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Phyllis Chapell
Phyllis Chapell (vocalist/guitarist) performs a unique mix of originals, folk, jazz and international music, including songs in up to 13 languages from the U.S., Brazil, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Her American repertoire covers a wide range of music from jazz and folk, to pop standards, as well as originals. Phyllis Chapell has performed in concert throughout the U.S., in Brazil, Latin America, and Europe. She has released 2 solo CDs, and 4 CDs with her internationally known world jazz ensemble Phyllis Chapell & SIORA.

Phyllis Chapell has been named as one of the top 500 jazz vocalists of all time by Scott Yanow (writer for Down Beat, Jazz Times and AllMusicGuide). She has also won song competitions for her original music; and was chosen to be one of Indie- Music’s Top 25.

You can check out her website: www.siorajazz.com.

Diana Finegold
Diana Finegold, a passionate playwright, producer, director and actor, is thrilled to be making her debut with the Salon! Founder/Artistic Director of The Wild Thyme Players for 26 years, she has led them to great popularity and acclaim in NY, CT, MA, and now PA. She is the author of 14 Guess Whodunit Murder Mysteries, hailed “a hilarious combination of Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python.” Look for her onstage in June at Old Academy’s production of the comedy “Mornings at Seven.”

Kathleen Mulhearn
Kathleen has performed in several productions in the Philadelphia area for over 15 years. Some of her favorite roles include Laura in The Glass Menagerie, Sarah in Stop Kiss, Amanda in The Food Chain, Chorus in Medea, Mabel in The MostFabulous Story Ever Told, Emma in Pterodactyls and Dorine in Tartuffe. She shifted her focus to solo performance while in the Master of Theatre program at Villanova University. Her one-woman shows, Through the Ring of Fire and Uncharted Waters, aremotivated by creating a universal human experience through the telling of personal stories that focus on the blundering, deeply personal and often humorous moments in life.

Elizabeth Austin (Mine Alone)
Elizabeth Austin is a Pushcart-nominated poet, photographer, and visual artist. She is currently a graduate student in Creative Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, See Spot Run, Foliate Oak, and Driftwood Press, and has been featured in a collaborative exhibit with photographer Sarah Jane Sanders at the Norton Center for the Arts. She was first runner up for Bucks County Poet Laureate 2014 and a finalist in 2016. She currently lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania with her two children. Follow her on Instagram: @elizabethbeingqueen, or visit her website (http://elizabethaustinpoet.weebly.com) for more of her work.

Mike Cohen (Every Right to Ask)
Mike Cohen hosts Poetry Aloud and Alive at Philadelphia's Big Blue Marble Book Store. His articles on sculpture appear in the Schuylkill Valley Journal. His wry writing has appeared in Mad Poets Review, Apiary Magazine, Fox Chase Review, and other journals. Mike has performed in venues including Princeton’s Café Improv, the Pen and Pen Club, the Hedgerow Theatre, Fergie’s Pub, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, and neither least nor last, Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Steve Delia (Unspoken Kiss Off)
Steve Delia was been writing poetry for (GASP!) 40 years. He has read at various coffeehouses, bookstores, libraries, Cafe Improv and WXPN. He won first prize at the Phila Writers Conference in 2015. He has five chapbooks: Revisiting Revised And Retyped Vols 1 and 2, Haiku And Other Imaginings, Zoo Poetry and 1622 Church Street. He has a finished manuscript of his latest, The Alphabet Poems, that he hopes to have out soon.

Janina Brajtburg (Courtyard) Alina Macneal - Translated her mother’s memoir from Polish
Set in Warsaw in 1928, Courtyard is an excerpt from a memoir written by Alina’s mother, Janina Brajtburg. who grew up in an assimilated Jewish family in Warsaw in the 1920’s. The scene, Courtyard, describes her mother’s discovery, when she is five or six, that she’s Jewish. Her memoir, in the original Polish, has recently been published, posthumously, by the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada. Alina Macneal is an architect and writer. She was born in Warsaw, grew up in St. Louis, and has lived in Philadelphia since the early 80’s. Her poems have appeared in Apiary Magazine and Poems for the Writing. In 2015 she was a finalist in the Raynes Poetry Comptition.

Jennifer Hubbard (Am I Safe in This Place?)
Jennifer R. Hubbard is the author of three novels, including Try Not to Breathe, and the nonfiction Loner in the Garret: A Writer’s Companion. She lives and works in the Philadelphia area.

Lavinia Kumar (Ministration, Pune, India)
Lavinia Kumar’s poetry book is The Skin and Under (Word Tech, 2015). Her two chapbooks are Let There be Color (2016) and Rivers of Saris (2013). Her poetry has appeared in US and UK publications such as Atlanta Review, Colere, Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Flaneur, Kelsey Review, New Verse News, Orbis, Pedestal, Pemmican, Symmetry Pebbles, Lives You Touch, & US1 Worksheets. She is a member of poetry groups in Princeton and Pennsylvania.

Bernadette McBride (Angie)
Bernadette McBride is author of three poetry collections. Her poems have appeared in the UK, in numerous U.S. journals, and on PRIs The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she was second-place winner of the International Ray Bradbury Writing Award and runner-up for the Robert Fraser Poetry Prize. A former Poet Laureate for Bucks County, PA, she is poetry co-editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

Christine McKee (Shame)
Christine Caruso McKee loved poetry since early childhood. Put on hold while she earned a BA, MEd, and EdD, she started to write seriously in 2002. She has been published in Bucks County Writer (PA), Her Mark (Chicago, IL), U.S. Worksheets (Princeton, NJ), Schuylkill Valley Journal (Philadelphia, PA), Presence (Bellevue, WA), and in other print and online journals. Her first book, On Shady Lane, was published in August, 2015 and is available on Amazon.com.

Abbe Mogell (Harvest)
Abbe Mogell resides in Montgomery County, PA and owns a healing arts studio where she works with clients who have chronic pain conditions. She has an interest in writing children’s picture books. This week she is an avid granola baker—- Next week? Perhaps pursuing the perfect gluten free pizza crust….