Main Contributing Writers
Blake More Poetry
A UCLA graduate and resident of California’s Mendocino Coast since the late 90s, Blake More is an artist with many creative voices and obsessions. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines, her work embraces visual art, poetry, video, performance, costume design, teaching, functional mixed media art/life pieces and hand-painted art cars, including Star Yantra, a Mercedes SL500 painted with a metallic palette (staryantra.life). Blake’s art is often inspired by nature, geometry and the female form, and she regularly incorporates mixed-media collage and painting into her digital expressions. She also hosts two radios shows: a poet interview podcast called “Cartwheels on the Sky” and an hour long public affairs program called Women’s Voices on KZYX&Z FM Mendocino. Author of five books of poetry, her book godmeat is a collection of poetry, prose, color artwork, and a DVD compilation of poem movies (available at godmeat.com), and her chapbook Up In the Me World is available on her website. To explore more of Blake’s creative world, please visit snakelyone.com.
Latest Articles Include:
Caitie Steffen Travel, Life, Observations and Experiences
“I love to write and have discussions with readers. My best conversations are the ones I've imagined. And yes David and Dolly Steffen and I are related and share zero DNA. I met them in September of 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They can't seem to get rid of me. They even tried to move to Gualala and I still found them.”
Latest Articles Include:
Cathy Riehm Animal Health and Welfare
After growing up showing horses, Cathy Sue Riehm moved on to graduate from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in Animal and Dairy Science, majoring in Equine Reproduction. One day after graduation, she started as Veterinary Technician II in the Large Animal Teaching Hospital at UGA, working with horses, cows, llamas, donkeys, sheep, goats and exotic animals. Four years later, she moved to Colorado to work for a laarge animal and exotics veterinarian, a camel breeder/trainer and an exotic animal rescue facility. After moving to California, Cathy Sue has worked for several veterinarians, and has also worked closely with giraffes, zebras, antelope and donkeys. Cathy Sue has attended over a dozen veterinary technician conferences and seminars, including the Giraffe Hoof Trimming Conference in CO. She is currently finishing an Associate’s degree in Veterinary Technology. Her experience (professional and personal) and education has been focused on behavior, training, husbandry and medicine, especially hoof health and hoof trimming.
Latest Articles Include:
David Steffen Editor's Column, Arts, Music, Film, History
David Steffen spent the better part of his career in the recording industry working at A&M Records, GRP Records and BMG Video. In addition to a career in marketing, he served as Executive Producer of a number of music-documentary films including Gather at the River: A Bluegrass Celebration (1994), Pride and Joy: The Story Of Alligator Records (1992), True Believers: The Musical Family Of Rounder Records (1995), The Kingdom Of Zydeco (1994), Bluesland: A Portrait In American Music (1993) and others. He has a Masters Degree from NYU, and has taught at New York University, Fairfield University (where he also earned a BA in American Studies), and at McNally Smith College. David has been blogging at Wordpress since 2011, and has contributed to the Lighthouse Peddler for 7 years. His book, From Edison To Marconi: The First Thirty Years Of Recorded Music was published in 2005.
Latest Articles Include:
Jennifer Bort Yacovissi Book Reviews
Jennifer Bort Yacovissi’s debut novel, Up the Hill to Home, tells the story of four generations of a family in Washington, D.C. from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Jenny is a member of PEN/America and the National Book Critics’ Circle, and writes a monthly column and reviews regularly for the Washington Independent Review of Books. She is serving as chair of the 2017 and 2018 Washington Writers Conference, and is president of the Annapolis chapter of the Maryland Writers’ Association.
Latest Articles Include:
Karin Uphoff Health and Wellness
Karin C. Uphoff, is a Master Herbalist, Iridologist, Bodyworker and author of Botanical Body Care: Herbs and Natural Healing for Your Whole body, a book that combines basic physiology with herbal healing, cleansing and nutrition. As a founding member of the Mendocino County Herb Guild and co-host of radio show Holistic Health Perspectives on kzyx.org, she is passionate about empowering others through partnership with the natural world.
In the past 25 years, Karin has practiced and taught about many aspects of holistic health including herbal healing and nutrition, yoga, Reikii, energy healing, plant spirit medicine and flower remedies. She is a member of Corners of the Mouth, worker-owned collective health food store in Mendocino California, where she serves as a nutritional consultant. Her professional affiliations include the American Herbalist Association, the American Herbalist Guild, United Plant Savers, and the American Botanical Council. Learn more about Karin at: www.karinuphoff.com
Latest Articles Include:
Featured
Mary Jane Schramm, Ocean Wildlife
Mary Jane "MJ" Schramm is a marine conservationist, author, journalist, filmmaker, and naturalist. She has worked aboard NOAA and other vessels off California, Mexico, Alaska and the Bahamas, focusing on marine mammals and seabirds and assisted with elephant seal research and intertidal monitoring on the Farallon Islands.
For 20 years with NOAA's Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary she was media liaison and outreach specialist. A member of NOAA’s Large Whale Disentanglement Response team, MJ also helped discover the USS Conestoga wreck 95 years after it sank off the Farallon Islands, earning a NOAA Administrator’s Award. She also worked on lightering oil from the wreck, SS Jacob Luckenbach.
MJ led whale watch/nature cruises to Baja California and the Farallones, and managed Oceanic Society ecotours. For nearly a decade she was Public Relations Director at The Marine Mammal Center while doing rescue and rehab. She co-authored West Coast Whale Watching (HarperCollins West).
Latest Articles Include:
Mitch McFarland, Writes about local issues on the Mendocino Coast.
Mitch's bio (as submitted by Mitch): Should I include my incarceration in Brazil, my heartbreak when I realized that the girl I pined for in high school was in love with one of my best friends, my joy when my first wife ran off with a Aluet Indian totem pole carver from Alaska, the thrill of having Nixon resigning on my birthday (subsequent to my having marched in his inauguration), the time I was about to have sex with a hot blind date but couldn’t get it up because I was so stoned on opiated hash (she told me to see a doctor), or the time I watched in my rearview mirror a 600” bin of paper recycling fly off the back of my truck on the freeway…. The list is endless.
