creative/publication team
William E. Berry Jr.
Publisher/CEO
William E. Berry, Jr. hails from the Bronx, NY via traveling the world. He distinguished himself in a variety of senior academic, executive, and student affairs administrative assignments at major universities and colleges. An activist educator, change agent, and academician interested in the dynamics of empowerment, diversity, sustainability, culture, and organizational effectiveness, he served as assistant dean for undergraduate studies at the State University Center at Stony Brook; directed Antioch University’s undergraduate and graduate programs in Maryland; served as dean of student affairs at the Harlem, NY based Malcolm-King College, and provided executive level assistance to three presidents at Rockland Community College (SUNY).
He served as the founding dean of institutional initiatives at Cayuga Community College (SUNY); held the joint positions of executive assistant to the president and associate dean of college relations at York College (CUNY), and was recruited to serve as vice president of student affairs at Briarcliffe College on Long Island. He has taught at the undergraduate and graduate-levels; presented at numerous national conferences, and holds an undergraduate degree in History from Lehman College, a Masters in Afro-American Studies from Boston University, and completed doctoral level coursework in Urban History at New York University.
A current resident of Auburn, NY, bill’s prolific management background complements his penchant and passion for supporting all phases of art and culture especially the written word, the visual and performing arts, and artists. His thirty year plus association with a wide variety of arts organizations, emerging and established artists, and other visionaries shaped the core and philosophy of what is aaduna.
In early 2010, bill launched aaduna, Inc., a non-profit company with the primary purpose of producing a thrice yearly publication that seeks to identify new and emerging writers and artists, especially creative people of color. And in doing so, he plans to create a different paradigm and community between artist and the marketplace. He continues to write fiction (short stories and a novel in progress), as well as essays dealing with diversity and educational management issues. For aaduna, he does what is needed…whenever.
Lisa A. Brennan
Visual Arts Editor & Executive Manager of Administration and Marketing
Lisa Brennan, is the webmaster of aaduna’s website and oversees the technical aspects involved with the thrice annual publication of aaduna artists’ written content and gallery presentations of visual art. She also designed the aaduna logo, transitioning a Southeast Asian art work into a plausible graphic design. Lisa started her pursuit of painting and art in the 3rd grade when she studied under the tutelage of artist Professor Walter Long, who served as the founding director and decades-long leader of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art. Her monochromatic acrylic wall mural of “race horses pounding to the finish line” completed when she was a senior in high school remains on permanent display at Auburn High School.
She continues to work with oil and acrylic, and finds a creative outlet in interpreting the everyday nuances of rural life: native flowers, old houses, horses. A life-long resident of Auburn, NY, she uses her keen eye to photograph romantic landscapes located throughout the Finger Lakes.Lisa holds a BS degree in Business Administration from Le Moyne College. Lisa is a New York Licensed Real Estate Broker specializing in commercial sales and leasing. She also serves as an Area Development Manager for The UPS Store, Inc. new franchise development and resales in Upstate NY, New England and Pennsylvania.
Pamela Havens
Contributing Editor
For Pamela Havens, the Finger Lakes will always be home. While born and raised in New York’s North Country, she ‘adopted’ the area as an undergraduate at Eisenhower College in Seneca Falls. Following graduation with a B.A. in English/American Literature, she returned north and earned an M.A. in liberal studies, summa cum laude, from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh. It was in the midst of completing her graduate studies that she found her way back to the Finger Lakes region, where she resided for more than a dozen years—growing her family and furthering her career in educational administration. Currently a semi-retired resident of the Mohawk Valley, she plans to return (and fully retire) somewhere along Owasco’s or Cayuga’s shores, where she expects to find ample inspiration for her own writing.
From an early age, Pamela's avocations have included penning poetry and other prose. Over time, two of her short stories have received ‘merit awards,’ and her poems have sporadically surfaced in print and online. Her first novel has reached its first phase of editing, with publication expected sometime in 2023.
Austin Saalman
Contributing Editor
Austin Saalman is a music journalist and freelance editor based in the Midwest.
Karen Faris
Guest Contributing Editor
Karen Faris is a Rochester, NY, based writer and artist. She combines poetry with fabric, words with photography, creates collages, and, at times, uses all of these things to create performance art. Her performance piece Aliens Like Us premiered in the 2019 Rochester Fringe Festival. She has been published in various journals including great weather for media, and, aaduna, with whom she has published the poetry chapbook The Death of Compassion. Her latest venture is a play called Surface Tension.
Linda González
Guest Contributing Editor
Linda González is the author of two published books: Breaking Through Your Own Glass Ceiling and The Cost of Our Lives. Her literary essays have been published in Huizache, La Tolteca ’Zine, Cooweescoowee, SN Review, YES! Media, and Long Story Short. Her essays can also be found in numerous anthologies. Linda has served as a judge for the International Latino Books awards. She coaches writers, racial equity champions, and small businesses of color entrepreneurs. Learn more at lindagonzalez.net. Linda has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, and MSW from the University of Southern California and a BA from Stanford University. Born and raised in Los Angeles by parents from México and Colombia, she has called the Bay Area home for 25+ years and is still raising and being raised by her millennial twins.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lindagonzález/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/masdelinda/
Sarah Khan
Guest Contributing Editor
Sarah Khan, also known by the pseudonym of Bazigha Khan, is a poet, researcher, fiction and nonfiction writer from Karachi, Pakistan. Her work has appeared in national and international magazines/journals namely Young World, aaduna, Vshine Magazine, North West Words, Soapstone Creek Literary Journal, Student’s Voice, Khabarfeed, PenSlips, Cat on a Leash Review and Teen ink. She has been the winner and the runner-up in four national poetry/story-writing competitions. Being a researcher, her research and review articles have appeared in Annals of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Austin Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Information, EC Psychology & Psychiatry and Journal of Depression and Anxiety. A collection of her short stories ‘Life’s Peculiarities’ got published in January 2017 (https://www.meraqissa.com/book/124.) From September 2014 to March 2016, she was the cover story writer for Vshine International Magazine (Karachi, Pakistan.) Currently she serves as a guest contributing editor for the literary journal, aaduna (New York, USA). She was also invited to be a judge for prose competition at Karachi Grammar School in February 2018.
Tamara J. Madison
Guest Contributing Editor
Tamara J. Madison is a poet, writer, and editor. Her work has been published and recorded in various journals, magazines, anthologies, podcasts, and exhibits including World Literature Today, Poetry International, Extract, Web del Sol Review of Books, and Mom Egg Review. Her work has also been published in the anthologies, SisterFire (HarperCollins), Temba Tupu (RedSea Press), and Check the Rhyme (LitNoire Press).
Her most recent poetry collection Threed, This Road Not Damascus is published by Trio House Press and was short-listed under the title, Breast Poems, in the 2015 Willow Books Literature Award. Threed, … has been reviewed in Poetry International, Cider Press Review, Empty Mirror Review, and Cordella Magazine. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2012 and 2022) and for Best of the Net (2019). She is also the author of Collard County (short stories), Kentucky Curdled (poetry), and Sistuh’s Sermon on the Mount (poetry chapbook).
Tamara is the creator and host of BREAKDOWN: The Poet & The Poems, a conversation series on YouTube to spread awareness of poets and their poetry as inspiration and motivation for everyday life. She has also shared her poetry on the TEDx platform.
Tamara has performed and recorded her work for stage, television, and studio and facilitates creative writing workshops. She is a MFA graduate of New England College and an Anaphora Arts Fellow. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida where she teaches as a professor of English and Creative Writing at Valencia College. For more information, visit www.tamarajmadison.com.
Sarah Wyman, Ph.D.
Guest Contributing Editor
When she’s not writing or teaching in the Hudson Valley, Sarah Wyman coaxes morning glories and trumpet vines over her backyard tipi. Her poems have appeared in Quarry, Petrichor Review,Aaduna, Home Planet News, A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley (Codhill), Mudfish, Ekphrasis, and AMP. Her chapbook, Sighted Stoneswill be published by Finishing Line Press (2018). She teaches poetry, modern drama, and U.S. literature at SUNY New Paltz where she is an associate professor, and runs poetry reading and writing workshops at the Shawangunk prison. As director of the faculty center, she offers professional development workshops and leads faculty/staff hikes in the Mohonk Preserve and surrounding areas. https://faculty.newpaltz.edu/sarahwyman.