Our gratitude to Michelle Brock and Hazel Hall for judging the Tanka Society of America’s 2019 Goldstein International Tanka Contest.

lives on a bush block near the Molonglo Gorge, Queanbeyan, Australia. After working for more than twenty years as a town planner she is now savoring her life as a writer and has received awards for her short stories and poems. These include the Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award, the Michael Thwaites Poetry Award, the Rolf Boldrewood Award, the Elyne Mitchell Award, and the National Portrait Gallery’s Fireside Tales. Addicted to tanka, in 2012 she joined the Limestone Tanka Poets facilitated by Kathy Kituai. She won a Eucalypt Distinctive Scribblings Award in 2016 and her tanka, haiga, and tanka prose appear in Eucalypt, Ribbons, Cattails, Skylark, Haibun Today, and numerous anthologies. She is also a founding member of Queanbeyan Writers and Friday Writers. Established in 2008, Friday Writers recently released Ebb and Flow, an anthology of poetry, tanka, and vignettes. Michelle loves experimenting with various forms of creative expression including art and dancing and facilitates dance sessions at the annual Limestone Poets’ retreat. Dissolving (2018), written with Gerry Jacobson, explores connections between somatic dance and poetry.

Hazel Hall is an Australian poet and musicologist who enjoys collaborating with other writers and artists. She founded and convened the School of Music Poets, Canberra from 2012 to 2018. Her haiku, tanka, and free verse appear in many local and overseas anthologies and journals and have been recognized in a number of competitions, the most recent being a Sakura Award at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (2018). Over three consecutive years Hazel’s work has been peer selected for the annual Red Moon Anthology. Her recent publications include Flood, Fire and Drought (Ginninderra Press, 2015) with Suzanne Edgar, Kathy Kituai, and Sandra Renew; One Last Border (Ginninderra Press, 2015) with Moya Pacey and Sandra Renew; Eggshell Sky (Bytes ’n Colours, 2017) with calligraphers Angela Hillier, Narelle Jones, and Parkinsons’ artists; Step by Step (Ginninderra Press, 2018) with tai chi practitioner Angelina Egan; Moonlight over the Siding (Interactive Press, 2018), featuring collected tanka with artwork by the late Robert Tingey; Silver Fugue (Ginninderra Press, 2018), collected works by the School of Music Poets, and You Are Her Words (forthcoming, 2019), a chapbook on service dogs, with the Canadian painter Karen Bailey. Hazel is an experienced facilitator; her most recent workshop being Beverley George’s Bowerbird Tanka Workshop in New South Wales (October 2018). She has judged several poetry contests in Australia and abroad, the latest being Claire Everett’s Skylark’s Nest Award (2017).