Andrew Barron lives and teaches in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Earth Science” is his first published poem.

Scott Bloom lives in Plymouth with his wife Kari. He is a graduate of the United States Defense Information School and manages Domestic Ground Operations for FedEx. Scott was a winner in the Fiction category in the Loft’s 2008-2009 Mentorship Series. His work has appeared in The Panhandler as well as Minnetonka Review.

Karina Borowicz holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she received the Richard J. Shea Award for Poetry. Her work has recently appeared in American Commentary & Letters, Cream City Review, and The Southern Review. She is a former intern poetry editor at The Paris Review.

Brad Buchanan is Associate Professor of English at CSU Sacramento, where he teaches Creative Writing and British Literature. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals, among them Canadian Literature, The Journal of Modern Literature, Fulcrum, and Twentieth-Century Literature. His latest book, Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter is available from Roan Press (www.roanpress.com).

Kevin Clark lives and writes in Iowa.

Philip Dacey’s most recent and tenth book is Vertebrae Rosaries: 50 Sonnets (Red Dragonfly Press). His poems appear in three new anthologies: Eating the Pure Light: Homage to Thomas McGrath (Backwaters, 2009), Don’t Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review (U. of Arkansas, 2009), and County Lines: 87 Minnesota Counties, 130 Minnesota Poets (Loonfeather, 2008).

K. E. Duffin’s book of poems, King Vulture, was published by The University of Arkansas Press in 2005. Her work has appeared in Agni, Bellingham Review, Cadillac Cicatrix, Chelsea, The Cincinnati Review, CutThroat, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Hunger Mountain, MARGIE, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poem, Poet Lore, Poetry, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Raritan, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Southwest Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Sun, Verse, and many other journals. Her poems have also been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily.

Christy Ferrato is a poet, performer, and visual artist living in Durango, Colorado. She holds degrees from the University of Denver, the University of Oregon, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her multi-media poem, Ghost Image Series #1, appeared in the Patriotism exhibition at the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art. She is the recipient of a third place award from Fort Lewis College’s Center For Southwest Studies for her poetry submission, “Desert Rock Triptych.” She travels widely giving readings and performances for a range of audiences.

Foust is a writer and artist who lives in Richmond, VA with her lovely husband Melvyn and three spoiled dogs. She recently received her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University in Louisville, KY.

Michael V. Hayes is an artist and writer living in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received a B.A. in English Literature from Loyola University Chicago in 2003 and an M.F.A. from Spalding University in 2006. “Let Fall the Soft Fruits” is his first published story.

Christopher J. Helvey is a graduate of the Spalding University MFA in Writing program. His fiction and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Kentucky Monthly, Idiolect, Kudzu, Nougat, The Chaffin Journal, Ace Weekly, Kentucky Blue, Modern Mountain Magazine, and Best New Writing, 2007. His novel, Purple Adobe, is available from AuthorHouse or fine bookstores everywhere. He lives and writes in Frankfort, Kentucky.

The granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway, Vanessa Hemingway lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and daughter. Another of her short stories is forthcoming in the literary magazine, Zone 3.

Bruce Henricksen: After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Bruce earned his Ph.D. in literature from the University of Southern California. Subsequently, he taught at Loyola University New Orleans, chairing the English Department and editing New Orleans Review. His academic books include a study of novelist Joseph Conrad, Nomadic Voices: Conrad and the Subject of Narrative (U of Illinois Press). Bruce’s short stories have appeared in many magazines and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His story collection, Ticket to a Lonely Town, received second-place honors in the national competition for the Grace Paley Prize in 2005 and was published the following year. His first novel, After the Floods, was published in 2008. Bruce is also the editor of From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright. His books are available at Barnes & Noble sites everywhere, from selected independents, and from the online sellers. Bruce offers workshops in fiction. You can contact him at info@losthillsbooks.com.

Aubrey Hirsch holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in journals like Annalemma, Kaleidoscope, Quality Fiction and The Writer’s Eye. She currently teaches creative writing at Chatham University and at Pittsburgh’s High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.

Margaret B. Ingraham was born in Atlanta, GA, and has lived in the South throughout her life. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Award, the 2006 Sam Ragan Prize, and several poetry Fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in nearly 50 national journals and Ted Kooser selected for work for inclusion in the anthology The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry. Her chapbook Proper Words for Birds is forthcoming (January 2009) from Finishing Line Press as part of its New Women’s Voices series. She received her B.A. from Vanderbilt University, M.A. in English from Georgia State University and pursued doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Presently she lives and works in Alexandria, VA.

Erin Keane is the author of The Gravity Soundtrack (WordFarm, 2007). Her work has appeared in many magazines, including Nimrod, Phoebe, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sou’wester, and Poems & Plays. A graduate of the Spalding University MFA in Writing program and a recipient of the Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, she teaches at Bellarmine University and directs the InKY Reading Series in Louisville, Kentucky.

Tim Keppel’s fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Carolina Quarterly, Prism International, and elsewhere. The Spanish translation of his story collection Earthquake Watch was recently published by by Alfaguara. Keppel lives in Cali, Colombia where he teaches literature at the Universidad del Valle.

Joanne Lowery’s poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Birmingham Poetry Review, Eclipse, Smartish Pace, Cimarron Review, Atlanta Review, and Poetry East. Her most recent collection is Jack: A Beanstalk Life from Snark Publishing. She lives in Michigan.

Born in Mobile, Alabama, Charlotte McCaffrey moved to California after two decades in the Midwest. She is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Confrontation, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Madison Review, Phoebe, Poetry International, Porcupine Magazine, Sojourner, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and many others. Currently, she teaches a special education class in the San Francisco Bay area.

Stephen Massimilla’s books and poems won the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Bordighera Prize, the Grolier Poetry Prize, a Van Renssalaer Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize and a Pushcart nomination. Massimilla has new work in AGNI Review, Barrow Street, Borderlands, Chelsea, The Colorado Review, The Cream City Review, Folio, Natural Bridge, Paperstreetonline.org, Quarterly West, Verse Daily and other journals. He received an MFA and a PhD from Columbia University, where he teaches classics and modernist literature.

Kathleen M. McCann teaches poetry and American literature at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts. Her poems have been published in Poetry East, The Big Muddy, and The South Carolina Review. Her full-length collection, A Roof Gone to Sky, will be out next year with Carpenter Gothic.

Rick McKenzie lives with his wife Barbara Bartz in Florida, where they enjoy being outdoors as much as possible. Rick’s work has appeared in several small journals, and he is especially proud of readings he has given for the Florida Center for the Book, and on radio for stations WDET in Detroit and CJAM in Ontario. Although much of his work is inspired by the natural world, “Hedge 3.0” springs from a sporadic but life-long interest in science fiction.

Gary McLouth has published short stories in many literary magazines including The Red Rock Review, The Cimarron Review, ELM, Studio One and Limestone. His poems have appeared in Adirondack Life, Blueline, Emerson of Harvard, The International Poetry Review, Buckle &, and others. Natural Causes and other stories published by West Main Productions in 2008, is Gary’s second collection of short fiction. The paperback is available on Amazon.com and can be ordered via The Troy Bookmakers or from your favorite book store. Gary earned a Doctor of Arts in English at SUNY Albany where he won the President’s Distinguished Dissertation Award for Death and Other Frustrations. Gary is an Associate Professor of Communications at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY.

Dennis Must is the author of two short story collections: Oh, Don’t Ask Why, Red Hen Press, Los Angeles, CA (2007), and Banjo Grease, Creative Arts Book Company, Berkeley, CA (2000). His plays have been performed Off Off Broadway and his fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary reviews. He resides with his wife in Salem, Massachusetts.

Alice Pero is a poet, poetry teacher and musician living in Los Angeles. Her book, Thawed Stars was hailed by Kenneth Koch as having clarity and surprises. She has been published in 13th Moon, Poet Lore, North Dakota Quarterly & many others. She runs Moonday, the celebrated reading series in Pacific Palisades, CA.

Daniel Polikoff has published two collections of poetry, Dragon Ship (2007) and The Hands of Stars (2008). His poems and translations have appeared in over fifty journals including Gulf Coast, The Literary Review, and Nimrod. He is currently finishing a book on Rilke titled In the Image of Orpheus: Rilke—A Soul History.

Rhonda C. Poynter freelance strings for The Oakland Tribune and several other papers and magazines. Her work has appeared in Frontiers, Wascana Review, Slant, Diner, New Delta Review, Santa Barbara Review, and others.

Joseph Radke’s poems have appeared in several journals including Boulevard, Versal, Poetry East, The Journal, and Natural Bridge. He teaches writing and works on the Cream City Review in Milwaukee.

William Rushton teaches literature in and serves as Associate Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His poems have appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, Notre Dame Review, The Paris Review, and other journals. He lives in Birmingham with his wife, Lia, and their two children, Tullia and William.

Lisa Siedlarz of New Haven, CT is a WCSU MFA candidate. Awarded the 2006 John Holmes prize, and the 2007 Leo Connellan prize, her publications include: The MacGuffin, Calyx, Connecticut Review, Louisiana Literature, Main Street Rag, Rattle, South Carolina Review, New Millennium Writings, War, Literature & the Arts, Minnetonka Review, Big Bridge, Alimentum, Poetry Southeast, Paddlefish, Kritya, CADUCEUS, Bent Pin Quarterly, and The Anthology of New England Writers 2008. She is Editor for Connecticut River Review, the national poetry journal supported by the CT Poetry Society, and Managing Editor for Connecticut Review. Her chapbook I Dream My Brother Plays Baseball is forthcoming from Clemson University Press.

Mary Lou Andrews Simms has been a freelance writer who has written primarily about Canada geese. She is currently working under a national reporting grant and looking into a controversy involving migrating geese at Silver Lake, MN. She has had stories published by Cat Fancy Magazine and McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Her last published story, in the Feb. 15th issue of The Birmingham News in Alabama, was about the death of King, a beloved swan goose who hung out with all the Canada geese near the lake in central Alabama where she lives. She has been studying an extended family of resident Canada geese for five years and is also setting up a website, “The Daily Honker,” which will chronicle the daily adventures of the geese at Tucker Lake. She is also working on a book, Almost Human...The Hidden Lives of Geese.

Susannah W. Simpson’s work has been published or is forthcoming in: 13th Moon, Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics, The Wisconsin Review, Carquinez Poetry Review, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Nimrod International, Poet Lore, Salamander, The South Carolina Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, Xavier Review and others.

Fred Skolnik is the editor in chief of the 22-volume second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, winner of the 2007 Dartmouth Medal. He was born in New York and has lived in Israel since 1963, working mostly as an editor and translator. Now writing full time he has placed 20 stories in the past year (in TriQuarterly, The MacGuffin, Prism Review, Underground Voices, Lunch Hour Stories, 34th Parallel, etc.) and has completed a long novel about Israel called The Other Shore.

Kit Williamson is an actor and writer living in Queens. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southeast Review, The Blue Earth Review, The California Quarterly, The Mochila Review, The Tipton Poetry Journal and Main Street Rag among other publications.