Boy in Summer by Deborah Mashibini
Deborah Mashibini just moved to Enfield, New Hampshire from St. Louis, Missouri where she read/performed her work as a featured reader for multiple community events, most recently the Poetry, Prose and Pints series at Dressel’s Pub, the St. Louis Poetry Center’s Poetry at the Point, Words on Purpose, and 100,000 Poets for Change.
Her work has been published in a number of anthologies and journals. Recent publications include the online journal Looseleaf Tea, the 2013 edition of the St. Louis Black Pages and Community Annual Magazine, No Vacancy: A Voice for Those Without One, Kaleidoscope Magazine, and American Society: What Poets See.
After more than 25 years working in nonprofit organizations, Mashibini completed an MA in English/Creative Writing at SIUE in the spring of 2010, where she received the William Slattery Award for Poetry. She currently works as an adjunct instructor at Ranken Technical College. Her English Composition courses are absolutely the least favorite requirement for her students, all of them aspiring auto mechanics, electricians, plumbers, precision machining technicians, IT specialists and other technical folk. She actually enjoys coercing, charming and coaching them through her classes.
In January 2014 Mashibini will have relocated to New England where she is set to begin the MFA in Creative Writing program at Goddard College while teaching as an online adjunct for Southern New Hampshire University and curling up by the wood pellet stove, as she fondly remembers many warm winters in the southwest.
Other claims to fame: a 1986 appearance on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show which featured homeless artists and writers she published in Forgotten Voices/Unforgettable Dreams, an anthology of creative work by homeless people. In the mid-1980’s, as assistant director for the National Coalition for the Homeless in New York City, she began one of the first programs in the country to offer support and outlets for artists living on the streets and in emergency shelters. In the 1990’s, as assistant director of VSA New Mexico, the state organization on arts and disability, Mashibini ran an innovative arts-based day habilitation program for adults with developmental disabilities and a nationally recognized AmeriCorps Program that brought artists with and without disabilities together in creative community outreach. She is also a 2008 graduate of the St. Louis Regional Arts Commissions CAT (Community Arts Training) Institute. Want more tidbits? Google her (she is one of only three people in the United States with the last name Mashibini – her daughter and grandson are the other two). She can also be found on YouTube reading a few poems (again, search for her name when you get there).
She does not have a website. Maybe one of these days.
postcardpoemsandprose.wordpress.com 
I’m not sure which I enjoyed more – the poem or that interesting bio!
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We like to think that readers come for both and that’s why we offer greatly expanded author and artist bios. It’s nice to get affirmation though. Thanks. (eds.)
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How lovely – a little bit of summer to cheer up a dreary January night in Ireland! 🙂
Yes, I agree about the bio. It’s lovely to read a bit more about the author/artist involved. So many journals/e-zines only want a line, so everyone sounds more or less the same except that they come from a different place on the planet 🙂
marion
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