Janet A. Baker
Janet lives in San Diego, California, where she teaches English, raises orchids, and creates a home with her partner, Stan. She grew up landlocked in Iowa and got sick on lobster first time she ate it. Hasn’t tried it again.

Rob Cook
Rob is a social dropout trapped in New York City. His work appears and then is gone. He drinks lots of green tea to maintain a less psychotic outlook on things. It helps.

Michaela A. Gabriel
Michaela lives in Vienna, Austria, where she teaches English to unemployed adults. She tries to make additional money by translating texts as exciting as birdfeed catalogues, in order to be able to bribe the muses into staying with her. Trysts with said muses have resulted in poems that have found homes in a wide variety of international magazines and anthologies as well as two and a half chapbooks. She is currently trying to finally finish her full-length manuscript, Elemental, a collection of poems for every element on the periodic table

Joshua Grant
Joshua lives in Vancouver. The other night, he put on 3D glasses and covered his face in shaving cream, just to see what it would look like. He recently graduated with a BA in English from Simon Fraser University.

Courtney Elizabeth Hitson
Courtney is finishing her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. She enjoys photography, anatomical illustrating, freestyle unicycling, cognitive rhetoric, and rainbow chip frosting. She possesses dual undergraduate degrees in psychology and English. Her poems have appeared in The Broken Plate, Genesis, Laundromat, The Public Haiku, Ball Bearings, and are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review. She has a black cat named Mr. Hussie Pants.

Jerry Johnston
Jerry writes from Atlanta, Georgia. His work has appeared in the anthology for the Southern Literary Festival and in Canteen magazine. Brian O’Nolan, Mary Ruefle, Bill Murray, I.M. Pei and Missy Elliott influence his work in equal parts.

Kathleen Kirk
Kathleen is happy to commune with the big fat rabbits in her own backyard, and also their babies. This peaceful co-existence continues despite the eating of blossoms, but why do the squirrels have to dig everything up? Oh, acorns. Peanuts. Anyhoo….

Sara Lier
Sara’s poetry has appeared in over 20 publications. She lives in New York City, where she is currently attending Brooklyn College’s creative writing program and working part time at the public library. She sleeps poorly, reads excessively, and dreams of leaving it all behind to live by the sea.

Carlo Matos
Carlo has published poems in many online and print journals, but what he’s really about is fighting and writing. Fighting and writing!

Tom Nowak
Tom lives and writes in Chicago where he is an MFA candidate at Columbia College. He received his BA with focuses in English and German from Augustana College. It was there he learned how to ballroom dance and shoot a bow. During his time in Chicago he hopes to learn how to breakdance and swing a sword properly.

Dawn Pendergast
Dawn lives in Houston, Texas. She’s written four chapbooks: Sea Quills, leaves fall leaves, Off Flaw and Mexico City. She is currently an editor for Little Red Leaves and produces handmade chapbooks for The Textile Series. More of her writing can be found on her website whatbirdsgiveup.com.

Rebecca Schumejda
Rebecca “I often think of my father, who spent his life working as a roofer. He loved his job, seeing the world from a new perspective almost every day, meeting new people and being his own boss. I see writing poetry in a similar way; I climb a figurative ladder each day, and spread ink around like hot tar. Even though I know I won’t necessarily be thanked or remembered for what I do, I hope that I can provide temporary shelter from life’s storms.” More of her writing can be found on her website www.rebeccaschumejda.com.

Peter Schwartz
Peter’s words have been featured in Wigleaf, Opium, and The Columbia Review. He’s also an artist, comedian, and dedicated kayaker. More at: www.sitrahahra.com.

Paul Schwarzkopf
Paul is a child of the river. He was birthed through its delta and baptized in its current. He continues this lifeline through the drinking of water. His body, now at 60%, has grown aqua-marine eyes. They tell him when land is coming. He sells this ability often.

Donna Vorreyer
Donna spends her days teaching middle school, trying to convince teenagers that words matter. She hates coffee but would kill for a morning Diet Coke. Her poetry has been published in many journals, and her work includes the chapbooks Womb/Seed/Fruit and Come Out, Virginia.Visit her online at www.donnavorreyer.com.

Heather Gorham
Heather has always made things. As a kid she would spend hours digging in the ground making an army of bizarre, little clay and stick figures. Three-legged dogs and winged monkeys, her creations were always a little sad, a little misshapen. Her own troop of misfits set in the sun to dry. In her work she tries to take feelings and give them form, create a world that feels comfortable and real. Her work revolves around the tangible interpretation of the everyday. A dreamy window into our own experiences and a compulsion to make those settled things, we all experience, strange.
Heather exhibits her work in galleries around the country. She lives and works in Dallas, TX.For more information about her work visit: http://www.heathergorham.com