Connie Williams
Jade Walker
Craig Tigerman
Betty Ann Whitney
Danielle Murr
Credits and Credentials:
Texas Woman's University, B.S., Cum Laude, Piano Performance
National Deans List
Nominated for Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities
Angelo State University, M.A. English
Member Sigma Tau Delta
International Directory of Distinguished Leadership, 1994
Poetry Awards: 1st Place STD, 1st Place Texas Creative Writing Teachers
Association
Most current poetry, last two issues of Accord, quarterly journal published by CMA Longview and The Christmas Pudding, published by Hardin Simmons University, Abilene, Texas.
"In the words of the immortal C.S. Lewis," I read poetry so that others may have something to write. In my words, I write, so that others may have something to read. (Or vice versa, I forget now, grin) I judge poetry so that someone may win, and a win is the greatest thing I know of to give a poet the validation we so urgently require. John Gardner says that a poets ear is so finely tuned as to appear to the ordinary novelist diseased. And I say, so is a poet's heart.
Connie Williams
Jade Walker writes poetry to explore the grey areas of life. With each twisted phrase, a lyrical truth is discovered. Her favorite form of poetry is a modern, bastardized version of American haiku/senryu which shows an elegant, yet brief glimpse into daily madness. Favorite poets include Maria Ranier Rilke, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Tess Gallagher.
Ms. Walker has judged manuscripts in eight Romance Writers of America contests and poetry and short story contests for the Scribe & Quill newsletter, Afterthoughts, Inscriptions, Sol Magazine and the Prodigy Novel Workshop.
Her first book, "Summer of my Soul" was released in May 1997. Ms. Walker has published fiction and poetry in The New Hope International Review (UK), Crystal Sands, Afterthoughts and Sol Magazine. She won honorable mentions in two AOL Instant Novelist contests, first place in the Cyberscribers May Picture/Poem contest, first place in the Sol Magazine End of Time Poetry contest and was the Featured Poet on Voices of Poetry.
Jade Walker lives in South Florida.
I do not belong to any writing club though I've been a regular on the Prodigy Poetry Bulletin Board since March, 1994. I have never won any writing awards (except in Sol Magazine), though I once had a book review published in a theological journal, 25 years ago. I received my B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois in 1971, and my master's degree from Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, in 1975.
I have been writing poems and songs for almost 35 years. Playing my guitar, I have recorded about a dozen albums of my songs on cassette. I come from a literary and music-oriented family: Irving Berlin was my grandmother's first cousin; my father was an opera singer; my mother was an English major and her sister chaired a high school English department in Chicago.
For my own writing, however, I really have no credentials in the usual
sense, just an earnest desire to craft beauty from words, expressing things
my heart feels and my mind perceives.
Betty Ann Whitney was born and grew up in the tiny beach town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. She is a published poet and an award winning artist who believes an inner need exists in all of us to live more deeply and fully and with greater awareness -- to know the experiences of others and to know better our own.
She says the function of the poem is not to tell, but rather allow reader participation. It is this communicative experience she cares about and finds joy working with -- and she says language matters even more to her than the message.
The author of a large collection of poems, some of which are published in various magazines, newspapers, and poetry publications, she is a member of New River Poets and Writers, Pasco County, Florida.
Betty Ann has been an active participant of Prodigy's Books & Writing Poetry Bulletin Board since 1992. A contributor to Sol Magazine soon after its beginning, she was Sol Magazine's 1998 Poet Laureate.
Danielle Murr received a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University in 1996. She completed her master's coursework at University of Houston-Clear Lake, and is now writing her thesis, which she hopes to finish by December of 1999.
She plans to pursue a writing career. She is currently an adjunct in Houston, TX, at San Jacinto College North, in the English Department.
