Penultimate Press

Author Bios

Colleen McKee and Amanda Steibel edited Are We Feeling Better Yet?, an anthology of 21 essays by a diverse group of women from all across the U.S., who write eloquently of "trying to navigate what is often a liminal, difficult place: where the private body encounters the public institutions of the medical establishment. Whether they found it a place of healing, harm, or both, amazing stories emerge."

Colleen McKee grew up on welfare in the first town in America to be completely evacuated because of toxic waste, leading her to an early, if reluctant, interest in the health care system. Her personal essays have appeared in anthologies such as Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (Seal) and Under the Arch: St. Louis Stories (Antares). Her work on women and health care has appeared in Chronic Babe and Bellevue Literary Review. Additionally she is the author of My Hot Little Tomato (Cherry Pie) a book of poetry about the pleasures of food and sex. She earned her B.A. in Literature and World Religions, as well as a minor in Women's Studies, from Webster University. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches English, and Women and Gender Studies.

Amanda Crowell Stiebel is best known for her eclectic job history and her poetry publications; she has been a janitor, model, steelworker, high-school teacher, perpetual student, caving instructor, telemarketer, and college instructor, among other things. Her free-verse poetry focuses mainly on experiencing life as a woman and has appeared in many publications including the People's Press anthology The Familiar, and A Chaos of Angels (Word Walker), an anthology of poetry about psychotropic drug use. In addition, she has worked as an editor on Natural Bridge, a literary review. Amanda earned her B.A. in English at Truman State University, and her M.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in American Studies at Saint Louis University. She, her husband, and son, live in St. Louis, her hometown.

Qiu Xiaolong

Qiu Xiaolong was born and raised in Shanghai, China. While living in China, as an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the Chinese Writers' Association, he published across diverse fields, including prize-winning poetry translations of T. S. Eliot's poems and Imagist poems. He came to the United States as a visiting scholar, but what happened in Beijing in 1989 changed his path. He started writing in English and got a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Washington University. Qiu won a Missouri Biennial Award and a Prairie Schooner Award for his poetry. He has authored five highly acclaimed novels: Death of a Red Heroine (2000), A Loyal Character Dancer (2002), When Red is Black (2004), A Case of Two Cities (2006), and Red Mandarin Dress (2007), which have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in St. Louis with his wife and daughter.

Mary Ellen Havard

Mary Ellen Havard was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. The eldest of six children in a family with strong Irish Catholic roots, Mary Ellen was a gregarious and outgoing child who enjoyed taking part in activities with her friends, including athletics, team sports, and music. Following graduation from a private high school for girls, Mary Ellen entered the order of religious who had taught her and became a nun. While in that community, she attended Webster University in St. Louis, where she earned a B.A., and she received special training in Montessori early education methods. Mary Ellen was actively involved in her order's preschool and primary program for a number of years.

After a period of reflection and reevaluation, Mary Ellen left the convent in the 1970s and moved from St. Louis to New York City, where she worked as a teacher. Two years later, she married Colin, who also had been a member of a religious order and a priest. While in New York, Mary Ellen obtained a Master's degree and continued teaching until the arrival of the couple's first son, Mark. Three years later, Mary Ellen, now a stay-at-home mom, and Colin became parents of their second child, Michael. With Mark approaching first grade, Colin seeking new employment, and Mary Ellen's mother terminally ill with cancer, the family returned to St. Louis where, years later, Mary Ellen continues to live, work, love, and -most recently-to capture her experience with breast cancer in a book.

Mary Openlander

Mary Openlander grew up in the St. Louis area and earned a B.S. degree in physical therapy from St. Louis University. Mary had more than twelve years of experience in physical therapy when she began studying the Trager Approach in 1991. Delighted with the way Trager broadened her abilities to help patients with chronic pain, she acquired further certification as a Mentastics movement education instructor and became an assistant to the educational staff of Trager International.

In 1998, Mary opened Physical Therapy Innovations to provide a setting for blending traditional physical therapy with complementary approaches. She recently concluded a three-year term on the board of the United States Trager Association and was the 2002 recipient of the Florence P. Kendall Award for outstanding Service in Physical Therapy from St. Louis University. A yoga student, singer, and outdoors enthusiast, Mary lives in St. Louis with her husband and two sons.

Winnie Sullivan

Winnie Sullivan was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. A self-described "Francophile," she is a lifelong student of French language, literature, and culture. Initially she wrote Notes from Paris as a journal of her first visit to Paris, ". . . to preserve the memory of it with a full written record, beyond what photographs could provide." At first the journal was a gift to her friend and traveling companion who was moving from St. Louis to Boston. Now, Notes from Paris is a travel-sized memoir that recounts Winnie's experiences in the City of Light.

Winnie has worked as a writer and editor since 1989. Currently, she owns a production services company, through which she offers writing, editing, graphic design and page layout services. She is also the founder and executive director of PenUltimate Press, Inc., a nonprofit literary publishing house. Winnie lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.

Catherine Rankovic

Poet, essayist and journalist Catherine Rankovic is the author of Island Universe: Essays and Entertainments (WingSpan, 2007), Fierce Consent and Other Poems (WingSpan, 2005), and a co-author of Guilty Pleasures (Andrews-McMeel, 2003). Widely published and a winner of multiple awards for her work in every genre, Rankovic has a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University, an M.A. in English Literature from Syracuse University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from Washington University. She has taught creative writing at Washington University since 1989 and is a leading figure in the St. Louis literary community.