ABOUT THE BOOK

Edited by the world renowned Himalayan poet, Yuyutsu RD Sharma, Pratik is a purely non-profit literary publication and is published by White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu for Mrs. Prabha Adhikary. The magazine was founded by Nepalese poet, Hari Adhikary who along with several distinguished Nepali poets including Mohan Koirala published it initially in Nepali language. The magazine was later revamped and published in English language by Yuyutsu Sharma in 1989. Since then, Pratik has become a significant platform of creative writing worldwide.

ABOUT THE WRITERS

Suzanne Lummis guest-edited the noir-themed, “Darkness in Style,” issue for the international literary journal, Pratik. Poetry.la produces her long-running YouTube series that connects contemporary poetry and film noir, They Write by Night. NPR’s “All Things Considered” profiled her in an episode called “Noir Poetry with L.A. as a Backdrop.” She’s published three full-length collections and her poetry has appeared in noted literary journals. She’s a longtime teacher with the UCLA Extension Writers Program and leads a series of Zoom explorations involving workshops together with close readings of important poetry, Deep Poetry Knowledge.

Yuyutsu Sharma is the chief editor of Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing. He is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently, Lost Horoscope & Other Newer Poems, Yuyutsu has read his works at several prestigious places and held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California, Beijing Open University, New York University, New York and Columbia University, New York. When home, he goes trekking in the Himalayas.

William Archila’s The Gravedigger’s Archaeology won the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize and his first collection The Art of Exile won an International Latino Book Award. He was featured in Spotlight on Hispanic Writers, Library of Congress. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Agni, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Review, Copper Nickle, and The Missouri Review. He has poems forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Guesthouse, Salamander and South Indianan Review. He lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land.

Tony Barnstone teaches at Whittier College and is the author of 21 books and a music CD. His books of poetry include Pulp Sonnets; Beast in the Apartment; Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki; The Golem of Los Angeles; Sad Jazz: Sonnets; and Impure. He is also a translator or co-translator of world literature, primarily Chinese but also Spanish and Urdu. His awards include: The Poets Prize, the Strokestown International Prize, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, The John Ciardi Prize, The Benjamin Saltman Award, and fellowships from the NEA, NEH, and California Arts Council. He has also co-edited the anthologies Republic of Apples, Democracy of Oranges; Dead and Undead Poems; and Monster Verse.

Christina Cha writes poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Coachella Review, and The Los Angeles Press, and was shortlisted for the 46th New Millennium Writing Award for Nonfiction. One of her pieces was just nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize. She is featured in and a consulting producer for You Are My Audience, a documentary in 10 self-portraits, which released in October. Her portrait is about her writing and relationship to her aunt, the artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Christina is also an editor and writing mentor and has been teaching in Sarah Selecky’s Writing School since 2013. She currently lives and writes in Los Angeles, after many years in San Francisco.

Lou Mathews lives in Los Angeles and is a fourth generation Angeleno. Married at 19, he worked his way through U.C. Santa Cruz as a gas station attendant and mechanic and continued to work as a mechanic until he was 39. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of 1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize. His short stories have been published in Short Story, ZYZZYVA, New England Review Witness, Black Clock, nine fiction anthologies and two textbook series. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s renowned Writer’s Program since 1989 and is a recipient of Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor Awards.

Charles Harper Webb‘s latest collection of poems, Sidebend World, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Red Hen Press published his novel Ursula Lake in Spring, 2022. He is the recipient of grants from the Whiting and Guggenheim foundations and he received the 1998 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for Reading the Water. Webb teaches Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach.

Alison Turner is the author of The Second Split Between, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2021 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets. Her work has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. She lives under the Hollywood sign with her husband writer Lou Mathews.