Rachel Blum, Author of The Doctor of Flowers Rachel Blum shares both her experience of losing a young daughter to pediatric cancer, and her spiritual journey of grieving. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including American Literary Review, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art. Rachel Blum’s poems bring grief and beauty into the same room, waiting for each to teach the other something that matters about the world, about our hearts, about what it means to love deeply. —Raymond Barfield, MD, PhD, Duke University Joan Ryan, Author of Dark Ladies & Other Avatars Joan Ryan’s recent poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Nimrod, The Sow’s Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Ekphrasis, Roanoke Review, Calyx, Cold Mountain Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, and other literary journals. And Ryan moves easily from language that hints at the Renaissance to the vernacular of a sixties Long Island teenager ... Here is the mature poet, and her portraits are keen as a painter’s eye. —Veronica Golos, Rootwork