About the Artists in LIT 42
On the cover They Should Take the Bait (It Pulls Fists Out of Every Eye) by JJ Cromer
J.J. Cromer and his family live on a small farm in central Appalachia, where they’ve kept bees, geese, ducks, and chickens. Self-taught as an artist, he holds a bachelor’s degree in history and two master’s degrees — in English and library science. His art is held in the permanent collections of the American Visionary Art Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Taubman Museum of Art, and the American Folk Art Museum, among others. JJ’s work will be featured by the Cavin-Morris Gallery for The Outsider Art Fair 2026 https://www.outsiderartfair.com/
Untitled
Marc Angel was born in Dikrech, Luxembourg in 1960 and studied graphic design in Cologne. He continues to work as an independent artist, graphic designer and publisher, while also writing lyrics, composing music, providing vocals and playing guitar in several bands. He writes and illustrates his own prose, poetry, comics and graphic novels, and also works as a translator and illustrator. He illustrated Samuel Hamen’s 2020 graphical novel, Zeeechen (Siiigns), which won the Luxembourg Book Prize in the Literature category.
Shape and Texture
Known more for his poetry than pixels, Keith A. Dodson has dabbled in photography for over fifty years. Recent work has been accepted by Ink In Thirds, LIT Magazine, Split Rock Review, and The Penn Review.
Monkeys, Car beneath the storm, Moving bridge
Alex Leigh Farber
writes from Pennsylvania, where he mentors and teaches. His work blends experimental forms and mythic undercurrents with intimate explorations of memory, desire, and human (dis)connection. His work appears or is forthcoming in LIT Magazine, Poetry Salzburg Review, Apocalypse Confidential, Apofenie, and Mediterranean Poetry.
Edinger Insurance AgencyJeff Hartnett is a retired architecture professor from the apple-scented Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, who tries to follow the example of Henry David Thoreau’s economics of aesthetic reflection in order to support the maximum proportion of his time dedicated to aesthetic indolence. His writing, photography, and art have been published in numerous literary journals. He has an unpublished novel, “A Heaven for Objects.” Jeff invites you to visit his website — jeffhartnett.weebly.com — and also welcomes your comments — hartnett2740@comcast.net. He lives in a yellow house in weird-and-rainy Portland.
6201 , 6235 , 6223
Richard Hanus had four kids but now just three. Zen and Love. His work has previously appeared in LIT 36, and LIT 41.
Parakeets, Basketballs, Doors, Oppenheim
Helen Hofling is a Baltimore-based writer, editor, and artist. Her work has appeared in Epiphany, Gulf Coast, The Hopkins Review, Prelude, the Seneca Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of the PEN Prison and Justice Writing Project, and she teaches writing at Loyola University Maryland. www.helenhofling.com.
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Cristina Iorga is a painter and printmaker. She has an MFA in Printmaking from University of Iowa and a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania. Cristina’s art is a burst of the subconscious, concerned with the expression of both the spiritual and the material. She believes that the expression of pure feeling puts the viewer in touch with an alternative, ultimately spiritual world.
Messenger Pigeons
Charles J. March III is a Rottweiler-breeder’s son on the Southside of Chicago whose work has appeared in Feral, Fleas on the Dog, Cajun Mutt, The Learned Pig, Bear Creek Gazette, Mantis, Cephalopress, Young Ravens, Squawk Back, Of Zoos, Sulfur “Surrealist Jungle,” Mycelia, etc. More can be found at LinkedIn & SoundCloud.
Sunflowers
Mary Petrokubi (1912–1989) was a respected New Jersey artist known for her award-winning watercolor, mixed media, and oil paintings. She exhibited widely with the Livingston Art Association, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey (formerly Summit Art Center) and New Jersey Watercolor Society, earning consistent recognition for her technical skill and contributions to the regional art community. She was married to Stephen Joseph Petrokubi with whom she had one daughter, Marilyn.
Blue Night
Jenn Powers is a writer and artist from New England. She resides in New York and is currently working on a mystery thriller novel. She has work published or forthcoming in over 70 literary journals, including Spillway, CutBank, Witness, Gemini, Lunch Ticket and Prime Number. Recently, her poem won the Academy of American Poets University Prize (2025) and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. She’s also a self-taught artist and a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Binghamton University. Please visit http://www.jennpowers.com for more information.
Scorch
Robert Thurman Robert R. Thurman is an artist, poet, and musician. His work has appeared in The Harvard Advocate, Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion, 3:AM Magazine, and Columbia Journal.
The term Poetic Nature refers to the theoretical transferring of DNA spliced from poetry, words, letters (letters themselves being the DNA of words) to living organisms such as insects, in this particular case Melanophila, commonly known as fire beetles or fire chaser beetles, which are attracted to forest fires because they use freshly burnt (and sometimes still smoldering) wood to mate and lay their eggs.
The thought of fire as a catalyst for meaning stems partially from the increasing frequency and devastation of forest fires and my experience with seed germination. Certain types of seeds need fire or scarification to aid in germination; (I use a knife or sandpaper to score the seed coat) both are used in the process of making these sculptural poems.
Best Silver Maple, Sugar Maple
Cynthia Yachtman is a Seattle based artist. A former ceramicist, she received her B.F.A. in painting (UW). She switched from 3D to 2D and has remained there ever since. She works primarily on paintings and prints. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections. She has exhibited on both coasts, extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, SPU, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is, a member of the Seattle Print Art Association,COCA, Women Painters of Washington and Puget Sound Group of Northwest Artists.
