Creative Nonfiction Authors of the Timberline Review

We’re thrilled to introduce the creative nonfiction authors of this year’s Timberline Review. We hope that you’ll be pulled into their stories and feel the inspiration and care they poured into the stories they will write and have written. Take a second to get to know a bit about them before reading their stories.


Bharti Kirchner

An award-winning and multi-talented author, Bharti Kirchner has published nine critically acclaimed novels (in various genres, such as historical, literary, and mystery) and four cookbooks, including the best-selling The Bold Vegetarian. Her about-to-be-released 2023 mystery novel is Murder at Jaipur: A Maya Mallick Mystery (Book 3 in the series).  Bharti’s work has been translated in German, Dutch, Spanish, and other languages, and she has been widely read in the EU countries. Her short story “Promised Tulips,” first published in Seattle Noir, was recognized as a top noir story by Publisher’s Weekly and reappeared in USA Noir. 

Martha Pound Miller

Martha Pound Miller is a former Phoenician, happy to be in rainy Portland. Martha learned most of what she knows about writing from Ray Bradbury, James N. Frey, Marjorie Reynolds, and Larry Brooks.

Teresa H Janssen

Teresa H. Janssen’s essays and short fiction have appeared in Zyzzyva, Gold Man, Chautauqua, Parabola, and elsewhere; and in the anthologies, Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis (She Writes Press, 2022) and Offerings: A Spiritual Poetry Anthology (Tiferet, 2022). Her debut novel, The Ways of Water, inspired by her grandmother’s girlhood, is forthcoming January of 2023. She lives with her husband on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula where she tends a small orchard and writes about family and social and spiritual issues. She can be found online at www.teresahjanssen.com.

Nancy Deschu

Nancy Deschu lives in Alaska where she writes nonfiction and poetry based in natural history and sense of place. Her career as a field biologist has taken her to wilderness lands and waters across Alaska and overseas.

Mary Sweigart

Mary Sweigert was raised in eastern Washington and currently resides in Portland, OR. She works as a digital marketing strategist and writes fiction and creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared online at The Rumpus and RunOregon, and in print in the Timberline Review, Issue 10. While not writing, you can find Mary tripping down trails in and around Portland. She’s currently working on her first fiction novel. 


We are excited for you to read these hard working individuals stories about many different topics and hope you learn something new in the process.