Poet Lesley Constable, born and raised in Mansfield, Ohio to a bi-cultural – US and UK – artistic, literary family, she enjoyed a long tenure at The Ohio State University (OSU) earning her B.A. in arts Journalism, an M.A. in Art Criticism, held positions as art gallery curator, lecturer/associate professor teaching studio arts and arts-related courses at OSU, and taught art history at other universities. While in Columbus, the poet also had a lengthy, noteworthy career as art critic for “The Columbus Dispatch,” and wrote for the “The New Art Examiner” and “Dialogue: an arts Journal. An established visual artist, a painter, with frequent solo and group exhibitions, she is also a trained modern dancer. After moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the mid-1990s, she continued to write about art, to teach (English and Poetry) and, there, rekindled her lifelong passion for writing poetry which has continued to the present. She has been published in a variety of prominent journals, featured on poetry web-sites and is founder of Open Borders Poetry, an international poetry collective and literary small press. She is a veteran reader at scheduled poetry events and performs regularly at Open Microphone readings. A dual citizen – US and UK – by birth, she currently divides her time between the US, Mexico, and the UK. She is mother of four children and three grandchildren who live in both the US and the UK.
The awakening began in a small grove of black oak trees on Collins Street in Fort Worth Texas. Then the road wound around a few stops in other towns and cities of Texas, Zapata, Del Rio, and finally ending with radio days in Space City. Under summer fog, the strong lure of Berkeley Dane Ince came west to study fine art and acting and to write ever so occasionally. Personal tragedy and the pandemic focused the artist’s mind and hundreds of poems have resulted along with special online programing events on Facebook. “Outrage Against Racism” which was produced on the author’s birthday and happens to land on Holocaust Remembrance Day followed by St. Valentine’s Day Mascara an inclusive international and grown-up version of the celebration, Juneteenth was produced on the inaugural national holiday for the celebration of freed slaves in America, an international Day of the Dead event, and most recently, an event being a poetic gathering of writers from around the world in support of Ukraine. Dane Ince is an internationally published poet, named Beat Poet Laureate for California, and hosts a weekly open mic – Time to Arrive, and founder of EYEPUBLISHEWE.