Staff

The people who make it happen

Authors

In no reasonable order, except that the authors in the current issue are always listed first, and then the previous issue, and so on until we get back to the beginning. Click on the author names to read the work!

General Editor Jim Parks is a newsman, deckhand, farm hand, truck driver and ramblin' man. Keep him away from the fire water and don't mess with his food or his woman. Send him an e-mail at: jim@downdirtyword.com.		General Editor Katie Moore loves words more than anything, even sex, except maybe coffee. Katie is a slackerish contributor at Trick with a Knife, in your face literary commentary. She runs the 24 Hour Weekly Flash at Scrawl: The Writer's Asylum. She has two Pit Bulls, Broccoli and Bandersnatch. If you want to know more about Katie visit The Girl Circus. Send her an e-mail at: katie@downdirtyword.com.
Fiction Editor Jon Thrower is a friend and anti-father, husband and doggone drinker of ill repute, director in the land of education and arboreal taxonomy, learned and unknowable, punk, poet, writer, teacher, broadcaster, electrician of the stapler and the bold gel pen, recorder of the odd names people use in intimate spaces, Homo Faber, impossible, city dweller, pataphysical interpreter in the school of wicked dreams, thing your mother warned you about, human. Send him an e-mail at: thrower@downdirtyword.com		Poetry Editor John Hancock is 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, and 100% adorable. He loves to go to work! In his spare time, he likes long drives to and from work. He reads only things from work, and thinks work is the coolest! We're very lucky that, with his love of work, he has time to help The Legendary as a poetry editor and master of random technical odds and ends. Send him an e-mail at: johnhancock@downdirtyword.com
Webmistress Allison Hancock is a graphic artist living in the strange land of Memphis, and the wonder woman behind the graphical elements of The Legendary. She enjoys gardening, world cultures, and fish babies. Most of her time is spent with her brilliant son, Lucas. The rest of her free time is spent with her devilishly charming husband and a few select friends. Find her at : Allison's Creative.

Table of Contents

Contributor Bios

Click on the Author Name to go to the Author Page, where you will find every work the author has ever published in any issue of The Legendary, and occasionally their lovely smiling faces.

April Michelle Bratten is a writer currently locked away in the Badlands of North Dakota.  She co-edits the online literary journal Up the Staircase.

Steve Subrizi is a co-host of the poetry mic at Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has performed his work in such other venues as Mercury
Cafe in Denver and The Green Mill in Chicago, and his work has appeared in *PANK Magazine* and *Mad Swirl*. He blogs drafts and the occasional vegan recipe at http://ThePrettiestGirlInSchool.blogspot.com/.

Nathan Zackroff is a young writer from Denver Colorado.  He is currently attending school at the University of Clorado in Boulder.  His work has yet to be published outside of local publications but hopes that his writing career will soon take off.  His work is unique and challenging.  He is simple in form, yet digs deeply into the subconscious.  His writing is meant to evoke emotion as if it were knowledge itself.  You can reach him by email at nathanzackroff@yahoo.com or look him up on facebook.

Robert James Russell co-founded the indie comic book publisher Saint James Comics in 2009 (www.WhoisSaintJames.com). He has had work featured by *Year Zero Writers*, *Like Birds Lit* and *Leaves & Flowers*, and is currently working on his debut novel, excerpts of which appear on his website (www.robertjamesrussell.com). Robert lives in Detroit with his dog, Chewie.

William D. Hicks is a writer who lives in Chicago, Illinois by himself (any offers?). Contrary to popular belief, he is not related to the famous comedian Bill Hicks (though he’s just as funny in his own right). Hicks will someday publish his memoirs, but most likely they will be about Bill Hicks’ life. His poetry has appeared in Horizon Magazine, Breadcrumb Sins, Inwood Indiana Literary Magazine, The Short Humour Site (UK), The Four Cornered Universe, Save the Last Stall for Me and Mosaic. His cover art will appear on Anti-Poetry and Sketch.

Nathan Patton keeps it real, but also fictionalizes it. He lives in the Boston Mountains with his wife and guitar. His work has been published by Arcana, Speakeasy, and Young American Comics, and has been hung on many refrigerators.

J. Bradley is the author of *Dodging Traffic* (Ampersand Books). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in *wtf pwm*, *decomP*, *Dogzplot*, *Writers' Bloc* among other journals. In 1985, he dabbled in journalism when he interviewed Emmanuel Lewis with a Spider-Man PEZ Dispenser. Find him at
iheartfailure.net <http://www.pankmagazine.com/iheartfailure.net>.

Matthew Zanoni Müller was born in Bochum, Germany and grew up in Eugene, Oregon and upstate New York. He received his BA in Creative Writing and Literature from Emerson college and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers.

Jeffrey S. Callico hails from Atlanta. Someday he plans to live somewhere in Maine but until then keeps driving around town looking for a place to park. His most recent poetry chapbook, Rough Travel, was published by Graffiti Kolkata Press in July 2010.

Timothy Gager is fiction editor at Wilderness House Literary Review.  A social worker in the Boston area, he is the host of the Dire Literary Series, and a frequent contributor to e-zines and print anthologies. Timothy Gager is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. He lives on www.timothygager.com His work may be found through Amazon.

Todd Cantrell lives in Lithia Springs, GA outside Atlanta. His short fiction has appeared in Pif Magazine and The Collagist, where he won the 2009 Flash Fiction contest. His work is forthcoming in Twelve Stories.

Kim Loomis-Bennett was born and educated in the Pacific Northwest where she still resides with her husband and two children.  She earned her MA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University and is working toward her MFA with a concentration in poetry.  She works as an adjunct writing instructor at Centralia College East in Morton, Washington.  Her poems have appeared in **The November 3rd Club Journal** and **The Legendary**.  She is currently seeking publication for her first collection of poems, SOILED DOVES, a historical sequence centered on a 1910 Seattle brothel.  You can reach her at kim.loomisbennett@gmail.com  For more of her writing visit her blog at kimloomisbennett.tumblr.com.

Andrew Post was born in Erie, PA in 1984. He lives in Minnesota with his wife and two dogs. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel. Besides writing, he enjoys wandering aimlessly around department stores and frequenting the local movie theater as much as his bank account can withstand. You can read his exhaustively dorky blog at: http://andrewpost.blogspot.com/ He also offers a free, serialized novel at http://issuu.com/andrewpost/docs/onebyone_001.

Elizabeth Zale is a stewardess from the woods outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She has pieces currently appearing in *The Iconoclast*.  Her
hand-made chapbook, *nest of teens*, is available out of her bedroom closet.  Her chapbook, *did i find you or you find me, *is forthcoming one
winter.

Leo Lichy lives in the US. His work has appeared in numerous magazines.

Suany Cañarte is an aspiring Speech-Language Pathologist. Her work has been previously published in the 2010 Prism Literary Journal and in Yesteryear Fiction. She also writes and draws a webcomic named Pyraliss, found at **www.Pyraliss.com**.

Tyler Bigney is a writer from Nova Scotia, Canada. His poems, prose, and short stories have appeared in Poetry New Zealand, Underground Voices, Nerve Cowboy, among others.

James Valvis lives in Washington State with his wife and daughter. His poems or stories have appeared in 5 AM, Cider Press Review, Confrontation, Eclipse, Midwest Quarterly, Rattle, Slipstream, Southern Indiana Review, and are forthcoming in ART TIMES, Arts & Letters, Clackamas, Cloudbank, Crab Creek Review, Gargoyle, Hanging Loose, New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Potomac Review, Red Rock Review, South Carolina Review, and elsewhere.  He will be the featured poet in Re)verb 7.  In addition to being a multiple Pushcart nominee, a novelette was a Million Writers Notable Story in 2005. 

Dennis Mahagin is a writer from Washington state who enjoys Frisbee, and barking at the moon. His poetry collection, “Grand Mal,” is coming soon.

K. Keith sometimes stands on her head for a different perspective. She studies creative writing (and what her professors tell her to) at Arizona State University.

Thomas Kearnes is a 34-year-old author from East Texas. His fiction has appeared in Eclectica, Night Train, Pindeldyboz, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Pedestal, Thieves Jargon, wigleaf, JMWW Journal and numerous other publications. Born on America's bicentennial, he is an atheist and an Eagle Scout.

Danielle Blasko, a Detroit native currently enjoying a freelance writing life on an east coast beach, is a low-residency MFA student at the University of New Orleans. Her poetry has appeared in AIM Magazine, Qarrtsiluni, Ellipsis 2009, and Moose & Pussy Magazine.  Lately, she's been reviewing poetry books and writing a monthly fashion blog for Eidia Lush shoe company.

Jeremy Grace grew up in Dublin, California. He now lives, writes, and studies in San Francisco. He has had three previous publications with the
University of San Francisco, including two in their literary magazine *The Ignatian.*

Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and musician who gave up his instruments a long time ago and then sadly decided to look at pictures of the sorts of instruments that he used to own on the Web and wept inside with longing. Now he writes poetry for various publications and tries not to weep with longing so much.

Hugh Fox, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, was a founding member of the Pushcart Prize and was also on the founding board of COSMEP. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, he edited the avant garde litmag Ghost Dance. He is one of the most widely published poets in America. Hugh was born in Chicago in 1932. He spent his childhood studying violin, piano, composition and opera with his Viennese teacher Zerlina Muhlman Metzger. He received a M.A. degree in English from Loyola University in Chicago and his Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). He met his first wife, a Peruvian woman named Lucia Ungaro de Zevallos, while at Urbana-Campaign and was a Professor of American Literature from 1958-1968 at Loyola University in Los Angeles. He became a Professor in the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University in 1968 and remained there until he retired in 1999. It was at MSU that he met his second wife Nona Grimes. They were married in 1970. He received Fulbright Professsorships at the University of Hermosillo in Mexico in 1961, the Instituto Pedagogico and Universidad Catlica in Caracas from 1964 to 1966, and at the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil from 1978-1980. He met his third wife Maria Bernadete Costa in Brazil in 1978. They've been married for 28 years. He studied Latin American literature at the University of Buenos Aires on and OAS grant and spent a year as an archaeologist in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 1986.

John C. Mannone is a widely published award-winning poet nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize and for the 2010 Rhysling Poetry Award. His poetry and short fiction appear in numerous literary and speculative fiction journals such as Pirene’s Fountain, Aethlon, Lobster Cult, Eclectic Flash, Iodine Poetry Journal, The Linnet’s Wings, Enchanted Conversation, and Astropoetica. Professor Mannone is a nuclear consultant and teaches college physics in east Tennessee.

Pushcart Prize nominee Ash Krafton's work has appeared in several journals, including Niteblade, Ghostlight, and Silver Blade. Ms. Krafton resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region and is an active member of Pennwriters, a national writers group. She's co-editor of the Pennwriters Area 6 blog at http://pennwritersarea6.wordpress.com) and also maintains her own (http://ash-krafton.livejournal.com).

Ron Evans Once in a while, there is a man for our times. Ron Evans is not that man. In fact, Ron does not even own a watch, preferring to borrow other peoples’ time when they’re ahead of schedule. These days, Ron does surface once per week to bestow music and spoken word upon an unsuspecting public through his radio show Needles & Threads (Mondays @ 9 pm, www.canoefm.com), and pens the occasional poetry collection every five years or so, depending on how sober the Muse is…

Eric G. Müller is a musician, teacher and writer.  He has written two novels, Rites of Rock (Adonis Press 2005) and Meet Me at the Met (Plain View Press, 2010), as well as a collection of poetry, Coffee on the Piano for You (Adonis Press, 2008), and numerous short stories that have been published here and there.  www.ericgmuller.com

Annam Manthiram is the author of two novels, The Goju Story and After the Tsunami, and a short story collection (Dysfunction), which received Honorable
Mention in Leapfrog Press’ 2010 fiction contest.  Her work has recently appeared in the Chicago Quarterly Review, the Cream City Review, the Concho River Review, Straylight, Blink | Ink, and the Grey Sparrow Journal and is forthcoming in Pank, Smokelong Quarterly, the Camroc Press Review, and the anthologies,
Daily Flash: 365 Days of Flash Fiction (Pill Hill Press) and Caught by Darkness (Static Movement).  Annam’s fiction has also been nominated for the PEN/O’Henry Prize and inclusion in the Best American Short Stories anthology.  A graduate of the M.A. Writing program at the University of Southern California, Ms. Manthiram resides in New Mexico with her husband, Alex, and son, Sathya.  Her website is AnnamManthiram.com.

YumYum Reed gets drunk in closets and pees in the glass afterwords while waiting for her mother to leave the house of her secret lover.

Alex Bernstein is a freelance writer in New Jersey.  His work has appeared at The Rumpus, Yankee Pot Roast, WordRiot, Swink (pending), and PopImage, among others.  Please visit him at www.promonmars.com.

Brett Fogarty went to Emerson College and soon afterward disappeared into Asia for a year and a half of his life. He can found during the normal persons living week taking naps in the employee restroom and drinking ludicrous amounts of coffee. The best way to reach him though, is through here- brettfogarty@gmail.com.

Wayne Scheer has locked himself in a room with his  computer and turtle since his retirement. (Wayne's, not the turtle's.)  To keep from going back to work, he's  published hundreds of short stories, essays and poems, including,  Revealing Moments, a collection of  twenty-four flash stories, available at 
http://www.pearnoir.com/thumbscrews.htm.  He's been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net.  Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife and  can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com. 

Abetted by her hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs, KJ Hannah Greenberg tramps across literary themes and genres. She devotes her eclectic writing to lovers of slipstream fiction and to oboe players who never got past the second orchestral chair. Currently, she is watching sales on Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting, at Amazon and is debating whether or not letting her fingernails grow would really interfere with her "artistic endeavors" in ceramics. Whereas Hannah’s preferred method of parenting has remained unwearied analysis, it is not beyond her ken to resort to screaming (a little) or to sitting on the sofa and crying (a lot). A grateful recipient of an assortment of literary honors, Hannah's most happy when her children correctly sort the laundry or when her hedgies wipe all the marshmallow fluff off their feet. Her work can be found in print and on line in European, in North American, in Middle Eastern, in Oceanic, and in Asian venues and under select budgies. Hannah can be found at a local, women's gym, doing bench presses, or at her keyboard, matchmaking words like “twaddle” and “xylophone.”

Alexandra Seidel likes writing scary stories and poems. Incidentally, she also likes writing funny stories and poems; in the grander concept of things, that surely makes sense (she was born and grew up in a city that is home to a museum exploring sepulchral art and culture; surely that will do to explain something). Alexandra’s scary and/or funny writing has appeared or is forthcoming in 'Enchanted Conversation', 'Sybil's Garage', 'Star*Line' and other places
that don't do mainstream; her mainstream stuff can be found in 'decomP', 'Word Riot', 'Monkeybicycle', yes, and others. Feel free to check out Alexandra’s blog at: *http://tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com/*

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State where he’s at work on a novel.  Len’s short fiction appears, or will soon be appearing in such places as MUD LUSCIOUS, ELIMAE, WORD RIOT, DOGZPLOT, OUTSIDE WRITERS, SHOOTS AND VINES, as well as others.

Tara Nicole Tara Nicole is a 23 year old student living in Lansdale, PA.  Lately, she has been writing poetry and performing it around Philadelphia.  Her work is forthcoming in *Word Riot*.

Nathaniel Toweris a high school English teacher. He has written many nonfiction pieces based on surprising encounters in the classroom. These pieces are gathering virtual dust until he puts them into a book. His short fiction has been published in many places. He is the founder and editor of a fiction magazine, Bartleby Snopes (www.bartlebysnopes.com). His first novel, A Reason To Kill, is forthcoming from MuseItUp Publishing.

Sergio Ortiz is a retired educator, poet, and photographer.  He has a B.A. in English literature, and aM.A. in philosophy.  Flutter Pressreleased his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk, in October of 2009.  Ronin Press released his second chapbook,topography of a desire, in May of 2010. Avantacular Press released his first photographic chapbook: TheSugarcane Harvest, May 2010.  His thirdchapbook: Wet Stones and Bedbugs in my Mattress, will be released by FlutterPress in November of 2010. He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: Carcinogenic Poetry,Perceptions Magazine of the Arts 2010, BorderSenses, Offcourse Literary Journal,Cavalier Literary Couture, and Touch: The Journal of Healing.

Jamie Hershing lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. Apart from working on a second volume of minifiction with James Stanson, Hershing dabbles in journalism. He claims to have produced the first European academic study on Latin American 'minificción' – a probable fallacy that he will nevertheless repeat until proven otherwise. He is currently conducting doctoral research on the same topic. Visit his website here: www.mini-fiction.com.

James Stanson lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. He is currently working on his first novel, as well as a second volume of minifiction with Jamie Hershing. He has worked in the boreal forests of the Canadian north, served in a foreign army, and claims to have a rudimentary knowledge of things past – as evidenced by a piece of a paper from an accredited university. Visit his website here: www.mini-fiction.com.

Mike Perkins is a 52 year old father of four, two still at home, residing in Columbia, Missouri, with his wife.  He teaches at a local liberal arts college.

Maggie Lawson is a 42 year old serial breeder with more baggage than offspring. In between birthin' and breakdowns she writes, primarily to vent her dark side and prevent a reoccurance of 'the incident'. Maggie is from Christchurch, New Zealand and started writing in March 2009. She would like to thank the folks at Scrawl for introducing her to organic writing. It is only due to their help and support that she is able to take her shit and recycle it into something useful.

Sasha Geffen is a rising fourth year at the University of Chicago, where she studies English lit and creative writing. She is originally from Boston but is currently discovering Washington, DC, which has the most statues of any city she's ever known. She blogs sometimes at sylmatil.tumblr.com.

Allen Mendenhall is a writer and an attorney.  He lives in Marietta, Georgia, with his wife, Giuliana.  Visit his website at AllenMendenhall.com.

Liz Haigh lives in Cheshire in the UK. She works at a university library which is her dream job because she loves books. Most of her published work thus far has been in the form of book reviews which have appeared in Red Magazine, Woman and Home and Prima. She recently had a very interesting article published in Gardener’s Weekly all about Garden Sheds.

Arielle Lindstrom has performed a handful of times before a handful of people, normally in kitchenettes or corner cafes, once in New York City.  Her work has been published by Haggard & Halloo Publications, Wild Leaf Press and Chronogram. Though originally from a white house in Cornwall-on-Hudson, Arielle Lindstrom is presently living and studying in New Paltz, NY.  She wants your letters.

Kaitlin Monier is a creative writing major at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.  She likes when it rains and the worms wiggle onto the sidewalk because she enjoys holding and naming them.

Megan Falley is a member of the Intangible Collective and is currently holding yard sales in an effort to move to the city with her Chihuahua named Taco. She has competed on the collegiate level with the SUNY New Paltz Slam Team (2006-2010) and the adult level with the Intangible Team (2010). She has written two chapbooks, Cricket Fuel (2008) and Autobiographical, Erotic Non-fiction (2010). Her writing has appeared in Static and Other Lungless Things, published by Penmanship books, and The Stones Throw Review. She is a professional blogger for the SUNY study abroad program, and really enjoys the movie Harold & Maude. www.meganfalley.tumblr.com

Lynn Alexander produces Full Of Crow, Fashion For Collapse, Blink Ink Online, and some other stuff that all starts to run together after awhile. She produces and distributes zines and chapbooks and recently began hosting Crow Hour, with featured poets and sporadic open mic sessions. Her audio cd "Rage Against Suburbia" is in the works. She lives on a lonely mountain but honestly misses the sounds of traffic, and is most definitely becoming her mother.

Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.

Wonder Dave is a writer and performer from Minneapolis. Dave is a big fan of comic books and laughing at himself. In 2007 he was a recipient of the Jerome Foundation's Verve grant for spoken word artists. He also has a 17 year old cat named Jack. This September he will be embarking on a poetry tour taking him from Minnesota to San Francisco CA. Dave is stoked to be featured in The Legendary. Find out more about him online at www.wonderdave.net

Paul Tuthill lives in Portland, OR, where he partakes in the traditional Portland activities of drinking beer and harshly judging people's attire.  He has a cat, Janie, who does not judge.  He can be found playing guitar and singing his bawdry songs in the band Camaro Island, who will rock you in your pants when you aren’t looking.

Tom Mahony is a biological consultant in California with an M.S. degree from Humboldt State University. His fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in dozens of online and print publications, including Surfer Magazine, Flashquake, The Rose & Thorn, Pindeldyboz, In Posse Review,
Diddledog, LITnIMAGE, Boston Literary Magazine, 34th Parallel, and Decomp. His short fiction collection, Slow Entropy, was published by Thumbscrews Press in 2009. His first novel, Imperfect Solitude, is forthcoming from Casperian Books in 2011. Visit him at http://www.tommahony.net.

Michael C. Keith is the author of numerous books, articles, and stories. He teaches communication at Boston College. http://www.michaelckeith.com/

Armel Dagorn was born and grew up in France, and has been living in Cork, Ireland for the past few years. He reads and writes in is adopted language, English, whenever he gets a break from whatever activity brings bread, butter and chocolate to his table.

Rajat Chaudhuri is a free thinker born in middle India,  now practising in Calcutta, India’s cultural Mecca. Highbrow print  journals like Indian Literature, online SF mags like The Scientific Indian and popular dailies -- The Statesman, Telegraph and Times of India have helped put his writer’s act together. He has published one novel, Amber Dusk and is now playing ping pong with his editor with the MS of another.

Nathalie Molina has decided the word that she most enjoys of late is futurist. She's a linguaphile and an avid traveler, a consummate modernist, admirer of Kali, motorcycles, clean lines and Sufi Dancemeditation.

Amy Burns is originally from Birmingham, Alabama but makes her home in Scotland where she is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow. Her poetry
and prose has been published in print in *Biscuit Short Story Winners' Anthology 2009: The Possibility of Bears*, *Let’s Pretend (InFidelity) Anthology*,* Green Muse*, *QWF*, *unbound press* and online at *971 Menu*, *Clapboard House*, *From Glasgow to Saturn, Brown Williams Journal*. She has worked as an editor/publisher of the literary journal *unbound press* and is now the editor of *Spilling Ink Review*.

Aldo Amparan studies English and American Literature in the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in Rio Grande Review, Breadcrumb Scabs,
and Haggardand Halloo, among other publications. More on him can be found at: http://amparan.weebly.com

Ted Gogoll abandons his native New York City as often as humanly possible, but always seems to find his way back home, if for no other reason than to get a decent slice of thin-crust pizza with anchovies.

Stacy Lynn Mar is a confessional poet who also enjoys collage art, tasty coffee drinks and chick lit novels.  She has been published widely in small press, some litarary magazines including All Things Girl, LIT UP Magazine, and The Beat.  Stacy is also the author of five collections of poetry and is founder of a small publishing press, Muse Cafe Publications.  Despite what her mother says, Stacy thinks it's perfectly fine to talk to strangers so you can find her at www.stacylynnmar.com

Norah Piehl is a freelance writer, editor, and book reviewer. Her essays and reviews have been published in Skirt! Magazine, on National Public Radio, in Brain, Child Magazine, and in print anthologies. Norah's short fiction has appeared in Shaking Like a Mountain and is forthcoming in Literary Mama.

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review,  South Carolina Review and The Pedestal. with work upcoming in Poetry East and The Pinch, with work upcoming in Alimentum and Big Muddy.

Michael Spring is an occasional poet who lives and works in London, for a small corporate design and marketing company. He has some fiction coming up
later in the year in the Fast Forward anthology, and when he has time, he reviews drama and the arts for London's Fringe Report.

Stephen N. Dethrage is a rising sophomore at  the University of Alabama. His major is Journalism, and his minor is  Creative Writing. This is his first submission to a literary  publication. On campus, his work has been nominated for the  Thomas Wolfe Award for overall best Undergraduate Creative Writing, and the  Don Hendrie, Jr Award for Fiction. As is often the case, without the love  and encouragement of family, friends, professors and a lover, he would be  nothing.

Olly Bryan I am in the fucking poem!

Paula Sophia Schonauer is a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma with an emphasis in fiction. She has been published in various alternative magazines and newspapers in Central Oklahoma including the Oklahoma Gazette and the Gayly Oklahoman. Currently, she is a regular contributor to the online magazine, Our Big Gayborhood. Presently, she is revising her first novel, "The Closet is Dark," about cops, subcultures and secrets.

Josh Stone graduated from the University of North Florida.  Currently he resides in sunny South Florida and is employed at a public library in which no one reads.  Despite this, or because of this, he writes.  Josh Stone also thanks your for reading his words.

Ben Smith is a bit of a filthy cunt. During the day he is a working-class chump and at night he drinks beer, annoys his missus with dreams of being a genius and blogs sleaze on the Internet. It's a shame really, cause i think without all the faux pas and extremities he would probably be a fairly nice guy. If he could just get over himself long enough to relax and stop pushing it all so hard. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, and is working on a new book of poetry called "Horror Sleaze and Trash."

Melanie Rasch is a student, a writer, and an athlete. She goes to Gustavus Adolphus College in the middle of nowhere Minnesota, where she is acquiring her BA in English and a funny accent where her o’s seem to be longer and everything ends in ‘eh’? She has been previously published in the on-campus feminist literary magazine, Heterodoxy, and she has worked as an art and poetry editor assistant in the Gustavus literary magazine, Firethorne. Born in Korea and raised in a bunch of different Midwest cities, Melanie resides in Cincinnati with her parents and little brother when she’s not in school.

Amy David is a poet and performer in Chicago, IL.  She is terrified of topiary and Shannen Doherty.

Emily Sean is a Chicago based writer and artist whose work has appeared in a variety of publications and small journals.

Elizabeth Ashe received an MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. When not writing poetry, Ashe is a visual artist. She was an Assistant Editor for *Fourth River. *Her work has been previously published by the *Synergy Project,* *Poetry on Buses* organized by 4Culture, *Insert <Content>*, *Open
Wide *and *No Teeth. She is moving to Baltimore this summer, after hyper-artistic detours in Italy and France.

Khary Jackson is a performance poet and playwright. A Detroit native, he has competed nationally for three years, making individual finals each year, as well as winning the 2009 National Poetry Slam with the St Paul team. But few of us really care about that. He's a little weird, but rest assured, there's a method to the way he stares into your house.

Elliot Andreopoulos likes to write short stories and listen to Franz Ferdinand, but not in that order.  He recently chipped his front tooth.

Kirsty Logan is sorry to say that this poem is a true story. Find her online at kirstylogan.com.

Rasmenia Massoud has made a living with both blue and white collars.  After deciding that collars are not good, she ran away to France, where she has done away with collars completely, choosing instead to spend entire days in pajamas.  Rasmenia likes to have conversations with people while secretly holding them under her mental microscope.  She currently spends her time confusing the natives of her adopted country by speaking French poorly and writing about what she struggles most to understand - human beings.  You can visit her at: http://www.rasmenia.com/ 

Abby Rotstein went to UC Davis' writing program several years ago and now lives an  absurdly normal life in Las Vegas, NV.  She has work published or  forthcoming in Word Riot, Fresh Yarn, The Battered  Suitcase, and Foliate Oak.

Erica Settino holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, and is currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing at National University.  Presently, she works in animal welfare, rescue, and advocacy, and has been teaching yoga for over ten years.  Her work and practice fuel her writing and creative process with passion and determination.

Daniel Romo teaches high school Creative Writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA.  He has recently been published in Forge, Monkeybicycle, Underground Voices Magazine, and Poetic Diversity.  He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University, and thinks gray sky the utmost inspiration.  More of his writing can be found at Peyote Soliloquies.

Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has appeared in Thieves Jargon, Blowback, Writers' Bloc, Dagger, and other sundry places.

Brett Elizabeth Jenkins lives in Indiana with her brother and her cat, Marie DeSalle. She is currently earning her MFA from Bennington. Look for her poems in Anderbo, GUD, Breadcrumb Scabs, Writers' Bloc, and elsewhere.

Sivakami Velliangiri lives in Chennai, with her son, daughter, husband and Jade,a parakeet. She enjoys going to poetry readings, poets’ meets and cultural evenings,and is always on the lookout for a new voice. She is the moderator of a yahoo group, soulflash@yahoogroups.com

Sean Ulman works in the summers in Alaska as a technician for a shorebird study. In the winter he lives in Delaware where he writes about Alaska. He has a new poem up at Willows Wept Review. He is a Stonecoast MFA graduate.

Greta Bolger is a dedicated epistolarian, who still maintains postal correspondence with old friends, along with a lifetime archive of letters. Her poems and prose have appeared in The Chimaera, Thema, Third Coast, The Mom Egg, Juice Box, and other print and online journals.

Danny Johnson bio coming soon!

Catherine Batac Walder’s writing has recently appeared in Demons of the New Year, Philippines Graphic, Ruin and Resolve Anthology, Eyeshot, and Expanded Horizons. She blogs at http://deckshoes.wordpress.com.

Ryan Burden is a computer security analyst in Charleston, South Carolina.  He spends most of his time at work surreptitiously writing, and is annoyed when people ask him what his hobbies are.  He has work currently online at the Quills Quarterly, Wilde Oats, and Writers' Bloc Magazine.

Judy Swann's work has been published in Lilliput, Thema, Apparatus, Tilt Poetry Magazine, and other venues, both print and online. She is an Iowan living in upstate New York, a tap dancer, a soccer mom, etc.

Patrick Trotti has previously been published in Glass Cases, Six Sentences, Eskimo Pie and Down in the Dirt.

PD Lyons newest book Caribu&Sister Stones published by Lapwing Press Belfast click for preview:
http://books.google.ie/books?id=m4v3dIprgUIC&printsec=frontcover&client=firefox-a&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Tricia Friedman has lived in China, Thailand, and has recently returned to the wonderful world of New Jersey after a stint volunteering with Peace Corps in Morocco. She tries not too eat an embarrassing amount of cheese, loves running, and would like to one Sunday be able to read the entire *NY Times* before noon.

J.J. Steinfeld Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives hidden away on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot's arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published two novels, Our Hero in the Cradle of Confederation (Pottersfield Press) and Word Burials (Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink), nine short story collections, the previous three by Gaspereau Press - Should the Word Hell Be Capitalized?, Anton Chekhov Was Never in Charlottetown, and Would You Hide Me? - and two poetry collections, An Affection for Precipices (Serengeti Press) and Misshapenness (Ekstasis Editions). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of his full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.

Garrett Socol's fiction has been published in The Barcelona Review, 3:AM Magazine, Pequin, Perigee, Paradigm, PANK, Hobart, Ghoti, Ducts, Ascent Aspirations, Underground Voices, JMWW Journal, Foundling Review, kill author, Bartleby Snopes, Emprise Review,  nth Position and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.  His plays have been produced at the Berkshire Theatre Festival and the Pasadena Playhouse.  For 15 years, he created and produced television shows for the E! Network including “Talk Soup” and “The Gossip Show.”

Lindsay Marrianna Walker is a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Writers in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. A finalist for the 2009 Walt Whitman Award for her
manuscript, *the Josephine letters*, she has served as Poetry Editor for the literary journal, *Juked*, since 2005. Her poems are recent or forthcoming, in: *The African American Review, Valley Voices, West Branch, *and other journals. She has published several stories, essays, and plays, and in 2009 she won the Center for Writers Joan Johnson Award for Fiction.

Seamus Watson is black, but he was adopted by redheads. One woman would not be able to keep him sane, so he has two. He looks great in a kilt.

Paul Rehac is a writer of fiction: flash, short, and longer forms. He once wrote a poem but stopped shortly after receiving the restraining order. His flash
fiction piece _the chance_ is set to appear in the upcoming "Voices from the Herd" Buffalo Anthology and he has read this and other works at literary gatherings around WNY, including: Empire State College Literary Cafe, The Screening Room, and for the 2009 Infringement Festival. He writes horror/fantasy fiction about ghastly monsters and alien landscapes that reflect the realities of the absurd world in which we all live.

Helen Peterson is the managing editor of Chopper Poetry Journal out of New London, Ct, and has previously published in Fell Swoop, Main Channel Voices, Gloom Cupboard, Tonopah Review, Cartier Street Review, Poor Mojo’s, Wilderness House Review, Battered Suitcase, diddledog, Hiss Quarterly, Right Hand
Pointing, Juked, Elimae, Haruah, Zygote in My Coffee, Pedestal Magazine (book review), Literary Fever, Debris Magazine, and Poetrybay, among others.
Currently she has work in Girls With Insurance, Moronic Ox, and will have work in the upcoming spring issue of poeticdiversity. Her work was also featured in
The Work Book, an anthology put out by Poet Plant Press in 2007.  She just got an email today that she might be out of work very soon, so appreciates you
reading her work, and would like a dollar now please.

Jennifer Lawson Zepeda has been a content writer for over twelve years, writing corporate success stories, speeches, marketing collateral, direct response scripts for 60-second radio ads, and press releases.  Her focus revolves around cross-border relations, and socio-political stories of Hispanics. While living in Tijuana she published several short stories, poetry, flash fiction and essays until her husband became the focus of a group of organized criminals.  The couple
was forced to flee Mexico and request asylum for her husband in the U.S.  Since then, she has been marketing her personal story in her book, Save Me Salvador. Her work has been published in:  Moondance, Boom! For real - Better Non Sequitur, SoMA Literary Review, Events Quarterly, Excess Compassion and Eclectica Magazine.

Jess Dunn has been writing since she was a wee thing, who had still not quite mastered how to end an "s." She received her undergraduate education at Goucher College and her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Towson University. She is currently a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Although she went to school for psychology and got a “real job,” she continues to write compulsively.  Besides writing and subversively influencing the still malleable minds of undergraduates, her interests include radical mental health, outsider art, cephalopods, and zombie hordes. She currently lives in Baltimore, MD with her partner and her cat.

Zachary Whalen is a watcher of ceiling fans. He has a blog (zacharywhalen.blogspot.com).

Michael Andreoni. After several decades of being referred to as a sarcastic nit, Michael Andreoni decided to revel in it. Dogs bitten, children frightened. He's available for parties if you're not particular about keeping your friends. His stories and essays have appeared in several publications, including Iconoclast, the Rambler, Allegory, Dana Literary Revue

Jay Coral currently lives in Los Angeles and occasionally blogs at http://bluejayeye.blogspot.com/. He likes to stare on an empty fish tank.

Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of *Breadcrumb* *Scabs*magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com). More information and previous publications
can be found at her personal website (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).

John Logan is a writer living in North Carolina. His stories have appeared on The Moonlit Path, The Horror Garage, and in the print anthologies The Horror Library Vol. 1and Dark Distortions Vol.1. 

I.G. Rehorek lives in South Australia, married 2 kids 1 wife 1 tenor sax 1 alto 2 sopranos 1 trumpet lots of recorders 1 small dog teaches printmaking/art
history/mural painting at Aboriginal college performance poet stage name avalanche shoe size 8 planet of origin Earth, apparently, specifically the
Northern Hemisphere, Central Europe, City of Prague.

David Rasey is a writer living in the beautiful forested hills of upstate New York, but many of his stories are set in his birthplace amid the endless corn fields of northeastern Ohio. He has been writing for most of his life and currently facilitates a writers critique group. He has published in other web publications, including Clockwise Cat, The Monsters Next Door, Liquid Imagination, Literary Fever, and Black Lantern Publishing.

Hobie Anthony is a current MFA student in Queens University of Charlotte's low-residency program. He lives in Portland, OR, where he waits for rain. He can be found in a number of print and online journals. He blogs about flash fiction and other stuff at redneckzen.blogspot.com

Lindsay Miller won the Denver Citywide Spelling Bee in seventh grade, kicking off an illustrious life of being a total word nerd. She studied creative writing at the Denver School of the Arts and the University of Arizona, is a Founding Mama of the Tucson Poetry Slam, and has never really mastered the art of the indoor voice.

David Backer was born in 1984 in Danbury, Connecticut. He edits fictiondaily.org, an aggregator site for online fiction.

Kenneth Pobo is reading a book of stories he likes called Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson.  He does a radio show each Saturday called Obscure Oldies at WDNR.com from 6-8pm EST.  He was born in the 1950s, reborn in the 1960s.  Words he likes include: Etruscan and origami. Sometimes he wants to be as over the top as Richard Harris singing "MacArthur Park."

Steve Frederick bio coming soon!

Tom Fillion is a graduate of the University of South Florida. He  teaches mathematics and coaches golf and tennis at a Tampa public high school.  His short stories have appeared in many online publications. For a complete list please visit: http://dreammechanic.blogspot.com/ He has stories forthcoming at Eskimo Pie, Danse Macabre, Writers’ Bloc (Rutgers University-Camden), SubtleTea, Houston Literary Review, Cantaraville, and Rose & Thorn.

Maike Braun was born in Germany, studied in US and England, married an American, and is now living in Hamburg, Germany. Writing short stories in German and in English.

Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory is a kalideoscope of a girl.  A hybrid cross between lover, fighter, activist, caffeine-junkie, journalist, hippie, poet, and human, she empties her head by trapping dreams in words and passing them off as poetry.  If you are reading this, then chances are, she's proven to be successful in the endeavor. A 2009 member of the NJ Youth Poetry SLAM Team & the Brave New Voices Green Team, founding member of the Spitting Images Poetry Slam team at New Jersey City University, past contributor to the online literary magazine Troubadour 21, and President of WPL (Writing Performance Laboratory), Jennifer (a.k.a. Phoenix) is ready and willing to put her heart on the line if it makes you feel happier in your own skin. www.phoenixpoet.info.

Nik Houser's work has previously appeared in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Best American Fantasy, Gargoyle, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, and Inkwater Ink. He grew up in the south, fled east for school as soon as he was able, migrated west soon thereafter, and is currently plotting his escape from Silicon Valley.  His website, nikhouser.com, has plenty of cartoons, free fiction, and handlebar mustaches for every occasion.

Steve De France MFA has traveled widely in the United States. On more than one occasion he hitch-hiked across America. He rode rails on freight trains, worked as a laborer with pick up gangs in Arizona, dug swimming pools in Texas, did 33 days in the Pecos city jail as a vagarant, fought bulls in Mexico, and dove for salvage off a small island on the coast of Mazatlan. His poetry has been published in most of the English speaking countries of the world. Recently his work can be seen in The Evergreen Review, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Sun, Rattle, Why Vandalism, as well as others. He has won writing awards in England and in the United States. And recently was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize. He continues to write poetry, plays, essays & short stories.

Kristi Peterson Schoonover ’s fiction appears in *The Adirondack Review, Barbaric Yawp, Morpheus Tales, Crimson Highway, Citizen Culture, New Witch
Magazine, Spilt Milk, Toasted Cheese, *and a host of others*.* Her collection of ghost stories—*Admit One: Tales from Haunted Disney World*—is due from Pandora Ink books later in 2010. She also hosts the paranormal fiction segment on *The Ghostman & Demon Hunter Show* broadcast,
www.ghostanddemon.com, and lives with a paranormal investigator who recently practiced a voodoo ritual on national television.

Alex Pruteanu Former day gigs include: newswriter/correspondent for the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, td/director of various political junkfood programs on NBC and its cable cronies, and sporadic freelance writing for insufferable corporations like AOL/Time Warner. Indeed, compromises then…but no longer. In the mid-90s several short junk was published in a few indie rags, but no luck was had with the majors. And so it goes. Sporadically, I contribute op-ed columns to the progressive site The Savvy, The Extreme & The Idealist. Also sporadically, I am working on re-writing and re-tooling a novel called “Resident Alien.” Not sci-fi. And soon putting together a collection of flash stuff tentatively called “Short Lean Cuts.” Looking to independently and environmentally-friendly publish these projects, as well as offer them for free on my fiction site (S)wine (http://swine.wordpress.com), in .pdf form.

Bruce Boynton is a late blooming poet who has lived a life of adventure and intrigue in exotic locales around the world. He now resides in the strangest and most challenging place in his career, Washington, DC.

Anna Reed is an architect and writer who lives in Berkeley, California. Reed’s writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in journals such as Alimentum, BluePrintReview, CleanSheets, The East Bay Express, Exquisite Corpse, monkeybicycle, Pindeldyboz, Rivets, The SoMa Literary Review, Verbicide and Waccamaw Journal. Her feature story, "Sleeping Around Craigslist" was #4 on AlterNet for 2009 and drew over half a million hits (the same year the nation was introduced to Sarah Palin). Reed is the road grunt, curator, creative director and CEO of Speckled Egg Studios which designs and publishes poetry broadsheets and produces literary readings throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Lately she has been designing animated poetry broadsheets. You can find both Anna and Speckled Egg Studios on Facebook.

Megan Thoma is a writer and a teacher living in Providence, RI.  She has work published in The Little White Poetry Journal and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.  She is also the current Providence and NorthBeast Individual Grand Slam Champion.  Her students don't believe teachers are real people who "drive cars and have solo dance parties in their basement."  She does both these things.  She is very, very real.

Ethan Swage dares hurricanes to show him their "real stuff", even if just in his imagination. Recently, he has taken to late-night rooftop lounging, peering down on humanity in its most vulnerable state—drunk and staggering home from local bars—and taking toll of the things people would refrain from doing if only they knew they were being watched. His work has appeared in Flashshot and The Legendary.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz worked as a writer for porn for one year, after it became the only job she could land after she graduated from NYU. Her family's annual Holiday Newsletter had to be very carefully worded that year, but at least she got a book out of it: HOT TEEN SLUT, which is being re-issued by Write Bloody Publishing in Spring / Summer 2010. For more information on Cristin and the non-porn related writing she has since published, please visit her website at: www.aptowicz.com.

Nicole Homer’s  work can found in Not a Muse: The Inner Lives of Women (New Haven Press, 2009) and His Rib: Poems, Stories & Essays By Her (Penmanship Books, 2007), and featured on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Podcast (performancepoetry.indiefeed.com). She currently lives in New Jersey where she makes wallets out of duct tape and counts deer corpses on her way to work.

Shannon Quinn's work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She has also written for one of Canada's national newspapers and produced radio features for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She hangs out with a lot of cats. Literally.

Greg Gerke lives in Brooklyn. His work has or will appear in Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Night Train and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction has been published by Blaze Vox Books. His website is www.greggerke.com

Jon Borcherding has been published by Oak Bend Review, Weave Magazine, and Ouroboros Review.  He lives in Tacoma Washington with his wife, his dogs,
and a ridiculous number of acoustic guitars and small watercraft.

Thomas Sullivan's writing has appeared in *Word Riot, 3AM Magazine*, and *The Legendary*, among others. His memoir about teaching drivers education (titled *Life In The Slow Lane*) is available in February, 2010 from Uncial Press (www.uncialpress.com).

xTx has only recently allowed herself to feel comfortable being called a writer even thought she has been doing it for over half her life.  She is pleased and thankful to have been published in places like Thieves Jargon, Cherry Bleeds, decomP, Dogzplot, Zygote, Rumble and others.  She is going to switch from third to first person now.  If you have read this far, you must really be committed to finding out more about me so you should Google me…I have a really neat blog.

Josh Goller sprouted in Wisconsin soil, but the winds carried him to the gloom and damp of the Pacific Northwest. He now resides in Oregon where he enjoys driving through fog and listening to raccoons fight on his roof. His favorite color is not visible to the human eye.

Matthew B. Dexter is a board-certified American anomaly living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. When Matthew is not writing he is most likely drinking cerveza by the ocean. This lunatic gringo enjoys beautiful beaches, breathtaking views, reading, and being inspired. But never candlelit dinners on the beach. He’s afraid of Pirates.

Griswold Frye is the pseudonym of a Philadelphia poet who would rather that her children and fellow members of Congress not be aware of her erotic writing.

Sarah Frank Reichard lives in Chicago with her husband, Patrick, and an ever-growing collection of pizza stones in lieu of pets. Her poetry, fiction, and interviews have appeared in Chopper Journal, Otium<http://otium.uchicago.edu>, and Prick of the Spindle <http://www.prickofthespindle.com>. She also writes regularly for nerve.com. You can read more of her work at www.sarahreichard.com.

Antonia Clark works for a medical software company in Burlington, Vermont. A former creative writing instructor, she is currently co-administrator of an online poetry forum, The Waters. Her poems have appeared in The Chimaera, The 2River View, The Orange Room Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, and elsewhere. She loves French food and wine, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.

Mary Cassidy lives and writes in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where it snows nine months of the year.

S.P. Flannery was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and now resides in Madison. His poetry has appeared in Random Acts of Writing, The Alembic, Calliope Nerve, The Blotter and Leaf Garden.

Jim Harrington lives in Huntersville, NC, with his wife and two cats. His stories have appeared in Apollo's Lyre, Camroc Press Review, Every Day Fiction, The Houston Literary Review, Long Story Short, MicroHorror, Flashshot and others. He currently serves as a flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre. You can read more of his stories at www.jimharringtononline.net.

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night.  He was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  His parents are native Texans.  He has lived most of his life in California.  His poetry has appeared in Aoife's Kiss, Aphelion, Blue Collar Review, The Broome Review, Camroc Press Review, Censored Poets, Chronogram Magazine, Deuce Coupe, Fissure Magazine, Freefall, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hawaii Review, Heroin Love Songs, Hungur, Is This Reality, Kalkion, Liquid Imagination, Mad Swirl, Metazen, Mirror Dance, Neonbeam, Nerve Cowboy, Nomad's Choir, POEM, Poesia, Posey, protestpoems.org, Purpose, REAL, Rusty Truck, Scifaikuest, Sex And Murder, Shoots And Vines, Tales from the Moonlit Path, The Legendary, Thieves Jargon, Zygote In My Coffee, and others.

Shokry Eldaly is a U.S. born, Dominican-Egyptian poet, a Hunter College graduate and a Goddard College M.F.A. recipient. He is an Aquellos Fellow, a recipient of the Blanche Colton Williams Fellowship, a 2010 Pushcart Nominee and was awarded the AALC's Naguib Mahfouz award. He has been published internationally in publications including Forge Journal, Acentos Review, Neon, Quay, Domino, Sixers Review and Fut'uro.

Jessica Cripps enjoys cavorting, merrymaking, procrastinating, daydreaming, and carousing. She is an expert at making questionable decisions, accumulating unsavory bedfellows, and locking her keys in the car. She collects bad habits, useless skills, and fake red flowers. She likes big words and playing make believe; She dislikes spiders and douchebaggery. Her favorite color is indigo.

Michael Cuglietta is a writer living in Orlando, FL. He works as a salesman and looks foward to three day weekends, paid vacations, sick days, hurricane days and any natural disasters and/or diseases that allow him to take a day off. Most recently his work has appeared in The Chiron Review, Word Riot and Gloom Cupboard.

Ally Malinenko’s first book of poems, entitled The Wanting Bone, was recently published by Six Gallery Press. You can read her poetry at
http://shipwreckedpoetry.blogspot.com and her fiction at http://gypsycampfire.blogspot.com.  She is currently working on a novel for children and lives in the part of Brooklyn that the tour buses don’t come to.

GD Anderson lives in North Wollongong, Australia. His chapbook ‘Dancing On Thin Ice’ is available though erbacce-press. He blogs at:
http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.

Paul Luikart's fiction has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, 322 Review and Coach's Midnight Diner.  He received his degree in creative writing from
Miami University and is currently a second year student in the University of Chicago's Graham School, where he studies short fiction writing.

Ashley Vemuri is currently a college student in Washington, DC, where she enjoys staying up until sunrise while being unproductive (to further mess up
her circadian rhythm), being incredibly distractible, and participating in hilarious shenaniganry.In her spare time, she reads obsessively about serial killers, psychology, and Tudor England, though not necessarily at the same time.

Edward "Lefty" Lee is a bartender by trade, where his good looks and quick wit have saved him more than once from an ass beating. Edward enjoys wood working, bad science fiction movies and reading comic books. He lives in Maryland with a large book collection and a lazy guard dog. He’s been published
previously by the Happy Magazine.

Jason Henry McCormick regularly visits The Legendary's Web site. He enjoys reading the fiction and submissions page at The Legendary. Jason says The Legendary's submissions page offers the best advice on writing that he has ever received. The submissions page can be found at http://www.downdirtyword.com/submissionspage.html. Jason's blog can be found at http://www.jasonhenrymccormick.wordpress.com.

Alexander Lang is a young 20-something college student "writer" that doesn't quite feel comfortable with being called such. Slightly misanthropic but wholly Pittsburgh at heart, he was born and raised in the Steel City. In his spare time he enjoys 4 a.m. Dunkin Donuts coffee, longboarding, Bukowski poems, and cheap whiskey. He also enjoys some street slumming and general exploration. His friends describe him as an honest asshole, but what do they know. This is his first time being published, so please forgive him.

Sonya Lea has written for film, television, magazines and anthologies, and she has received three screenwriting awards, including the Nicholl fellowship. She received an Artist Trust award for her collection of essays based on her family's transformation during her husband’s brain injury. Sonya has also written a film about something we do not often have a window into -- what happens in a relationship after a brain injury. Her upcoming fiction collection, "Pure of Heart: Beatitude Stories at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century" is a ring of eight stories about three sisters and their lovers, and the ways we think of purity, wholeness, mercy, grief, peacemaking, righteousness and courage. She lives in Seattle, Washington. See her Wild Work blog at http://workingwild.blogspot.com.

Rusty Barnes lives in Revere, MA with his family. He maintains webspace at http://www.rustybarnes.com.

J.M Cinq-Mars lives in Massachusetts and uses a made-up name for her email.  Her publishing history is sporadic.  She has seen Pink Floyd twice and wanted to marry David Gilmour for over a decade.  She has a very funny boss.  She also wears scarves, which is why her neck is never cold.

Jaime Martin is a writer, performer, comic artist, and professional nerd. He has been a featured performer at the New York Comic Con and The Bowery Poetry Club. He was the co-host of the infamous Nerd Slam at the 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam. He has studied several martial arts and likes to tell inappropriate jokes in mixed company. He is probably at this moment looking for a better job than the one he currently has (please help him, he is awkward). He like firm hugs and pie, please feel free to give him either or both next time you see him. He currently lives in New York City and wishes they would bring Firefly back. www.myspace.com/ilikemonkeymedia , www.ilikemonkeymedia.com/nerd/nerd.htm

Jim Harrington lives in Huntersville, NC, with his wife and two cats. His stories have appeared in Apollo's Lyre, Camroc Press Review, Every Day Fiction, The Houston Literary Review, Long Story Short, MicroHorror, Flashshot and others. He currently serves as a flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre. You can read more of his stories at www.jimharringtononline.net.

Omar Holmon Socially random with +33 charm points Omar "Ion" Holmon lives life like Doug Funnie and believes he'd be the only Jedi whose lightsaber would match his chuck taylors. When not imagining himself in anime fight scenes or working to make the world more abnormal he spends his time in slam poetry competitions and talking about his love for otters/pandas.

Connor Caddigan, a native of Achill Island, Ireland, currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio where he teaches composition, mythology and literature to indolent college students.  His stories and essays have appeared in a number of publications, including The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Whiskey Island, Slow Trains, Exquisite Corpse, and many other journals both big and small.  You can usually find him every Friday night at Great Lakes Brewery, arguing politics and enjoying a pint of stout.

Suzanne White is a late-blooming American poet living in Southern Spain.  She enjoys raising her young daughter, helping people learn English, and walking the cobblestone streets.

Autumn Humphrey has flash fiction pieces appearing, or scheduled to appear, in Blink/Ink,  FlashShot, All Things Girl, Golden Visions, Still Crazy, and the Stray  Branch.  In her spare time  she plays the horses, or as someone once said, the horses are playing  her.

Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006), a full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), and a book of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009). He also has two novels set to be published in the Spring of 2010, The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press) and Following Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor?s Writer?s Almanac. He also claims to have written, ?In the Year 2525.?  With his wife, he runs Burke?s Book Store, one of the country?s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

Francis Raven is a graduate student in philosophy at Temple University.  His books include Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), 5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible (Blue Lion Books, 2008), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007), Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox 2005) and the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005).  Francis lives in Washington DC; you can check out more of his work at his website: http://www.ravensaesthetica.com/.

Jared Singer is a poet and audio engineer who lives in nyc. While he may have physically grown up with his peers, he has never forgotten the imagination, magic, and nerdiness that were corner stones of his childhood. He hopes to remind others of these more creative times. He has also appeared on the Indiefeed Peformance Poetry Podcast.

J de Salvo is the editor of the Bicycle Review, a bi-monthly electronic journal of literature and art. His fiction, poetry, and articles have been published or are forthcoming in numerous online and print publications, including *Art/Life, Askew, Beatie’s Journal, Danse Macabre, Leaf Garden Press, New Angeles Monthly, New fiction Journal, and the Poetry Super Highway.* He lives in Los Angeles.

Eric Bennett lives in New York with his wife and four children.  He loves trees without leaves and the silence between songs on vinyl records.  His work appears in numerous literary and art journals including Fiction at Work, Bartleby Snopes, Ghoti Magazine,  LITnIMAGE, and PANK. 

Tim Tomlinson is a co-founder of New York Writers Workshop, and co- author of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing.  He is the fiction editor of the webzine Ducts.  Recent stories and poems  appear or are forthcoming in Perigee, Pif, Del Sol Review, Dogzplot, Medullla Review, Lunarosity, 3:AM, Hanging Moss Journal, The Toronto Quarterly, The Smoking Poet, and Tongues of the Ocean.

Christina Murphy lives and writes in a 100 year-old house along the Ohio River. The River and she share much in common as they both keeping moving from east to west. Christina's work has been published or will appear in *Acappella Zoo*, *Modern Short Stories*, *ABJECTIVE, Blue Fifth Review*, *Counterexample Poetics*,* Greensboro Review, Storyscape*, and *Descant,* among others, and has received an Editor’s Choice Award and "Special Mention" for a Pushcart Prize. She always appreciates hearing from readers and can be reached at 446river3@gmail.com.

Melanie Browne's work has been published at Word Riot, Writer's Bloc (Rutgers) Bartleby Snopes, Glossolalia, Madswirl,  and Ink, Sweat and Tears. She lives
in Texas with her husband and three children.

Neil Richter is a part-time tutor, part-time nursing home orderly, part-time baker, part-time writer.  Neil Richter likes good food and good scotch.  He also likes pasta, preferably served in a punch bowl with a comically large spoon.  Do not taunt Neil Richter, his temper is well known.  Neil Richter has two uvulas (the bongy thing in the back of the throat).  He also has an alphabetic knowledge of film trivia.  Neil Richter is not to be trifled with.

Gary D. Compton lives in the eastern most region of Kentucky. He has earned paychecks as fast food worker, coal lab technician, martial arts teacher, exterminator, carpenter, store clerk, child care worker, parole officer and musician. 

Aristotle Sinclair is a poet of neoteric contemplation.  He reads Duane Locke and Constance Stadler to ascertain excellent poetry.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming at Writer’s Bloc, The Catalonian Review, Writing Raw, The Legendary, and several other kind places.  He has a mini-chapbook published “Within the Open Eyes” (Gold Wake Press, 2009).  In the rarity of spare time, he reads various texts and quotations from philosophers, and thinks Thelonious Monk is the epitome of a jazz genius.  He records occurrences at http://aristotlesinclair.blogspot.com/.

Christopher Kugler Christopher Kugler lives in Central Pennsylvania.  Writing is his passion but he does other stuff too.  Check out his blog at
www.klockworkkugler.com.

Serena Tome launched an international reading series for African children to connect, learn, and participate in literary activity with students from around the world via video conferencing. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in The Litchfield Review, Foundling Review, The Legendary, Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Boston Literary Magazine, The Stray Branch, and other publications. She is currently working on her first chapbook. You can find out more about Serena at www.serenatome.blogspot.com.

Matt Van Buren grew up in upstate NY, spent time in Los Angeles during and after college, and then returned to the East Coast to get his MFA from the New School. Cats, dogs, and children tend to like him, in spite of his best efforts.

Jason Carney has been a mainstay on the national performance poetry scene for the past ten years. Hailing from Dallas, Texas this fiery performer brings unique insights on issues of race class and gender. Using the lessons of his past he weaves together images that transform the audience. Breaking down barriers and biases so that all can have an honest conversation involving some of our nation's critical issues. Mr. Carney has performed all across our country mesmerizing audiences with his wit and conviction. Whether telling an illuminating antidote about his children or stirring the ghost of our societies past present and future his effect is riveting.

Mr. Carney has appeared on several seasons of the HBO television show RUSSELL SIMMONS DEF POETS. He is a four time national poetry slam finalist. honored as a legend of slam poetry in 2006 and 2007. Jason has done six NACA conferences including two national conventions. Been seen on national geographic channel as well as local television channels across the united states. He has spoken and done workshops at high schools juvenile detention centers corporate diversity engagements as well has colleges and universities extensively in the fifty states.

In a rehabilitation center in his youth Jason's life was changed forever by a gay man who was dying from AIDS. Using poetry to redefine his world, he transformed the hate and racist ignorance of his southern upbringing. His life mission is to educate and participate in an honest conversation of race class and gender.

Jeanann Verlee is a poet, activist, and polka-dot wearer who collects tattoos and winks at boys. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The New York Quarterly, PANK, decomP, Lung, and “Not A Muse,” among others. Her first book of poetry will be published by Write Bloody Press in March 2010.

Jeanne Holtzman is an aging hippie, writer and women’s health care practitioner. Her work has appeared in Night Train, The Los Angeles Review, Dogzplot, Hobart (web), Foundling Review, The Best of Every Day Fiction and flashquake. You may reach Jeanne at J.holtzman@comcast.net

Lisa Zaran is an American poet, essayist and the author of six collections including The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter of which was recently the focus of a year long translation course in Germany, since translated to German under the title:  das manchmal mädchen.  Selections from her other books have been translated to Bangla, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Greek.  She is the founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online journal of poetry.  Besides writing, Lisa considers her other bold passions :  painting, outsider art, folk and blues music, Bob Dylan and her two brilliant children, Zed and Kirsten.  She lives and writes in Arizona.

Patricia Tatum spent half a century completely unaware that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up.  Having the attention span of a cantaloupe, she
has numerous partially finished stories, a rare few completed and polished, and no plans to write a novel.

Alison Boyd is a writer living in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Australia. She writes a regular blog and has had poetry, short stories and a radio play published. Currently writing a novel in an office overlooking the vegie garden, most of her day consists of a series of mad blasts at the keyboard punctuated with the distraction of plant growth, feline antics and a herbal tea habit bordering on compulsive.

After performing both music and poetry around the Boston area for twenty years, Derek Richards shed his fear of rejection and began submitting his work this past August. So far his poetry has appeared in over fifty publications, including; Lung, Word Riot, Cantaraville, Soundzine, The Centrifugal Eye, Opium 2.0, MediaVirus, Calliope Nerve, Right Hand Pointing, Breadcrumb Scabs, Tinfoildresses, Poets Ink, The Legendary, Sex and Murder and Dew on the Kudzu. He has also been told to keep his day job by Quills and Parchment. His dog, cat and two ferrets admire his attempts to be honest, direct, brilliant and lucrative. Also, he wants you to know that he has compiled over 50 fantasy sports championships. Happily engaged, he resides in Gloucester, MA, cleaning windows for a living.

Paula Ray is a musician from  Wilmington, North Carolina with a crazy rhythm in her veins and twisted thoughts  stuck to her tongue. She's a woodwind
specialist and poet/fiction writer. Her  work has appeared in elimae, decomP, DOGZPLOT, Word Riot, and other small press  zines. For more information
about Paula, visit:  http//:musicalpencil.blogspot.com.

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. His work has been published in print and online, and he contributes regularly to http://leadigloo.com. Oh, and he says he isn't writing a novel, but he is.

Changming Yuan authored several books before emigrating out of China and currently teaches writing in Vancouver. Yuan's poems appear in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and over 200 other literary publications worldwide. His debut collection (Chansons of a Chinaman) and monograph (Politics and Poetics) were both released in September 2009. Yuan has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Eloise Chagrin is a writer of erotic and explicit fiction.  Her first story, "Playing Doctor," first published on ThreePillows.com, appeared in Best of Best American Erotica 2008.  Eloise Chagrin's second work, a novella entitled, "The Prince," can be found in the STARbooks press anthology, "Pretty Boys and Roughnecks" edited by Mickey Erlach. She can only blame herself, scolding that she spends too much of her life fixated on emotional masochism. She currently lives in St. Louis.

Jennifer Jackson Whitley graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Though media and creative writing are her passions, they did not pay the bills. She went back to school for her Master of Arts in Teaching at North Georgia College and State University and currently teaches high school English, where she has found a new passion: enlightening young minds to think outside-the-box. She acts as an editor for *Spilt Milk* online literary journal and *Warm Milk Printing Press*. Her work has been featured in various online publications, including *Titular*and *Blue Print Review. *

Andy Henion was born the day before man landed on the moon and has felt a bit flighty since. He lives somewhere cold and flat with some people and an animal. His fiction, online and print, has appeared in Word Riot, Spork, Ink Pot, Pindeldyboz, Hobart, Storyglossia, Thieves Jargon, Diddledog and numerous other publications.

Farida Samerkhanova lives in Toronto, Ontario. "My native language is Tatarian, my second language is Russian and English is my third, which has become my passion. I am the head of a big family; four generations reside under one roof in South West of Toronto. I fight with every day routine, play chess, collect coins and skate. My letters to the editor appeared in the magazines Elle Canada, Canadian Stories and Canadian Immigrant. During the years 2007-2009 my
poems, short stories and essays were published by Canadian Stories; Inscribed~A Magazine for Writers; The Maynard; Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts; blueskiespoetry.ca, Danse Macabre (including Totentanze, All Saints’ Evening and Weihnachtsmarkt issues), Seeding the Snow (The illustration is also my credit), The Write Place at the Write Time, Calliope (Issue #125 – Fall 2009), Word Salad Poetry Magazine, Tower Poetry and Of(f)Course – A Literary Journal.
Some of my poems were included in The Maynard Anthology 2008 (Canada), the collection of poetry “Immortal Verses” (USA) and in “Favourite Memories” book of poetry (UK).

Randall Brown teaches at and directs Rosemont College¹s MFA in Writing Program. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, Quick Fiction, Gargoyle, Connecticut Review, Saint Ann's Review, Evansville Review, Laurel Review, Dalhousie Review, Night Train, upstreet, and others. He is the author of the award-winning collection Mad to Live (Flume Press, 2008) and his essay on (very) short fiction appears in The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field (Rose Metal Press, 2009).

DLW Pesavento was raised in Chicago, instilled with mysticism, nurturing an innate sense of the wondrous. The poetry reveals a predilection for the surreal, embellished with lush lyricism, emboldened by sensual symbolism. Recent poems reside in Danse Macabre, Troubadour 21, The Literary Bohemian, Whispers From The Unseen, Underground Voices, Full of Crow, and Think Journal.

Gethin M. Jones is 34 years old, living in North Wales, UK,  now a single dad of the children mentioned in the poem.  Currently studying a degree in Writing and English, and just beggining to get my claws into the form of the novel.  Most notable thing ever done: sang to the queen at the age of ten in a cathedral choir!

Wes Prussing is a transplanted New Yorker living in South Florida. He's worked almost exclusively as a sales and marketing manager in the construction industry for the past twenty years or so. Wes holds degrees in Liberal Arts and Business Marketing. His work has appeared in a number of small literary magazines and e-zines; Ken-Again, The Fairfield Review and Wild Violets to name a  few.

Eric J. Brinovec is a 28 year old man from Grants, NM. He's enjoyed writing Surrealist poetry for about 3 years. He's got two small poetry books for which he is seeking publication consideration: "Wednesday Squared(To the Fifth Power), Free-Form and Melodized Verbalizations...", and "Disenfranchised Screams Floating on Clouds of Severed Monkey Hands in the Parallel Spheres (Bathing in a Tub of Glass Shards)"... He does some collage art, loves the The meat puppets, and he just wants to finally do something with his life and maybe succeed enough to get away from this intellectually dead, western town of zombies...

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey where he wishes he could play surf guitar like Dick Dale and sing like Brian Wilson. He sings in the shower, sometimes.

Anthony R. Pezzula is a retired former employee of New York State taking up writing in his retirement years. He has had stories published in The Writers Post Journal, Midnight Times, Aphelion, Fictionville, River Poets Journal, Pens On Fire and forthcoming in Battered Suitcase. He lives in upstate New York with his wife of thirty-four years and their misbehaving cat.

Justin Pietropaolo lives in Goshen, New York (famous for horses and Noah Webster) and is a junior at Alfred University (famous for being close to the town Bill Pullman grew up in (oh, c'mon, you know him-- had that awesome speech in Independence Day.))  He loves the page, the stage, and the fancy new pipe he just bought.

Shappy Seasholtz has been the surly barkeep at the BOWERY POETRY CLUB since it opened in 2002 and currently is co-slammaster and host of their weekly poetry slam, NYC-URBANA. He has toured with Lollapalooza, has been featured on season three of HBO'S DEF POETRY and has been running the National Nerd Slam for the past 8 years. He has complete run of H.R. Puffnstuff comics, a vintage Charlie Tuna lamp and a robot that plays 8-tracks.

Deanna Rittinger has decided at 41 that what she wants to be when she grows up is an author.  In this way, her imagination can invite others to play with her.  After all, writing is such a lonely sport.  Deanna founded the online peer-review, writer's community, NoteBored.  You can find her other stories on the web at Haruah, Long Story Short and Ultraverse.  Currently, she's working on a paranormal thriller, her first novel.

Colin Gilbert is the current Editor of Lamplighter Review. In addition to winning the 2006 Chicago State University Hughes, Diop, Knight Literary Award he has poems appearing in recent or upcoming editions of Minglewood, Plain Spoke, Danse Macabre, CC & D, Oak Bend Review, Calliope Nerve, and Yellow Mama. He welcomes you to add him on facebook and ridicule him for his cheesy photographs.

Roy Scarbrough writes stuff and drives a forklift in Oregon.

Aditya Shankar (b.1981, Thrissur, Kerala, India) is a bi-lingual writer and short film-maker. He writes in English and Malayalam, and  publishes poetry and articles in leading journals, including the The Little Magazine, The Word Plus, Indian Literature, The Literary X Magazine, Munyori, The Pyramid, Poetry Chain, Mastodon Dentist, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Bayou Review, Words-Myth, Chandrabhaga, Miler’s poetry, Message in a bottle, Aireings among others. His poetry is forthcoming in Hudson View, Snakeskin and fiction in The Caledonia Review. His First Book 'After Seeing', a series of poems based on cinema (2006, IFFT), is currently being translated into a couple of regional Indian languages. His short films have participated at International Film Festivals and gained nomination for Animation Awards. Currently, he lives and works in Cochin as the Creative Director of D3V Games, a game and animation development studio, after completing his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering.

Kia Storm lives in England. She graduated from Middlesex University with a degree in Writing and Media and English Literature. You will find her Twittering words of inspiration, blogging on MSN or networking with her friends on Bebo and MySpace. Kia loves life and admires creativity. Occasionally, Kia daydreams about sky diving over the Pacific Ocean, climbing Mount Everest and having a mini party on Virgin Air Balloon. She is currently learning how to kickbox and dreams of that magical day when she can sleep for two weeks straight, without her thoughts intervening and waking her up in the middle of the night to jot down ideas.

Bl Pawelek grew up in western New York and has lived and hiked throughout the United States, Canada and Far East Asia. Influenced mainly by Edward Abbey and Charles Bukowski, he has had writing and photographs published in dozens of publications throughout the country (Writer's Journal, Silent Voices, Willows Wept Review, Luna Negra). He earned his MA in English (Literature) from Loyola Marymount University, where he won the LMU Graduate Poetry Award for three straight years (1998-2000) and the LMU Graduate Fiction Award (1999). Current writing projects include a non-fiction piece about Eddie Slovik and his website, http://www.blpawelek.com/. He recently completed his first novella, “case 11512” and the prose poem "days on the loniest." He currently lives in Southern California with his wife, son and daughter.

N. God Savage is a writer and philosopher from Belfast in Northern Ireland. He has written fiction for over ten years, but only recently decided to let anyone other than his wife read it. More here:http://www.ngodsavage.blogspot.com

Alex J. Martin lives in Northern England and writes on a laptop made of compacted cigarette ash. You can visit him at: http://alxjmartin.wordpress.com/

Jennifer Bower is a North Carolina based emerging writer who dabbles daily in fitful bouts of paradoxical persiflage while penning under the name of Johnsienoel.  Her works range from the sublime to the silly and always with an undertone attuned to social commentary; she works to capture minute moments in time and nail them like Jell-O to the wall.  A middle-aged youngster to the literary scene her poetry has been published in Flash Fire 500 and in personal moleskine repositories, awaiting reincarnation.  Other random musings and self-less acts of self-promotion can be found on her newly anointed Blog “A Normal Nobody!” at http://johnsienoel.blogspot.com.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn't Get Any Looser After You Punch-Out.  He lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the part where you can still get a draft of beer for $3.00.

Jon Van Horn was born on the ledge of one of New York City's innumerable concrete canyons and, seeing that he had feathers, naturally assumed he could fly. Leaping off resulted not so much in a graceful arc of glory through the clouds and reaching for the sun, as a steep plummeting toward the unforgiving asphalt below. Having just enough time to think, "feathers are fine, but wings would have been helpful", he was snatched scant inches from oblivion and thrown like a dog's chew toy through the far reaches of agitated quiescence to land with a quiet thump in North Carolina. Tufted-eared cat curling languidly about her legs, an emerald-eyed woman emerged from a small yellow house murmuring slyly in a French accent, "It's about time". 

Shannon Barber is a 32 year old author who loves coffee flavored coffee and pie. She can often be seen running feral in her natural habitat somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, cup of coffee in one hand and armed with a scowl.

Brian Long lives in San Francisco, CA, where he works with young adults with special needs.

Raynette Eitel lived in the southwestern part of the United States most of her life, accustomed to the sun always on her face and the sky always to be a deep blue.  As soon as she could spell, she discovered she was a poet.  She lived most of her adult life in the shadow of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs where she was a wife, mother, teacher, but always a poet.  She has been published in literary magazines and newspapers and recently published Harsh
Country, a book of Southwest poems, and Earthen Jar, an eclectic collection.  Both books are published by XLibris.  Raynette is retired and presently lives and writes in Las Vegas, NV and spends much of her time traveling with her husband, Jim.

Roland Goity lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and edits fiction for the online journal LITnIMAGE (www.litnimage.com). His stories appear in dozens of literary publications, including Fiction International, Underground Voices, Bryant Literary Review, Talking River, decomP, Eclectica, and Scrivener Creative Review.

Drew De Gennaro lives in Minneapolis where he enjoys the cold weather. His work has appeared in Word Riot, Boston Literary Magazine, unFold and more.
He is one mean speller.

Glenn Lyvers is winner of Midwest Literary Magazine's Best Poet Award (2009) - and a Wolfson Award winner in short fiction by Indiana  University. His most recent publication is "Glenn Lyvers - Midwest Collection" isbn:978-0-557-13318-5 http://lyvers.com - Glenn requires a hand written note from your great great grandmother prior to being consulted.

Holly Day is a travel writing instructor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two children. Her most recent nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Walking Twin Cities.

Susan Dale writes regularly for print magazines Shadow Poetry and WestWard Quarterly. She won the grand prize in Oneswan for her poem Where Go Our Dreams. She writes too for online publications Jerry Jazz Musician and languageandculture.net. Throughout the winter she will have poems and short stories on various websites and in print.

Kevin Wilson is the author of the story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009).  His fiction has appeared in Tin House, Ploughshares, One Story, and elsewhere.

Barbara McCarthy is a native New Yorker living in the crowded and always complicated borough of Brooklyn. She has worked as a nurse for 25 years, mostly in traditional settings but she also spent six of those years as a nurse and health educator on a ship on the East River serving the homeless families of New York City. Barbara attended Pratt Institute’s writing program for two years. She writes because she cannot sing. Her writing allows her to hit the high notes and the low notes cranked up at full volume without annoying her neighbors.

John Kuligowski currently is swimming in a sea of signs. He fell in six months ago and still hasn't figured out how to get out. If anybody has a rope of sand, please toss it to him immediately. He's willing to loan you Albert Hoffman's filched bicycle.

Laurie X writes real and surreal flash out of a churning mixture of present and former lives and takes only men with the taste of blood on their tongues as lovers.

Felino Soriano is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. He is the editor of the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics, www.counterexamplepoetics.com. He is the author of three chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008), Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2009) and an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic motivation. Website: www.felinosoriano.com

David Kowalczyk lives in the small gypsum mining town of Oakfield, New York, some thirty miles east of Buffalo. His poetry has appeared in seven anthologies and over seventy magazines, including Munyori Literary Journal , Taj Mahal Review, and Istanbul Literary Review. He has taught English in Changwon, South Korea and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He is fond of, in no particular order: most Canadian ales, Thai food, Maggie Mae Ryan, sunrises, and waterfalls.

Joanna Hall is a 24 year old student at an up and coming art school in Manchester, New Hampshire. Art is her entire life and she makes sure to do it everyday. She loves getting her hands dirty in all medias and popping her eardrums with all genres of music. She lives in Lowell, MA and can't wait to move far far away from it.

Wess Mongo Jolley is a poet and poetry promoter living in Vermont.  He produces and hosts the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel podcast (http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com).  His work has appeared in Pank, Off The Coast, and in the Write Bloody Press book The Good Things About America. Audio versions of his poetry have been featured on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, and Cloudy Day Art. He can be found on the internet at http://mongopoet.com, and at mongo@indiefeed.com

Harvey Goldner: When I was a child, my lesbian aunt, Suzanne, would spend a week or so every summer at my family's vacation home on Lake Wenatchee, here in Washington State. This was before the era of motorcycle helmets, and Suzanne would arrive on her blue Bugatti, her red hair streaming, flaming. While tossing back straight shots of my father's precious scotch, she would mesmerize my twin brother Phil and me by reading aloud her favorite poets, chiefly Elizabeth Bishop. Eventually, my brother Phil became an alcoholic & was killed in a motorcycle accident, and I began writing poems.

Harvey's final book of poetry, The Resurrection of Bert Ringold, was published by Cinco Puntos Press in January, 2008. (http://www.cincopuntos.com/products_detail.sstg?id=130)

Otis Black spent 20 years in the Army, ten of which were in Southeast Asia, 6 years in Thailand, 2 in Laos and 2 in Vietnam. When he retired from active military service, he went right back to work for the Army as a civilian which he continues to do today. He will finally retire from the Army in a couple of years giving him 45 years of working for them.

Richard Merrill is a poet. Or not. A cheesaholic to the point of wondering why it wasn't used in Close Encounters. Loves alternative music. That which is made with anything other than a standard instrument. Was caught once attempting to play Young Americans on a set of fireplace tongs. Was voted least likely to use brakes in any instance and was fired for inappropriate use of mittens. Ruling planet is Jupiter, which can't seem to break free from its' moons.

Tammy R. Kitchen is a sometimes writer whose work has been published in GUD Magazine, Juked, Pindeldyboz, and The Summerset Review. She may be contacted at tammyr.k@gmail.com.

Jo Swingler lives in Edinburgh for now but hasn't always. Her work has appeared in Aesthetica, Flashquake, QWF, GoldDust as well as several anthologies.

Phil Lane spends his days working for a private tutoring company, and thus becoming disillusioned about the future of humankind.  However this does afford him the inspiration to write, which he does not necessarily on a daily basis at his home in New Jersey. 

Phil Richardson is retired from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He publishes genre fiction, flash fiction, and literary fiction. His short story, "The Joker is Wild," was nominated for the 2005 Pushcart Prize In Fiction by Storyteller Magazine. His work has appeared in Elf: Eclectic Literary Forum, Fantasy, Folklore and Fairytales, Northwoods Review, The Storyteller, Danse Macabre, Cafe Irreal, Digitalis Obscura, Big Pulp, Word Catalyst, Bending Spoon, Sonar4, Short Story Library, Love After 70 Anthology, Writing On Walls Anthology, Outa Side of LIfe Anthology, and The Love of Monsters Anthology.

Lewis Dalton is a poet from Yorkshire, UK. His work is the result of talking to the homeless, alcoholics and the unfortunates about their life to that point, as well as his hope for new, unique writers to appear. Until recently, all his work was offered to the individuals he wrote about, though now he has begun to keep copies of what he writes. In Sept' 2010 he will begin university in Manchester or Oxford. Find him at: http://thoughtismadeinthefingers.blogspot.com/

Julie Innis has always struggled to best determine right from wrong.  Her stories have recently appeared in Slush Pile Magazine and The Moose and Pussy and are forthcoming in Pindeldyboz.  In May 2009, she was selected by Glimmer Train magazine as a finalist in their Short Story Award Contest. She happily lives and works in Brooklyn, New York though sometimes she dreams of grifting her way around the world.

Lori Bedell has feared rejection for decades—sitting on yellow notepads, computer files, and journals loaded with unfinished treadings. She’s always been one of those people who wants to do so much that a commitment in one direction seemed like a rejection of the other, and so she was paralyzed by the idea of making the wrong choice and did nothing. At 41, this had to stop. Lori has been teaching communication at the college level with an unfinished Ph.D. for 15 years. In addition to writing things that she’s generally afraid to let anyone read, she loves helping people—especially her two daughters—see how they fit in a large, complex, deeply flawed world. She is saddened by hatred and poverty, encouraged by flashes of goodness in the most unlikely of people, and in love with her husband. She hopes that she has the guts to continue to share her work, and thanks the editors for the encouragement here.

Jaimie Eubanks lives in Sycamore, Illinois. She studied Creative Writing and Dance at Knox College, and now works in Marketing and PR. She makes really good coffee.

Chloe Zola is a broken-legged college sophomore torn between an art and a writing major. Her home is in Minnesota where she spends her time playing soccer, hiding from the cold, and contemplating exotic vacations. 

Ian Whatley was a magnificent athlete for the US track team. He invented some magic shoes and sold the patents so he could live on a nut farm in the Carolina Colonies. His kids loved him but used to tell their friends that their father, "makes stuff up all the time." He occasionally talks of himself in the third person and past tense.

Stewart Grant In 1982, Time hailed The Computer as its Man of the Year. Not to be outdone, this same year Stewart Grant was born of two gallivanting socialites. Growing up in the Washington D.C suburbs, Stewart was an academic prodigy through high school who pretended in athletics. He graduated Penn State University and remains in the State College area, composing poetry and bar-crawling with his wife, Penelope Sawyer. His work can be read in Sam’s Dot Publishing Drabbler #14, Shoots and Vines, and MediaVirus.

Sheldon Lee Compton lives in Kentucky.  His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Keyhole, JMWW, Thieves Jargon, PANK, >kill author, Eviscerator Heaven, DOGZPLOT and elsewhere.

Angel Zapata was born in NYC, but currently resides just outside of Augusta, Georgia. His flash fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming on Apollo’s Lyre, Every Day Poets, Gloom Cupboard, Short Story Library, Full of Crow, The Absent Willow Review, and Flashshot. He is husband to his blond goddess and father of four boys obsessed with all things ninja. Visit his blog: http://arageofangel.blogspot.com

Tom Larsen has been a freelance writer for ten years and my work has appeared in Newsday, Puerto del Sol, New Millennium Writers and Antietam Review. His short story “Lids” was included in Best American Mystery Stories - 2004. His first novel FLAWED will be published by Bewrite Books in October.

Jeff Chon writes exclusively for the internet because he's awesome and was most recently published in the Chickasaw Plum. He turned to writing after losing in the prelims of the All Valley Karate Tournament and his so-called "friends" in the Cobra Kai deserted him. He is currently mocking your clever little quirky bio.

Christian Chmielewski is, as far he knows, an unpublished ink glutton hailing out Philadelphia, PA.  He would like to whore out his writing, if there are any takers.

Adam Miller is a graduate of the University of Kansas and is currently writing a collection of essays and short stories. You may have recently had a chance encounter with him in Madrid or Seville, Sardinia or Rome, Hvar or Dubrovnik, or various boroughs in London. Soon he will be in the Bahamas to write, to imbibe, and to search for Sean Connery.

Peggy McCarthy has lived in/hitch-hiked through Italy, England, Belgium and France; had babies in New Jersey, moved back to the Midwest where she (finally) earned an English Degree and won literary prizes. Her incarnations include teacher, librarian, writing consultant, editor.

K.A. Coldwell was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy when he was eighteen months old.  Told that he wouldn’t live past the age of four, he has defied all prognoses and is nearing his second decade of life.  Utilizing a power wheelchair to navigate the halls of academia, K. A. Coldwell writes poetry, short stories, is currently working on his first novel, and aspires to become a music journalist.

Dietrich Kalteis is a writer living in West Vancouver, Canada. His short stories have appeared at The Short Humour Site UK, the Clockwise Cat, Cantaraville, the Cynic, Defenestration, Dew on the Kudzu, and One Cool Word. The screenplay 'Between Jobs', that he co- authored with his wife, Andrea, is a past finalist in the Screenplay Contest, and he is currently completing his first novel.

Carol Lynn Grellas is a two-time Pushcart nominee and the author of two chapbooks: Litany of Finger Prayers, from Pudding House Press and Object of Desire newly released from Finishing Line Press.  She is widely published in magazines and online journals including most recently, The Centrifugal Eye, Oak Bend Review and deComp, with work upcoming in Breadcrumb Scabs, Past Simple  and Best of Boston Literary Magazine. She lives with her husband, five children and a blind dog named Ginger.

Shay Lessman is a senior English major at Florida Southern College. His work has been published in Cantilevers: Journal of the Arts, Freeport Focus and Village Voices. He has participated in both fiction and poetry workshops taught by Daniele Pantano and Erica Bernheim. 

Dave Damianakes lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He does a lot of writing, mostly technical, but is getting back into fiction after a four year dry spell.

Ann Howells is a longtime member of Dallas Poets Community, a 501-(c )-3 literary non-profit. She currently serves on its board and edits its semi-annual poetry journal, Illya's Honey. Her work appears in various small press and university journals, most recently: Avocet, Barbaric Yawp, Third Wednesday and Main Channel Voices. Her chapbook, Black Crow in Flight, is available from Main Street Rag Press.

Steve Prusky is a transplanted native of Detroit who now lives, works and writes in Las Vegas.  Yes, beyond all the neon, some real life occurs in Vegas. Steve attended  Northern Michigan University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee a life time ago.  Before all that Steve was in the Navy during the Vietnam War and before all that he was a snot nose kid with a big mouth and the scars to proove it.

Adele Mendelson is a California poet and fiction writer.  She reads her work at venues around the Bay Area.  At present she is concentrating on experimental fiction, which means she can go to any disorganized imaginative lengths and put a respectable name on her efforts.  Her main concern in writing is not to bore herself or others.  She believes that writing should be sexy, there should be something at stake, and the dark side should be lurking just beneath the cover.

Hal Sirowitz is the former poet laureate of queens, new york. Bukowski was one of his early influences that got him writing.

Father Luke lives in Portland, Oregon, and waits with the woman he loves for a perfect world. He has a website at http://FatherLuke.com

Nora Offen started out in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and attends Bard College as a fledgling creative writing major. Her work has appeared in Lux, To The Bone Literary Journal, The Ampersand Review, and Everyday Fiction. Her writing (generally a sort of abortive poetic prose?) has been described by The Ampersand as “pretty cute, with a fetching way of tossing its hair.” She enjoys constructive criticism, linguistic distinctions, crying outside at night, terrible puns, and conversations about the space between people.

Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. Recently, his online chapbook Dogwalking Poems and his trade paperback, I knew Bukowski like you knew a rare leaf, were published. The latter is now available from Trace Publications and on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online booksellers. He has had recent publications in Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Orange Room Review, Bird’s Eye review, Abbey, Monongahela Review and many others. Recently, he was one of 12 poets invited to LiteraryMary’s anthology, Outstanding Men of the Small Press.

S A Tranter lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and has had stories published in print and online magazines in both the UK and US including: Smokelong Quarterly, GUD, Staple, Cadenza, Buzzwords, Midnight Street and Radgepacket. He's had too many jobs, all of which he hated, but the night shift taxi driver paid the most.

klipschutz's work appears in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and periodicals ranging from zines to Poetry (of Chicago), as well as three full-length collections: Twilight of the Male Ego; The Good Neighbor Policy; and The Erection Of Scaffolding for the RePainting of Heaven by the Lowest Bidder. Of his latest book, Barry Hannah says, “I have not seen such language and hyperconscious life since the work of the great Charles Simic.” A part time scrivener in a law office, klipschutz has been called a satirist, and worse.

Ryan Sharp teaches Language Arts at a charter high school in Clackamas, OR.  In June 2009, he became a graduate student in Pacific University’s Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.  He also recently welcomed his first child into this world. 

Andrew Bowen would tell you where he lives, but that seems to have changed about once a year for the past seven years. So far, his fiction and reviews can be found in Prick of the Spindle. He recently founded Divine Dirt Quarterly, a new journal slatted to debut in late December that deals with the gritty, true to life underbelly of theology.

Deborah Rosenblum prefers to write fiction. She likes that fiction offers the writer places to hide. This is her first published work of non-fiction, unless you count her bridge blog which can be found at Badmonsters.blogspot.com

Gil A. Waters lives in the vicinity of Washington, DC, and likes to write.

Helen Sedgwick is a writer, editor and creative writing tutor living in Glasgow. She writes novels, short stories, flash fiction, prose poetry, book reviews and non-fiction. Helen graduated from the University of Glasgow’s MLitt in Creative Writing in 2008 and is represented by Kevin Pocklington of Jenny Brown Associates. Helen is the review editor of Gutter (www.guttermag.co.uk) and one of the founding editors of Fractured West (www.fracturedwest.com), and has also worked as a research scientist and musician. Find her at www.helensedgwick.com.

KJ wants everyone to get along even if it means using hugs. He keeps a blog here:http://illegalfunk.blogspot.com. It wants followers. Sometimes he appreciates the occasional note: khays45@gmail.com.

Jesse A. Gall is currently a professional student and a new writer (The Legendary has his first publication!). Completing his Bachelor's in Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, he now continues his coursework at Western Kentucky University, where he is pursuing his Master's Degree in Creative Writing. Most of his time is spent worrying about his thesis, writing short stories he shouldn't be writing because he needs to finish his thesis, dabbling in poetry, eating (he loves food), and expanding his knowledge of film (AKA...he watches a lot of movies). 

Rev. Will Elliot is an ordained Baptist minister with an M.Div from the Divinity School at Wake Forest University (2006), but he runs with Buddhists and Quakers and any such who are curious about life. Will has had a poem published in Thieve's Jargon. He loves his wife, his dog, reading, and writing. He works now as a hospital chaplain in central Kentucky (home of bluegrass and bourbon).

Joseph Murphy lives in Pennsylvania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prick of the Spindle, Everyday Genius, and The Northville Review. Letters to the Famous and Dead Composed at Work is an ongoing project that can be found at letterstofamousdead.blogspot.com.

Tyke Johnson is a writer living in Los Angeles, California where the dry Santa Ana winds cease to blow even when he’s told they're not, and no matter his frequency of sweeping the floors, the desert dust follows him to bed. He's currently fighting a cold, which oddly is making his hair follicles sensitive. He's been featured in Opium, Unlikely Stories, Ducts and others.

Tom Sanchez Prunier lives in Richmond, Virginia and entered poetry through the side door of slam. He founded the SlamRichmond poetry venue and was a competitor in the 2007 National Poetry Slam, where he was a quarterfinalist in the National Head-to-Head Haiku competition. Tom supports his local community of poets by leading workshops and hosting events throughout the city. Raised in New Jersey, Tom is still fascinated by the culture of the South – specifically the obsessions with college football, the Civil War and Waffle House. Outside the lines, Tom is a journalist and screenwriter and credits most of his recent success to his writing partner, a retired racing greyhound named Betty who sleeps next to his desk all day long.

Eric Beeny’s work has recently or will soon appear in 3:AM, Abjective, elimae, LITnIMAGE, Matchbook, Pear Noir!, Spilt Milk, Willows Wept Review, and others. His small novel, The Dying Bloom, was published as an e-book by Pangur Ban Party. He’s a contributing editor for Gold Wake Press. His blog is Dead End on Progressive Ave.(http://www.ericbeeny.blogspot.com).

John Kay has been publishing poetry and photography in the small presses for more than forty years. He is a regular poetry contributor to the New York Quarterly, Bellevue Lit Review, Pearl, Chiron Review and other magazines. His photos have been on the covers of Pearl and the Cortland review. He has three chapbooks, and a a full length book, "Phantom of the Apple" is due out this fall from Beginner's Mind press. He lives and works in Heidelberg, Germany, where he has had three photo exhibitions in the past year. He started life on the beach in Malibu. 

Kaye Branch lives in Oregon and Massachusetts.

John Pistelli was born in Pittsburgh, PA, but now lives in Minneapolis, MN, where he is a writer, teacher and Ph.D. candidate.

Catherine Zickgraf is indebted to myspace for helping her find her long-lost son whom she placed for adoption two decades ago—thus you can find her blog there: myspace.com/czickgraf Her poetry has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association and in BirdsEye Review.  She also has work forthcoming in GUD Magazine and decomP.

Margaret Karmazin's credits include stories published in over seventy-five magazines, Rosebud, The Iconoclast, North American Review, Potomac Review, Confrontation, Mobius, Taproot and Aim Magazine. My stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine and Words of Wisdom were nominated for Pushcart awards and Piper’s Ash, Ltd. published a chapbook of my sci-fi stories, Cosmic Women. I helped write the introduction for and have a short story included in Still Going Strong, (Haworth Press) and my novel, Replacing Fiona, was published by eTreasures Publishing. My story in Virginia Adversaria is included in an anthology by the editor, Ten Twisted Tales.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press and 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' has been published in 2009 by Skive Press. Another collection 'Expectations' is being published by Rogue Scholars Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. He currently lives in New York City, where he's busy writing. His poetry and short stories have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. Songs of a Clerk, an unpublished collection of poetry, expresses the frustration of a young man trapped in a menial clerks job, while dreaming of a meaningful life.

Michael Constantine McConnell is a writer, editor, performer, palindromist, and resident of Denton, Texas.

Pete Sipchen is a poet living just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. His poems have appeared in Hidden Oak, The Main Street Rag, and Poem magazine, and are upcoming in The Hurricane Review and Atlanta Review. He's also published numerous short stories, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He's looking forward to Winter.

Shanna Germain loves to write about things that go bump in the night. Not surprisingly, her favorite genres are erotica and horror. She ran on an ambulance and fire crew for four years. You can read more of her award-winning writing in places like Absinthe Literary Review; Best American Erotica; Best Gay Romance; Best Lesbian Erotica; Bitten: Gothic Erotica; Blood Fruit: Queer Horror and many more. Visit her online at www.shannagermain.com.

Bryan Christopher Murray poet, musician, graduate of Bucknell University, student of Virginia Tech’s MFA program, born and raised in the Bronx, New York, has recently published in Floyd County Moonshine, and is forthcoming in The Northville Review, A cappella Zoo, Greatest Uncommon Denominator and Blue Fifth
Review.

Sarah Ahmad lives in Pakistan. She likes to call herself a struggling poet and artist as in her world where life is so fragile,not knowing if you will return alive every time you step out of the house, getting someone to acknowledge your art is a real struggle.

Michael J. Solender lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife Harriet where they obsess over their garden. He hails originally from the sometimes frozen tundra of Minneapolis, MN. There he ignored (only once) his mother’s advice to pursue a career in medicine and became a Corporate Klingon. A recent Corporate Refugee, Solender is a freelance writer whose opinion and satire has been featured in The Richmond Times Dispatch, The Winston-Salem Journal, and Richmond Style Weekly. He writes a weekly Neighborhoods column for The Charlotte Observer and is a contributor to Charlotte ViewPoint. His micro-fiction and poetry has been featured online at Dogzplot, Gloom Cupboard, Full of Crow, A Twist of Noir, Thrillers Killers ‘N’ Chillers, 6 Sentences, Powder Burn Flash, and Flashshot. He blogs here: http://notfromhereareyou.blogspot.com/

Terry Pearce writes fiction in the evenings and educational materials in the daytime. He lives in London. His work has been published in The Legendary, The Foundling Review, Poor Mojo’s Almanac and Grey Sparrow Journal. He is a moderator, regular participant and occasional winner in a weekly flash fiction competition at showmeyourlits.com.

Tracy Lucas is a professional writer and editor near Nashville, Tennessee. She has written for the Westview Newspaper, published a local poetry anthology, composed poems that appeared in print a handful of times, and edited countless books. Her latest project has been trying to convince her one-year-old that sleep is a good thing. She may be reached at tlucas.freelance@gmail.com, usually at four in the morning.

Timothy Raymond grew up in southeastern Wyoming. Currently he studies contemporary American literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he also teaches writing. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Necessary Fiction, The Owen Wister Review, The Battered Suitcase, Word Riot, and LeafGarden.

J. Boyer teaches in the Creative Writing Program of Arizona State University.

Marc Elias Keller received his undergraduate degree in Anthropology and a graduate degree in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.  In addition to his journalistic work in Philadelphia and San Diego, his short fiction has been published in the Bucks County Writer, Spork, The Philadelphia Independent, Enigma, Pindeldyboz, Antipodean SF, and Taikonetic.  He lives in Philadelphia.

Quincey P. Morris might be who you think he's not.

Joseph Goosey is fearful for his future. He has one chapbook available via Poptritus Press and one forthcoming via Shadow Archer Press. He thanks you for reading. 

Denis Joe has lived in many parts of Britain over the years, but is now on Merseyside for the past ten years. He is active in the poetry scene there and is a member of the North Liverpool Writer's Group.  He has been writing poetry for a couple of decades and is self taught.  He would say that his biggest influeneces are 20th Century Americanm poets, particularly Louise Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams and Lorraine Niedecker.

Robert Kaye's stories have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Cicada, Snake Nation Review, Pindeldyboz, The Palo Alto Review, Descant, Bryant Literary Review, Kimera, Artisan and Carve.  The Rose and Thorn nominated him for both the Pushcart and Story South Million Writers prizes in 2006.  He has been on a break from short stories for a couple of years while writing a novel called Taking Candy from the Devil, which is (for the moment) completed and sent out into the wild.

Kevin Brown recently won the Permafrost Literary Journal's Midnight Sun Fiction Contest, the Touchstone Fiction Competition, and placed third in the Cadenza Fiction Contest.  I was nominated for the 2007 Best American Short Stories, and have published in Alligator Juniper, sub-TERRAIN, Rosebud, New Delta Review, Underground Voices, Conclave, Crannog, Mississippi Crow, Vulcan, and NANO Fiction.

Jacqueline Young is a working writer living in Orange County, CA, having just graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelors in Creative Writing.

Allen Kopp is a technical writer and lives in St. Louis. He has been published in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Temenos, and he has upcoming work in Hoi-Polloi, Sunken Lines, The Storyteller, Conceit Magazine, Bartleby-Snopes, Danse Macabre, and The Bracelet Charm.

Mary Ellen Letarte writes poetry and stories in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. She also grows iris and daffodils, but she never learned how to ride a motorcycle.

Anna Donovan is originally from Nicaragua, Central America. Her family suffered many losses during the Sandinista revolution in the late seventies. As a result, they relocated to Costa Rica and later to the US. Though she spent years working in the field of computer technical support, She has always had an affinity and love for words and language. She is currently an MS Office and developmental English instructor at a county community college in Dallas, TX.

Carolyn Kegel's work has recently appeared in Night Train, Emrys Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review and Bartleby Snopes, where she lost the Story-of-the-Month contest by two votes.  She is extremely competitive; at cooking, pinp-pong (she was camp champ!) and especially, contests.  It's becoming a problem, but her husband doesn't mind at all because the meals are improving.

P.A. Levy hides in the heart of Suffolk countryside learning the lost arts of hedge mumbling and clod watching.  He is an original member of the Clueless Collective and has been in many publications.

Errid Farland lives in Southern California and writes at a cluttered table where a candle burns to create an aura of serenity.  Sometimes she accidentally catches things on fire which turns the aura into angry yellows and reds and sort of wrecks the whole serenity thing.  Her stories have appeared in Barrelhouse, Thieves Jargon, Word Riot, storySouth, Pindledyboz, GUD, and other places.  She owns www.ShowMeYourLits.com, a website which sponsors a weekly flash contest.

Teresa Houle lives, writes and fights evil in Victoria BC with her husband and daughter.  Her work can be read online at Flash Fire 500 and Bartleby Snopes.  She drinks more tea than you.  Trust me.

M.E. Purfield is tired.  You can find him at http://mepurfield.livejournal.com

Bill Frank Robinson just an old desert rat living near the California Nevada border. They call me a hermit and I won't deny it. One time a Paiute man tracked me down to tell me some tourists saw me walking in the middle of the desert and wanted to know who I was and where I was going. He told 'em I was only Bill and I wasn't going anywhere. So simple and sooo true. We both had a laugh about that 'un.

Steve Glines is the founder and Editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review. He is the author of a number of text books, a literary travelogue and a poetry chapbook. His works have appeared in WHLReview, Ibbetson Street, and all four Bagel Bard Anthologies. He is the editor-in-chief at ISCS Press, a publisher’s service bureau.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His brand new poetry chapbook with pictures From Which Place the Morning Rises and his new photo version of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa.  The original version of The Lost American:  from Exile to Freedom, can be found at:  http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7.   He has been published in over 22 countries.  Email:  promomanusa@gmail.com.  The author is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his website:  http://poetryman.mysite.com/.  All of his books are now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=michael+lee+johnson. E-mail: promomanusa@gmail.com.

Jill Weinberger is an award-winning but as-yet-unpaid television writer (Austin Film Festival 2006 Drama Teleplay Winner), a semi-profressional and often-beleaguered-by-the-usage-of-others freelance editor and proofreader, and a for-real online journalist whose work for NewTeeVee.com has been syndicated to places like Salon.com and the New York Times online, as well as cited on Wikipedia by some grateful Mormons who liked her review of their webseries.  She would like to earn more of her rent money with creative endeavors that have her name on them.  She would also like to know how to undo this very annoying text-centering formatting issue that imported over when she copy-pasted this short story from Word, but apparently that's not going to happen.  But at least she gets to talk about herself in the third person for an extra line if she keeps bitching about it.

Brandi Wells has a BA in Creative Writing and her fiction appears in or is forthcoming in  Pear Noir, Monkey Bicycle, Decomp, and Vulcan. She has a chapbook forthcoming as part the chapbook collective Fox Force 5, which is being released by Paper Hero Press. She blogs at http://brandiwells.blogspot.com/

Fay Franklin divides her time between Northamptonshire in England and Picardie in France. She is a freelance travel book editor and occasional writer but this is her first 'creative' publication.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks and Love Is a UFO (2009) from Pudding House.

Edmond Caldwell awoke one afternoon from uneasy daydreams to find himself transformed at his desk into a writer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in 3:AM Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Word Riot, DIAGRAM, and Sein und Werden. He was last seen in Boston.

Alan Britt ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in July, 2007 broadcasted a straight read, plus live stream on their Web site of Alan Britt’s poem, "After Spending All Day at the National Museum of Art," as part of their Poets on Painters series.  ABC credited New Letters as original publisher…..The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing free access digital library of 20th & 21st century English poetry magazines with the aim of reaching new audiences and preserving the magazines for the future included Alan Britt’s work published in Fire (UK) in their project. The Poetry Project’s sole patronage by Her Majesty The Queen, Elizabeth II…..PCA/ACA Conference 2007 (Boston) Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2008.

Ryan McBride graduated from the writing program at UC Santa Barbara in 2006, and has published short stories in journals and university magazines including Spectrum, The Dirty Napkin, Eskimopie and The Drill Press. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he is working on a novel and spending too much time at coffee shops. 

Chris Castle lives and works outside London and has written short stories and two books. His main influences are the writer Raymond Carver and the films of PT Anderson.

Nulty Lynch is a husband, father, poet and fly-fisherman.  Not usually all at once, or in that order. He lives in Laurel, Maryland with his wife, two daughters and two dogs.  He's taking up watercolor, because he needs a new "thing" like a hole in the head.  He works in Washington D.C. and found.that the train commute goes much quicker while writing.  He has most recently been published in Shoots and Vines and Modern English Tanka, and will be published in upcoming issues of The Stray Branch, Yellow Mama and The Houston Literary Review.

Brent Powers Brento Lives!

Rodrigo Torres is a full-time student in Florida. When he is not eagerly attending literature classes, he can be found amassing books upon books for his personal library.

Rachel Cann is in love with Ferlinghetti.

Elizabeth Wylder's poetry, fiction, and audio have appeared in various literary journals including 2River View, SLAB, and California Quarterly. She is the editor of Pure Francis (www.purefrancis.org) and an instructor at Triton and Malcolm X Colleges. When she grows up, she wants to play in the NBA.

Tia Prouhet lives in the armpit of Texas where she spends her time sniffing books, slinging coffee, and wiping children's noses-- for money. She has been recently published in Slurve, Flash Fire 500, and mud luscious.

Johnny Fontaine is a writer from Louisville, KY whose short fiction has appeared in decomP, LEO, and Thieves Jargon. You can find him serial blogging at www.hisgraceamazing.blogspot.com and www.fontaine4christ.wordpress.com while he finishes his first novel, Chasing After the Wind.

Roberta Lawson is one of those girls who is probably slightly too otherworldly for her own good. You have probably met a few girls like her before. Possibly you have sworn at them for their lack of road-crossing skills. When she's not playing in traffic, Roberta can be found at http://mermaids-singing.blogspot.com, and more of her writing is scattered about various zines, on the internet and in print. She is contactable at almost.certainly.a.bad.idea@gmail.com

John Zanath has a license to drink and an urge to smoke. He puts a pen to paper and tries to make words work right. In his free time he fights sobriety, plots crimes, and studies perversion.

Paul D. Brazil was born in England and  is on the lam in Poland. He has had stories in A Twist Of Noir, Powder Burn Flash,  Beat To A Pulp, Thrillers Killers n Chillers, The Flash Fiction Offensive,  Shoots & Vines, Six Sentences and Flashshots. His print  published work is in the book  Six Sentences Volume  Two and the Finnish magazine Ässä.(ACE). He can be found stalking ‘you would say that, wouldn’t you?’  http://pauldbrazill.blogspot.com/

Daniel Gallik has mulitple short stories and poems all over the internet, and in college journals. Yes, The Hiram Poetry Review, Parabola, The Hawaii Review and many other publications include his work. His first novel, A Story Of Dumb Fate, an insane story of a child with disabilities can be purchased at local
bookstores and publishamerica.com

Diane Payne teaches creative writing at University of Arkansas-Monticello,where is is also faculty advisor of Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, http://www.foliateoak.uamont.edu.  She is the author of two novels: Burning Tulips and  A New Kind of Music.  She has been published in hundreds of literary magazines, which most recently include:  Fiction International, The Rambler, Tea Party, and Arkansas Literary Forum.   More info can be found at: http://home.earthlink.net/~dianepayne/

Ivan Brkaric About a year ago, Ivan never wrote a single poem or even read any poetry. Now he uses poetry as an outlet and does his best to edit an e-zine called Callused Hands. Callused Hands is located at http://callusedhands.blogspot.com/ and it is a place were ordinary people can share ordinary literature. His poetry has appeared in Why Vandalism?, Blowback Magazine, Gloom Cupboard, Lit Up Magazine and The. 

Mel Bosworthlives and breathes in Western Massachusetts. Read more at his website, http://eddiesocko.blogspot.com.

Marina Richards is a former advertising writer from Boston. Her fiction, poetry and essays have been published or are forthcoming from Blood Lotus, Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine, The Hawaii Pacific Review, Writer's Digest, The Humor Press, Pear Noir!, Up The Staircase, and Six Sentences among others. She lives with her husband and four cats, and is considering getting some goats for her lawn.

Buxton Wells was born in Iowa, raised in Virginia, and is a longtime resident of Memphis, TN. Appearances online with Winning Writers [2004, 2006], Umbrella, and Wandering Army [2007] constitute his publication history to date. He has his expectations.

Tye Doudy is a veteran of the streets, jails, detoxes, gutters, and libraries of Portland Oregon. His stories reflect his experiences as an addict and denizen of the underworld. He is thirty four years old and continues to struggle with the demons that fuel his prolific output of short stories, poetry, photography, multimedia art, and music projects. He can be contacted at wurmstar@gmail.com.

Victoria Clayton Munn is a poet/writer with a very long and ostentatious name - but don't worry, you can call her "Tori". She's been published in such illustrious 'zines as Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), Boston Literary Magazine, Mad Swirl and Right Hand Pointing, among others. Tori lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter and dog. You can find her at http://www.writinggirl.com.

Gavin Broom lives in the Scottish countryside with his wife and his cat. As at time of writing, he doesn't own a house at the beach. Further evidence can be gathered at http://gavinbroom.co.uk.

Adam Moorad's writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Underground Voices, Thieves Jargon, Storyglossia, and Pear Noir. He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. Visit him here: http://adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com/

Matt Finney lives and writes in Millbrook, Alabama. His blog may be found at http://mattfinneypoems.blogspot.com/.

Glanda Widger is a freelance humorist and a granny from the foothills of North Carolina, USA. She writes for fun and poverty. For Glanda, writing about the funny side of life is an addiction. She is a member of Writers with Humor (WWH)--everybody in the group has learned that writing is her way of staving off running barefoot through cow pastures. She has a couple of stotries in recent Anthologies and a few "atta girl" from other contests. It's not the accolades that keep her writing. It's the danged fun of telling bodacious lies.

John Martin is a New Jersey–based writer/photographer/artist, whose work is forthcoming in Flashshot. When the neighbor's dog is quiet, he writes. When it barks, he punches the wall.

Mary J. Breen is a writer and editor living in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. She has published two books about women's health as well as essays, articles and short fiction. She currently teaches memoir writing.

Ben White graduated with a BA in neurobiology from Harvard College and enjoyed his creative writing workshops immensely. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dirty Napkin, Dogzplot, SUB-LIT, and others. He now studies medicine in Texas and thinks out-loud at benwhite.com.

Ryan Dilbert isn’t creepy at all. Whenever possible he is a teacher, writer, rapper and comedian. His work can be seen in FRiGG, Bartleby-Snopes, White Whale Review, and decomP.

Grant Loveys is a writer/columnist living in St. John's, Newfoundland - a little town perched on Canada's eastern edge. His work has recently appeared in Paragon and Foundling Review.

Roxane Gay's writing appears or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, elimae, Storyglossia, mud luscious, Monkeybicycle, Necessary Fiction and others. She is the associate editor of PANK. She can be found online at www.roxanegay.com where she keeps a boring blog.

Cortney McLellan writes from Anchorage, Alaska. Her stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in cream city review, Storyglossia, Monkeybicycle, and Dogzplot. She studied writing at the University of Michigan.

Justin Scott Heifetz is a 22-year-old residing in Boston. He dropped out of his graduate studies in Classical Philology at Columbia to pursue a - well, very - different means of self expression.

Since Tom Doughty started writing, he found instead of having normal conversations he speaks in metaphors and tells rambling stories that eventually come to some sort of obtuse point that might be illustrative, although indirectly, on the topic of conversation. It is an endearing trait.

Kimberly E. Ruth is a recent graduate from SUNY New Paltz where she received a BFA in photography and a BA in journalism. She plans to attend graduate school in the fall, where she will work towards an MFA in fine art. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook, Said the Oyster to the Fly (Pudding House Press) and an e-chapbook, Between Cardboard Mountains (Gold Wake Press), which is available for free at http://goldwakepress.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/cardboard.pdf. You can view samples of her art at http://kimberlyruth.blogspot.com.

Colin Pope’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Underground Voices, The Houston Literary Review, Oak Bend Review, Night Train, and Red Rock Review. In 2008, he won the Rose Fellowship from Texas State University and the Santa Barbara Poetry Conference Scholarship. He is an editor at Front Porch Literary Journal and currently resides in Texas.

Rhonda Parrish loves to write. That is, she loves to write anything but bio blurbs. You can find out more about her at her website
http://www.rhondaparrish.com.

Jennifer VanBuren was born and raised in Northeast PA and has found herself transported to the Austin TX area.  Before baby #3 she had work published on the internet and print, and is excited to get back in the game.

Kristin Fouquet writes from New Orleans, a vibrant real estate market. Easy to Show is a piece of fiction. She doesn’t personally know any realtor-prostitutes, but she doesn’t doubt their existence. You are welcome to mingle with more of Kristin’s work at Le Salon: http://kristin.fouquet.cc

Ajay Vishwanathan works with bugs he cannot see. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the elimae, Times of India, Bartleby Snopes, The Houston Literary Review, The Cynic, Boston Literary Magazine, Breadcrumb Scabs, Cantaraville, Mid-Day, Counterexample Poetics, Bewildering Stories, Khabar, The Afternoon Despatch & Courier, Six Sentences, Static Movement, Short Humour Site, and Little India.

Jeff Lair lives in the Seattle megalopolis where he writes and performs poetry up and down the Puget Sound. Jeff Lair turns out poetry’s pockets for the spare change of consciousness that clinks against the keys of life’s dissonant chords where he discovers the sweeter harmonies hidden. If Jeff Lair could write a bio, he wouldn’t need to write poetry. Self reference in the third person makes Jeff Lair sound like Bob Dole. Jeff Lair finds this disturbing. Better you should just buy his books: TALL GRASS (210 pages 22 illustrations 55 poems 20 bucks--includes postage in the lower 48 U.S.) and BUCKING AND BRAYING AT THE DARK EDGE (166 pages illustrations poems 20 bucks--includes postage in the lower 48 U.S.) contact: JayLair@gmail.com

Jim Hamilton makes money flying airplanes, and is tolerable at that. He is intolerable at almost everything else, however, including writing stories which he insists upon doing despite repeated pleadings from family and friends for him to stop. He is untalented, unpublished, and unbearable, and if you find any of the stories included herein to be interesting or entertaining, please keep it to yourself or there will be no living with him. Why these good and talented people have chosen him to share ranks is an impenetrable mystery, but we must trust in their judgment and respect them for their merciful suffering of this apparent fool.

Dawn Allison lives and writes in North Carolina. She has no adorable adjectives or catchphrases with which to describe herself or her writing. You can browse her list of publication credits at http://huntingthemidnightmuse.wordpress.com/

Jim Coppoc is an award-winning writer, teacher and performer; author of two books and three chapbooks of poetry, a blended-genre lyric memoir, and several plays; editor of Second Run Magazine (www.secondrun.org); Owner/Director of Ames Artspace; and a Lecturer both in the English Department at Iowa State University and in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Chatham University.  Coppoc lives in Ames, Iowa and wherever he happens to be on tour.

Colin James works in Energy Conservation and has had poems rejected recently by "Rat's Ass" and other magazines.

Frank O'Connor. Despite this, or perhaps because of it Frank is. If he wasn't, then that would be different. Frank's work has appeared in Flashquake, Pequin and Monkeybicycle, among other pages.

Jenny Poore is a former archaeologist and coffeeshop owner who currently works for a company that imports/exports antique globes.  Other works can be found at Word Riot, Hobart's and MonkeyBicycle.  She lives and writes and chases her children in Lynchburg Virginia.   

Rosanne Griffeth lives on the verge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and spends her time writing, raising goats and documenting Appalachian culture. She holds an MFA from the University of South Carolina. Her work has been published or accepted by MsLexia, The Potomac, Now and Then, Pank, Night Train, Keyhole Magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, Thieves Jargon and Six Little Things among other places. She is the blogger behind The Smokey Mountain Breakdown.

JD Stockinger has done nothing noteworthy. He lives near Chicago. Contact him at horsethiefemail@gmail.com.

In 1983, Lawrence Gladeview was born to two proud and semi-doting parents.  After two middle schools and losing his faith in catholic high school, he graduated from James Madison University, majoring in English and having spent only one night in jail.  He is a Washington D.C. poet cohabiting with his fiance Rebecca Barkley.  His poems have been featured in Word Catalyst Magazine, Gloom Cupboard Literary Magazine, and The Poet’s Haven Poetry Magazine. He blogs at http://beatnikprose.blogspot.com.

Welshman Alun Williams has had limited and muted success in short story writing although several publications that published his work have sadly departed this mortal coil. (Bonfire, Cambrensis and Write Side up, to name but a few.) Writes under Maxie Slim on Crittersbar and is an esteemed member of Zoetrope and Scrawl the writers asylum where his third alter ego Maxwell Allen resides. Alun is really an uber-schizophrenic with identity issues.

Michelle Reale is an academic librarian working in a university library in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her fiction has been published in Verbsap, elimae,  Dogzplot, Laura Hird, Word Riot, Dogmatika, Robot Melon, The Battered Suitcase Ken*Again, Pequin, Apt, Gloom Cupboard,  Blood Orange Review, JMWW, Underground Voices, Monkeybicycle, Up the Staircase,  and  others.

D. Luke Johnson is a recent graduate of The University of Mississippi who likes his whiskey cold and his women hot.

RC Miller was born 1974 in Parkersburg, WV. He currently lives in New York City. Recent work appears at Thieves Jargon, Flash Fire 500, and The Recusant. He may be found at http://visionblues.blogspot.com/

Tim Jones-Yelvington lives and writes in Chicago. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, Pank, Ampersand Review, elimae, Wigleaf, Monkeybicycle, Mud Luscious and others.

Michael McSweeney is a junior-year English student at the University of Massachusetts. He is fond of photos wherein cats are adorable. A blog concerning him/things relating to him can be found at: http://macsubhine.blogspot.com.

Jordan Prince When I was a kid, my father said to me, "Toys you have to pay for yourself, but books, they are always free." So instead of playing with toys, I read books. I got into science fiction and read every single science textbook they had in the elementary school library, and all through middle and high school I delved into the deeper, harder SF out there. Once in college, I became a Physics major with an intention to become a theoretical physicist. I still read SF, except now I make attempts at writing it, too. I'm currently a third year enrolled in the University of Virginia.

Brad Green hates skunks. This isn't a hatred similar to one high school girl hating that another high school girl's ass is closer to the Platonic form of an ass. No, this hatred isn't like that. For one thing, Brad Green isn't a high school girl, so it'd be hard to really have that sort of hatred. No, his hatred of skunks would be legendary if such hatreds were actually cataloged and revered. If a movie were ever to be made about his hatred of skunks, he thinks Nicolas Cage would portray his hatred rather well. He may occasionally blog about this at http://elevatetheordinary.blogspot.com

Ramon Sender Barayon was literally born within earshot of machine gun fire during the Spanish Revolution. His mother was taken from a jail cell and executed by a fascist firing squad in the middle of the night in retaliation for articles published by his father, a noted Spanish novelist and correspondent for newspapers sympathetic to the cause of the P.O.U.M. - Partido Obrera Unificada Marxista - a Trotskyist organization scorned and vilified by Stalinist units. They were deprived of supplies and arms and hounded during and after the revolution by death squads. Because of this, Sr. Sender sent his children to New York to be raised in a foster home. Ramon moved to San Francisco in the late fifties where he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, sat in on a day of Allen Ginsberg's obscenity trial following City Lights Books' publishing the epic poem "Howl," and made many friends in the hip community, people who pioneered light shows, mass entertainment in the extensive park system of San Francisco. Among them they numbered Lou Gottlieb, a noted composer and arranger who fronted "The Limelighters" of the television show, "Hootenany," where Woody Allen was the house comic, Bill Graham, business manager of "The San Francisco Mime Troupe, who later went on to manage and serve as the impresario of the Fillmore East and West Auditoriums, and Stewart Brand, editor of "The Whole Earth Catalog. Ramon and Gottlieb founded the open land commune, Morningstar Ranch and Stewart Brand and Bill Graham joined he and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in organizing the San Francisco Trips Festival in 1966, an event where plastic trash cans full of electric Koo-Aid, The Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company entertained for a weekend of psychedelic ecstasy. Among many close friends, Ramon counts Lawrence Ferlinghetti, publisher of City Lights Books and proprietor of the store by the same name. He's one groovy dude.

Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son.  He has been published in Aesthetica, Dogzplot, and Raunchland, as well as in numerous others across as many countries.  His novel Tatterdemalion (Cauliay) was recently released in print and is available most places.  A second novel, Amphisbaena, is forthcoming in Summer 2009.  He tries hard. For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit me online: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com

Kaolin Fire is a conglomeration of ideas, side projects, and experiments. Web development is his primary occupation, but he also develops computer games, edits Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine, and occasionally teaches computer science. He has had short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Tuesday Shorts, Escape Velocity, and Alienskin Magazine, among others.

Sarah Silvers is a pathetic old hippie who wishes she still lived in California or at least Vermont.

Dave Wiseman A librarian by training, a cook by necessity, and a itinerant athlete by coincidence. I have met the devil a couple of times and come away from it with no more than a few bad habits and a prescription. I am fond of whiskey, hound dogs, and pork. I have lived in Virginia for 225 years

Larry Goldman bio coming soon.

Richard Fein Bio coming soon.

ME Purfield is a writer from Jersey City, NJ.  He has fiction on the web and in print.

Christian Ward is a poet from across the pond who has been known to do unusual things in his sleep. No more should be said about this.

Barry Basden is coauthor of Crack! and Thump: With a Combat Infantry Officer in World War II, about a hero. He never was a good soldier himself.

Jeff Lacy is a graduate of the University of Nebraska MFA program.  His stories have appeared in Timber Creek Review, Conte, in the April 2009 issue of Wrong Tree Review, and forthcoming in Green Silk Journal.  Additionally, He has been practicing law in Nebraska and Georgia since 1991.  Much of his practice has been in the Atlanta metropolitan area and the coast of Georgia where he has worked as a public defender and most recently as a prosecutor for a short time.

George Keenen lives on a ranch in northern California, where he grows the world's hottest Thai chilies.

Nicole Kuwik is freezing.  She wears vanilla extract on her wrists and recently sold her kitchen table.

Jon Thrower lives in St. Louis, MO and teaches English at various St. Louis area colleges. He received an MA from SoutheastMissouriStateUniversity. He was a founding member of the Prescription Strength Poetry collective. While not copy-editing translations of French Philosophy, recording punk music, cooking with a wok, traveling back and forth to San Francisco, and listening to his girlfriend espouse the beauty of Brownian Motion, he drinks gin and considers sleep only an afterthought. He is an author of, Balancing on a Bootheel, from Southeast Missouri State University Press. Other work has appeared in Big Muddy, Knock, Story South, Blaze Vox, and other fine publications and websites. 

Misti Rainwater-Lites Misti Rainwater-Lites hopes you will Google her and buy her books. She has the perfect tattoo in mind for her upper left arm. It's a pop art pineapple, which will probably cost approximately $175.

Jarrid Deaton lives and writes in eastern Kentucky.  He received his MFA in Writing from Spalding University.  His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Zygote in my Coffee, Pear Noir!, Six Sentences, The Cut-Thru Review, and elsewhere.

Ward Abel Poet, composer of music (Max Able / Abel, Rawls & Hayes), lawyer and spoken-word performer (Scapeweavel), L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been published at The Reader (UK), Versal, The Pedestal, Texas Poetry Journal, Kritya, OpenWide, and many others.  He is the author of  Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006) and the newly released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).

Michael Wildman, according to rumor, grew up candling eggs in a Trappist monastery, but the truth is more like he gave up his career as a serial killer to go candle eggs in a Trappist monastery. In between, he worked for years as a magazine journalist, gave that up to do social work for a while, and now he's experimenting with fiction. Efforts are currently underway to prevent him experimenting with anything else that might be considered dangerous.

Ben Nardolilli I am a twenty three year old writer currently living in New York City. My work has appeared in Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, and Lachryma: Modern Songs of Lament, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, Elimae, Poems Niederngasse, The Delmarva Review, Underground Voices Magazine, Heroin Love Songs, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, Literary Fever, and Perspectives Magazine. In addition I was the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU and maintain a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

Karen Beatty I think of life as a river, coming and going, surging and flowing.  Born in Eastern Kentucky near the temperamental Lickin’ River and reared in Bound Brook, New Jersey on the banks of the Raritan River, I served as a  Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1960s, immersing myself in the cultures along the mighty Mekong River,  bordering Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. I finally settled in Greenwich Village, between the Hudson River and the East River, on the isle of Manhattan. I like my music gritty and soulful (Melissa Etheridge, Neil Young) and there is always a song in my head, whether I’m delivering medical supplies to Cuba or trekking the mountain jungles of Laos to converse with Buddhist monks in training. 

Robert Aquino Dollesin was still a kid when he left the Philippines. He now lives in Sacramento, where he sometimes finds time to jot a few words on paper. He sometimes blogs here: http://robertaquinodollesin.blogspot.com

Sandy Hiss likes to spend her free time drinking fancy coffee, eating chips, and watching shows about the paranormal....all at the same time. 

Jon Olseth teaches English and Creative Writing at Riverland Community College in Southern Minnesota, and (as long as I'm speaking of myself in third person) he is pleased to be the recent winner of The Blue Earth Review's Flash Fiction Contest.

William Doreski survived the Great new Hampshire Ice Storm of 2008 but may never be comfortable around trees again. He has also become photophobic and lives in perpetuate darkness, misspelling his nouns and getting his verbs into impossible tenses. Whenever his poems appear in the light they are applauded as implausible forgeries.

Joseph Carfagno was born in Brooklyn but lives in Connecticut.

David Erlewine can be read in The Pedestal, Keyhole, Hobart, Word Riot, Rumble, Elimae, Titular, and a number of other journals.  He edits fiction for Dogzplot. 

Ernest Williamson III is a 32 year old polymath who has published poetry and visual art in 200 online and print journals. He is a self-taught pianist and painter. He poetry has been nominated twice for the Best of the Net Anthology He holds the B.A. and the M.A. in English/Creative Writing/Literature from the University of Memphis. Ernest is an Adjunct Professor at New Jersey City University and an English Professor at Essex County College. Professor Williamson is also a Ph.D. Candidate at Seton Hall University in the field of Higher Education, and a member of The International High IQ Society based in New York City. Professor Williamson is also a chess expert with an internet rating in the 2000-2200 range. Currently he is rated 2010. View Professor Williamson's listing in Poets & Writers Directory. http://www.pw.org/content/ernest_williamson_iii

Ty Bluesmith blogs at http://igaveitacourtesyflush.blogspot.com.

Matt S. DeBenedictis lives in Atlanta, GA., and hates his neighbors. All of them. Even their round babies. Matt comes up with I Love Lucy like schemes to get them evicted. Matt is the author of the chapbook A Perfect Disgrace (174 Publishing) and has fiction featured in Lamination Colony, The Ampersand Review, and Shine.

J.A. Tyler is the author of the forthcoming novellas SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press) and IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press) as well as the chapbooks THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (Trainwreck Press) and EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH (Achilles Chapbook Series). He is also founding editor of mud luscious / ml press. Visit: http://www.aboutjatyler.com.

Robb Todd knows that a grizzly bear would whip a gorilla in a fight. Easily. No doubt about it. His typing has been or will be published in 3:AM, flashquake, Laura Hird Showcase, The Beat, Two With Water, Six Sentences, and Very Bad Poetry. Visit his Web site, http://www.robbtodd.com.

Nicolette Westfall currently passes the time photographing garbage and tracks left in the snow.  Most recently, she has published greasy poetry in Binnacle.

Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Grand Prairie, Texas. Google him.

Ken Weene is a New Englander by birth and both a psychologist and minister by training, He has worked as an educator and psychotherapist. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications - most recently being featured in Sol, and an anthology of his writings, Songs for my Father, was published by Inkwell Productions. Now in semi-retirement, Ken and his wife live in Arizona. There Ken has been able to indulge his passion for writing. He has served as treasurer of The Arizona State Poetry Society and has studied with Ron Rash at The Wildacres Writing Workshop. He is a featured poet in the Autumn 2008 edition of Sol Magazine.

Ethel Rohan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. She 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; Word Riot; Identity Theory; mud luscious; and Prick Of The Spindle. She is a brazen chocoholic. Her blog is http://www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.

Robert Jadah is a greying voice actor who works in Silver Surfer jammies from a home studio well within drunk driving distance of Montreal. He has stumbled back to the world of fiction after raising two batches of kids. He completed his 80,000-word novel two months ago, and is now busy not reading, editing, or peddling it. He can be heard but not read at http://www.robertjadah.com/.

Jared Ward has had work accepted at Word Riot, Storyglossia, Underground Voices, HOBART, Barrelhouse... others.

Kylie Martin is a Sophomore college student.

Nathan Tyree is a scruffy looking primate living in the absurd corner of Kansas. He can't play the Oboe, and sometimes his arms bend back. It is his deepest desire to be reincarnated as a zombie version of Charles Bukowski. His fiction and poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Dogzplot; Dogmatika; Diddledog (what is up with the dog names, huh?); Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k); Word Riot; decomP; The Beat; Flesh and Blood; Bare Bone; Heroin Love Songs; Gutter Eloquence and about 100 other wonderful places. Sometimes he reviews books for BookMunch (www.bookmunch.co.uk). He keeps a lifetime supply of single malt Scotch and a big box of crayons handy at all times. Find him at http://nathantyree.wordpress.com/

D.C. Porder is pursuing his BA in creative writing at The New School. He has no plans for the future. Read more at http://www.dcporder.blogspot.com

K. Lynne Murphy lives and writes among the mountains of West Virginia, where she makes short stories, attempts to make novels, and is working through the kindergarten phase of learning to share her writing with other people. She helps with animal rescue and occasionally rescues stray humans. She doesn’t care for coffee, Thanksgiving turkey and dressing, or syrup on her pancakes, but still believes in the American dream and hopes it believes in her right back.

Kenneth Clark has lived in southeast Asia and most of the southeastern United States. He writes poetry and microfiction. His poetry has appeard in Night Train, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), abd GUD Magazine.

Tom Sanders grew up in the Mississippi Delta down Highway 61 to become a rolling stone and a journalist. His work as a television producer and reporter allowed him the opportunity to travel a considerable amount of the planet and live in such diverse places as Miami, Guam, London, New York and Tokyo. He made his pilgrimage to Graceland, toured Imelda Marcos’ closet and Lenin’s tomb, and drank rum with the deceased Hemingway while watching the sunrise over the writer’s grave in Idaho. He reacted to his crisis by dropping out and buying a historic and dilapidated old hotel on a remote Florida barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. The experience provided him with plenty of colourful characters and background for his writing endeavours. He lives now on the South Coast of England where he is houseboy for his Yorkshire wife when he is not hanging out with his friend The Real Kramer in Manhattan. He spends his days with his faithful basset hound Barnaby, cruising the back roads of the Sussex Downs in his Austin Healey, seeking inspiration, and trying to write something worthwhile before he gets sucked into the cosmic hereafter. Ceck out his website PARADISE UNLIMITED at http://www.tksanders.com/

Anonymous is showing, not telling.

Crystal Folz lives in rural Indiana with her husband and two children. Her work can be found on Lit Up Magazine, Outsider Writers Collective, and SixSentences. Upcoming publications include Dogzplot, Yellow Mama Issue #14, andGlossolalia. She is the editor of Shoots and Vines. When she's not mothering her children, Crystal works as a bookkeeper for a small Carnegie library and plots secret takedowns of chain stores and mainstream publishing companies that have turned away from the spirit of literature.

Maxwell Allen is a rather prolific writer who lives and works somewhere across the pond.