Blue Heart Jazz: Paintings by Rachel Davis and Poems by Sam Silva

Rachel was born in Snow Hill in Eastern North Carolina and earned an undergraduate degree in art at Winthrop University. She married, had two sons and a daughter and lived in the Dominican Republic for ten years before coming home to return to university. She earned a graduate degree in Art at East Carolina University and taught school at Fort Bragg for 21 years before taking early retirement to paint full time in 1994.

Rachel has worked professionally in both theater stage design and as a muralist, designing sets a number of theatres and producing murals in Fayetteville, Miami and the Dominican Republic.

She's had over forty shows in North Carolina and Florida galleries and is a contributing artist and member of Cape Fear Studios.

Sam Silva has published over 150 poems in print magazines, including Sow's Ear, The ECU Rebel, Pembroke Magazine, Samisdat, St. Andrew's Review, Charlotte Poetry Review, Main Street Rag and others. Has published at least 300 poems in online journals including Jack Magazine, Comrades, Megaera, Poetry Super Highway, physik garden, Ken again, -30-, Fairfield Review, Foliate Oak, and dozens of others. He is a frequent contributor to Empty Mirror.

His chapbooks have been published by three small presses, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize seven times. Bright Spark Creative of Wilimington published his first full-length book, EATING AND DRINKING.

He now has many books and chapbooks available at lulu.comsamsilva54 and as books available at Amazon. His spoken word poetry is available at the major digital markets such as Apple iTunes. Follow him on Twitter @samsilva1954.