Vanessa Able
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Hello and thank you for reading The Dewdrop.
The Dewdrop is a digest of reflective and powerful writing focused on reading, writing and being. We are immersed in poetry, essays and book excerpts that draw on classic texts as well as contemporary writing.
Grounded in Zen Buddhism, The Dewdrop is interested in every faith background as well as writers who don’t identify with any formal tradition. Humanists, agnostics, scientists, atheists and Jedis are most warmly welcome.
I am a Zen priest, writer and editor. As such, this site is the coming together of my three biggest interests. The material on The Dewdrop is in part taken from already existing publications, and is in part submitted by current and emerging writers, published in the ‘Featured Writers’ section.
All the posts on The Dewdrop are loved and published here in the spirit of sharing and promoting these wonderful writers and their works and ideas. If you see your work here and you would like it taken down, please contact me and I will do so right away.
Thank you to everyone for reading and supporting the effort. If you’re enjoying the drops, do sign up for the newsletter which contains a summary of recent posts.
Deep bows and all the good stuff,
Vanessa
Nicholas Trandahl
Editor, Featured Poetry
Nicholas Trandahl is an award-winning Wyoming poet, photographer, and journalist. He has had seven poetry collections published, with his 2023 collection Purgatory rising to the number one new release in American Poetry on the Amazon Bestsellers list. He has been awarded the Wyoming Writers Milestone Award and his poems have received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Trandahl’s poetry has appeared in various literary journals, including but not limited to the James Dickey Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Granite, The Way Back To Ourselves, Sky Island Journal, Voices de la Luna, Deep Wild Journal, and Soft Star Magazine. His photography has been published in Twenty Bellows and Resurrection Mag.
In addition to his work as Poetry Editor for The Dewdrop, Trandahl is a leader in his community and is heavily involved in advocacy, supporting access to suicide prevention and mental health resources. Trandahl is a disabled U.S. Army veteran.
Ellis Elliott
Editor, Writing Coach
Ellis Elliott is a writer, teacher of ballet, and leader of online writing groups. She has a blended family of six grown sons and lives with her husband in Juno Beach, FL.
She likes to divide her time, as much as possible, between the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the ocean. She is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books and recently completed her MFA at Queens University.
Ellis has been published in Literary Mama, Signal Mountain Review, Evening Street Review, Women of Appalachia Project Anthology 2021, and others.
Sam Shapiro
Contributing Editor
Since 2015, Sam Shapiro has served as the Head of School for the Marin Montessori School in Northern California. For fifteen years prior, he taught in the humanities department at the Athenian School. Educated on both coasts, Sam received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Santa Cruz, and his master’s degree in the study of world religions and Massachusetts secondary education teaching credential from Harvard University.
Prior to his career in schools, Sam lived in Indonesia–Sumatra and Bali–where he supported Indonesian Planned Parenthood in teaching HIV/AIDS prevention classes for youth.
A longtime mindfulness practitioner, Sam’s work on mindfulness in education was featured in Independent School Magazine. Currently, Sam volunteers as an interviewer for the Gates Foundation’s Gates Scholarship Program and is a contributing writer and podcaster for the parenting site, “Ground and Soaring.” In his free time and when not writing about parenting and education, Sam enjoys cycling, hiking, and camping, as well as cooking large meals with his family while listening to jazz.
Sam curates many of The Dewdrop’s poetry offerings.
Trent (Tankyo) Thomson
Editor, All About Love & dewdrops: Weekly Haiku
Trent Tankyo Thomson is a poet, writer, and editor. An ordained Zen Buddhist, Trent serves as a mindfulness meditation & movement mentor (zen/yoga). An avid reader, and Japanese tea enthusiast, Trent lives with his wife in the Tennessee mountains which provide inspiration for his practice & passion of writing haiku.
Trent has an MA In Literature and Theology from the University of The South (Sewanee), and a Certificate in Buddhist Studies from Harvard. His works have been published in The Sewanee Theological Review, among other journals. Trent’s Master’s thesis, Living in Lectio; Praying With Their Pens, is held at The Thomas Merton Center. Trent was the editor of a collection of poems, A Week in Waiting, by the late Trappist monk, Fr. Anthony Delisi. Additionally, Trent co-edited Step Into The Circle: Writers in Modern Appalachia.
Trent is currently working on a haiku tradaptation of Han Shan’s (Cold Mountain) poetry.