Collaborators

KATHY SKERRITT BIO:

Kathy Skerritt was an artist, poet, and backyard philosopher whose work artfully makes visible the shared patterns of planetary and bodily forms that point to the primal, irreducible whole that she insists undergirds the world. Her art has been widely exhibited in the United States and Canada and a bit can be seen at Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. She lived in Cleveland, Ohio with her husband, Michael,  whom she always described as "an extraordinary man." If you'd like to see more of Kathy's work, you can find her work archived at Artwork Archive, some available for purchase. 

SANDRA KOLANKIEWICZ BIO:

Nearly 600 of Sandra Kolankiewicz's poems and stories have appeared in reviews over the past 35 years. Turning Inside Out won the Black River Prize at Black Lawrence Press. Finishing Line Press published The Way You Will Go, Lost in Transition, and Even the Cracks. Blue Eyes Don’t Cry won the Hackney Award for the Novel. Her purpose in writing Evie's Fall was to turn her own despair into hope. She lives in Marietta, Ohio. http://sandrajkolankiewicz.blogspot.com/

MICHAEL LEASURE BIO:

is a guitarist/composer/innovative stylist with a massive catalog of ‘categorization defying’, multi-faceted original compositions, featuring work on guitar synthesizer, as well as jazz, classical and acoustic guitars.

His compositions range from pure classical, to full film score, to jazz, to 80’s style pop, and everything in between.

As a teenager, Michael gained admission to Boston’s Berklee School of Music as a guitar major, but his tutors soon noticed his exceptional compositional skills, and offered him employment as a film music composer in the film score department. This early experience led to a characteristic ‘cinematic’ compositional and performance style with guitar synthesizer.

After graduating magna cum laude from Berklee, with a degree in performance and composition, Michael was offered a scholarship to Ohio University, where he worked on his Master’s degree in composition and electronic music, becoming the first, and youngest, jazz guitar teacher at the university.

Procuring a management/publishing contract with Callico Productions, Michael was introduced to Dr. George Butler of CBS Records, and for the following 5 years Michael composed over 300 pieces of music.

Composition aside, Michael is also an extremely accomplished performer, having formed many bands of his own and having performed alongside many greats.

Music production becoming an interest, Michael formed the music production company ‘MTL Productions’ in 2001, now based in Florida. With new technologies more readily available, and in the unique position of owning his own production company, Michael is currently in the process of remastering many old recordings, as well as producing new ones.

Never far away from composition, Michael has returned to his roots of classical music and film score composition, recently composing, and arranging, over 4 hours of new music. If you’d like to hear them, visit https://www.thevoiceforanimalsradio.com/ - Website: https://www.michaelleasure.com/

STACY KINCHEN BIO:

Stacy Kinchen, who provided us with photos and "Ralphie's Lament," is a materials specialist with an eye for beauty in the earth, whether it is carried by sound, by light, or by touch. He is involved in projects that develop and rehabilitate infrastructure to preserve and restore the earth’s water, and is keenly interested in the prospect that this earth will one day be the paradise it was meant to be.