked as a freelance writer. She studied editing and editorial analysis at David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem. Shalva currently works in resource development for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and is a freelance editor. She reads widely and sensitively, with attention to detail.

 

Reba Condiotti has worked as a research scientist for thirty years, initially in the field of bone marrow transplantation and then in the field of gene therapy. She currently manages a breast cancer research laboratory at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School. To date, she has co-authored twenty-nine peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and reviews.
Reba received a BA in biology from the University of California, San Diego, and continued her studies in Jerusalem where, in 2011, she was granted a PhD in human genetics from the Hebrew University. She also has certification in editing and editorial analysis for the David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem. She is a freelance scientific editor who helps other scientists prepare their manuscripts for publication and edits their grant applications. In addition, she assists graduate students in preparing their theses for submission.
        Reba is a voracious and diligent reader who has participated in a book club for the past fifteen years (helped choose the books for the past five) in her hometown of Beit Shemesh, Israel. The group is still going strong. She was also a member of a local writers’ workshop and has edited works of CNF.
Originally from California, she has lived in Israel since 1984.

 

Katie Bloomer is a recent graduate of UNCA with degrees in mass communication and creative writing. She enjoys writing and reading literary works with elements of fantasy/folklore, and is currently exploring mythological stories to retell in modern ways. She enjoys participating in writing workshops and providing fellow writers with detailed feedback and suggestions, a passion she hopes to transfer into a career as an editor or literary agent. When not reading or writing, you can find Katie practicing yoga or archery, hiking along the Blue Ridge Parkway or snowboarding on Sugar Mountain, taking a spontaneous road trip or just curling up with her two cats, Oso and Freya, to watch a movie.

 

Charles Denning is a journalist — from ‘cub reporter’ at age 18 for a big-city paper to editor of a small-city daily for 35 years. Also an English major, undergraduate and graduate. He doesn’t know if that qualifies him to critique literary essays, but since he’s the husband of an editor of Under the Sun, maybe it does. Not that she takes his opinion very seriously.

 

Judy Frankel holds a BA (Hons) and MA in English language and literature from Somerville College, Oxford University. While at Oxford, she was chair of the Oxford University Israel Group. Judy taught English in London schools for 32 years. She was the national education chair of British Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and also of the Zionist Federation Educational Trust (ZFET), as well as chair (at different times) of two London WIZO groups. In addition, Judy served as editor of WIZO’s national magazine with a circulation of 20,000. She was president of Yitzchak Rabin Lodge of B’nai B’rith, Magistrate/Justice of the Peace (Brent Magistrates’ Court) and tour guide for Board of Deputies’ “Seeing Jewish London” program. Judy served on the Association of Americans and Canadians (AACI) Netanya Management Team, was director of AACI Netanya Book Club from 2014-2020, and volunteered as an English teacher in yeshiva high schools in Netanya. Currently, she is a member of the editorial board and proof reader for ESRA National Magazine (English Speaking Residents’ Association) and is teaching various individual students for ESRA.

 

 

Web Site Design

 

 

Carl Shires converted Under the Sun to its current online format. Updating and maintaining the website gives him “the opportunity to read attention-grabbing stories by established and new writers before they’re published!”