Content Editors

Our three content editors – Ken Jones, Jim Kacian and Bruce Ross – are also co-editors of Contemporary Haibun, an annual anthology from Red Moon Press. They review submissions to cho independently and then confer as to whether to accept a submission. The criteria they use in evaluating haibun are discussed on the Acceptance Criteria page.

Jim Kacian is a past editor of Frogpond (the international membership journal of the Haiku Society of America, and the largest haiku journal outside of Japan), is past president of the Haiku Society of America and was a co-founder of the World Haiku Association. He has had more than 1,000 haiku published in English-language journals and magazines in more than 20 countries and is a winner of the prestigious James Hackett Award (2002). He has published seven books, all of which have won major awards. He is author of How to Haiku, a primer for English-speaking poets, as well as numerous articles on haiku form and praxis. He owns and operates Red Moon Press, the largest publishing house dedicated to haiku in the world.

Bruce Ross is a past president of the Haiku Society of America. His haiku, haibun, collaborative renga, haiga and articles have appeared in haiku journals worldwide. He authored Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun (1998) and How to Haiku: A Student's Guide to Haiku and Related Forms (2001). He has published three collections of original haiku: thousands of wet stones (1988), among floating duckweed (1994) and Silence: Collected Haiku (1997). His latest publication is summer drizzles (2006), a collection of haiku and haibun.

Ken Jones contributes regularly to UK and US haiku magazines, as well as being represented in British and American anthologies. For his contribution to Pilgrim Foxes: Haiku and Haiku Prose, co-authored with Jim Norton and Sean O'Connor, Jones was awarded the Sasakawa Prize for Original Contributions in the Field of Haikai. His haibun "Travellers" won first place in the 2005 English Language Haibun Contest. And in 2011 he won joint first place in the British Haiku Society's Haibun Contest. Other Collections: Arrow of Stones (British Haiku Society,2002); Stallion's Crag (Iron Press, 2003); The Parsley Bed (Pilgrim Press, 2006); and Stone Leeks (Pilgrim Press 2009). Jones is a Zen practitioner and teacher of forty years' standing, and author of books on socially engaged Buddhism. He lives in Wales, with his Irish wife, Noragh.

Technical & Managing Editor

Ray Rasmussen designed and manages the cho website. His haiku, haiga, haibun and articles appear regularly in haiku genre journals including Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Heron's Nest, Haibun Today, Simply Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Haigaonline, contemporary haibun online, Blithe Spirit and his writing has appeared in three anthologies: Contemporary Haibun, The Red Moon Anthology, and The British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology. Ray currently serves as haibun editor for Notes from the Gean, and in the past has served as haiga editor for Simply Haiku and as haibun editor for the World Haiku Review. He is the designer for the current edition of Haibun Today and his web page design was used by Simply Haiku for the majority of its existence. Three online collections of his writing are: Canyonlands Journal, Day's End, and Romance under a Waning Moon. Ray dreamt that in a previous life he was a university professor. His web site is http://raysweb.net/haiku/.