Contributors

Adrian C. Louis teaches English in the Minnesota State University system. His 2006 collection of poems, Logorrhea (Northwestern University Press), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio's longtime "voice of books," is the author of four novels, three collections of short fiction, and the memoir Fall Out of Heaven. As a book commentator, Cheuse is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Idaho Review, and The Southern Review, among other places. He teaches in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Alexander Scott Hughes was born at the Indian Hospital to Mary and Jim Hughes (Cherokee) and grew up in Phoenix with a variety of cultural and artistic influences. Although a mainly self-taught artist, Alexander received formal training at the Art Institute of Phoenix and Phoenix College.  In addition to showing his artwork in Phoenix area galleries, he was a featured artist for the Young Collectors of the Phoenix Art Museums 2008 fundraiser at the Phoenix Art Museum, a contributor for the journals Bad Subjects vol. 61, "The Aesthetics of Violence" and Merge, and showed in juried exhibitions such as Artlink's 9th Annual Juried Art Exhibition and the Mark Woolley Gallery's Alien & Sedition show in Portland, Oregon.

Amy Lemmon is the author of the forthcoming poetry collections Fine Motor (Sow's Ear Review Press) and Saint Nobody (Red Hen Press ). Poems from the sequence ABBA: The Poems, written in collaboration with Denise Duhamel , have appeared or are forthcoming in Birmingham Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Journal, and the Cincinnati Review. She is an associate professor of English at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and blogs at http://saint-nobody.blogspot.com

Ariel Goldberg tests her reactions to how we communicate and receive information in our contemporary culture with text, performance and photography based projects. Her work has recently appeared at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco and New York University 's Gulf & Western Gallery. Selections from her project "Letters to the Names of the Dead" is forthcoming in the Summer 2008 volumes of P-Queue and the Cricket Online Review. She lives and works in Oakland. Visit her website at www.arielgoldberg.com

Barbara Cooker's poems have appeared in many journals such as Yankee, The Christian Science Monitor, Smartish Pace, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, The Denver Quarterly, The Tampa Review, Poetry International, The Christian Century, and America. She is the recipient of the 2007 Pen and Brush Poetry Prize, the 2006 Ekphrastic Poetry Award from Rosebud, the 2004 WB Yeats Society of New York Award, and others, including three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, twelve residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a prize from the NEA. A twenty-six time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she was nominated for the 1997 Grammy Awards for her part in the audio version of the popular anthology, Grow Old Along With Me--The Best is Yet to Be (Papier Mache Press). Radiance, her first full-length book, won the 2005 Word Press First Book competition, and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. Line Dance, her second book, is newly out from Word. Garrison Keillor has read fourteen of her poems on The Writer's Almanac, National Public Radio.

Bob Hicok teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech University. His books include The Legend of Light, (1995) Plus Shipping (1998), and Animal Soul (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has published two other books -- Insomnia Diary (2004) and This Clumsy Living (2007), both with the University of Pittsburgh Press. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review and The American Poetry Review, as well as four volumes of The Best American Poetry. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and an NEA Fellowship in 1999, his work has also been reprinted three times in the Pushcart Anthology.

Brian Doyle edits Portland Magazine at the University of Portland , in Oregon – "the finest spiritual magazine in the United States," says Annie Dillard, clearly a woman of discernment. He is also the author of nine books of essays and poems. His work has appeared in Best American Essays, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion, The American Scholar, and magazines and newspapers around this bruised & blessed planet.

Daniel Orozco's work has appeared in the Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and in Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, and Zoetrope All-Story. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Idaho.

Cathy McLain is an amateur photographer who lives in Houston, Texas with her husband Jim and Black Lab Bailey. Through the years her love of photography has grown into a passion.  She especially enjoys documenting the everyday, overlooked, and unusual that surrounds us. 

Cecilia Sandoval studied design abroad in Italy, Switzerland and Germany before receiving a BFA in painting from ASU in 2006 with honors. Her work explores social standards of beauty and acceptable forms of appearance through painting and drawing. She shows her work throughout Arizona, including donating work for funding youth art programs at the Herberger Theater Center, and to the "Art for Health" program through ASU's College of Nursing, as well as exhibiting during an Arizona Arts Chorale concert. Not only is she a new mother, she is also President of 515 Arts in Phoenix, and she is pursuing shows at a national level.

Christopher Lowe's fiction has appeared at Fiction Weekly and is forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review.  He is an instructor at McNeese State University, where he also received his MFA. Born in Jackson, MS, he now lives in Lake Charles, LA.

Claire McQuerry writes and translates poetry. Recent publications include Double Change, Comstock Review, and Damselfly. Claire teaches writing at Arizona State University.

Claudia Amadori-Segree was born in Italy. She lived in London for eleven years and moved to South Florida in 1997. She will graduate from Florida Atlantic University with an MFA in Fiction in August 2008 and will begin a PhD program in English at the University of Miami in the fall. She writes fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry and much of her writing explores issues of identity, cultural hybridity, loss and family dynamics. Claudia's stories have a strong sense of place and are set in the many countries she traveled to. Claudia's nonfiction explores questions of displacement and family bonds.

Colton James Brock is a third generation Arizona Native. Both of his parents are natives, his father's father was born in Clifton , Arizona in 1921 and his Mother's father in Buckeye, Arizona in 1932. He feels most at home in the desert; the heat, mountainous topography, plant life and fiery skies all contribute to the mood of my works. Growing up skateboarding in Phoenix has naturally lead to an affinity for unnatural landscapes; my paintings often simply being an extension of that attraction, which constantly lures me out into various urban hubs.

Dara Wier's books include Remnants of Hannah, Reverse Rapture, Hat On a Pond, and Voyages in English. Among her works are the limited editions (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi's Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall (Oat City Press), and The Lost Epic, co-written with James Tate (Waiting for Godot Books in 1999). Her poetry has been supported by fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the American Poetry Review. In 2005 she held the Rubin Distinguished Chair at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Her work appears in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, The Fairytale Review, Hollins Critic, jubilat, New American Writing, slope and Volt, among others. She's completing three manuscripts, poems, stories, and a novel.

Darren Dillman grew up in the New Mexico desert and earned an MFA in creative writing from McNeese State University. His short story “Cloudcroft” appeared in the fall 2008 issue of Shenandoah and has been selected for the anthology Best of the West: Stories West of the Missouri. He won the Washington Square Review's poetry contest and his novel The Preacher is forthcoming from David C. Cook. He resides in Yuma, Arizona, where he teaches English for Arizona Western College.

Denise Duhamel's most recent book Two and Two (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005) is the winner of Binghamton University 's Milt Kessler Book Award.  She and Amy Lemmon are currently working on a series of poems with these two constraints: the stanzas are written in abba rhyme, and each poem must mention ABBA, the 70s pop group, at least once. Duhamel is an associate professor of English at Florida International University in Miami.

Elizabeth Seafoss began painting with her mother's tubes of oil. In 1961, she and her parents moved to Phoenix, near her older brother and his family. Restless yet inspired, Elizabeth gypsied about for most of her life, painting her way from residence to residence, including Northern British Columbia, Arizona mountains, San Francisco, San Diego, La Jolla, Seattle, Wichita . Self-taught, her works and consignment pieces reside with private collectors in Milwaukee, British Columbia, San Francisco, the Phoenix metropolitan area, Scottsdale, Los Angeles, San Diego, La Jolla, Miami, Florida, Seattle, Colorado Springs, Tempe, Wichita, Kansas City, Michigan, Metaphysical Books in Phoenix, a home built by Frank Lloyd Wright in Phoenix, Miami, Alaska, Sacramento, Snohomish County Library System. Her work has appeared at multiple private shows, the Park Lane Gallery in Kirkland, Washington, Greenlake Gallery in Seattle, and local art walks. Presently, she resides in the Northwest with her husband.

Erica Maria Litz is the author of Lightning Forest, Lava Root, her first poetry collection, to be published in the coming year by Plain View Press. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in the journals Brink Magazine, Oranges & Sardines, Superstition Review, Literary Mama, Americanisado, Moondance, The Caribbean Writer and quiet Shorts.  Of Colombian heritage, her poetry has been influenced by the culture and the musical roots of Latin America. She teaches English for Paradise Valley Community College and she is a volunteer poetry mentor with PEN Prison Writing Mentorship Program.

Floyd Skloot is a creative nonfiction writer, poet, novelist, and critic.  He has published fifteen books and won three Pushcart Prizes,  a PEN USA Literary Award, a Pacific NW Booksellers Association Book Award, two Oregon Book Awards, the Emily Clark Balch Prize from Virginia Quarterly Review , and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner.  He was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award in 2003, for his memoir In the Shadow of Memory, which was also a finalist for the PEN Award for the Art of the Essay. His work has been included in The Best American Essays , Best American Science Writing, Best Spiritual Writing, Best Food Writing, The Art of the Essay, and In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, among other anthologies. 

Heather Jovanelli is a visual artist and writer living in Oakland, California. Originally from Maine, she is interested in sustainable architecture and energy, string theory (on the guitar), and painterly optics. Her major influences are Merle Haggard's music and Will Alexander's poetry.

Irena Praitis is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at California State University, Fullerton.  She earned her PhD and MFA degrees from Arizona State University.  In the spring of 2005, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Her poems, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Rattle, Mochila Review, Mid-America Poetry Review, International Poetry Review, Cold Mountain Review, The Iconoclast, The Connecticut River Review , and Interculturidád & Traducción. Her collection of poems, Touch, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004, and her collection of poems, Branches, was published by D-N Publishing in 2007. 

Jeannie Galeazzi's work has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in thirty-four publications including Fence, The Literary Review, Permafrost, Southern Humanities Review, and Main Street Rag as well as Feathertale Review (Canada), Dotlit (Australia), and Snorkel (New Zealand), and is forthcoming in The Distillery, RiverSedge, and All Rights Reserved (Nova Scotia). "Wager" is for Blake Galeazzi.

Jeannine Savard is an Associate Professor of English at Arizona State University, Tempe campus where she has been teaching on the creative writing faculty for over twenty years. Her work has appeared in a variety of periodicals and journals, and her most recent manuscript of poems will be published by Red Hen Press in late 2009 or early 2010. Her books in print include Snow Water Cove, republished in Carnegie Mellon's Classic Contemporary Series, 2006, My Hand Upon Your Name, Red Hen Press, 2005, and Trumpeter, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1993.

Jenn Blair is from Yakima, WA. She received her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Georgia where she is currently a Park Hall Fellow. Her interests include Victorian and Arab Literature, and she has published in MELUS, The Tusculum Review, and Copper Nickel.

Jessica Harris is in her third year of graduate school at Columbia University. She is working toward her MFA in Writing with a poetry concentration.

Jim Daniels is the winner of the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize for his book, Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies (Eastern Washington University Press, 2007). In addition, he has edited or co-edited four anthologies, including Letters to America : Contemporary American Poetry on Race, and American Poetry: The Next Generation. He has received the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. He is the Thomas Stockman Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directs the Creative Writing Program. At Carnegie Mellon, he has received the Ryan Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service.

Joan Connor is a full professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Ohio University. She has published hundreds of stories and essays in an array of journals. Her first two collections of short stories, Here on Old Route 7 and We Who Live Apart, were published by the University of Missouri Press. Her third collection of short stories, History Lessons (University of Massachusetts Press) won the AWP award for short fiction. Her collection of essays The World Before Mirrors (University of Nebraska Press ) won the River Teeth award. Joan is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council fellowship, the John Gilgun award, the Ohio Writer award in fiction and nonfiction, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Colony.

John Findura holds an MFA from The New School. His poetry and criticism appear in journals such as Mid-American Review, Verse, Fugue, Fourteen Hills, CutBank, Juked, elimae, No Tell Motel, H_NGM_N, Jacket, and Rain Taxi, among others. Born in Paterson, he lives and teaches in Northern New Jersey with his wife Lauren, their puppy, and a charm of finches.

John Michael Cummings' short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including  North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Iowa Review.  Twice he has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize.  His short story “The Scratchboard Project” received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007, and his novella The House of My Father was a finalist in the 2006 Miami University Novella Contest. His first novel, The Night I Freed John Brown, is forthcoming from Philomel Books (Penguin Group), May 2008. He lives in New York with his wife, Susan, and their cat, Sentry.

JW Miller became interested in art through comic books. Music also plays an important roll in the creation of his paintings. His latest work focuses on portraits from people out and about in the city of dektown. He is attempting to find something that will be visually interesting to paint, and at the same time, finding something interesting in their past or in their character that will correlate with the painted portrait for an overall story. You can view more of his work at http://www.dektown.com/index.html

Judith Ortiz Cofer has poems, essays, and stories in recent issues of the Southern Review, Blackbird, Image, and the North American Review. Her books include: A Love Story Beginning in Spanish, poems, Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer, a collection of essays, (both from the University of Georgia Press), The Meaning of Consuelo, a novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and others. She teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.

Kassy Scrivner is a recent graduate of Union Institute & University / Vermont College where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, Poetry, and Small Business Administration from the University of Redlands. Her work has been published in The Iowa Source, Cosmopsis Quarterly, and has received Honorable Mention in the Jean Burden Prize for the American Academy of Poetry. Originally from Oregon, Ms. Scrivner now resides in Scottsdale, Arizona where she is currently the Director of First Impressions for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

Katherine Tanney  has written several essays about love, loss, and living with dogs for "Modern Love," in the New York Times, and her nonfiction recently appeared in Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex. She writes the column, "Please Don't Feed The Writers," for the Austin American-Statesman and is a freelance journalist and blogger. Her latest project is Stricken: The 5000 Stages of Grief, an anthology of essays she co-edited, to be published in
2009.

Kelli Stafford lives in Oregon with her husband and children. She is in the low residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska. Her poems have appeared in 2River View, Millers Pond, Poetry Magazine, and Foliate Oak.

Kirk Hays received a bachelor's in philosophy from the University of Utah and a juris doctorate from the University of Virginia. He sketched a little until six years ago, when his wife signed him up for an oil painting class, and his life has never been the same since. Now he spends most nights holed up in his studio or at life drawing sessions. His work has been in seven art shows, including five one-man exhibitions, and it has appeared in publications such as the Arizona Republic, the Arizona Attorney and the Sun Devil.  He is also a spotlighted artist at Phoenix Art Space. He is represented by the Art One Gallery in Scottsdale and his art is in private collections from Costa Rica to Canada and can be seen at kirkhaysart.com When he is not painting he practices law at Holm Wright Hyde & Hays.

Larry Gaffney has been a sportswriter, tennis instructor, and professor of English at Penn State University and Lock Haven University. One Good Year, published by Level 4 Press in 2007, was a finalist in the Indie Excellence awards for Best General Fiction.  His short stories, poems, and satires have appeared in Rosebud, Light Quarterly, Opium, Chronicle of Higher Education, Underground Voices, YPR, Thieves Jargon, Eclectica, Rumble, and a few other places.

Laurie Stone is author of the novel Starting with Serge (Doubleday), the memoir collection Close to the Bone (Grove), and Laughing in the Dark (Ecco), a collection of her writing on comic performance. A longtime writer for the Village Voice (1975-99), she has been theater critic for The Nation, critic-at-large on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, a member of The Bat Theater Company, and a regular writer for Ms., New York Woman, and Viva. She has received grants from The New York Foundation for the Arts, the Kittredge Foundation, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Saltonstall Art Colony, Djerassi Foundation for the Arts, Poets & Writers, and in 1996 she won the Nona Balakian prize in excellence in criticism from the National Book Critics Circle. She is currently at work on Unmarked Trail: A Romance in Stories and a Guide to Setting up a Writing Partnership in collaboration with her partner, Richard Toon.

Lee Ann Roripaugh's second volume of poetry, Year of the Snake, was published by Southern Illinois University Press and was subsequently named winner of the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award in Poetry/Prose for 2004. Her first book, Beyond Heart Mountain (Penguin Books, 1999), was a 1998 winner of the National Poetry Series. A third volume, On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year, will be forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press in Fall 2009. The recipient of a 2003 Archibald Bush Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship, she was also named the 2001 winner of the Frederick Manfred Award for Best Creative Writing, and the 1995 winner of the Randall Jarrell International Poetry Prize. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Roripaugh is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of South Dakota.

Lee Gutkind is the founding editor of Creative Nonfiction and prize-winning author or editor of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which, Almost Human: Making Robots Think, was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. As founder of the creative nonfiction movement, according to Harper's Magazine, and the "godfather behind creative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair), Gutkind travels widely throughout the world giving workshops and readings, explaining the craft and the mission of the genre.

Lois Roma-Deeley is the author of two collections of poetry. Her second book, northSight (2006), earned her a nod from the Los Angeles Book Prize nominating committee and received critical praise. Rules of Hunger, her first full-length poetry collection (2004), earned her a National Book Award nomination. Roma-Deeley has won numerous awards and honors for her poetry, has published in seven national anthologies, and her work has been featured in numerous literary journals nationwide. In collaborations with visual artists on several ekphrasis projects, Roma-Deeley's poems have been exhibited nationally and internationally. www.loisroma-deeley.com

Lori Lamothe's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 42opus, Barn Owl Review, Cream City Review, Linebreak, Notre Dame Review, Seattle Review, SHAMPOO and other magazines. Her chapbook, Camera Obscura, is available from Finishing Line Press. She lives in Massachusetts with her eight-year-old daughter.

Luisa Villani is the recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in poetry, an AWP Intro Journals Award, and an Academy of American Poets Prize.  Her work has appeared in The New England Review, The Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review and other literary journals.  Her book, Running Away from Russia, was chosen for the Bordighera Prize by W.S. Di Piero and selections from her forthcoming book, Highway of the Mayan Sky, recently appeared in the Random House anthology Poetry 180; A Turning Back to Poetry, edited by Billy Collins.  She currently is a University Diversity Fellow at the University of Southern California.

Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of Sagittarius Agitprop (forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press), and the chapbooks Four Hours to Mpumalanga (Pudding House Publications), and Aardvark (West Town Press). Recent work appears in The New Republic, Field, Epoch, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, North American Review, Pleiades, and others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and an Artist's Grant to the Vermont Studio Center.

Mark Irwin is the author of six collections of poetry; the last three include White City (BOA, 2000), Bright Hunger (BOA, 2004), and Tall If (New Issues, 2008). Recognition for his work includes four Pushcart Prizes, and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, NEA, and Wurlitzer Foundations. He teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

Matthew Blasi was born in Manhattan, NY  in 1980. He received his Bachelors' degree in English with honors from the University of Florida, and is currently in the Masters in Fine Arts program for fiction writing at Rutgers University. His previously published works include short stories and essays.  He is currently at work on his first novel and resides in Collingswood, New Jersey.

Nathaniel Miles Millard was awarded a research grant to write about a small tribe in Alaska; he received a Copley Foundation Scholarship for journalism; he has published a non-fiction piece about his experiences as a relief worker during Hurricane Katrina.  Along with articles in academic journals, he has creative work published in Watershed, and a poem in the forthcoming book Cadence of Hooves by Yarroway Mountain Press.  He received his MA in English from CSU Chico and is currently a Quinney Fellow at Utah State University in the Department of Environment and Society researching connections between language and environment.

Paul F. Griner's novel The German Woman will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June, 2009.  His previous books are Follow Me (stories) and Collectors (a novel).  His work has been translated into half a dozen languages.  He's the Director of Creative Writing at The University of Louisville. 

Pete Miller is a mental health worker and poet living in Seattle. He is the co-founder of the League of Citizens Concerned About Literature, a group that hangs hand washing poems in public restrooms.

Peter Jay Shippy is the author of Thieves' Latin ( Univ. of Iowa Press ), Alphaville (BlazeVOX Books) and a novella-in-verse, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic (Rose Metal Press). His poems have recently appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Shenandoah, among others. He teaches literature at Emerson College in Boston.

Rachel Patterson completed her undergraduate degrees in Comparative Literature and Spanish at the Pennsylvania State University in May, 2008. She now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina and attends the M.F.A. program at UNC Greensboro.

Raechel Running was born in Flagstaff, AZ and is of Trinidadian (Chinese and African) and American (French Canadian, Swedish) descent. She embraces being a world citizen. Running inherited a lifetime love for "pictures and words" from her father and colleague, veteran photographer, John Running. She explores cultural and environmental issues through her work. A published photographer for over twenty five years Running's work has been internationally recognized. She exhibits her fine art and enjoys teaching visual literacy. She is currently an artist in residence living bi-nationally between Northern Arizona and Northern Mexico. She continues her visual odyssey creating images that explore the histories and the diverse cultures of the Gran Chichimeca. Running's passion for her work is to go beyond borders and connect backyards. View more of her work at http://rmrunningphoto.com/

Rick Marlatt teaches English in Nebraska. He has English and Philosophy BAs and a Creative Writing MA from the University of Nebraska, and he is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside. Marlatt is the author of one poetry collection, Firecracker Swallow, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently, Barnwood International Magazine, and Amarillo Bay. Marlatt performs as an actor, poet, and writer, most recently winning the University of Nebraska Sigma Tau Delta Short Fiction Slam.

Richard Jackson is the author of 9 books of poems, most recently Half Lives: Petrarchan Poems (Autumn House, 2004) Unauthorized Autobiography: New and Selected Poems (Ashland Poetry Press, 2003), Heartwall (UMass, 2000 Juniper Prize), Svetovi Narazen ( Slovenia , 2001). He is also the author of a book of criticism, Dismantling Time in Contemporary American Poetry (Agee Prize), and Acts of Mind: Interviews With Contemporary American Poets (Choice Award). His several dozen essays and reviews have appeared in Georgia Review, Verse, Contemporary Literature, Boundary 2, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner and numerous other journals, as well as anthologies such as The Planet on the Table: Writers Reading (2003) and John Ashbery (ed. Harold Bloom, 2004). In 2000 he was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal for literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans by the President of Slovenia and has received Guggenheim, NEA, NEH, 2 Witter-Bynner and Fulbright Fellowships, and 5 Pushcart Prizes. He was the winner of teaching awards at UT-Chattanooga and Vermont College MFA, named UC Foundation Professor in 1983 and named UTNAA Professor in June 2007.

Richard Toon was born in England and has kept a notebook since he was fourteen when a teacher taught him to write poetry and to jot down thoughts and observations. Since 2004, he has worked as a senior research analyst at The Morrison Institute for Public Policy, at Arizona State University. In 2006, he was awarded a residency at the artist colony Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he worked on Pictures at an Exhibition, an essay collection, including stories of an English boyhood and meditations on jumping across classes and cultures. He is currently at work on the book Sugar Time, a memoir about diabetes and the British class system.

Rigoberto González is the author of seven books, most recently of the memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A story collection, Men without Bliss, is forthcoming. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and of various international artist residencies, he writes twice a month a Latino book column, now entering its seventh year, for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is contributing editor for Poets and Writers Magazine, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, on the Board of Directors of Fishouse Poems: A Poetry Archive, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/ Latino activist writers. He lives in New York City and is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University — Newark.

Robert Keim attended Saint Anselm College in Manchester , NH where he received a Bachelor of Arts in History. He completed an MPhil in Medieval Studies at the University of Glasgow 's Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and began PhD research at the Institute for Environmental History at the University of St. Andrews on the subject of species history. After one year he suspended his studies and relocated to Steamboat Springs, CO. He is currently at Dartmouth College pursuing a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a concentration in creative writing.

Samuel Pickering is a Tennessee native who teaches English at the University of Connecticut.  He has written 21 books, including academic studies, travel books, and collections of familiar essays.  His most recent books are Edinburgh Days, an account of months spent in Scotland, and Autumn Spring, a collection of essays.  He is now working on A Tramp's Wallet, an account of months spent wandering Australia and New Zealand.  This will give him a trilogy on Australia, something, he says, sounds very high falutin.

Sankar Roy, originally from India, is a poet, translator, activist and multimedia artist living near Pittsburgh, PA. He is a winner of PEN USA Emerging Voices, a Rosenthal Fellow, a finalist for Benjamin Franklin Award, winner of Skipping Stone Award, a finalist for University of Arkansas Open Book Competition and three-times semi-finalist for Crab Orchard Review Competition, author of three chapbooks of poetry– Moon Country, The House My Father Could Not Build and Mantra of the Born-free (all from Pudding House, 2006, 2007). He is an associate editor of the international poetry anthology Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Rupa Publication, India and Bayeux Arts, Canada ). Sankar's poems have appeared or forthcoming in over sixty literary journals and ten national anthologies.

Sara Bailey is a writer living in NYC.  She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Columbia University and received her PhD in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University. Her most recent publications have appeared in  Arabesques, Saucy Vox, Rumble, LitBits, and Big [T]ext. She also recently finished a hypertext novel, published at www.factography.com

Scott Hermanson is a lecturer in the Department of English at Arizona State University .  Before coming to ASU, he taught at Dana College in Nebraska and the University of Illinois at Chicago.  His previous publications have all been in literary and cultural criticism, exploring the intersection of nature and contemporary fiction in works of Richard Powers, Mike Davis and Walt Disney World.

Steffi Eger is an art student who was born and raised in Maine . Now living near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband Tim and two cats, she is presently working on a masters degree focusing on photography. After earning a bachelors degree in commercial art in 1994, she started traveling and has taken every opportunity to make artwork from her experiences in travel. She has sold work privately since the age of twelve.

Steve Almond is the author of two story collections, My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction book Candyfreak. His new book is a collection of essays, (Not That You Asked). He lives outside Boston with his wife and daughter Josephine, who can now make the noises of seven different farm animals. His on-line home is www.stevenalmond.com.

Steven Cartwright has been staff writer and artist for two newspapers, the Atlanta Suburban Reporter and the Fulton County News-Daily. He has done cover art for Cimarron Review. His art has been published in many magazines and in the anthology Seeing through Symbols (Chrysalis Books). He does art for the Red Cross in Atlanta, Meals on Wheels, and the City of Atlanta.

Stuart Dybek is the author of three books of fiction: I Sailed With Magellan, The Coast of Chicago, and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods and two collections of poetry: Streets in Their Own Ink and Brass Knuckles. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, Poetry, Tin House, and many other magazines, and have been widely anthologized. Among Dybek's numerous awards are a MacArthur Prize, the Rea Award, PEN/Malamud Prize a Lannan Award, a Whiting Writers Award, an Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, several O.Henry Prizes, and fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern and a member of the permanent faculty for Western Michigan University's Prague Summer Program.

Susan Wingate is a novelist, poet, journalist, essayist and playwright. She lives in Washington state with her husband, Bob, and writes full time. Wingate teaches writing classes at the community college level at workshops around the country and online.  Since the 2007 publication of her first novel, OF THE LAW, she keeps busy teaching writing workshops, speaking at libraries and bookstores, and traveling throughout the northwestern states. Her poems have received awards and her short stories and articles can be found in many magazines, journals and reviews. Currently, Wingate is writing her third novel and is a contributing writer for The Builder's Journal.

Tayari Jones is the author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling, winners of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and The Lillian C. Smith Awards, respectively. Jones's work has appeared in McSweeny's, Callaloo, The New York Times, New Stories From The South, and The Believer. Jones is both a writer and a professor of creative writing, and holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University and the University of Iowa. Last year, she served as the Jenny McKean Moore Writer in Residence at George Washington University. In Fall 2007, Jones joined the newly-established MFA faculty of Rutgers University--Newark, one of the most diverse college campuses in the country. She keeps a well-read blog on writing and the writer's life at www.tayarijones.com/blog.

Theodore Wheeler's fiction has been featured in Boulevard, fugue, gsu review, and is forthcoming in the 2009 edition of Best New American Voices.  He has been a Jakobson scholar at the Wesleyan Writers Conference, a graduate fellow at Creighton University, and as recently won Boulevard's Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers. Wheeler lives in Omaha with his wife Nicole and daughter Madeleine, is finishing a collection of short fiction, and has begun work on a novel.

Tony D'Souza's fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside and Salon. He has received an NEA grant and a Guggenheim fellowship. He is currently the senior reporter at the Mount Shasta Herald in northern California. His novels include Whiteman and The Konkans. Of "The Art of Fiction," Tony comments, "I get a little sick of critics who say I write thinly veiled memoir. If you happen to see Gary at a conference or something, tell him I miss our Scotland days, and to get in touch." You can find him on the web at http://www.tonydsouza.com/

T.R. Healy was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.  His stories have appeared in such publications as The Foliate Oak, Limestone, The Red Cedar Review, and Sequoia.

William Doreski's most recent collection of poetry is Another Ice Age (2007). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell's Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, Natural Bridge.