(
Michael Karl (Ritchie) is a Professor of English at Arkansas Tech University, where he serves as advisor to the undergraduate literary magazine, Nebo, where creative writers champion new voices in fiction and poetry. He has had work published in various small press magazines, including the web journal Other Rooms Press.
A
William Aarnes’ first book, Learning to Dance, was published in 1991 by Ninety-Six Press, which also published his second collection, Predicaments, in 2001. He has had poems in such magazines as Field, the Southern Review, Shenandoah, Potomac Review, Bateau, and the Vocabula Review.
Jeffrey Allen is currently an MFA poetry candidate at Columbia College Chicago where he is an editor for Columbia Poetry Review. His work has appeared in TriQuarterly, LEVELER, and Clementine. His chapbook, Simple Universal, was published by Bronze Man Books in 2007.
David Alpaugh’s controversial essays on “pobiz” have appeared in Mudlark, Poets & Writers Magazine, Rattle, and http://poetry.about.com/. His first collection, Counterpoint, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press and his second, Heavy Lifting, was published in 2007 by Alehouse. Journals that have published his poetry, drama, and criticism include boundary 2, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, the Formalist, Modern Drama, Poetry, Runes, Twentieth Century Literature, and ZYZZYVA. He has been a featured reader over 100 times in the San Francisco Bay Area where he resides.
Maureen Alsop is the author of Apparition Wren (Main Street Rag) and several chapbooks, most recently Luminal Equation in the collection Narwhal (Cannibal, 2009), the dream and the dream you spoke (Spire Press), and Greatest Hits (Pudding House Publications, pending). She is the winner of Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry and the Bitter Oleander Press’ Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award. Her recent poems have appeared various journals including Blackbird, Front Porch, AGNI, Tampa Review, Whiskey Island Magazine, Drunken Boat, Pank, qarrtsiluni, the Kenyon Review, and New Delta Review.
Hala Nafez Alyan is a Palestinian-American doctoral student. She has lived in various parts of the United States and the Middle East and currently resides in New York City.
Mateo Amaral is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area currently living abroad in Central America. His work will be appearing in the upcoming Winter 2010 issues of the Dirty Napkin, Eclectic Flash, Bird’s Eye reView and InTravel. Mateo is currently working on a second novel as well as a book documenting his experiences traveling through Central and South America for the next nine months. You can keep up with his adventures on travelblog.org. He currently lives with his wife in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica, but will be moving on soon.
Marci Ameluxen was born, raised and currently lives in Washington State and for most of her life has lived on islands. When not taming her garden or writing poetry she works as a pediatric Occupational Therapist, and currently lives on an island in Puget Sound with her husband and two kids. Her poems have appeared in Literary Mama, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tattoos on Cedar (Washington Poets Association anthology), and she received 3rd Prize in the 2005 Hackney Literary Awards. Marci is completing a chapbook about growing up with a schizophrenic mother, of which “Mythology” is an excerpt.
Kristine Rae Anderson’s poetry has appeared in Crab Creek Review, poeticdiversity, Phase and Cycle, the anthology Active Voices IV, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from New England College. In 2005 she was awarded a Tomales Bay Fellowship in poetry, and was awarded a Fishtrap Fellowship for 2006. On one parent’s side, she is a descendant of Benedict Arnold; on the other’s, she is a descendant of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. (She’s not sure whether these facts mean anything, and, to be honest, she’s not sure she wants to know if they do.)
Arlene Ang serves as a poetry editor for the Pedestal and Press 1. Her chapbook, Secret Love Poems is currently available from Rubicon Press. She lives in Spinea, Italy. More of her writing may be viewed at leafscape.org.
Heather Angier earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, her two children and a guinea pig.
William W. Ankrum is an aspiring poet on the ether of his epoch whose mind hath been inflicted with hypergraphia. He is the co-founder of the Language Defibrillators poetry open mic in Peoria Illinois, a proud father of a beautiful daughter, and a lover of an amazing woman. Scheduled to graduate from Bradley University with a bachelor’s degree in English this May, it is his hope to become a professor of poetry in the future.
Michelle Askin’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Plain Spoke, Texas A&M University Press, the Northern Virginia Review, Fogged Clarity, and elsewhere. She lives in Virginia and works in special education.
Priscilla Atkins’ poetry has appeared in Poetry London, Shenandoah, Salmagundi, and other journals. She resides in Holland, Michigan with a man, two dogs, and a ton of books.
Julie Ann August lives in Michigan with her chef girlfriend and works as a registered nurse to support her writing habit. She enjoys hearse rides, homemade wine, and speculating about the zombie apocalypse. You can find her other stories in the Battered Suitcase, Bring the Ink, Barbaric Yawp, and Sex and Murder. She’s a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Nebraska.
Lana Hechtman Ayers, originally from New York, makes her home in the Pacific Northwest where she is a workshop facilitator and manuscript consultant. She is a fan of sushi, rainy afternoons, and Miles Davis.
B
For the record, Scott Bade has neither owned nor totaled a Dodge Neon. He has an MFA from Western Michigan University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry International, Blue Earth Review, Eleventh Muse, and the New Hampshire Review. Scott lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his wife Lori and sons August, and Stuart.
Martin Balgach’s writing and criticism has appeared or is forthcoming in the Bitter Oleander, Cream City Review, Fogged Clarity, Opium, the Puritan, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Vermont College and he works for a publishing company in Boulder, Colorado.
Courtney K. Bambrick recently earned her MFA in Poetry from Rosemont College. Before that, she worked in theater as both a costumer and an administrator and lived in Ireland for a few seasons. Her poetry has appeared in Parlor, Philadelphia Poets, Philadelphia Stories, Mad Poet’s Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and the University of the Arts Poetry Review.
Ruth Baumann hopes to attend an MFA program someday, but until then, she’ll work in a million restaurants. She graduated from VCU in 2010 with a couple Bachelors, and lives in Richmond, Virginia. She likes all things poetry, cats, and cheese.
Stella Beratlis grew up in rural areas of California where as a child she learned how to drive a tractor, a Ford Model A, and a souped-up Chevy pickup. Her poems have appeared in Song of the San Joaquin, Penumbra, Rattlesnake Review, and elsewhere; her poem “Patterson Pass” appears in the forthcoming Sixteen Rivers Press anthology The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed. She lives in Modesto with her husband and daughter.
F. J. Bergmann frequently lives in Wisconsin. In previous lives she steeplechased, illustrated a manual of interesting diseases, and was a rural postal carrier. She is currently a used-book seller, as well as the shadowy entity behind madpoetry.org and her own site, fibitz.com. Her third chapbook, Constellation of the Dragonfly, has just been published by Plan B Press. One of her pseudopodia can reach all the way from the bedroom to the refrigerator. Her favorite authors all write speculative fiction.
Vanessa Blakeslee’s work has been recognized by grants and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation and the United Arts of Central Florida, and has appeared in the Southern Review, Bellingham Review, and Paris Review’s “The Daily” among others. She was a finalist for the 2011 Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University and the Sozopol Fiction Seminars. Please visit vanessablakeslee.com for more.
Caleb Bouchard was born on February 16, 1993 in Southern Florida. He is an amateur kayaker, and his favorite bands are the Smiths, Peter Gabriel, and the Magnetic Fields. Lately he’s been reading a lot of Lydia Davis. Caleb is also a quasi-regular spoken word act at punk-rock club called Swayze’s Venue in Marietta, Georgia, near where he lives. For free stickers, write to calbchrd@yahoo.com.
Mark Bowers is a Psychiatric RN as well as a graduate student at Saint Louis University who writes in his ever dwindling and increasingly illusive spare time. He has been previously published by Carte Blanche, the Broken Plate, SLAB and has a forthcoming piece that will appear in the next issue of Plain Spoke. He resides in Southwest Missouri where his dazzling wife and their two flawless children graciously put up with him.
Kelly Boyker lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in Mannequin Envy and Wicked Alice and is forthcoming in the annual (2007) print edition of Wicked Alice. She was a Richard Hugo House annual inquiry winner.
Dr. Carmella Braniger, a native of Ohio, is a graduate of Muskingum College, Johns Hopkins University, and Oklahoma State University. She teaches creative writing at Millikin University, in Decatur, Illinois. Her poems have appeared in Sycamore Review, Poems & Plays, and Margie. Her chapbook, No One May Follow, is forthcoming from Pudding House Publications. She enjoys gardening, walking and cooking meals with her husband and daughter.
David Brennan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pank, H_ngm_n, Beeswax, Parthenon West Review, and other journals. He is the author of the ebook Whiskerhead Dreams the Dread Chicken (Blazevox) and the chapbook Palace of Pureness (Scantily Clad Press). He lives and teaches writing in Western Virginia.
Gerri Brightwell is a British writer living in Alaska with her husband and sons. She has two published novels: Cold Country (Duckworth, 2003) and The Dark Lantern (Crown, 2008). Her writing has also appeared (or is forthcoming) in the Guardian (UK), Camera Obscura, Camas, Word Riot, Bound Off and Bartleby Snopes. She teaches in the M.F.A. programme at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Dr. Randy Brooks is Dean of Arts & Sciences at Millikin University where he teaches courses on publishing and the global haiku tradition. He is co-editor of Mayfly and publisher of Brooks Books Haiku. He was introduced to modern Japanese and English-language tanka in 1976 by Dr. Sanford Goldstein and has been writing haiku and tanka ever since. He is the web editor for Modern Haiku and the Haiku Society of America.
Terri Brown-Davidson’s first book of poetry, the Carrington Monologues, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than 900 journals, including TriQuarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. She was a featured poet in the anthology TriQuarterly New Writers and has received the AWP Intro Award, a Yaddo fellowship, and the 2007 New Mexico Writer’s Scholarship, among other honors.
Raised in the Detroit area, John F. Buckley has lived in California since 1992. He teaches English at Orange Coast College and Santiago Canyon College while doing some writing and editing. He often isn’t sure which to pursue: awkward intensity or dreamy mindlessness. Knee-jerk anxiety isn’t quite cutting it.
Matthew Burnside is a writer of words, letters, numbers, and symbols. His work has appeared on bathroom walls, the backs of his hands, hot sidewalks, and dainty pages. He is an editor for Mixed Fruit, an online literary magazine.
C
Melisa “Misha” Cahnmann-Taylor, Associate Professor in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, has published in the American Poetry Review, Quarterly West, Puerto del Sol, Bellevue Literary Review, Barrow Street, among other national literary magazines, and won top prizes from the Leeway and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundations. She is the co-editor of Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice, (2008, Routledge Press). She lives with her husband and infant son in Athens, Georgia.
Yoly’s work has been published in: Poems Niederngasse, the Hiss Quarterly, Desert Moon Review, Wicked Alice, and a few other fine journals. Some of her poems appear in the anthologies: Best of Writers’ Circle 2005 from east to west. Her chapbook: Slip Out of Weeping Shoes, was published by Lopside Press in the spring of 2007. She was awarded first place in 2005 at the IBPC with her poem: “T. J.”, took second and third several times and also received a few honorable mentions. She lives in central Florida with her family.
Emily Carr is writing a book of poetry, to loot to hew & Eden, about happiness. A section of this book, “the story will fix you it is there outside your &” is forthcoming in Toadlily Press’s 2009 Quartet Series. She also has chapbooks forthcoming from Furniture Press and above/ground press.
Alicia Catt is an MFA candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Revolution House, Airplane Reading, decomP, and Used Furniture Review, among others. She still drinks wine coolers.
Adam currently resides in Connecticut with his wife Elise and four children. He attends the MFA program in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the journals the 2River View, Foliate Oak, Eclectica, and Alba. In his former lives he has been both a mental retardation worker and long distance truckdriver.
John Cheddar teaches American Literature and coaches wrestling at Westfield High School in Westfield, New Jersey. He also coordinates the annual WHS Visiting Poets Series which, over the course of the past seven years, has welcomed Li-Young Lee, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Philip Schultz, and others. A finalist for the 2008 Gerald Stern Poetry Prize, Cheddar lives in Madison, New Jersey with his wife and two sons—Jaden and Beckett—both of whom subscribe to their father’s notion that the world is ruled by metaphor.
Amanda Chiado is a primary teacher enjoying the thrills of motherhood. She graduated with an MFA from California College of Arts and is currently a California Poet in the Schools. She was twice granted scholarships for fiction and poetry to Squaw Valley. Her worked has appeared or is forthcoming in Cranky, Beeswax, the Rambler, Dusie Press, and Fence. Her brother with the broken moon is also a painter named Angelo Chiado. Her other obsessions include, but are not limited to robots, makeup, and lies.
Mike Chirillo is a graduate from the University of Iowa, where he majored in English. He now resides where he was born, in Oak Lawn, IL. He dabbles in all areas of writing, particulary to poetry and creative non-fiction. His creative non-fiction is forthcoming in the eleventh volume of South Loop Review. Sometimes you can find him in soft morning, by squinting through the spaces of lemon leaves camoflauging his sickly, northern-italian pale flesh.
Brian Clifton lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where he studied English and Greek at Creighton University. His work can be found in Shadows, ScissorTale Review, Plains Song Review, and in the Dirty Napkin. One day, perhaps, he will have a small press in Omaha called “Hobby Horse Press”, but presently that is only a dream. . . .
Michael Cocchiarale lives and works in Chester, PA. Some of his previous creative work may be found in Stickman Review, Galleon, Eclectica, Slow Trains, Snow Monkey, and Pindeldyboz.
Cathryn Cofell hails from Appleton, Wisconsin where she’s made most of her limited fortune in the non-profit sector. She’s also a sucker for a good cause, which means she’s easy prey for a needy arts, social justice or mental health organization (no phone calls, please). Somewhere between all that, she’s managed to publish five books of poetry, most recently Kamikaze Commotion (Parallel Press, 2008). Her poetry, essays and feature articles appear in their fair share of places including Margie, Slipstream, Main Street Rag, and the Comstock Review.
Elwin Cotman was born in 1984 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city he has always returned to no matter how far he strays. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in English Writing, and plans to begin his MFA studies next year. His work has been published in the Fairfield Review, Outsider Ink, and the Front Weekly.
Lisa Fay Coutley is the author of Back-Talk, which recently won the Rooms Outlast Us Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming from Articles Press. She is Associate Poetry Editor for Passages North at Northern Michigan University, where she teaches writing as an MFA fellow. Her poetry has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in Blackbird, Sewanee Theological Review, Linebreak, Boxcar Poetry Review, the Pedestal, and elsewhere.
LeAnna Crawford has always had a special place for the absurd, the extraordinary, the art that pushes the boundaries of what we call art. She’s been an actor, an artist’s model, and everything in between, but all the time a poet. Finally giving in to her secret obsession LeAnna received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles in 2007. Her work has been seen in places ranging from the Oklahoma Review, to early editions of Gertrude, a journal of voice and vision. This early publication in fact, led in part to LeAnna’s current appointment to the board of directors for the Portland based queer literary and arts press, Gertrude Press. In addition, LeAnna also teaches writing at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon.
Dana Curtis’ first full-length collection of poetry, The Body’s Response to Famine, won Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. She has also published six chapbooks: Antiviolet (forthcoming from Pudding House Publications), Pyromythology (Finishing Line Press), Twilight Dogs (Pudding House Publications), Incubus/Succubus (West Town Press), Dissolve (Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press), and Swingset Enthralled (Talent House Press). Her work has appeared in such publications as Quarterly West, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Elixir Press.
D
Jeanette M. D’Arcy (née Crossland) lives, works and writes in South Wales, performing regularly as part of the Cardiff Cafe Writers.
J. P. Dancing Bear is the author of nine collections of poetry, most recently, Conflicted Light (Salmon Poetry, 2008). His poems have been published in Diagram, No Tell Motel, Third Coast, Natural Bridge, Shenandoah, Bateau, Verse Daily, and others. He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal and Dream Horse Press. His next book, Inner Cities of Gulls, will be published by Salmon Poetry in 2010.
Mark DeCarteret’s work has appeared in the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press), Brevity & Echo: Short Short Stories by Emerson College Alums (Rose Metal Press), New Pony: Collaborations & Responses (Horse Less Press), Places of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry (Story Line Press), Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Books), and Under the Legislature of Stars—62 New Hampshire Poets (Oyster River Press) which he also co-edited. Last year he was selected as the seventh Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Stephan Delbos is a New England-born poet living in Prague, CZ, where he teaches, edits the Prague Revue, and moderates the Prague Poetry Workshop. A founding member of the Contoocook River School, Stephan’s poetry, essays, and translations have been published in a variety of forums throughout Europe, Asia, and the US. He’s currently compiling his first poetry collection.
Nancy Devine teaches high school English in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she lives with her husband Chuck and their two dogs, Whitey and Yo-Yo. She co-directs the Red River Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. In 2007, she was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have appeared in online and print literary magazines.
Heather Dewar’s work has appeared in ZinkZine, Chicago Reader, the Common Review, Utne Reader, and elsewhere. Her fiction recently received a nomination for the annual Best New American Voices anthology. She teaches literature and writing in Chicago.
Matthew Dexter lives and writes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He tolerates long walks on the beach, but hates sand between his toes.
Dana Diehl is an undergraduate student of Creative Writing and Philosophy at Susquehanna University. She has spent the majority of her life in Central Pennsylvania, where she’s developed a taste for Amish farmers markets, always taking the back roads, and swimming in rivers.
Karen Dietrich writes poems, stories, and songs. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Nerve, Scapegoat Review, Pank, and MonkeyBicycle. She lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and online at grapesatmidnight.com.
Hilary has been teaching English in a small provincial capital of northern Thailand for nearly two years. She has acquired some invaluable skills since her arrival, including the abilities to recite a 44-consonant alphabet upon command and balance any number of parcels, people, and foodstuffs on her motorbike while driving. Her writing has previously appeared in Millikin University’s Collage.
William Doreski teaches writing and literature at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Another Ice Age (AA Publications, 2007). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including the Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, the Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, the Antioch Review, and Natural Bridge.
Ellie Francis Douglass lives in Austin, TX, and studies English Literature at St. Edward’s University. Her poems have appeared in Sorin Oak Review and her chapbook, Bits, was published by Junkflop Press in 2009. After graduating, Ellie hopes to become an MFA candidate and complete her first poetry collection, Little Cup. She is the proud owner of a sixteen pound tabby cat named Algernon, who is tall, not fat.
Linda Dove retired from fifteen years of college teaching in 2006 to take up ranching in Skull Valley, Arizona. She holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and taught most recently at Prescott College and Yavapai College in Arizona, where she briefly directed the creative writing program. Poems have appeared in the Diner Journal, the Antigonish Review, Harpur Palate, and Clackamas Literary Review, and have won several awards, including the 2005 Stephen Dunn Award and the 2001 Alice Longan Award for a collection inspired by the American Southwest. She very recently moved with her husband and daughter to Altadena, California.
Amy Dupcak earned her MFA in Fiction at The New School, and has since completed her first novel. Her stories and nonfiction have been published in Slush Pile, Sonora Review, Phoebe, Fringe, and other publications. She lives in New York City and frequently writes about music; visit her at no-alternative.net.
E
Robert Eastwood’s center could not hold when he heard his English Teacher read Yeats’ The Second Coming. All the gnats inside his adolescent head buzzed agreement. This was great stuff. Ever since, he’s been trying to put himself back together with poetry. He has been published in many literary journals, on-line and in print, and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Award. He has three chap-books, Over Plainsong, The Welkin Gate, and Night of the Moth, published by Small Poetry Press.
Joanne Edelmann was a professional modern dancer for over twenty years. She is on sabbatical for one year from the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts where she teaches Movement Techniques for actors, directs Physical Theatre Projects and is also the Director of Student Affairs for the Stella Adler Studio. Currently, Joanne is teaching Modern Dance and Movement Techniques for Actors at the Institute of Creative Arts in Seoul, Korea. Her writing ventures include Lipstick Diaries, a series of essays and short stories depicting life as a single parent living and dating in the East Village of New York City and The Filmmaker’s Cut, a novel based on the wisdom and joy of allowing the one to slip away. She is a facilitator for Women Reading Aloud, Julie Maloney, director. Joanne’s East Seventh Street stories of squatting were published in Resistance: A Radical Social and Political History of the Lower East Side, Clayton Patterson, editor.
Kristina England lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her M.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2005. She currently runs a workshop for local poets. Her work recently appeared in Ballard Street Poetry Journal.
David Essinger teaches at the University of Findlay. His recent fiction has appeared in the Pinch, Quarter After Eight, Pindeldyboz, 34thParallel, and elsewhere. His videopoem collaboration Dark Flower is forthcoming from Main Street Rag in the fall, and he’s currently seeking representation for a novel based on his exploits walking other people’s dogs in Chicago. “Love Scene, Shot with Mosquito and Ant” is an excerpt from another novel manuscript. He’s also researching a nonfiction project on distance running, and has finally qualified to run Boston this April.
Jeff Esterholm’s short stories have previously appeared in the print and online editions of 34thParallel, as well as in Acorn Whistle, Nerve Cowboy, Thema, and Planet Detroit. He has placed in short story competitions sponsored by Wisconsin Academy Review and Madison Magazine, and in the last several years he has also been selected as a finalist in New Letters and Hunger Mountain fiction contests. He lives in Verona, Wisconsin.
Finley Bullard Evans was born and raised in Chattanooga, TN. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. Her poems have most recently appeared in the Louisville Review and the New Renaissance. She lives in Birmingham with seven-year old twin boys, Max and Harry, her husband, Neal, and two dogs, Bee and Fife.
F
Howie Faerstein has had poems recently appear in Cutthroat, Mountain Gazette, and Mudfish. In 2006, he received an MFA from New England College. Presently he’s working as an adjunct professor, teaching American literature at Westfield State College in Western Massachusetts.
Dion Farquhar is a poet and fiction writer who lives in Santa Cruz, CA. Recent poems in Offcourse, Blazevox, Hamilton Stone Review, Right Hand Pointing, Shifter, Fifteen Project, Ep;phany, etc. Chapbook, Cleaving, Poet’s Corner Press (2007); first poetry book, Feet First, finalist for Sinclair Prize, Evening Street Press (early 2010).
Roberta Feins was born in New York, and has also lived in North Carolina and (currently) in Seattle. She works as a computer consultant. She received her MFA in poetry from New England College in 2007. Roberta has been published in the Antioch Review, Tea Party, Floating Bridge, and the Lyric. Poems are forthcoming in 5am and PMS. She is an editor of the e-zine Switched On Gutenberg.
Adam Fieled is a poet/musician based in Philadelphia. His books include Opera Bufa (Otoliths, 2007) and the e-book Beams (Blazevox, 2007). He has also released two chapbooks, Posit (Dusie Press) and Funtime (Funtime Press) and two albums, Darkyr Sooner and Ardent. He is currently a PhD candidate at Temple University.
Paul Fisher’s first book, Rumors of Shore, is the winner of the 2009 Blue Light Book Award, and is forthcoming in 2010. Recent poems appear in Cave Wall, the Centrifugal Eye, Disquieting Muses Quarterly Review, Kakalak 2009 Anthology of Carolina Poets, Organs of Vision and Speech Magazine, 2010 Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire, Slow Trains, Snow Monkey, Umbrella, Waccamaw, and various other publications. Paul is the recipient of an Individual Artist’s Fellowship in Poetry from the Oregon Arts Commission, and a graduate of the MFA program at New England College. He lives in the northwest corner of Washington State, near the Alaska Ferry System’s southern terminus, and cannot see Russia from his house.
Brent Fisk is a writer from Bowling Green, Kentucky whose work is in recent issues of Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and Fugue. In 2007 his poems won the Willow Award from Willow Review, the Sam Ragan Prize from Crucible, and honorable mention in Boulevard’s Emerging Poets contest. He helps edit Steel Toe Books in his spare time.
Kristin Fouquet, a native of New Orleans, was born an anachronism. Having reached adulthood but, not necessarily maturity, she is also a writer and fine art photographer. Her work has been published both in print and online. Fortunately for Kristin, she lives in a city rich with mystique, offering many intriguing subjects. More about her can be found at Le Salon.
Jeff Friedman is the author of four collections of poetry: Black Threads (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007), Taking Down the Angel (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2003), Scattering the Ashes (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998) and The Record-Breaking Heat Wave (BkMk Press, 1986). His poems and translations have appeared in many literary magazines, including the American Poetry Review, Poetry, 5am, New England Review, Forward, Maggid, Poetry East, AGNI, the North American Review, and the New Republic. He is a core faculty member in the M.F.A. program in Poetry Writing at New England College.
Peter Funk, born and raised in Washington DC, now lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating from college he did what every English major should do, became a bicycle messenger. In a surprising twist of fate ten years on the bike turned into owning his own delivery service. He’s been reading, writing, picking ’em, dropping ’em off, and telling people where to go for quite some time now. His poems have appeared in Juked, Rattle, Quiddity, Coal Hill Review, GH O TI f i sh, Haggard and Halloo, and Poetry Motel.
G
Dan is a writer and teacher and about a hundred other things who lives just outside of Philadelphia while working just inside of Philadelphia. He enjoys things like literary theory and string theory and, really, just theorizing in general.
Lucia Galloway is the author of two collections of poems: Venus and Other Losses (Plain View Press, 2010) and a chapbook, Playing Outside (Finishing Line Press, 2005). Her work is anthologized in Her Mark, 2007 and 2009 and appears or is forthcoming in the following journals: the Comstock Review, Foundling Review, Innisfree, Poemeleon, Red River Review, Redheaded Stepchild, Rufous City Review, Tilt-a-Whirl, and Untitled Country Review, to name the most recent. Awards include the Robert Haiduke Prize from the Bread Loaf School of English, Honorable Mention in the 2006 the MacGuffin National Poet Hunt, and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. She likes to travel and record the experience in poems and photos. She even likes seeing other people’s travel poems and pictures.
Richard Garcia is the author of The Persistence of Objects, from BOA Editions. His poems have appeared in the Georgia Review, crazyhorse, Ploughshares, Pushcart Prize XXI, and Best American Poetry. A chapbook of his prose poems, Chickenhead, is forthcoming from Foothills Publishing.
Jacqueline Garlitos’ work has appeared in Cream City Review, the Alembic, and the New York Quarterly. She has been a finalist for the Writers at Work Fellowship, the Beatrice Hawley Award and the Elixir Press Poetry Award. She currently teaches at Rowan University.
Bill Garvey grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He and his parents, grandfather and six siblings lived in a small house between the Serv-U Hardware stores and Indian Motorcycle factory, where he and his brothers often witnessed testing of new motorcycles. Bill now lives in New Hampshire with his wife, Jean. He is the director of technology for a regional insurance company. Bill’s poetry has been published in several print journals including the Worcester Review, 5am, Slant, the Diner Journal, Concho River Review, the New York Quarterly, Spitball, Berkshire Magazine, Worcester Magazine, and Jam To-Day. His work has appeared in the online journals of Blood Orange Review, Conte, and Lunarosity. His chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press in 2007. Bill received his MFA in poetry from New England College. His daughter attends the University of Toronto; his son, the Toronto Film Institute.
Brandi has never been published before. She just got her MA in literature from Northern Michigan University and is starting an MFA program at Florida State in the fall. She feels a bit uncomfortable, and yet magnanimous, referring to herself in the third person. Maybe she’ll try the royal we. We’re getting out of control, aren’t we?
Greg Gerke lives in Buffalo. His work has or will appear in Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, the Pedestal, Pindeldyboz, Flash Forward Press 2009 Anthology, and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction has been published by Blazevox. His website is greggerke.com.
Jules Gibbs lives in Madison, WI, where she works for Progressive as the director of advertising, outreach coordinator, poetry editor, and occasional freelance writer. In 2006, she earned her MFA in Poetry from the fabulous program at New England College. Recent poems have been published or are forthcoming in Pearl, cæsura, 5am, Runes, Seven Corners, and the Susquehanna Watershed Anthology. In the fall of 2007, she was awarded a month-long residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, where she toiled away on her manuscript, dined on fried pheasant with oil men, and chased the antelope.
Therese Gilardi’s work has appeared in the books Knowing Pains, So Far and Yet So Near: Stories of Americans Abroad, and literary and parenting magazines. Therese is a member of the Los Angeles Poets and Writers Collective, and is one of the few L.A. residents who can boast of living in a flood plain.
Maggie Glover has recently moved back to her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned a BA from Denison University and an MFA from West Virginia University, where she was awarded the James Paul Brawner Poetry Award in 2007. Her poems have appeared in the Journal, Controlled Burn, 32 Poems, Pebble Lake Review, and other magazines.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of six poetry chapbooks, most recently Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks. He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for the Best of the Net anthology.
Jennifer Gravley makes her way in Columbia, Missouri. Her work has appeared most recently in 400 Words, Six Sentences, and Boston Literary Magazine.
Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Claremont, California. In another life, she majored in German Literature, where she read poetry for credit, and was Reed College’s exchange student to Munich. Her poems and photos have appeared in O Tempora!, Superficial Flesh, Still Crazy, the New Verse News, the Dirty Napkin, Umbrella, and Lilliput Review. A poem of hers was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.
Carol Lynn Grellas is a two-time Pushcart nominee and the author of two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers, from Pudding House Publications and Object of Desire from Finishing Line Press. She is widely published in magazines and online journals including most recently, the Smoking Poet, decomP, and Thick With Conviction, with work upcoming in Pirene’s Fountain, Oak Bend Review, and ken*again. She lives with her husband, five children, and a blind dog named Ginger.
Kimberly Grey currently lives in New York City where she sometimes rides the 7 train just to ride it. She received her MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University in 2009. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dear Sir, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Fiction at Work. She is obsessed with camels, heteronyms, Gertrude Stein and German words (even though she can’t speak German). She blogs here: kimberlygrey.blogspot.com.
Cleo Griffith has been published in Iodine Poetry Journal, Main Street Rag, the Aurorean, Cider Press Review, Time of Singing, Quercus Review, Sierra Nevada Review, the Christian Science Monitor, and many others, and is chair of the editorial board of Song of the San Joaquin, established in 2003. She is a member of the Modesto, CA chapter of the National League of American Pen Women. She lives in Salida, CA with her husband Tom.
Chad Gusler received his MFA in fiction writing from Seattle Pacific University. He has also been published in the journal Relief. He teaches composition at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Jaimie Gusman lives and works in Seattle, where she recently received her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. In addition to writing poetry, she has pursued odd jobs such as desk-building, waitressing, retailing, editing, teaching creative writing, and data entry. She is currently working on a collaborative chapbook. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Margins Magazine, Permafrost, Diagram, and Dark Sky Magazine.
H
John Haggerty a former software engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. His fiction has appeared in Confrontation, High Desert Journal, the MacGuffin, Opium, Pank, Santa Monica Review, Vestal Review and War, Literature, & the Arts, among others. He is currently at work on a novel.
Tammy Hanna was born in Thailand but lived a nomadic childhood in the Middle East and Mediterranean before settling in London. When she’s not writing, she spends her time prying open cans of worms and trying to pass for a well-adjusted member of society. Her work has appeared in the Legendary, Metazen, State of Imagination and the poetry anthology A River of Stones.
Morgan Harlow’s fiction, poems, and other writing can be found in War, Literature, & the Arts, the Tusculum Review, Washington Square, Descant, Seneca Review, and elsewhere.
Richard Hartshorn lives in southeastern New York. He is the recipient of the 2011 Richard Bausch Short Story Prize and his work has appeared in several publications, including Our Stories and the Hawaii Women’s Journal.
Suzanne Richardson Harvey, a member of the Academy of American Poets, lectured in the English Department at Stanford University for nearly two decades, almost one decade of which was spent as a Resident Fellow in an all-freshmen residence hall. Before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, she taught at Tufts University in the Boston Area, where she earned her doctorate in Elizabethan poetry, specifically that of Edmund Spenser. Her poetry first appeared on the Home Forum page of the Christian Science Monitor and then in Ascent Aspirations (Canada), Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), SpeedPoets (Australia), and Nthposition (UK), among other venues globally.
Lorraine Healy is an Argentinean poet and photographer living on Whidbey Island, Washington. The winner of several national awards, including a Pushcart Prize nomination for 2004, she has been published extensively. She holds an M.F.A in Poetry from New England College, New Hampshire. She is the author of The Farthest South (New American Press) and The Archipelago (Finishing Line Press). She teaches Poetry and Creative Writing at Antioch University in Seattle, and an advanced poetry seminar for WIWA, Whidbey Island.
Alex Herning lives in Philadelphia in a stationary circus people typically call the restaurant industry, surrounded by drug fiends and weirdos (many with hearts of gold). He is always quietly dreaming of better things and biding time, waiting to return to college.
Becky currently lives in Boston, where she writes for an Advertising agency. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College, and has had poetry published in Chaffin Journal, Alehouse, and English Journal, as well as others. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems entitled Strange Sun.
John Hoppenthaler’s two books of poetry are Lives of Water (2003) and Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), both titles from Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry has appreared in Ploughshares, the Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, the Southern Review, Barrow Street, Tar River Poetry, the Laurel Review, the Florida Review, and many other journals and anthologies. Poetry Editor of Kestrel, he teaches at East Carolina University.
Adam Houle was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and is currently a Ph.D. student at Texas Tech. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, 42opus, Diagram, and elsewhere. He is also an associate editor at Iron Horse Literary Review and Emprise Review and is geared up for his first full summer in Lubbock.
Currently, Landon Houle is a doctoral student in creative writing at Texas Tech University. She is the winner of Permafrost’s 2011 Midnight Sun Fiction Contest, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Confrontation, Natural Bridge, African American Review, and Callaloo. She was also a finalist in the 2011 the Texas Observer Short Story Prize, judged by Larry McMurtry.
I
Donald Illich has published poetry in the Iowa Review, LIT, Fourteen Hills, and Cold Mountain Review. He won Honorable Mention in the Washington Prize book contest and was a “Discovery”/Boston Review 2008 Poetry Contest semifinalist. He lives in Rockville, Maryland.
Nathan Ingham studies writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His poetry has appeared most recently in Carcinogenic Poetry, the Legendary, and Eighty Percent. He is currently working on the second installment of his self-published comic book, Demons With Temp Jobs.
J
Tamar Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Baltimore. She holds an MFA with a concentration in fiction from the University of Maryland, and is the 2008 recipient of the Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize. She’s led fiction workshops at Anacostia Senior High School with the Pen/Faulkner Foundation, and been active with the Baltimore chapter of Days of Taste, a program working to educate fourth and fifth graders in Baltimore City Schools about the connection between the farm and the table. She’s taught English at the Community College of Baltimore County since 2008, and is perpetually amazed by her students, and gratified by her work with them.
Ted Jonathan is a poet and short story writer. Born and raised in the Bronx, he lives in Manhattan. His work has appeared in the New York Quarterly, Web del Sol Review of Books, Slant, the Hiram Poetry Review, and a number of other literary journals. His chapbook Spiked Libido was published by Neukeia Press. A full-length collection 10,000 Keys to Nowhere published by Athanata Arts, LTD. is forthcoming.
K
Susan Kaplan is an attorney in New York City. She has published in Poetry, Pegasus, Boulevard, and Another Chicago Magazine, to name a few and has earned awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of America. Major Kaplan was the poetry and creative criting professor for the all-male corp at the Virginia Military Institute. Dr. Kaplan was a supervisor of contemporary American literature at Cambridge University, UK.
Cheryl opened and manages the branch library in a small town beside the Blue Ridge where she lives with her husband and son, and raises heirloom vegetables. She is fortunate to be taken on morning walks by her rescued Jack Russell, Maxine. She has published several short fiction stories for children in Highlights and Jack and Jill, and her first published poem was included in 5am’s Quirky American issue.
Abigail Keller lives in Missoula, MT, where she enjoys reading, skiing, and drinking tea. She is a student of the MFA fiction program.
Charmi Keranen has lived in Northern Indiana for long enough (always). She has a BA in English from Indiana University South Bend and is self-employed as a proofreader of court transcripts, which she shamelessly mines for her writing endeavors. She and her husband have two children, both of whom are fleeing their childhoods to pursue college degrees. Her work has appeared or will be forthcoming at Salt River Review, Elimae, jmww, blossombones, Stirring, Slow Trains, Passages North, and elsewhere.
Originally from Colorado, Timothy now lives in Kyiv, Ukraine after living in the Republic of Georgia for the past four years, where he has been editing and translating an anthology of contemporary Georgian poetry. His manuscript “Nobody’s Odyssey” was recently selected as a finalist for the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, and his translation of Besik Kharanauli’s long poem “The Lame Doll,” is set to be published in the Republic of Georgia next year. His poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of recent literary publications, including Atlanta Review, the Dirty Goat, Poetry International, the Evansville Review, Barnyard Poetry Magazine, the Los Angeles Review, and others.
Jim Klein has published more than 100 poems in literary magazines including Beloit Poetry Journal, Berkeley Poetry Review, Field, Gandhabba, Onthebus, Poetry Now, Pulpsmith, Unmuzzled Ox, and many times in the Wormwood Review, including a Special Section. He was a semi-finalist in the Anthony Hecht Prize, the WayWiser Press, London, and the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, Ahsahta Press, last year.
Matthew Brady Klitsch graduated from Montclair State University in NJ in 2008 and is currently a candidate for an MFA in Poetry at Drew University in Madison, NJ. His poems have appeared in Nota Bene, the Storyteller, Edison Literary Review, and Blood Lotus. He currently divides his time between writing, odd jobs, and volunteering as an animal handler at Woodlands Wildlife Refuge in NJ.
Mary Koles is an M.F.A. at American University, where she is lucky enough to write poetry and fiction under the generous mentorship of Kyle Dargan, David Keplinger, Richard McCann, and Jay Melder. She graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2005, then taught high school in Nashville and Philadelphia, where she was the grateful recipient of a UPENN Fellowship for ESL Educators. Mary currently serves as academic coordinator for SpiderSmart Learning Center in Bethesda. She can think of nothing more delicious for her soul than jazz piano, her students, olives, and any time spent with her inimitable friends and family.
Kristin Kozlowski leads a rather flavorful life in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. She received her B.A. in English/Writing from Millikin University, where some of her poetry was published in Collage. Since then, some of her haiku have been seen in Modern Haiku and Millikin University Haiku Anthology. Additional haiku are forthcoming in Riverbed Haiku, an online haiku journal. When she is not writing, she is busy making a living as an alternative healthcare provider and getting to know her brand new baby girl, Helen.
Leonard Kress grew up in and around Philadelphia, studied religion at Temple University, Slavics at Indiana University and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and creative writing at Columbia. He has published two chapbooks and two books—Sappho’s Apples and The Orpheus Complex. He has received grants in playwriting and poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and in poetry from the Ohio Arts Council. He has also translated from the poetry, most recently, the complete 19th century Polish romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz, by Adam Mickiewicz. He currently teaches philosophy and religion at Owens College in northwest Ohio.
John Krumberger received an MFA from New England College. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he works as a psychologist. His first full length volume of poetry, The Language of Rain and Wind, will be published by the Backwaters Press in 2008.
L
David LaBounty lives in suburban Detroit with his wife and two young sons. He has been in the navy and has also held jobs as a reporter, a mechanic, a salesman, and as a member of the blast team in a gold mine in the Nevada desert. His poems have appeared in a number of journals and he is the author of two novels, The Perfect Revolution and The Trinity. More info at his very boring blog: davidlabounty.blogspot.com.
Gerry LaFemina’s most recent book is the collection of prose poems Figures from the Big Time Circus Book/The Book of Clown Baby. His other books include The Parakeets of Brooklyn; and The Window Facing Winter. He directs the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing at Frostburg State University where he is an Assistant Professor of English. He also co-edits Review Revue, which features poetry book reviews, interviews with poets and essays on prosody.
Deanna K. Larsen studied the tango in Argentina, but still can’t dance. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota where she does freelance document translation and teaches Spanish in elementary schools. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ramshackle Review, the Ante Review, Pank and elsewhere.
Blake Ellington Larson invented the color pink. He does not collect Care Bears and most certainly doesn’t have a subscription to the Believer. On a scale of one to awesome, he would definitely be awesome. He lives in the quiet suburbs of Alameda, California and would very much like to meet you. His poems have appeared in: Amphibi.us, Amulet, Back Room Live, Beatnik Cowboy, Black Heart Magazine, Bolts of Silk, Carcinogenic Poetry, Censored Poets, Cherry Picked Hands, Conceit Magazine, Dark Lady Poetry, the Dirty Napkin, EarthSpeak Magazine, Exercise Bowler, Masque Publishing, Picaresque, and Star Press Poetry.
MK Laughlin teaches in the English Departments of Western New England College and Westfield State. Her short stories have appeared in print and online literary venues, including MonkeyBicycle, FeatherTale, NANO Fiction, Six Sentences, and Farmhouse Magazine. She is currently at work on a novel.
Kat Lewin is in the late experimental phases of trying to mate her Roomba with a typewriter. For science, mostly. Her short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Pank, Per Contra, Smash Cake and decomP. Her poetry has appeared in Word Riot, nibble, and Breadcrumb Scabs. Starting in fall 2011, she’ll be an MFA candidate at UC Irvine.
Brad Liening’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Diagram; Rock Heals; Forklift, Ohio; Sonora Review; and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook Ker-Thunk, available from H_ngm_n B__ks, and he currently lives in St. Paul, MN.
Sandy Longhorn is the author of Blood Almanac (Anhinga Press, 2006), which won the 2005 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. New poems have appeared recently in the Collagist, Connotation Press, New Madrid, Spillway Review, and elsewhere. Longhorn lives in Little Rock, AR, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty. (photo by Hope Coulter)
M
M has served as an Associate Poetry Editor for Stirring for the past one hundred years or so. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals—the Pedestal, Word Riot, Three Candles, 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, New World Review, Eclectica, Rose & Thorn, and others. She also serves as an administrator of an online poetry workshop called Wild Poetry Forum. Her current chapbook manuscript is wandering through post offices everywhere in search of a publisher. In the few seconds a month when she is not working on these projects, she reads mostly novels, walks along Portland’s bustling city streets with her man, and is grateful for the enormous amount of love in her life.
Anne Marie Macari’s most recent book, She Heads Into the Wilderness, will be published by Autumn House Press in fall 2008. Her book Ivory Cradle won the 2000 the American Poetry Review/Honickman first book prize for poetry, chosen by Robert Creeley, followed by Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005). Her poems have appeared in many magazines such as: the Iowa Review, the American Poetry Review, Field, and TriQuarterly. Macari is director of the Drew University Low-Residency MFA Program in Poetry & Poetry in Translation. She lives in the Delaware River town of Lambertville, NJ, with her sons and her companion, Gerald Stern.
Angie Macri received an MFA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Her work has been published in journals including Arts & Letters, Fugue, New Orleans Review, and Southern Indiana Review and was featured in the Spoon River Poetry Review. She was recently awarded an individual artist fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council.
Julie Maloney is the founder/director of Women Reading Aloud, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women writers. She has worked in the arts as a performer and educator her entire life. Her book of poems, Private Landscape, was released in 2007 by Arseya Publishing. As a former dancer and choreographer, she is the recipient of several grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is a trained workshop leader in the Amherst Writers and Artists Method and leads ongoing writing workshops, special events, conferences and retreats for writers.
Prairie L. Markussen lives and writes in Chicago, IL. She was recently laid off and is using this time to fuel her creativity in all ways possible. She has been published in various literary journals, including the Fiddlehead, Louisiana Literature, Epicenter, and Rattle.
Jenna Martin received her BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin and her MFA in Poetry from New England College. She’s a public school teacher, a partner in Violet Crown Radio Players and Red Planet Audiobooks and a devoted mama. However, her friends mainly know her as the chick who writes scandalously unrhymed poems. Her work has appeared in the Alembic, di-verse-city, Fugue, Entelechy International, Glass Eye, and SaucyVox Review.
Roy Mash is an electronics technician living in Marin County, California. Recent and forthcoming publications include: AGNI, Atlanta Review, Barrow Street, the Evansville Review, Nimrod, Rhino and Two Review.
Buzz Mauro lives in Annapolis and works as an actor and acting teacher in Washington, DC. His poetry has appeared in Gertrude and Main Street Rag and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in NOON, the Columbia Review, and Tampa Review. He is a graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University, and has co-authored, with Deb Gottesman, three books on applicatons of acting techniques in the business world, all published by Penguin Putnam.
David McAleavey teaches literature and creative writing at George Washington University in DC. His fifth and most recent book is HUGE HAIKU (Chax Press, Tucson, 2005). His poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, Ploughshares, and the Georgia Review. He currently has work online at Ascent, the Denver Syntax, Divine Dirt Quarterly, Foliate Oak, Innisfree, Eclectica, and the Pedestal, and has work forthcoming at EPOCH, Poetry Northwest, Hubbub, Denver Quarterly, and several other journals, both print and online.
Ryan McBride studied writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has published short stories in small journals and university magazines including the Spectrum. He is currently working on a novel, titled By Thief or by Saint, staying up late, and drinking too much coffee.
Robert McDonald’s poems have appeared most recently in Dark Sky Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, Disquieting Muses Quarterly Review, Juked, and Fifth Wednesday Journal. He lives in Chicago, where he writes theater and book reviews and works at an independent bookstore—shop at your local one today. He loves his tatty coach house, and finds himself still in the first flush of Facebook enthusiasm.
Donnelle McGee is a Jimi Hendrix freak and wishes he could dunk a basketball. He earned his M.F.A. from Goddard College. His work has appeared in Controlled Burn, Colere, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Home Planet News, Iodine Poetry Journal, Permafrost, River Oak Review, the Spoon River Poetry Review, and Willard and Maple, among others. His work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
George McKim earned an MFA in Painting in 1984. He began writing poetry in 2008 at the age of fifty six. His poetry has been accepted for publication, or has been published, in Blazevox, Viral Cat, Poets and Artists, Tupelo Press Poetry Project (Sappho), Leaf Garden, Clockwise Cat, 7x20, Eunoia Review, escarp, Eviscerator Heaven, Carcinogenic Poetry, Rust and Moth, Hanging Moss Journal, ChicagoPoetry.com, Crossing Rivers into Twilight, Simply Haiku, Every Day Poets, and the 2010 Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition (chapbook available at Amazon). George is the editor of Psychic Meatloaf. His artwork has been exhibited in group shows in galleries and museums and has recently been accepted for publication in Viral Cat, Portland Review, Breadcrumb Scabs, and the New Post-Literate: A Gallery Of Asemic Writing.
Eric McKinley is a Philadelphian. He is soon to finish an MFA in Fiction at Rosemont College. He writes a story every now and again. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in various print and online journals. Samplings can be found at www.ericmckinleyfiction.com.
Paula McLain is the author of two collections of poetry, Less of Her and Stumble, Gorgeous, both from New Issues Press. She’s also published a memoir (Like Family, Little Brown, 2003) and a debut novel, A Ticket to Ride, recently out from Ecco/HarperCollins. She’s a core faculty member in the MFA Program in Poetry at New England College, and lives in Ohio.
Kevin McLellan is the author of the chapbook Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010), a collaborative series of poems with numerous women poets. He has recent or forthcoming poems in journals including: Barrow Street, Colorado Review, failbetter, Horse Less Review, the Kenyon Review, Versal, Western Humanities Review, Witness and numerous others. Kevin lives in Cambridge MA with Frankie (a canary), and sometimes teaches poetry workshops at the University of Rhode Island in Providence.
Jane Mead’s collection of poetry, The Usable Field; will be out from Alice James Books in 2008. She is the author of two previous collections of poetry, House of Poured-Out Waters (Illinois Press, 2001) and The Lord and the General Din of the World (Sarabande Books, 1996). State Street Press published her long poem, A Truck Marked Flammable, as a chapbook in 1991. Her poems appear regularly in literary journals, and have been included in many anthologies. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, A Completion Grant from the Lannan Foundation, and a Whiting Writer’s Award. For many years Poet-in-Residence at Wake Forest University, she now teaches in the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and manages a ranch in northern California.
Michelle Menting teaches and studies writing at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. Her writing can also be found in Blue Earth Review and 42opus. She enjoys trail-running and eating dried fruit, often at the same time.
Amy Miller’s work has appeared in Many Mountains Moving, Crab Orchard Review, Alehouse, ZYZZYVA, and other journals. She has worked as a trail guide and horseback riding instructor, photographer’s assistant, electronic assembler, health-food store bookkeeper, and ad salesperson. She currently edits trivia books in Ashland, Oregon, which has not one, but two farmers’ markets.
Sid Miller’s poetry has appeared in numerous places, including Poetry Southeast, Margie, Good Foot, Crab Orchard Review, and Portland Review. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize nomine and the author of two chapbooks, Quietly Waiting (White Heron Press, 2004) and Sunbathing in the Ukraine (Finishing Line Press, 2007). His full length collection Nixon on the Piano will be published in 2009 by David Robert Books. He is the founding editor of the poetry journal Burnside Review.
Susan Minyard has an unending love for persons and objects and landscapes. They easily swallow her and spit her back out into her own life. This time she has chosen Tucson, AZ, a place she considers home more than any other. She wishes she was a photographer, and occasionally picks up the Nikon expectantly. She feels the wind against her cheeks and in her hair even when there is no wind. She does have college degrees. Still, she cannot stop writing and that has become her most essential and named asset.
MaryAnn Franta Moenck lives and works just east of St Paul, Minnesota. Her poems have appeared in the Comstock Review with an award of Special Merit, in Dogwood as a finalist for the Dogwood Poetry Award, in Free Verse, Snowy Egret, and Cimarron Review. Online her work can be found in Three Candles and the Pedestal. MaryAnn is grandmother to twin teenage hockey-playing boys. She enjoys playing mandolin to her husband’s old-time fiddling, and hopes to find a proper balance between knitting and belly dancing. She writes best after a long walk.
Sally Molini is a co-editor for Cerise Press, an international online journal based in the US and France. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diagram, Beloit Poetry Journal, Forklift, Ohio, the New York Quarterly, Southern Humanities Review, and other journals.
Alice Moore has been writing for many years but has only recently begun sending work out. She teaches at Corning Community College in upstate New York: the usual array of English department courses, such as college comp and various literature classes, but also teaches humanities survey courses and (her favorite) Art History.
George Moore’s poetry appears in the Atlantic, Poetry, Colorado Review, and the North American Review, as well as in journals in Europe and Asia. He was nominated this year for two Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Web, Best of the Net, the Rhysling Poetry Award, and the Wolfson Poetry Prize. His collections include Headhunting (Edwin Mellen Press 2002) and All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (DPP Press 2007). He teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Brian D. Morrison is an Instructor of English at The University of Alabama. He is also the Event Coordinator for Slash Pine Projects, a small press that publishes limited-edition chapbooks and hosts the annual Slash Pine Writers Festival.
Shane Murphy lives in the Hudson River Valley, where he works as an interpreter at a living history museum. He is also a gigging singer-songwriter, and some of his songs can be heard at myspace.com/shanejmurphy.
N
Kelly Nelson’s poetry has appeared recently in Blood Lotus and Convergence. She lives without a car and teaches at Arizona State University.
Jasmine Neosh is a poet, fiction writer, and activist from Chicago, IL. She is the founding curator of several successful literary institutions, including Columbia College Chicago’s Silver Tongue Reading Series and the DIY writer collective the West Side School for the Desperate, whose website still bears her mission statement. Her work has previously appeared in the2ndhand, decomP, Fiction at Work, and Columbia College’s annual flash fiction anthology the Story Week Reader, among others. More information and work can be found at jasmineneosh.wordpress.com.
Karen Neuberg lives with her husband in Brooklyn, NY and West Hurley, NY. After working many years—first as a librarian and then as an information specialist in the corporate world—she retired to concentrate more on writing. Her work has appeared in literature journals such as Barrow Street, Coe Review, the Diner Journal, and the Louisville Review, and online for 42opus, Boxcar Poetry Review, Free Verse, Stirring, and others. She’s a nominee for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and holds an MFA in Poetry from the New School. Her chapbook, Detailed Still is available from Poets Wear Prada.
Therese Newman is fun and important. She likes anthropology, especially when it involves talking to interesting people or digging stuff out of the ground. Therese is an artist and confounder of the Surprise Art Movement. She is also famous (been on TV four times) but still manages to be very down to earth. She has plans to write more letters.
Neil Newton’s poetry has appeared in journals, including Main Street Rag, Wisconsin Review, Literary Spirits, Plath Profiles and a forthcoming piece in the Orange Room Review. He received his undergraduate degree in English Education from Indiana University, and has an MFA in Creative Writing. He was the 2005 recipient of the Lily Teacher Creativity Fellowship for teaching and writing poetry in Paris. He teaches high school and college composition in Dayton, Ohio.
Urayoán Noel is the author of Kool Logic / La lógica kool (Bilingual Review Press) and the forthcoming Boringkén, as well as numerous text-sound collaborations with composer Monxo López. Originally from Puerto Rico, he is currently at urayoannoel.com.
Abby Norwood entertained herself as a child by creating alternate worlds in which to live. She never grew out of this habit. She writes, reads, paints, and travels to make her world a bit more palatable. Abby is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Mixed Fruit, an online literary magazine.
O
Aileen has been published in Phoebe and at Word Riot. She currently teaches English Literature in a suburban high school and lives in Astoria, NY.
Christina Olson’s first book of poems is Before I Came Home Naked (Spire Press, 2010). She lives online at www.thedrevlow-olsonshow.com.
Lisa Ortiz has had poems appear in ZYZZYVA, the Comstock Review, and Crab Orchard Review. She currently lives in Paris, France with her husband and two daughters.
Alicia Ostriker, a poet and critic, has published eleven volumes of poetry, including The Volcano Sequence and No Heaven. Her most recent prose book is Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic. Her poetry has appeared in the New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, the Atlantic, Paris Review, Ontario Review, the Nation, and many other journals and anthologies. Twice a National Book Award finalist, she has also received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the San Francisco Poetry Center, and the Paterson Poetry Center, among others. Ostriker lives in Princeton, is Professor Emerita of English at Rutgers University, and currently teaches in the low-residency Poetry MFA program of New England College.
P
Barbara Paparazzo’s poetry has appeared in Rattle, the Cincinnati Review, Blue Mesa Review, Pearl, and other journals. She has an MFA from New England College and is currently circulating her manuscript The Corridor of Lost Steps.
Lynn Patmalnee studied at the Writer’s Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and received her B.A. in English from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work is forthcoming in Spindle Magazine and has appeared in BigCityLit, Blood Orange Review, the Fairfield Review, Neon, and the Orange Room Review, among others. A born and bred Jersey Girl who is living her lifelong dream of having a Tilt-A-Whirl in her backyard in Keansburg, NJ, she works in the music business, and as Lynn Crystal, hosts the long-running Carnival of Song radio show on WFDU FM in Teaneck, NJ.
Anna Pennington recently graduated with a degree in Psychology from Penn State Erie. She has won several creative writing and art awards, including the NCHCS Art Acquisition Award. She’s currently living in Salt Lake City and working in a wilderness therapy program for at-risk youth.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, the New Yorker and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at simonperchik.com.
Natalie Perfetti studied literature and writing at Millikin University where she graduated with honors in May 2009. She grew up in the small town of Lowell, IN, where she first learned to love reading and writing. Natalie has received multiple offers to attend graduate school where she can continue her study of language. When not immersed in a book or a poem, Natalie loves to swim, bike, and travel.
Louise Phillips lives in Toronto, Canada. Her work has appeared in La Rampa, Dream Catcher, 3:AM, the Copperfield Review, McSweeney’s, and the Delinquent.
Timothy Pilgrim is a journalism professor at Western Washington University (Bellingham, Washington) and a Pacific Northwest poet has published over 60 poems in literary journals and anthologies of poetry, such as Idaho’s Poets: A Centennial Anthology. You can squeal at his work at hope.journ.wwu.edu/tpilgrim and learn about mass media too.
Jessica Poli is a 20-something girl who lives in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, where she stares at trees and eats dozens of grapefruits. Her work can be found in issues of Revolution House, Santa Clara Review, and the Monongahela Review.
Jenna Polk lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in fiction writing at Oklahoma State University. Her work has appeared in the anthology In the Middle of the Middle West: Literary Nonfiction from the Heartland. She is currently working on a series of essays based on her experiences volunteering for Teach For America as a middle-school teacher in the Mississippi Delta.
Connie Post is the first Poet Laureate of Livermore, California. Her work has appeared in Kalliope, Main Street Rag, the Comstock Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, White Pelican Review, Monterey Poetry Review, Carquinez Review, California Quarterly, Tipton Poetry Journal, RiverSedge and Oberon. Author of six published collections, her most recent book City of Words is a compilation of poems commissioned and written during her term as Laureate.
Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan who lives in Kodiak and Sitka, Alaska. She holds a Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Studies and an M.F.A from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She’s the Co-Director of Raven’s Blanket. Her poetry has appeared in Drunken Boat, Yellow Medicine Review and Catapult to Mars. Her website is vivianfaithprescott.com and she blogs at planetalaska.blogspot.com. You can follow her on Twitter: @poet_tweet.
Dimitri V. Psurtsev was born in 1960 near Moscow Russia and has spent all his life there. He has a PhD in Linguistics and published papers on linguistic theory and translation. He has translated some fiction, too (John Steinbeck, D.H. Lawrence, F.L. Baum, Dylan Thomas, David Malouf, A.S. Byatt). Dimitri divides his time between teaching at Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU), translating and writing. In 2001, his two books of poetry—Ex Roma Tertia and Tengiz Notepad—were published. He lives outside Moscow with his wife Natalia and daughter Anna.
Jayne Pupek holds an MA in counseling psychology and has spent most of her professional life in the field of mental health. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Jayne is the author of one book of poems, Forms of Intercession (Mayapple Press, January, 2008) and two chapbooks: Local Girls (the Dead Mule, 2007) and Primitive (Pudding House Publications, 2004). Her first novel, Tomato Girl, will be published by Algonquin Books in the fall of 2008. She resides near Richmond, VA and is a self-professed CNN junkie.
John Pursley III’s recent work appears in AGNI, Colorado Review, and Poetry. A Conventional Weather, a new chapbook of his work, was published by New Michigan Press in 2007.
Q
R
John Rachel has a B.A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, is a songwriter and music producer, and a left-of-left liberal. Prompted by the trauma of graduating high school and having to leave his beloved city of Detroit to attend university, the development his social skills and world view were arrested at about age 18. This affliction figures prominently in all of his creative work. He is author of two full-length novels, From Thailand With Love and The Man Who Loved Too Much. He is currently living in Japan.
Doug Ramspeck’s poetry collection, Black Tupelo Country, received the 2007 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry and is published by BkMk Press (University of Missouri-Kansas City). His poetry chapbook, Where We Come From, is published by March Street Press. His poems have been accepted for publication at journals that include Prairie Schooner, EPOCH, and Third Coast. He directs the Writing Center and teaches creative writing at The Ohio State University at Lima. He lives in Lima with his wife, Beth, and their daughter, Lee.
Jessy Randall is a rare books librarian at Colorado College. Her collection A Day in Boyland (Ghost Road Press, 2007) was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and two young children, and her website is personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall.
Claudia Reder’s first book of poems, My Father and Miro and Other Poems, won the Bright Hill Contest for Poetry Manuscripts (2001) and was published by Bright Hill Press. The title poem won the Crossing Boundaries Award from International Quarterly. She teaches at California State University at Channel Islands. Poems most recently appeared in the Café Review and Arsenic Lobster. Last summer she attended Squaw Valley Community of Poets.
Cynthia Reeser is the editor and founder of Prick of the Spindle online literary quarterly. She writes, paints, reviews, plays the piano, edits, designs web pages, and sings loudly in her car. Her poetry chapbook, Light and Trials of Light, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in early 2010. Her reviews and poetry can be found or are forthcoming on such websites as 42opus, Temenos, Elimae, Dogzplot, Artifice, CEllA’s Round Trip, Bookslut, and NewPages. She is hard at work on a book about children’s publishing.
F. D. Reeve’s recent books are The Toy Soldier, poems, and The Blue Cat Walks the Earth, poems with a CD of Reeve reading to the improv jazz of Joe Deleault and Don Davis (the trio go from venue to venue giving performances of the work). Reeve and his wife the novelist Laura Stevenson live in an old Vermont farmhouse.
Laura Rheaume graduated from the University of California San Diego while studying writing and neuroscience. She continues to write and waitress in San Diego where she lives with her parakeets and fiancé. Her work has or will appear in Breadcrumb Scabs, Chiron Review, Mirror Dance, and the Molotov Cocktail.
Nanette Rayman Rivera, two-time Pushcart nominee, is the author of two poetry books: Project: Butterflies by Foothills Publishing and alegrias by Lopside Press. She is the first winner of the Glass Woman Prize for non-fiction and her poem, “Shoes, 1943” is included in Best of the Net Anthology—2007. She is the Editor’s Pick for fiction in Greensilk Journal. Other publications include: the Worcester Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Carve Magazine, Carousel, Lily, MiPOesias, Pebble Lake Review, ditch,, Prick of the Spindle, Wheelhouse, the Pittsburgh Quarterly, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stirring, Wicked Alice, iddie, the Pedestal, Anti-Muse, Poesia, Snow Monkey, Three Candles, and Grasslimb. She is listed on IMDB, Turner Classic Movies and other film websites for her roles in Stephan’s Silver Bell and Guns on the Clackamas. She is shopping her memoir around to publishers, a story of a life gone horribly wrong and the ins and outs of the homeless-welfare-public housing system—the REAL story.
Daniel Robinson is a senior at Robert Morris University and resides outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is an international student who has studied literature in Europe twice throughout his time in college. He hopes to continue his development in writing and eventually have his own collection of poetry or short stories published.
Margaret A. Robinson has had work recently in Prairie Schooner and Margie. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Widener University in Chester, PA.
Ethel Rohan, born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, CA. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from over twenty online and print journals including Cantaraville, Sub-Lit, Word Riot, Identity Theory, and Mud Luscious. She is a brazen chocoholic. Her blog is straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.
Maria Rosales was born in London, and lived in Europe, North Africa, Canada, and Hawaii before settling in California. Her poems have appeared in ByLine, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Poetalk, Meridian, and Nashville Newsletter, as well as several anthologies. She has won awards from the Ina Coolbrith Circle, and Artists Embassy International. Maria hosted the PrimoPoets series in the East Bay for several years. She enjoys working on collaborative dance/poetry pieces with Moving Arts Dance. During the day, she bluffs her way through a left-brained job as an IT professional. She and her husband Marco are building a retreat for Artists in Yucatan, Mexico.
Jay Rubin teaches writing at the College of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area and publishes Alehouse, an all-poetry literary journal. Recent work has appeared or will appear in Yemassee, Southampton Review, the Prague Revue, and New South. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College and lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.
Aubrey Ryan is an associate poetry editor at Passages North. Her work has appeared in Diagram and Pebble Lake Review. She lives in Michigan’s cold and wonderful Upper Peninsula.
S
Melody Sage is a visual artist and writer. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in over fifty literary magazines, most recently Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Color Wheel, and the Hurricane Review. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
Michael Salcman is a physician, brain scientist and essayist on the visual arts. He served as chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore. Presently Special Lecturer in the Osher Institute at Towson University, he lectures widely on art and the brain. Recent poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, the Hopkins Review, New Letters, Ontario Review, Harvard Review, Raritan, Rattle, and the New York Quarterly. Author of four chapbooks, most recently, Stones In Our Pockets (Parallel Press), Salcman’s collection The Clock Made of Confetti (Orchises Press), was nominated for The Poet’s Prize in 2009 and was a finalist for The Towson University Prize in Literature.
Carey Salerno was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She earned her BA in English with a creative writing emphasis from Western Michigan University and her MFA in Poetry from New England College in 2006. Her first poetry collection, Shelter, won the 2007 Alice James Books Kinereth Gensler Award and will be published in January 2009. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in such journals as Rattle and Natural Bridge. Carey works and lives in Boston, MA.
Mia Sara is a poet and writer living in Los Angeles. After twenty-five exhausting years as a film and television actress she took up writing as a way to avoid night shooting. It worked. She is a member of the Los Angeles Poets and Writers Collective, and a grateful student of the poet Jack Grapes.
Peter Schwartz’s words have been featured in Wigleaf, Opium, and the Columbia Review. He’s also an artist, comedian, and dedicated kayaker. More at: sitrahahra.com.
Nic Sebastian hails from Arlington, Virginia. She has two sons and travels widely. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily, Autumn Sky Poetry, Mannequin Envy, Poems Niederngasse, Avatar Review, Anti-, and elsewhere. Nic blogs at Very Like A Whale.
Allan is an astronaut, an architect, a television news anchor, a pharmacist (part-time), a rabbi and a ballroom dancer. He also writes sometimes. His work has appeared in such publications as GUD, Pank, Eclectica, the Ampersand, MonkeyBicycle, and a variety of others. He is the author of The Butcher and the Breather, which is available through Notes & Grace Notes (please buy it). He also enjoys reading manuscripts, editing manuscripts, and bathing in manuscripts.
Daniel M. Shapiro is a public school teacher. His poems have appeared in GH O TI f i sh, Oyez Review, the Pedestal, Shaking Like a Mountain, and Tattoo Highway. His chapbook Teeth Underneath is available from Foothills Publishing. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two young sons.
Aaron Shulman is pursuing his MFA in fiction at the University of Montana.
Matthew Sideman is a former English Major living in Chicago, Illinois. Like all English Majors he has the job that he deserves, office temp. He has temped various jobs from working collections in a hospital to filing the kinky card file in a phone sex parlor. He has had journalism published in Chicago Reader and fiction in the journals Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens and Dark Reveries.
Daniel Sinderson is a working writer currently finishing his B.A. in Anthropology at Portland State University. He lives with his girlfriend in a single room live/work studio at Milepost 5 where he writes and collaborates with other artists. In November he created the written installation piece for the Nostalgia // Adjacent show and is currently working on another collaboration for this upcoming August.
Ashley Skabar is an emerging poet currently living in Anchorage, Alaska. Skabar received her BA in Creative Writing from Ohio University in 2007 and was Ohio University’s 2006 Ruth Lilly Fellowship Nominee. After working as an editor in San Francisco for several years, she relocated to Anchorage where she works as a freelance writer and teaches poetry to a group of at-risk youth. She was awarded a finalist prize in Narrative’s 2009 Annual Poetry Contest, and she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the New School in New York City beginning this fall.
Susan Slaviero is the author of two chapbooks of poetry: An Introduction to the Archetypes (Shadowbox Press, 2008) and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming 2009). Her work has appeared recently in Flyway, Fourteen Hills, Arsenic Lobster, Eclectica, Womb, and other journals both online and in print. She co-edits and designs the electronic literary journal blossombones.
Sarah J. Sloat grew up in New Jersey, and now lives and works in Germany. Sarah’s poems have appeared in West Branch, Linebreak, Juked, and Bateau, among other publications. Her chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, was published by Tilt Press in January 2009.
In a former life as a baker, Agnieszka Stachura once created a gluten free croquembouche for a celiac bride and her French groom. It was delicious and nobody had to compromise, which bodes well for the marriage. Her cakes have featured at various receptions around North Carolina, and her equally delicious writing has appeared most recently in Passages North, Toasted Cheese, Foliate Oak, and Damselfly Press.
Margaret Stawowy is a transplanted Chicago native who lived in Japan for eight years before returning to California where she works as a librarian and serves on the board of a local poetry organization. Her work has appeared in Cricket Online Review, the Japan Times, invAsian, Kyoto Journal, and Comet, among other publications.
Emily Stokes is a recent graduate from Dickinson College, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. degree at Sarah Lawrence College. She was named semi-finalist in the 2011 Mary Ballard Chapbook contest, and her work has previously appeared in Collision Literary Magazine, and is due to appear shortly in Struggle, and Stone Highway Review.
Andrew F. Sullivan was born in Peterborough, Ontario. He has an MA in English in the field of Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. Sullivan’s fiction has recently been published by Little Fiction, Joyland, Dragnet and Riddle Fence. Sullivan no longer works as a butcher or in a warehouse. You can find him at: afsullivan.blogspot.com.
Mark Sutz lives in Arizona. He writes regularly for the online culture magazine the Nervous Breakdown and has had fiction published in journals which can be found listed at marksutz.com. He can be reached at masutz at gmail dot com.
Sharon Suzuki-Martinez just moved to Tempe, Arizona. Her poetry has appeared in Snow Monkey, Columbia Poetry Review, Speakeasy, Tryst, Free Verse, and other journals. She has several phobias, but lacks a fear of insects (entomophobia) or the fear of the great mole rat (zemmiphobia).
L. J. Sysko is a 2006 graduate of the New England College M.F.A. program and won an Honorable Mention in the 2004 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry contest; she has had her work published in Alehouse and the New York Quarterly (forthcoming). Ms. Sysko lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her husband, Ryan, and their two children, Siena and Reeve.
T
Eszter Takacs holds a BA in English from Loyola Marymount University. Born in Hungary, she has lived in Los Angeles for the past twenty years, where she makes a living as a wheel and tire salesgirl and spends the rest of her time hiding behind her camera, outrunning the sun most mornings, and sometimes pretending that she is a vegetarian. She is currently in the process of applying to MFA programs and hopes to begin her studies this fall. Her work has appeared in LA Miscellany and she has poems forthcoming in Rufous City Review and the Anemone Sidecar. She likes cats, ice-cream, ironically located rainbows, and other inconsequential things.
Judith Terzi’s Poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Road to Oxnard (Pudding House Publications finalist) and Sharing Tabouli (Finishing Line Press). Recent awards include nominations for the Best of the Web and Best of the Net anthologies, 2nd place in Newport Review’s Bananagram contest, and honorable mention in Mad Hatters’ Review Knock Our Hats Off Contest. For many years a teacher of French in Pasadena, California, she has also taught English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.
Prose artist Curtis Tompkins lives and writes in the Allegheny Highlands of western Maryland. His prose, poetry, and reviews have appeared in Anderbo, Ducts, Solstice, Prick of the Spindle, the Broadkill Review, Plain Spoke, and Review Revue.
Michael Trocchia’s work recently appeared in Asheville Poetry Review and Mid-American Review. He teaches philosophy part-time at James Madison University in Virginia.
J. A. Tyler has recent work in Elimae, No Colony, Night Train, Prick of the Spindle, and Word Riot. His chapbook The Girl in the Black Sweater is available now from Trainwreck Press, his next chapbook will be a part of Samsara the first multi-author release from Paper Hero Press, and his debut novella Someone, Somewhere is forthcoming from Ghost Road Press. He is also founding editor of Mud Luscious, a reviewer for Rural Messengers Press, a member of Pindeldyboz editorial team, and an editorial intern for Dzanc Books. Read more at aboutjatyler.com or aboutjatyler.blogspot.com.
U
Jay Udall teaches at the University of Nevada in Reno, where he lives with his wife and best friend of more than twenty-five years, Suzanne Andress Udall, and their legendary seven-year old daughter, Rachel Lee Udall. His poems have recently appeared in Rattle, Natural Bridge, cæsura, the Spoon River Poetry Review, and the Pedestal. His next volume, The Welcome Table, will be published by University of New Mexico Press in April 2009.
V
Helen Vitoria lives and writes in Effort, PA. Her work can be found in: Pank, Wicked Alice, the Orange Room Review, the Scrambler, the Cartier Street Review, Tiger’s Eye: A Journal of Poetry, and others. She has recently been thrice nominated for Best New Poets 2010 Anthology. She is working on her first full length collection: Corn Exchange.
Elizabeth Volpe’s Brewing in Eden won the 2007 Robert Watson Poetry Award from the Greensboro Review/Spring Garden Press. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, Crab Orchard Review, River Styx, storySouth, Rattle, roger, the Cortland Review, and the MacGuffin, can be seen on Verse Daily, and heard on the audio site From the Fishouse. She won the Briar Cliff Review 2004 Poetry Contest, the 2006 Metro Detroit Writers Contest, the 2008 Juniper Prize from Alligator Juniper and has been nominated for Best New Poets 2008 and 2009. New work is forthcoming in the Southeast Review and Cave Wall.
W
Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado. She has been a guest editor for Buffalo Bones, and has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Anderbo, Quarterly West, Naugatuck River Review, Fugue, the Anemone Sidecar, Little Red Leaves, Phoebe and Nimrod. She won Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest. She has received two Pushcart Award nominations and poems published by In Posse Review in 2010 were selected by Web del Sol for its e-SCENE best of the Literary Journals.
Jared Ward has had work accepted at the Evansville Review, New Delta Review, West Wind Review, the Dos Passos Review, Zone 3, and others. He is the Director of the Ozark Tennis Academy, and began the University of Arkansas MFA Creative Writing program this fall.
Megan Wastell received her BA from Sarah Lawrence, where she studied Creative Writing and Theater. She has an MBA in Media Management from Metropolitan College and is currently enrolled at the University of Oxford, where she is working toward a Master of Studies in Creative Writing. Megan was born in England and grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She now lives in New York City and works in the television industry as a media producer.
At age eight, Lafayette stood on a hill, his toes at the very edge of a neighborhood that was completely submerged as a cow and three houses sped past on the raging current. He hasn’t looked at the world quite the same way since. Nominated for Best New Poets and the Pushcart, his work has appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, Inkwell, Cicada, and other wonderful journals.
Gillian Wegener has had poetry published or forthcoming in Runes, Quercus Review, the Packinghouse Review, and Tule Review. Her chapbook, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other was published by In the Grove in 2001, and her first full-length collection of poetry, The Opposite of Clairvoyance was published in 2008 by Sixteen Rivers Press. She was awarded top honors in the 2006 and 2007 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. She lives in Modesto, California.
Laura Grace Weldon’s work has recently appeared in the Shine Journal, Mannequin Envy, Flashquake and the Christian Science Monitor. She’s the author of Free Range Learning (Hohm Press). She lives with her overly sarcastic family on a small homestead in Ohio where they raise cows, chickens, veggies and bees. The farm’s pastoral charm is accentuated by rusting tractor attachments and mud, inexpertly disguised on their site bitofearthfarm.com. Read more of her work or connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com.
Anastasia Werner is the owner of Mightier than the Sword, LLC and vegetarian food blog the Gourmet Vegetarian. She travels often in search of inspiration for her short stories and poetry and can be found reading her work at various venues around the country. Werner, who leads a creative writing workshop through Emerging Voices, is currently enrolled in Lesley University’s MFA Program. She resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Ben White was born in New York, grew up in Dallas, received his BA in neurobiology from Harvard University and now procrastinates and studies medicine in Texas. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dogzplot, Six Sentences, and Tuesday Shorts, among others.
Jess Wigent is mostly focused on her PhD at the University of Denver. She’s part of the gang that started the This is Not a Reading Series (a curated, non-reading, musical, artistic, performative, reading reading series) at the Larimer Lounge in Denver.
Robert Wooten’s poems have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Poem, the Lyric and many other periodicals. His second chapbook, Famous Last Words, was published by In His Steps Publishing in 2007. He earned an MFA in poetry at the University of Alabama (1998) and an MA with a creative writing focus at North Carolina State University (1994).
X
Y
Z
Laurel Elizabeth Zeiss is a musicologist who specializes in music-text relationships. Her poetry has been published in the Quaker magazine Friendly Woman and in Edge of Our World, an anthology of nature poetry by North Carolina poets. She currently teaches Music History at Baylor University in Texas. Before she became a professor, she worked (among other things) as a singing teacher, bank teller, church choir director, waitress and a summer stock theatre techie. She and her husband Daniel are avid country western and swing dancers.