Volume 2 Contributors

Vitaly S Alexius was born in the year 1984, in Novokuznetsk, Siberian Russia. On April 11, 1997, fate gave him an unexpected twist and by means of aerial transportation he was thrown about 5555 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to Toronto, Canada. Since 2000, he has been tutoring on the subject of drawing and painting. In 2002, he learned Photoshop and has been using it ever since to develop an innovative digital art style, which he calls "Dreaminism." Currently, he is working as a photographer/freelance illustrator, painting more chapters for the Romantically Apocalyptic graphic novel, and doing commissions on the side such as concept art, book illustrations, and CD covers.

Gary Anderson is a full-time assessment specialist living and working in New Jersey. His poetry and fiction have appeared in a number of magazines, including Fiddlehead, Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, Event, Umbrella Factory, and CV2. His first novel, Animal Magnet, was published in July 2011 by Emmerson Street Press in Thunder Bay. His second novel, Best of All Possible Worlds, was published by WordsworthGreenwich Press in May 2012.

A Romanian-American physician researcher who worked in laboratories and autopsy rooms from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, Mia Avramut now lives and writes in Essen, Germany. She is Associate Poetry Editor for Connotation Press, and interviews authors for Scissors and Spackle. Her poetry and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Conclave: a Journal of Character, The Prose Poem Project, Marco Polo, Crack the Spine, A-Minor Magazine, Santa Fe Literary Review, and several anthologies. She received a Pushcart Prize nomination for her creative nonfiction in 2012.

Lucile Barker is a Toronto poet, writer, and activist who has been writing since she first swiped her grandmother's Waterman fountain pen and her mother's lilac ink. The time spent in the corner gave her more opportunity to write.

Since 1994, she has been the coordinator of the Joy of Writing, a weekly workshop at the Ralph Thornton Centre. The group now has a Facebook group and out-of-town members, some of whom actually do the assignments.

Recent publications include "Glass Coffins" in Memewar, "Summer Vacations" and "Flower Shows" in The Antigonish Review, "Diminishing Territory" in Rougarou, "May 2-4 Weekend, Friday Night" in Litterbox Magazine, "Upside Down Summer" in Flashlight Memories, "Beauty Shop - December 30" in The Bat Shat and "Jake" in Snakeskin Review.

Poetry and short stories are also forthcoming in The Nashwaak Review, Lost in Thought, and Hinchas de Poesia.

"The Golden Age," the first-place short story winner in the Creative Keyboards contest, a project of the Hamilton Community Arts Council, has been transformed into a screenplay and is making the rounds.

With an unlimited supply of postage and chutzpah, there is the possibility of having the largest collection of rejection slips in the world. However, there are no plans for an exhibit of these at present.

Sarah Beddow hails from Pittsburgh, where she lives in her childhood home with her husband and son. She writes poems and educational textbooks.

Nicola Belte lives in Birmingham, U.K, and is a part-time MA student, part-time pint puller, and an in-between time writer of weird fiction. Her work has been published by Flash Fiction Online, The Lovecraft eZine, and Eschatology Journal, amongst others, all of which you can find at her blog: nicolabelte.blogspot.com.

Aimee Bender is the author of four books, including The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper's, The Paris Review, Tin House, and more, as well as heard on "This American Life" and "Selected Shorts". She lives in Los Angeles and teaches creative writing at USC.

Carol Berg's poems are forthcoming or in Pebble Lake Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, qarrtsiluni, The Bakery, Spillway, and elsewhere. Two chapbooks, Ophelia Unraveling (dancing girl press), and Small Portrait and the Woman Holding A Flood In Her Mouth (Binge Press), are forthcoming. She blogs at carolbergpoetry.blogspot.com.

Brandon Blackburn lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife and a Yorkshire terrier named after John Cusack. He has had short fiction published in more than a dozen literary magazines including Artifice, Skive, Rose & Thorn Journal, and Boston Literary Magazine. His master's thesis in English was published as Natural History as Dissent by Lambert Academic Press.

Jon Boisvert was born and raised in southeastern Wisconsin, and now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with various and changing roommates, cats, and sometimes bunnies. He teaches and currently does volunteer work for Write Around Portland. His poems have appeared in many places, including Sierra Nevada Review, Blood Orange Review, and Main Street Rag. He is not Frankenstein.

Kathy Burkett lives in Florida with her husband and two Dachshunds. She sings and plays kazoo for adoring audiences of odd dolls and weird stuffed creatures.

Matthew is author of Escapologies (Red Bird Chapbooks) and the forthcoming Infinity's Jukebox (Passenger Side Books). He recently started a magazine called Cloud Rodeo with co-pilot Nathan Blake. His last dream involved he and Ryan Gosling battling space zombies with laser guitars.

Scott Butterfield was born in Wisconsin. He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. There is nothing which can describe the ineffable feeling of simply being alive. He lives in limited splendor with his two cats and many plants.

www.casetronaut.com

Robert J. Campbell's poems have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Avatar Review, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Robert is currently an MFA student at Murray State University and a librarian in Southeastern Kentucky, where he reads, writes, and serves as advisor to the literary journal, Kudzu.

Photo: Mike Marshall

Jamez Chang's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Underground Voices, Bartleby Snopes, FRiGG, Prime Number, Melusine, Poydras Review, and Counterexample Poetics. After graduating from Bard College, Jamez went on to become the first Korean-American to release a hip-hop album, Z-Bonics (1998), in the United States. He currently works in the video game industry in NYC. Visit: www.jamezchang.com

Ed. note: We like the hat

Jared Coffin is a first-year MFA candidate at The University of South Carolina, where he enjoys working on Yemassee, the graduate literary magazine, and trying to avoid encouraging poeticism in freshman essays. His poetry has appeared in The Connecticut Review and Consequence Magazine, as well as several undergraduate literary journals. In the spring of 2012, Jared had the pleasure of reading his work at universities across Connecticut, after being named a Connecticut Student Poet. During his time at USC, he plans to research the role of literature in national memory while pursuing his hobby of piloting small aircraft.

Flower Conroy's poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Serving House Journal, BlazeVOX, Saw Palm, American Literary Review, Psychic Meatloaf, Labletter, Interrobang?!, Lavender Review, and others. She is currently an MFA student at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Escape to Nowhere, her chapbook collection of poems, was published by Rain Mountain Press. Her latest chapbook, Controlled Burn, is forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press.

Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared within Action Yes, Barn Owl Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Diagram, Diode, and many more print and online sources. She is the editor/publisher of Blood Pudding Press (print) and Thirteen Myna Birds (online). Juliet's first full-length poetry book, Horrific Confection, was published by BlazeVOX. She also has oodles of published poetry chapbooks, most recently including FONDANT PIG ANGST (Slash Pine Press), Tongue Like a Stinger (Wheelhouse), POST-STROKE (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 5) and Thirteen Designer Vaginas (Hyacinth Girl Press), with another new chapbook, POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP, coming soon from Strange Cage. She is currently submitting her second full-length poetry book. To find out more, visit www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

Mary Stone Dockery's first poetry collection, Mythology of Touch, was released by Woodley Press in 2012. She is the author of two chapbooks, Aching Buttons (Dancing Girl Press) and Blink Finch (Kattywompus Press), both forthcoming in 2012. She is a co-author of the collaborative chapbook Honey and Bandages (Folded Word Press 2013), written with Katie Longofono. Her poetry and prose has appeared in many fine journals. She currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where she co-edits the Stone Highway Review.

Michelle Donahue likes ducks, dragons and kittens. She is a sun-loving Californian who is currently lost in the corn mazes of Iowa where she is an MFA candidate for creative writing at Iowa State University. Next fall she will be the managing editor of Flyway. Her work is forthcoming in Whiskey Island and Untucked Magazine.

Gisella Faggi has fiction forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal and The Sand Hill Review. She currently lives, writes, and teaches in Rome, Italy.

Michael Fontana is the author of two novels, Sleeping with Gods, and The Sacred Machine. He lives and writes in beautiful Bella Vista, Arkansas.

Roland Goity lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he writes in the shadows of planes coming and going from SFO. His stories can be found in Fiction International, The Raleigh Review, Word Riot, Compass Rose, PANK, and more recently in The MacGuffin, Bluestem, and Underground Voices.

Amanda Gowin lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. Her fiction has appeared online and in print in various magazines, as well as anthologies including Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology, In Search of a City: Los Angeles in 1,000 Words, and cutaway. She conducts author interviews at Curiouser and Curiouser. The fiction anthology Cipher Sister, which she co-edited with Michael Gonzalez, is upcoming in 2013. She has always written and always will. Updates on her work and play can be found at lookatmissohio.wordpress.com.

Was born a twin in Indiana at least years 7 ago. Her twin's name? Mab Graves. She paints like a chimney and smokes like a fish. Drinks coffee like its illegal. The name Mab? It's not short for anything. She is or has a cat. They are sworn enemies. Mab is a Pop Surrealist painter. She says she is a Dreamchild Neverist. I don't know what that means. Mab never went to Art School. She is a pretend artist. The nicest thing a stranger ever said to her? "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought maybe you were a child. Or a vampire." Her work is available at mabgraves.com.

Amelia Gray is the author of three works of fiction: AM/PM (featherproof books), Museum of the Weird (FC2), and THREATS (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). The Picture Window first appeared in the short story collection, Museum of the Weird, published by FC2, an imprint of the University of Alabama Press.

Zac B. Hancock is twenty-three years old and a resident of Atlanta, Texas. When he's not reading or writing, he's working at the local pizza parlor. He's been previously published in Aquila Review.

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick received her Masters in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010. Some of her work has been featured or is upcoming in magazines in the US and UK, including: 3:AM Magazine, Night Train, Sein und Werden, Sugar House Review, and Versal, among others. She writes in the deserts of West Texas.

Kyle Hemmings is the author of several chapbooks of poetry and prose: Avenue C, Cat People, and Anime Junkie (Scars Publications). His latest e-books are You Never Die in Wholes from Good Story Press and The Truth about Onions from Good Samaritan. He lives and writes in New Jersey.

Crystal Hoffman teaches creative writing and literature at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. She is faculty editor of Rusted Radishes: The Beirut Literary and Arts Review and an editorial advisor for Patasola Press. Her poems have appeared in journals such as 3AM, A Cappella Zoo, Arsenic Lobster, and FRiGG, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She co-founded and directed the performance troupe The TypewriterGirls for five years and is still staging audience-interactive amalgamations of music, poetry, and theatre while living in the Middle East. Her first chapbook Sulphur Water will be released this coming summer.

Shannon Hozinec lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where she runs Vector Press, and trades coins for soft jaws.

Amorak Huey, a longtime newspaper journalist, now teaches creative and professional writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2012, The Southern Review, Linebreak, Subtropics, Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, and many other print and online journals. Follow him on Twitter: @amorak.

Jessie Janeshek's first book of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008).

Alexander Jansson is a freelance artist born in Uppsala, Sweden, who lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Sleeping House is his design studio. He specializes in cover art, illustration, character design, concept art and graphic design. Recent clients include the New York Ballet, Weekly Reader, Filter Magazine, Random House NY, Random House Spain, Bloomsbury, Roaring Brook, Harcourt, Pearson Education UK, and Clarion Books. His website can be found at alexanderjansson.com, and his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Alexander.Jansson.art.

Stephen Graham Jones has eleven novels and two collections on the shelf, and some hundred and fifty stories. His most recent novels are The Last Final Girl and Growing Up Dead in Texas. Coming soon will be Flushboy and Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth. More at demontheory.net.

Josh Karaczewski is living in the San Francisco Bay Area until he can retire somewhere warmer. His stories have been published in several literary journals, one receiving a Pushcart Prize nomination. His debut novel, Alexander Murphy's Home for Wayward Celebrities, was published as an ebook last year. Sample and purchase a copy here; as he's going to have three kids to put through college, why don't you buy a copy for a friend too while you're there.

Andrew Kaufman was born in the town of Wingham, Ontario. This is the same town that Alice Munro was born in, which makes him the second best writer from a town of three thousand. He is the author of All My Friends Are Superheroes, The Waterproof Bible, The Tiny Wife, and the short story collection Selected Business Correspondence. He lives in Toronto with his awesome wife and two kids, Phoenix and Frida.

 

Originally hailing from the suburban plains of Texas, Les Kay is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati. His poems have appeared in Blue Earth Review, Cellpoems, Eclipse, Jabberwock Review, PANK, Redactions, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. Poems are also forthcoming in Whiskey Island, Santa Clara Review, and Third Wednesday. At present, he lives in Cincinnati with his wife, three very small dogs, and their collective imaginations. The Bureau loves him.

Erin Entrada Kelly's debut novel will be released by HarperCollins in 2013. Her short fiction has appeared in places like Stupefying Stories, Keyhole, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. She currently lives in suburban Philadelphia. Read more at www.erinentradakelly.com.

Kathleen Kirk is the serious-but-whimsical poetry editor of Escape Into Life and the accidental blogger at Wait! I Have a Blog? She is the author of four poetry chapbooks, mostly recently Nocturnes (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012). Her work appears in a variety of print and online journals, including blossombones, Blood Lotus, Intentional Walk, Poetry East, Umbrella, and Sweet, and she resembles Emily Dickinson if Emily were a hedgehog, which, perhaps, she was/is.

Photo: Raechel Running

Born in Greenville, SC. and currently living in Arizona, Isaac Kirkman is a student at the Tucson branch of the Philip Schultz-founded Writers Studio. He is also a founding member of the Low Writers collective. His work has previously been published in Out of the Gutter, Shotgun Honey, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. His work is forthcoming in Zelmer Pulp Anthology and Hey! That Robot Ate My Baby! (Vol. 1). Visit: about.me/isaac.kirkman

Jill Khoury's poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Sentence, la fovea, and Harpur Palate. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice by Breath and Shadow: A Journal of Disability Culture and Literature. Her most recent publications include a contribution to Open Thread, a regional review that features writers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and a chapbook, Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House).

B. A. Krishna is an Indian American who lives in Silicon Valley. He works as a Hardware Design engineer. He has authored technical publications in Lecture Notes in Computer Science and Formal Methods in Computer Aided Design. He also has literary pieces published in Indian Review, The Missing Slate, and OneTitle.

Claire Kruesel grew up just outside Rochester, Minnesota, then migrated South (though not too far) to Iowa State University, where she studied Biochemistry and Genetics. Currently a first-year candidate in the MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment, her vision is to merge poetry with science writing to translate the awe she feels for the natural world. Her interests include fiddling on the accordion, antiques, evolutionary biology, post-/trans-humanism, fitting olives into every meal, and viewing the world through shifting perspectives of scale. She sings in the ISU women's ensemble, Cantamus, and teaches yoga and makes music with Pennyhawk and Jordan Mayland & the Thermal Detonators.

Lloyd Luke is a health care consultant who writes as much as he possibly can in his spare time. He has published poetry in Lily, Stirring, and Turk's Head Review, and one of his poems was nominated for Best of the Web 2010. He has also published non-fiction in Outside, The Hartford Courant, The Huffington Post, JAMA, and The British Medical Journal.

Lea Marshall is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University, with a BA in English from University of Virginia. Her creative work is forthcoming in P.Q. Leer and AfterImage-Inklight, and has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Miracle Monocle, Moon Milk Review, diode poetry journal, Anderbo.com, NPR's Morning Edition, The Hook, Eve In Hand, and Sacred Bearings. She was the recipient of Virginia Commonwealth University's 2010-2011 Graduate Poetry Award, and of the Thomas B. Gay Award for Graduate Poetry from VCU's College of Humanities and Sciences. In addition to her creative writing, Lea is a freelance dance critic, and Assistant Chair/Producer for the VCU Department of Dance & Choreography.

Adam Marek is an award-winning short story writer. He won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. His first story collection, Instruction manual for swallowing was longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Prize. His stories have appeared in many magazines, including Prospect and The Sunday Times Magazine, and in many anthologies including Lemistry and Biopunk from Comma Press, and The Best British Short Stories 2011. Adam's second collection of short stories, The Stone Thrower, is out in the UK from Comma Press in September 2012, and in North America from ECW Press in April 2013. Visit Adam Marek online at www.adammarek.co.uk.

Court Merrigan is the author of Moondog Over The Mekong (Snubnose Press), and he's got short stories out or coming soon in Needle, Weird Tales, Plots With Guns, Shotgun Honey, and Noir Nation. He is currently shopping a novel, The Broken Country. Links at courtmerrigan.com. He runs the Bareknuckles Pulp Department at Out of the Gutter, and lives in Wyoming with his family.

Kassandra Montag lives in Omaha, Nebraska where she works at a medical library. She holds an M.A. in English and a B.A. in philosophy. Her poetry has appeared in Shadows, Ellipsis, The Wilderness House Review, the Empty Room Anthology, and the Platte Valley Review, and is forthcoming in the South Dakota Review.

Adam Moorad is a poet, salesman, and mountaineer. He is the author of Oak Ridge (Turtleneck Press, 2012). He lives in Brooklyn. Visit him here: adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com

Shannon Norland is a heretofore unpublished author living in North Carolina. When not writing, she fills her time with gardening and kendo.

Ken Poyner has lived in the lower-right-hand corner of Virginia all of his life. He took up writing both suddenly and unexpectedly in his late high school years after being introduced to the work of Randall Jarrell. Later, he began publishing in places like The Alaska Quarterly, The Iowa Review, New Mexico Humanities Review, GW Review, and the ever popular elsewhere. He then took about fourteen years off. Coming back in late 2009, he started rummaging about on the web and has been seen in Corium Magazine, PANK, Alice Blue Review, FRiGG, Eclectica Magazine, Metazen, and again in the ubiquitous elsewhere. His wife of more than 30 years is one of the world's top raw power lifters, and holds 20 or 30 national or world records for various power lifting organizations. Together, they raise their rescue cats and are beginning to appreciate that their interests might not be quite common for middle-class couples.

Jessy Randall's collection of poems, A Day in Boyland, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Her young adult novel, The Wandora Unit, is about high school poetry nerds. Her latest book is Interruptions, a collection of collaborative poems written with Daniel M. Shapiro. Her website is personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall, and she blogs about library shenanigans at libraryshenanigans.wordpress.com.

Brandon Rushton is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of South Carolina, where he also serves as a teaching assistant in the undergraduate English program. He was awarded the Raymond Tyner Prize in Poetry in April of 2012. Born and raised in Michigan, he now lives and writes in Columbia, South Carolina.

Melody Sage is a professional visual artist. She participates in various shows and festivals across the Midwest and has had solo exhibits at the Snoodle and the Washington Gallery in Duluth, MN. Her poetry has been published in over fifty literary magazines including Color Wheel, Bogg, The Dirty Napkin, and The Haight Ashbury Review.

Daniel M. Shapiro is a schoolteacher who lives in Pittsburgh. He is the author of The 44th-Worst Album Ever and Teeth Underneath, and co-author of Interruptions, a collection of collaborations with Jessy Randall. His poetry website is littlemyths-dms.blogspot.com.

Christiana Spens is the author of 'The Wrecking Ball' [Harper Perennial 2008] and the graphic novel. 'The Socialite Manifesto' [Beautiful Books 2009]. Her third book, 'Death of a Ladies' Man' is published by 3:AM Press this Fall. She graduated from Cambridge last year, in Philosophy, and now lives in Paris.

Ingrid Steblea's poetry has appeared in Rattle, The Seattle Review, Poem, and The Southern Anthology, among other literary journals. She won the 17th Annual Poet's Seat Poetry Contest and was the featured poet in Ouroboros Review in 2008.

Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson is preoccupied with absence. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in many places, including EDGE, Welter, Going Down Swinging, Conium Review, Black Lantern Publishing, The Literary Review of Canada, Labletter, and the anthology Killer Verse. You can read more of her writing at www.caitlinthomson.com.

Teresa Tulipano is a poet, a journalist, and an aspiring novelist living in Brooklyn, NY, across from Prospect Park, where she spends much of her time in reverie when she is not baking key lime pies or peach cobblers to commune with the spirits of her mom and grandma.

Jessica Tyner is originally from Oregon, USA, is a member of the Cherokee Nation, and has been a writer and editor for ten years. Currently, she is a copy writer for Word Jones, a travel writer with Mucha Costa Rica, a writer for TripFab, a copy editor at the London-based Flaneur Arts Journal, and a contributing editor at New York's Thalo Magazine. She has recently published short fiction in Out of Print Magazine in India, and poetry in Slow Trains Literary Journal, Straylight Magazine, and Solo Press. She lives in San José, Costa Rica.

Martha Vallely lives in Seattle where she has worked as a legal editor for over 35 years. Her poetry has appeared in Windfall, Motel 58, and the anthology 31 (Crane's Bill Books).

Matthew Vasiliauskas is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Film and Video Production. In 2009, he was awarded the Silver Dome Prize by the Illinois Broadcast Association for best public affairs program as producer of the Dean Richards Show at WGN Radio. His work has appeared in such publications as The Pennsylvania Review, Stumble Magazine, and The Adirondack Review. Matthew currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Kate Velguth lives in the middle of Michigan, where she reads and writes as much as possible. She is fifteen, and a sophomore in high school. Kate has wanted to be a writer since she could read. She has not been published previously. These are some of the things she loves: her family and friends, real and fictional; Ray Bradbury; her typewriter; and realizing she's glad to be alive.

Helen Vitoria is a photographer and a poet living in Effort, PA. Her photographs appear and are forthcoming in Phantom Kangaroo, kitchen, ken*again, decomP, Blue Fifth Review, Right Hand Pointing, and others. Her poems can be found in many online and print journals. She is the author of seven poetry chapbooks, a poetry pamphlet, and a full-length poetry collection. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize. She is the Founding Editor and Editor in Chief of THRUSH Poetry Journal and THRUSH Press. Find her at helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com.

Donna Vorreyer's poems have appeared in many journals, and The Imagined Life of the Pioneer Wife will debut later this year as a chapbook with Redbird Chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, A House of Many Windows, is also forthcoming from Sundress Publications. She teaches middle school, which often means she still acts like she is twelve years old.

Robert Alan Wendeborn is a composition instructor at San Juan College. His poems, reviews, and art have appeared in places like elimae, Red Lightbulbs, The Lit Pub, and most recently in 5 Quarterly.

Stephen Williams holds a BA in creative writing from the University of California Riverside, where he won the Chancellor's Performance Award for excellence in fiction. His work has appeared in Carnival and Mosaic Literary Magazine. He serves as an editor for Rind Literary Magazine and the host/scriptwriter for Boy Wonder Reviews on YouTube.

Laura Madeline Wiseman has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches English. She is the author of several chapbooks including She who Loves Her Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Her chapbook, First Wife, is forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press in 2013. She is also the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Blue Light Press, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in Margie, Feminist Studies, Poet Lore, Cream City Review, Pebble Lake Review, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her prose has appeared in Arts & Letters, Spittoon, Blackbird, American Short Fiction, 13th Moon, and elsewhere. Her reviews have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso Poetry Review, 42Opus, and elsewhere. www.lauramadelinewiseman.com

Russ Woods is a librarian living in Chicago. He is poetry editor and web designer for Red Lightbulbs. His first book, Wolf Doctors, is forthcoming from Artifice Books. He has been or will soon be published in Diagram, iO, >kill author, Mudluscious, Dark Sky, and LIES/ISLE. He is at http://solarflareshavebeenknowntocauseheartache.com.

An American based in Paris, Liz Young worked for many years as a modern dancer, choreographer and performance artist, collaborating with French and German choreographers. She has gradually shifted from movements to words (the same desire to create, but using different tools), writing short fiction and poetry as well as translating from French to English. Her work has been published in The Bastille.

Susan Yount is editor and publisher of the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal and madam of the Chicago Poetry Bordello. She founded Misty Publications, and their first full length collection is Steve Davenport's OVERPASS, which is scheduled to debut in August 2012. She also works full time at the Associated Press and teaches online poetry classes at The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative. As if all that wasn't enough, she recently completed her MFA in poetry at Columbia College Chicago, and is mother to the most darling little boy of 5. Her chapbook, Catastrophe Theory, is just out from Hyacinth Girl Press.