Jill Stengel is a poet, publisher of a+bend press, and parent of three children. Several of her serial poems have appeared in chapbook form: cartography (1999, WOOD); History, Possibilities : (1999, a+bend press); ladies with babies (2003, Boog); lagniappe (2008, Nous-Zot Press, Dusie Kollektiv); late may (2007, Dusie); may(be) (2006, Dusie); and the forthcoming wreath (Texfiles). Her first full-length collection is forthcoming from Black Radish Books in 2011.

Begun in San Francisco in 1999, Jill’s a+bend press published 40 chapbooks in its first 20 months of existence. Jill produced the chapbooks in conjunction with her reading series, Second Sundays at BlueBar, held in the poetically-historically famous North Beach district of San Francisco.

The press has been on a chapbook-publishing hiatus for eight years, during which time she has produced three children and five issues of the journal mem, focusing on writing by women mothering young children, and page mothers. The hiatus ended in early 2009 with a chapbook released in conjunction with Dusie. The first new all-a+bend press title is due out by the end of 2009.