Author biographies

Tavarus Blackmon was born in Seattle but has lived in Sacramento for most of his life. He’s a student at Sacramento City College, and was the third-place winner in the college division of SN&R’s second Student Poetry Contest last spring. “I am not the type of person that has to hear I am a writer before I start to believe it myself,” he said. “I think anyone with something to say should pick up the pen, plug in the typewriter, turn on the computer and create their masterpiece.”

Howard N. Coyle is an aspiring filmmaker who hopes to produce the next big Sacramento movie. Perhaps “Wicker Wire” will be it.

Barbara O’Donnell is a proud Luddite. She is the retired principal of St. Francis Elementary School, and operates Pusheen Press, through which she publishes her own work. She is the author of four novels, four children’s books and a chapbook. Many of her stories spring from the tales she heard as a child from her family in Iowa.