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ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Shane Allison was bit by the writing bug at the age of fourteen. He spent a majority of his high school life shying away in the library behind desk cubicles writing bad love poems about boys he had crushes on. He has since gone on to publish many chapbooks of poetry—Black Fag , Ceiling of Mirrors , Cock and Balls , I Want to Fuck a Redneck , Remembered Men and Live Nude Guys —as well as four full-length poetry collections: I Remember (Future Tense Books), Slut Machine (Rebel Satori Press), Sweet Sweat (Hysterical Books), and, most recently, I Want to Eat Chinese Food Off Your Ass (Dumpster Fire Press). He has edited twenty-five anthologies of gay erotica and has written two novels, You’re the One I Want and Harm Done (Simon and Schuster Publishing). Allison’s collage work has graced the pages of Shampoo , Unlikely Stories , Pnpplzine.com, Palavar Arts Magazine , The Southeast Review , South Broadway Review , Postscript Magazine , and a plethora of others. Allison is at work on a new novel and is always at work making a collage here and there. Addie Berry : This piece I did is of one of my favorite artists, Jeff Buckley. The title is based on one of my favorite songs off of his album, Grace. I made this in a screen printing class here at PCC. The silhouette I used is from a photo that David Ghar took of Buckley in 1994. The photo attached is of me and my cat Albert :) Christa Fowles : I came to painting as a way to visually express the way that I see the world and the mystery and wonder that is always present. In my current work there is an attempt to get at the sense of flow and the feeling of being outside time, even in something as simple as cooking, serving and enjoying a meal. There is much that is ancient and very human in these rituals, and my hope is to capture a glimmer of this in my work. Adam Idris : See the Meet the Editors page for a fun and zany bio!! You’ll have a funtastic time!!! Blake L. Johnson is a Portland-based photographer whose artistic focus is black-and-white street photography. Working with a monochrome camera, he captures the raw textures and striking contrasts of city life. Blake has a special interest in photographing people within their environments, as well as highlighting the wabi-sabi characteristics—the beauty found in imperfection and transience—of the urban landscape. The photograph “Old Town Portland Early Morning” was created during an Introduction to Digital Photography course at PCC. Blake wandered the streets of Old Town in the quiet hours before the city fully woke, drawn to the soft morning light revealing the worn textures and shifting shadows of the neighborhood. Carter Kohler is a Portland, OR-based artist who believes in the significance of radical kindness and compassion in the changing landscape of social networks in the twenty-first century. His work reflects on moments of growth and change, often inspired by personal experiences of hardship, resilience, and loss. Hannah Lavender is an illustrator. Mark Strehlow is an multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on sculpture, painting and drawing. His work touches on themes of the body, identity, and social tensions, and often draws on already established symbols to create juxtaposition between history and modernity. He is currently a student in Portland, Oregon. Native Portlander Eleanor Song is a second-year PCC student majoring in political science. She is a former National Student Poets Program semifinalist and has been published by Stepping Stone Publishing (but most of her work exists in a single notes app file, not backed up). Outside of writing, Eleanor is a photographer, legislative staffer, and proud cat mom. You can find her talking to strangers on the blue line, getting lost on hiking trails, and lighting candles that smell like sugar. A home health caregiver and ESOL teacher at PCC Hillsboro Center, Woods Stricklin is just beginning learning how to use a digital camera. Born in Texas, raised in Nebraska, an Oregonian since July 4, 2001, he believes we are all artists. Dean Wilson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Canby, Oregon, whose creative work spans both photography and the written word. His photograph "Quiet Time" was featured in Fifty Years, Fifty Artists: A Celebration of the West , and his work has been exhibited at Northview Gallery and Blue Sky: Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts. His images have also appeared in Uncommon , a publication by the Portland Photographers Forum, as well as The Bellwether Review . Dean’s poetry and prose have been published in the Lewis and Clark Review , Alchemy Magazine, and The Bellwether Review . Driven by a lifelong need to create, he approaches his art with a spirit of exploration—often blending visual storytelling with reflective narrative. Refusing to be confined by style or subject, Dean embraces both photography and writing as open-ended conversations with the world around him.

Home ART POETRY FICTION NONFICTION Thank you for visiting our website. The Bellwether Review is a literary journal that hopes to promote and inspire creativity amongst those not only at Portland Community College Rock Creek but also throughout the broader global community of writers and artists. We hope you take the time to review these great pieces that were sent in to us and selected for publication by our editorial team. Visit our Submissions page if you are interested in having your work considered for publication in a future issue. Email us at bellwetherreview@gmail.com with any questions. LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Reader , First and foremost, thank you for reading this year’s edition of The Bellwether Review . Students who submit their works for publication, as well as those who create the review, spend hundreds of hours working their craft, and we here on the editorial team truly appreciate the efforts that have gone into developing the outstanding works that appear in this year’s journal. One hundred and six works were submitted this year, and each one was reviewed and discussed by the editorial team, as we sought out what makes each piece special—what makes them beautiful—and ultimately selected those that stood out as exemplary to share with you, the readers of the 2024 edition. We here at The Bellwether Review team thank you for taking the time to appreciate the work of these contributing writers and artists, and we especially want to thank all those who contributed works to this edition. And with that, we hope to see you next year. Until then, take care. — The 2024 Editorial Team Copyright © 2024 Portland Community College Portland Community College reserves all rights to the material contained herein for the contributors’ protection. On publication, all rights revert to the respective authors and artists.

The Bellwether Review 2020 Art Poetry Fiction Groundswell Archive Best Essay Winner

HISTORY OF THE BELLWETHER REVIEW The Bellwether Review got its start in 1996. Originally dubbed The Rock Creek Review , the journal used to be staffed by Rock Creek faculty members. The Rock Creek Review was renamed The Bellwether Review in 2011 with the inception of the Advanced Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing course. Former editors chose the name The Bellwether Review to symbolize the artistic drive of writers and artists. A “bellwether” is the leader of a flock of sheep—a sheep who wears a bell to signal the best direction for the entire herd. Today, the term more commonly refers to any person who takes initiative and sets trends. We believe those whose work is published in The Bellwether Review are leading the way for artistic expression.