For those of you registered for the 2008 Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, mark your calendars for Friday, July 18!

Brenda Miller of the Bellingham Review, Sam Ligon of Willow Springs, Natasha Moni and Lana Ayers of the Crab Creek Review, Janet Lucas of Tidepools, and Stephanie Lenox of the online Blood Orange Review will be leading a panel about the most current challenges and opportunities facing literary journals–which are often the rivers that sustain creative writing communities.

Brenda Miller (pictured left), spends the academic year as associate professor of English at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where she is the editor-in-chief of the Bellingham Review. Her collection of essays, Season of the Body, was a finalist for the PEN American Center Book Award and she has received a number of Pushcart Prizes for her work. Her essays have appeared in such periodicals as the Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and the Sun.

Sam Ligon (right), editor-in-chief of Willow Springs, received his MA from the University of New Hampshire, and his MFA from New School University. His novel, Safe in Heaven Dead, was published by HarperCollins in 2003, and his short fiction has appeared in many literary journals. He is a recipient of a 2005 Artists Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship.

Natasha Moni, the editor-in-chief of the Crab Creek Review, has published in multiple literary journals. She and fellow editor Lana Ayers will speak about the challenges and opportunities for independent literary journals–journals not connected with a public or private university or other funding source–as well as ideas for getting started, finding grants, and developing the infrastructure to guide independent literary journals.

Janet Lucas, editor-in-chief of Peninsula College’s literary journal will offer insights to putting together literary journals without the assitance of graduate or upper-division students. Because Peninsula College is a two-year institution, Tidepools with the assistance and passion of students who are just beginning their academic careers.

Stephanie Lenox, the 2007 winner of the Slapering Hol chapbook contest for her collection of poems, The Heart that Lies Outside the Body, received her MFA degree from the University of Idaho in 2004. She will talk about opportunities strategies for starting, maintaining, and pushing to excellence online publishing.