About Gnarled Oak

Gnarled Oak is an online literary journal established in 2014 that publishes poetry, prose, artwork, and videos four times a year. We plan to publish in January, April, July, and October. We will publish each issue over the course of a 3-4 week period, featuring one piece per day.

Staff

James Brush, Editor

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James Brush lives in Austin, TX where he teaches high school English in a juvenile correctional facility. He claims Newport, RI as his hometown, but after twenty-some-odd years in central Texas, he can’t imagine living anywhere without a great Mexican restaurant on every corner. He earned his MA at​​ the University of Texas at Austin where he was a James Michener Fellow at the Texas Center for Writers. He is the author of Highway Sky, Birds Nobody Loves, A Place Without a Postcard, and numerous scraps of paper around his house. His favorite thing to do is hang out and spend time with his wife and young son. You can find him online at Coyote Mercury or anywhere good enchiladas are served.

Simon the Cat, Felis Catus

Simon the CatSimon the Cat believes literary journals, like good book stores, should have cats. Simon has slept on many literary anthologies and books by a variety of publishers. He was in a few issues of Carnival of the Cats back when blog carnivals were common. At Gnarled Oak, he sometimes takes over the chair and gets in the way when James is working, and he provides his presence so James doesn’t feel quite so silly when using the editorial we.

Site History

Gnarled Oak started as a gnarled oak, editor James Brush’s personal micropoetry blog, where he published small stones, haiku, and other micropoem-type things from 2009-2012. He started publishing his short stuff on his main site Coyote Mercury and decided to do something new with the site and thus started the current online journal late in 2014. If you’re here looking for his old micropoetry, it can still be found lurking in the archives, but he’d rather you read the new stuff and maybe even contribute some of your own work.