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M. D. Friedman is a poet, teacher, musician, photographer, digital artist and web designer from Lafayette, Colorado. Thousands of copies of his first four chapbooks have been enjoyed by readers throughout the world. His audio poem, "A Good Dog," was the overall winner of the Book Habit & New Zealand Poetry Society 2008 Poetry Contest. His new genre, digital poetry, represents the artistic fusion of all his creative pursuits at once. He is the founder of the popular Internet Poets’ Cooperative web site which features over 20 free volumes of e-books from poets around the world, over 1000 audio recordings of dozens of Colorado poets reading their own work and over 40 videos from the Poets’ Co-op TV Show. His personal web site, www.mdfriedman.com, offers access to all of M. D. Friedman’s creative ventures. His fifth book, Leaning Toward Whole, was the first of our Premium Chapbook First Edition Collection and embodies the mission of Liquid Light Press. M. D. Friedman's full length poetry book, Into Light (2023), is our last print publication at Liquid Light Press.

M. D. Friedman, A Liquid Light Press Poet

 M. D. Friedman

Life-lover Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master's degree in English Language and Linguistics. She served two terms as San Miguel County's first poet laureate and directs the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion and her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, Intimate Landscape: The Four Corners in Poems & Photographs, and Charity: True Stories of Giving and Receiving. Her favorite four-word mantra is "I am still learning", and her favorite one-word mantra is "Adjust". Liquid Light Press's Premium First Edition Chapbook, The Miracle Already Happening, Everyday Life with Rumi is some of Rosemerry's finest work to date overflowing with joy, warmth, wisdom and humor.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, A Liquid Light Press Poet

 Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Lynda La Rocca was born in New York City, grew up in northern New Jersey, and is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgian Court College (now Georgian Court University), Lakewood, New Jersey.  A former journalist for the Asbury Park (NJ) Press, she is employed full-time as a freelance writer and also works part-time as a teaching assistant in the Spanish/ESL laboratory at the Timberline Campus of Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, Colorado.

Her nonfiction articles, essays, and fiction have appeared in such publications as The Denver Post, Old West, The Pueblo Chieftain, Woman’s World, Delta Sky, America West Airlines Magazine, Highlights for Children, and the Chicago Tribune.  Her poetry has appeared in numerous state and national poetry society anthologies along with such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Quarterly, Frogpond (Haiku Society of America), U.S. Catholic, and Children’s Playmate.  Her first poetry chapbook, In the Shortness of My Days, was published in 1993 by New Spirit Press, New York; her second poetry chapbook, The Stillness Between, was published in 2009 by Pudding House Publications, Ohio.

Her latest work, Spiral, was released as a Liquid Light Press Premium Chapbook First Edition in March of 2012.

Since 2004, La Rocca has been a member of the River City Nomads, a poetry performance troupe consisting of five Colorado-based poets.

She lives in Twin Lakes, Colorado, with her husband, Steve Voynick, their dog, Luz, and an ornate box turtle named SunSpot.

Lynda La Rocca, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Lynda La Rocca

Wayne Gilbert is retired from community college teaching, aka “third world missionary work” (the working title of his teaching memoir).  He continues to teach teachers working on their master’s degrees in education at University of Colorado Denver. 

As an artist, Wayne began performing his original poems in the summer of 2000. His performances are legendary for their dynamic energy.  He is well known as “magmapoet,” and often performs with improvising musicians.

His first chapbook, Magmamystic, was published in 2011 by Mighty Rogue Press, www.mightyrogue.com

Wayne was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2005, but keeps an active schedule writing, teaching, performing and facilitating workshops on grieving and growing, healing the wounded teacher, living creatively with chronic disease/pain, and writing as spiritual practice, www.magmamystic.com.

Wayne is also a board member and “artivist” with Art as Action, www.artasaction.org, and a dancer in their “Re-Connect with Your Body: Dance for P.D.” program.

Liquid Light Press's Premium First Edition Chapbook, From the Ashes by Wayne A. Gilbert, is a true masterpiece that gnaws at the heart with universal appeal.

Wayne A. Gilbert, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Wayne Gilbert

Rachel Kellum lives on the eastern plains of Colorado where she teaches writing, humanities and art classes at Morgan Community College and chairs the visual arts program of MCC's Center for Arts and Community Enrichment. Her poetry has been featured in several online publications, including Barnwood International Poetry Magazine, Four Corners Free Press, Blood Lotus, Slow Trains and The Telluride Watch. In 2008, one of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Most recently, Rufous Press featured two of her poems in the international collection, Lush. Kellum performs her poetry around Colorado and blogs at wordweeds.com, where you can learn more about her background and read her latest work. Ah is her first book and we are proud to feature it as part of our growing Premium Chapbook First Edition Collection.

Rachel Kellum's poetry has a simplicity and clarity that cuts to the core of being human.

Rachel Kellum, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Rachel Kellum

Jeremy A. Martin was born in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and lived in nearby Palmyra until he was eighteen. After graduating from high school, he moved to Galesburg, Illinois, to attend Knox College for his BA in English. He then continued his studies at Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington, to receive his MFA in creative writing. He now lives with his wife, Megan, in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has been teaching composition and creative writing at Coconino Community College for the last four years. His hobbies include reading, hiking, traveling, and mixing and listening to music. For his next writing projects, he is working on his first novel and a second book of poems. Catalyst, his first book, was inspired by a dream that told him it was time to reawaken his passion for writing and to share that passion with others.

We are proud to feature Catalyst as part of our Premium Chapbook First Edition Collection.

Liquid Light Press's Premium First Edition Chapbook, Catalyst by Jeremy A. Martin, may just launch you on a fiery ride into yourself.

Jeremy Martin, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Jeremy A. Martin

Poetry began to spill out of Erika Moss Gordon when she was a young child. Today, the themes have changed, but the words are still spilling. Of Eyes and Iris is her first book and charts her adult sojourns into landscapes of the vastly unfamiliar and the everyday extraordinary. Erika is a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover, a teacher of yoga, a student of life and is, daily, delighted to discover how very little she knows. She lives in Ridgway, Colorado. You can view her latest poems on her poetry blog, called unlearning through poetry at erikamossgordon.wordpress.com.

We are proud to feature Of Eyes and Iris as part of our Premium Chapbook First Edition Collection.

Beautiful yet poignant in its simplicity, Of Eyes and Iris, will call you back again and again for another read.

Erika Moss Gordon, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Erika Moss Gordon

An East Coast transplant to the Kansas City area, Susan Whitmore's aesthetic melds bovine beauty with the beat of the jazz greats. Previous books include The Melinda Poems (Pudding House Press 2004), The Sacrifices (Mellen Poetry Press 1992) and The Invisible Woman (Singular Speech Press 1991). With a degree in ancient Greek from Vassar College and a Master of Fine Arts from Emerson College, she taught creative writing and literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Missouri-Kansas City and was executive director of The Writers Place, a nonprofit literary arts center in Kansas City. Since 2010 she has been a vice president at First Call, an agency serving individuals and families impacted by substance use disorders. Her work has appeared in CrossCurrents, Dalhousie Review, Georgia Review, Georgetown Review, I-70 Review, Melusine, New Letters and Poet Lore, among others.

Your House Is Floating is a jewel in the crown of our Premium Chapbook First Edition Collection, a masterpiece by a master poet.

Susan Whitmore, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Susan Whitmore

A lifelong New Englander, Jeff Bernstein divides his time between Boston and Central Vermont. Except on summer days when his beloved Red Sox are at Fenway, he prefers to rattle along back roads, although he is proud to be a Bostonian. Poetry is his favorite and earliest art form. (He can’t draw a whit or hold a tune.) Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Birchsong – A Poetry Anthology (Blueline Press), Best Indie Lit New England, Loch Raven Review, Main Street Rag, Muddy River Poetry Review, Paper Nautilus, Reckless Writing Poetry Anthology, San Pedro River Review  and Tipton Poetry Review. His first chapbook, Interior Music, was published in 2010 by Foothills Publishing. Jeff’s writer’s blog is www.hurricanelodge.com.

Nowhere Near Morning is an intimate embrace of what it means to be alive, a wake up call for those falling asleep at the wheel of their daily grind.

Jef Bernstein, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Jeff Bernstein

Cecele Allen Kraus is a former psychotherapist, and author of two poetry chapbooks: Dreaming Barranquilla and Tuscaloosa Bypass. Her work has appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Up the River, riverbabble, The Avocet, Passager, Chronogram, Windfall, Backstreet, The Literary Gazette, News and Reviews (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis newsletter), the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to Colombia newsletter, and in two chapbook anthologies – Zephyrs and Java Wednesdays. Cecele lives in Copake, New York, where she loves to walk the trails of the Taconic Range.

Harmonica bristles with a shimmering music that heals the heart.

Cecele Allen Kraus, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Cecele Allen Kraus

Roger Higgins has been published in various magazines and journals.  His collection, Hieroglyphs, appeared in New Poets 13  (Friendly Street Poets).  He is an Australian who has traveled widely and lived in (alphabetically) Canada, Chile, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, and the USA.  Roger is an engineer by vocation, and has utilized his pen rather more than his camera on many of his travels, bringing together his physical and emotional responses to the environments and situations which he has encountered.  First versions may be written on paper napkins or pieces of paper tablecloths, the backs of boarding passes or the notes screen of a mobile phone.


Surf Sounds, expertly crafted and elegantly written, you will return often to these poetic beaches pulsing with insightful breezes and the tides of the heart.

Roger Higgins, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Roger Higgins

Lindsay Wilson, an English professor at Truckee Meadows Community College, has been a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize, and he has published five chapbooks.  His first book, No Elegies, won the Quercus Review Press Spring Book Award 2014.  He co-edits the literary and arts journal, The Meadow, and his poetry has appeared in The Minnesota Review, Verse Daily, The Portland Review, Pank, and The Bellevue Literary Review, among others.

Black-Footed Country is like eating an artichoke. Layers within thorny layers, each one more tender and subtle until finally you feast on the sweet meat of the heart.

Lidsay Wilson, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Lindsay Wilson

Douglas Cole was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up mostly in Berkeley, California, known then as 'The Open Ward.'  After graduating from Berkeley High School, he attended college at the University of East Bay.  After a year abroad, attending the University of Bradford in England and traveling throughout Europe, he returned to California to complete a Bachelor’s degree in English at San Diego State University.  Settling in Seattle, he taught English before finishing a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at Western Washington University.  He has worked as a clerk in the Brain Tumor Ward at The University of California Medical Center in San Francisco; construction in Los Angeles; catering in San Diego; house painting and teaching in Seattle.

Douglas Cole’s writing has been published in The Chicago Quarterly Review, Red Rock Review, and Midwest Quarterly.  He has more work available online in The Adirondack Review, Salt River Review, and Avatar Review, as well as recorded stories in Bound Off  and The Baltimore Review.  He has published two poetry collections, Interstate, with Night Ballet Press and Western Dream, with Finishing Line Press, as well as a novella called Ghost, with Blue Cubicle Press.  He has received several awards, including the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry; the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House; and First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway.  He was also recently the featured poet in Poetry Quarterly.  He is currently on the faculty at Seattle Central College and lives in Alki.  His web site is www.douglastcole.com.

The Dice Throwers shines like a flashlight across the gritty dark alleys of the American soul turning shattered glass into diamonds.

Douglas Cole, A Liquid Light Press Poet

Douglas Cole

Megan E. Freeman writes poetry and fiction. She has been published in poetry anthologies, literary and educational journals, including Turtle Island Quarterly, Literary Mama, Green Fuse Poetic Arts, and English Journal. Composer Steven Sametz selected her poem, Music’s Music, as the text for a commission by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which premiered at Disney Concert Hall.

In addition to poetry, Megan also writes middle grade and young adult novels. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, a fellow with the Colorado State University Writing Project, a Fund for Teachers fellow, and a member of the Colorado Poets Center. She studied theater and dramatic literature for many years, earning degrees from Occidental College and the Ohio State University. 

A teacher with over twenty years of classroom experience, Megan has taught multiple subjects across the arts and humanities to students K-16, and she is nationally recognized for her work leading professional development programs for educators. She has lived in northeast Los Angeles, central Ohio, northern Norway, and on Caribbean cruise ships. Now she lives near Boulder, Colorado.

Learn more at www.meganefreeman.com.

Lessons on Sleeping Alone cuts to essence of what it means to be human.

Megan E. Freeman

Megan E. Freeman

Eleanor Kedney is the founder of The Writers Studio Tucson, a branch of the New York-based creative writing school founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz, where she served as the director and the advanced workshop teacher for ten years. Her poems have appeared in a number of U.S. and international periodicals, including Connecticut River Review, Cumberland River Review, Cutthroat, Many Mountains Moving, Miramar Poetry Journal, Mslexia, Mudfish, NY Quarterly, San Pedro River Review, Skidrow Penthouse, The Maynard, and several other journals. She has contributed to the anthologies No Achilles: War Poetry  (WaterWood Press, 2015), Write to Meow  (Grey Wolfe Publishing, 2015), and Poems on Loss Anthology  (Little Lantern Press, 2016). She lives with her husband, Peter, their dog, Charlie, and their cat, Ivy, in Tucson, Arizona and Stonington, Connecticut.

Learn more at www.eleanorkedney.com.

The Offering drills deeply into our most basic hopes and fears and offers us poetic redemption in superbly crafted form.

Eleanor Kedney

Eleanor Kedney

Kyle Laws and Jared Smith are two of Colorado finest's poets, now together in one chapbook, This Town.

Kyle Laws’ previous collections include So Bright to Blind  (Five Oaks Press, 2015); Wildwood (Lummox Press, 2014); George Sand’s Haiti (co-winner of Poetry West’s 2012 award, published 2013); My Visions Are As Real As Your Movies, Joan of Arc Says to Rudolph Valentino (Dancing Girl Press, 2013); Storm Inside the Walls (Little Books Press, 2012); and Going into Exile (Abbey Chapbooks, 2012).
With five nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.  She is the editor of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press and a member of Arts Alliance Studios Community, Pueblo, CO. Her website is www.kylelaws.com.

Jared Smith is the author of twelve volumes of poetry including his Collected Poems: 1971-2011; multimedia productions based on his poetry in New York and Chicago; two CDs; and numerous publications in the applied sciences. His poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in hundreds of publications in the U.S., Europe, and China. He is a Board Member of The New York Quarterly Foundation  and is Poetry Editor of Turtle Island Quarterly. He has also served on the Editorial Boards of The New York Quarterly; Home Planet News; The Pedestal, and Trail & Timberline. He is listed in Poets & Writers, The Colorado Poets Center, Who’s Who in America, and other major reference sources. Jared has three nominations for a Pushcart Prize.

Jared holds a Master’s Degree in Literature from New York University and studied under The Great Books Program at St. John’s College in Santa Fe. He has taught at New York University and La Guardia Community College (CCNY); and worked as a Director of Education and Research at Gas Technology Institute, as technical and policy adviser to several White House commissions under President William Clinton, and as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory. He lives in the foothills of the Rockies. His website is www.jaredsmith.info.

Beautifully written, the stylistic contrast between these two master poets, makes This Town, a town that seems so similar to the one in which many of us grew up, come alive with a special sweetness.

Kyle Laws

Kyle Laws

Jared Smith

Jared Smith

Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet, artist and healer residing in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has been published in Trivia - Voices of Feminism, Narrative Northeast, Poetry Quarterly, The Bitter Oleander Press, The Tishman Review, Corvus Review and elsewhere.Visit her online at www.JenniferLothrigel.com.

In Pneuma, Jennifer Lothrigel bares her heart-felt insight with artistic grace.

Jennifer Lothrigel

Jennifer Lothrigel

Robert Cooperman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and received a BA from Brooklyn College, whose bogus and interminable football fight song he and college friends love to inflict on unsuspecting acquaintances.  In 1974 Cooperman enrolled at the University of Denver, where he earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and 19th Century British Literature.  Since then, Cooperman has published 18 poetry collections, most recently Draft Board Blues (FutureCycle Press), which was named one of Ten Great Reads by Colorado authors of 2017 by West Word MagazineIn the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Western Reflections Books) won the Colorado Book Award for Poetry in 2000.  My Shtetl  won the Holland Prize from Logan House Books.  Also, forthcoming in late 2018 is Their Wars, from Aldrich Press.  Cooperman lives in Denver with his wife Beth.

In Saved by the Dead, Robert Cooperman flashes us back through the mysteries, revelations and aspirations of the 1960's on a silver screen of the present.

Robert Cooperman

Robert Cooperman

Nathan Ybanez spent more than two decades in Colorado’s harshest prisons.  It was there he learned the enriching art of poetry, which helped him endure the violence and indignities of prison.  Now free, Nathan lives in Colorado with his wife, Stacy, working as a paralegal.  He continues to write to unlock the magic of deep engagement with daily life.

In Memory and Form, Nathan Ybanez masterfully crafts a world bursting with beauty, pathos, vibrancy and connection.

Nathan Ybanez