Michelle Austin is a Ph.D. student at De Montfort University and currently in the final stages of completing her thesis on socialist-feminist interpretations of Iris Murdoch’s fiction. She also has an M.A. in Contemporary Women’s Writing and broad interests in that field.

Tom Averill is an O. Henry Award winning story writer and a novelist with his third novel, rode, just out from University of New Mexico Press, which also just brought out a reprint edition of his Secrets of the Tsil Cafe (Penguin/Putnam, 2001). His novel, rode, was named Outstanding Western Novel of 2011 as part of the Western Heritage Awards, administered by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and was a Spur Finalist at the Western Writers Association convention. Most recently, he has been working on a series of short pieces he calls “Garden Plots,” all of them about gardens, plants, gardeners, landscape, design, and the human relationship with nature.

Daniel Beaudoin is an adviser to various military and international aid organizations, specializing in humanitarian aid facilitation in conflict zones. He is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, where he also teaches a course on humanitarian diplomacy.

Paul Beckman is a real estate salesman and writer of short fiction. Sometimes his fiction inadvertently shows up in his real estate ads and vice versa.

Mark Jay Brewin, Jr. is a graduate of the MFA program of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Humanities Review, The Hollins Critic, Copper Nickel, Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. His first book manuscript Scrap Iron won the 2012 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize at the University of Utah Press and will be available in the 2013 Spring catalog. Mark is currently the Poetry Editor for the online publication Saxifrage Press. You can read more of his work at his website: www.MarkJayBrewinJr.com.

Yu-Han (Eugenia) Chao was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. She received her BA from National Taiwan University and MFA in fiction from Penn State. The Backwaters Press published her poetry collection, We Grow Old: Fifty-Three Chinese Love Poems, in 2008, and her chapbooks, My Body Is Not a Textbook But You Are My Mango (Dancing Girl Press) and The Alphabet Between Legs (March Street Press), are forthcoming. For more writing and artwork, visit www.yuhanchao.com.

Christopher K. Coffman is a Lecturer in Humanities at Boston University, where he teaches courses in the history of Western ethics. His research is concerned primarily with contemporary American fiction and poetry, although he has also published in the areas of French, Irish, and British Modernism, comparative literature, cinema studies, and rhetoric.

Stephanie deLusé’s writing explores the tensions of influences that exist in and around us. She has work forthcoming or in literary journals such as The Griffin, The MacGuffin, Wild Violet Magazine, The Legendary, Emrys, and TRIVIA: Voices in Feminism, and in academic journals including Family Court Review, Issues in Integrative Studies, and Family Process. On the popular side, she has essays in books like: The Psychology of Survivor, The Psychology of Joss Whedon, and The  Psychology of Superheroes. Her book, Arizona State University, came out last year (Arcadia, 2012). By day, she professes in Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. Her teaching has won her awards, including “Last Lecture,” and her writing has earned a Pushcart nomination. See  www.StephaniedeLuseWrites.com for more information.

Amanda Jo Diana currently resides in Chicago, Illinois, where she is continuing her education with a Masters of Writing and Publishing at DePaul University while also working full-time. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she completed her undergraduate degree at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Her previous publications include a short story, “The Woman Who Listened,” published in Weave.

C.W. Emerson earned a B.A. in psychology from Antioch University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Fielding Graduate University. He works as a licensed clinical psychologist in California and has been actively writing poetry for the last twenty years. His personal and clinical interests are subsumed into many of his poems and include notions of time, space, and embodiment, as well as the existential concerns of love, death, will, meaning, and freedom. He has studied with Laurel Ann Bogen, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Forge, G.W. Review, The MacGuffin, and Poetry East.

Donna L. Emerson is a college instructor, licensed clinical social worker, photographer, and writer of poetry and prose. Her publications include Alembic, CQ (California Quarterly), Eclipse, Fourth River, Fox Cry Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Ohio Review, Paterson Literary Review, Praxis: Gender and Cultural Critiques (formerly Phoebe), Sanskrit, The Schuykill Valley Journal, Soundings East, So To Speak, and The South Carolina Review. Her work has received numerous prizes and awards including the Labyrinth Society (2005), California State Poetry Society (2008), Tiny Lights (flash prizes, 2007, 2010), Naugatuck River Review (2010), and the Redwood Writers (2010). Her second chapbook, Body Rhymes, which was nominated for a California Book Award, and third chapbook, Wild Mercy, were published by Finishing Line Press in June 2009 and September 2011. Her work can also be seen in anthologies such as Keeping Time: 150 Years of Journal Writing (Passager Press), A Bird in the Hand: Risk and Flight (Outrider Press), Chopin with Cherries, A Tribute in Verse (Moonrise Press), and The Place that Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers).

Becky Finken is a freelance writer specializing in health topics and pop culture. She received her MA in English Literature from North Carolina State University and currently teaches English at Campbell University. She resides near Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband.

Heather Frese received her Master's degree in English from Ohio University and her MFA in fiction from West Virginia University. Her work is forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction and The New York Quarterly, and has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review, Front Porch, and The Southeast Review, among others. Her essay, "Fatigue," earned notable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology 2011 and Best American Essays 2010. She currently lives on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, with her husband and her Yorkshire Terrier.

Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Jane, lived in Greece, Brazil, Belgium and Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their little Shih Tzu, Sophia. Joe's stories appeared in Alliterati Magazine, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Bartleby Snopes, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Black Heart Magazine, Blue Lake Review, Bluestem Magazine, Bong is Bard, Crack the Spine, Epiphany Magazine, Forge, HIP Literary Magazine, Infective Ink, Johnny America, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Milk Sugar, The Newer York. Orion Headless, The Penmen Review, River Lit Magazine, River Poets Journal, The Rose & Thorn Journal, Serving House Journal, The Shine Journal, The Stone Hobo, The Subterranean Quarterly, The Summerset Review, The Waterhouse Review, Writers Abroad, and The Zodiac Review.

Sue Granzella has loved writing since she was six. Impressively, after this early realization of her passion for the written word, she waited a mere forty-five years to start taking writing classes. Her essays have won awards from the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and from MemoirsInk. Sue teaches third grade in a public school in the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves baseball, road trips, dogs, stand-up comedy, quilting, hiking, and reading the writing of 8 and 9-year-olds.

Ken Haas was born in New York City and went to college, law school, and business school at Harvard University and received an MA in English literature at the University of Sussex, U.K., where he wrote his thesis on Wallace Stevens and the “poetry of place.” He now lives in San Francisco where he is a partner in a healthcare venture capital firm. An avid skier, bike rider, yoga practitioner, and volunteer, Ken created (and continues to sponsor) a weekly poetry writing program at UCSF Children's Hospital, which employs two poet-teachers from California Poets in the Schools. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Caesura, CHEST Journal, Hawai'I Pacific Review, Natural Bridge, Squaw Valley Review, and Tattoo Highway. His poetry has been anthologized in The Place That Inhabits Us (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010) and the Marin Poetry Center Anthology (2012). He has participated in the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, where he studied with Bob Hass, Brenda Hillman, Dean Young, Lucille Clifton, and C.D. Wright, as well as numerous other workshops led by Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux, Joe Millar, Ellen Bass, and Richard Jones.

Kelsie Hahn holds an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrelhouse, 1/25, NANO Fiction, SpringGun, matchbook, and others. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Stephen Cleboski.

Alison Hicks’s books include Kiss, a collection of poems, Falling Dreams, a chapbook, Love: A Story of Images, a novella, and Prompted, an anthology. She received the 2011 Philadelphia City Paper Poetry Prize, and has twice received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her work has appeared in Blood Lotus, Eclipse, Fifth Wednesday, Gargoyle, The Hollins Critic, Pearl, Permafrost, Quiddity, and Whiskey Island, among other journals. She leads community-based writing workshops under the name Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio (www.philawordshop.com).

Paul Hostovsky is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Hurt Into Beauty (2012, FutureCycle Press). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize and been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and Best of the Net 2008 and 2009. To read more of his work, visit him at www.paulhostovsky.com.

Jenny Husk writes poetry; her goal is to write more poetry. Mostly her days are busy with mess-time clean-ups, endless loads of diapers, and as many knits and purls as she can fit into the spaces between. When she isn’t exhausted from too many rounds of “Ring Around the Rosie,” she jots down words, single words, strings of letters, and a few punctuations marks; for now, she will call this poetry.

Dustin Hyman has recently returned to California after teaching in Santiago, Chile. His master's degree in English (emphasis in creative writing) is supplemented with gritty life experiences. Dozens of horrible jobs have infiltrated his writing. Serving time in jail has left an impression on him. His work has appeared in literary journals, newspapers and magazines. His work has been overlooked by countless reputable publishers. Mr. Hyman is currently working on a novel while earning abysmal paychecks as a freelance writer.

Mark Allen Jenkins is a Ph.D. student in Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas where he serves as Assistant Editor for Reunion: The Dallas Review. His poetry has appeared in Memorious, Minnesota Review, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere.

Gwendolyn Jensen’s work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Chatauqua, The Comstock Review, Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Malahat Review, Measure, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Mid-American Poetry Review, passager, Phoebe, and Salamander. After spending many years in academia, she retired from the presidency of Wilson College in 2001. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and serves as a board member of the journal Salamander and Off the Grid Press, a press for poets over sixty. Birthright, her first book, was published by Birch Brook Press in a letterpress edition (with a second printing in 2012).

Lenny Levine graduated from Brooklyn College in 1962 with a BA in Speech and Theater and then had a long career as a studio singer and composer of jingles, including McDonald’s, Lipton Tea, and Jeep. He composed songs and sang backup for Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, Peggy Lee, Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, the Pointer Sisters, Carly Simon, and others. His work has appeared in Amarillo Bay, Cairn, The Dirty Goat, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eleven Eleven, The Griffin, The Jabberwock Review, RiverSedge, Verdad, Westview, and Wild Violet. He received a 2011 Pushcart Prize nomination for short fiction.

Heather J. Macpherson writes from New England. Her work has appeared in Wicked Alice, Nerve Cowboy, Blueline, Two Hawks Quarterly, CLARE Literary, OVS, Spillway, Pearl and other fine journals. She is thrilled to have her story appear in Rougarou.

Courtney McDermott has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and she currently teaches at Tufts University. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Berkeley Fiction Review, Daily Palette, Found Press, Italy from a Backpack, A Little Village Magazine, The Lyon Review, Raving Dove, Sliver of Stone, and Third Wednesday. Her first collection of short stories will be published by Whitepoint Press in late 2013.

Tim McLafferty lives in NYC and is a professional drummer. He has played on Broadway in Urinetown, Grey Gardens, and many other interesting places. His website is: www.timmclafferty.com.

Mary McMyne’s poetry is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly and the Los Angeles Review and has recently appeared in a number of other journals, including Pedestal Magazine, Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism, and New Delta Review. She won the Faulkner Prize for a Novel-in-Progress for her project retelling the Odysseus myth from the perspective of a Vietnam soldier's wife. A native of Baton Rouge, she earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Louisiana State University before moving to the northeast to receive her MFA in creative writing from New York University. An assistant professor at Lake Superior State University, she teaches English and creative writing and edits prose for Border Crossing, a journal of literature and art. 

Todd Easton Mills is a writer of poetry and short stories. He co-wrote and produced the documentary Timothy Leary’s Dead. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Legendary, ONTHEBUS, The Coe Review, Yellow Silk, The Alembic, Sage Trails, RiverSedge, Griffin, Forge, Voices, Anitocracy, Rougarou, and the anthology Poets on 9-11. He is a graduate of Antioch University.

Wallace-Ruby Morales received her BA in philosophy from Reed College and her JD from Santa Clara University School of Law, during which time she also received certification from the Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Over the past few years, she has attended the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference, the Wrangell Mountain Center Poetry Workshop, and Writing Rendezvous. She has studied with the highly acclaimed Edward Albee and Constance Congdon. She was involved in the debates of enumeration-determining how the first South African Constitution would apply to various individuals. Through her world travels, she have found herself in some interesting situations, such as walking along the Berlin Wall and, unknowingly, into the middle of Checkpoint Charlie to the sound of military guards taking aim at her. Now she lives a spirited life in a very remote part of Alaska, where identifying the type of bear approaching determines whether she makes herself appear large or play dead; it takes traveling over 300 miles just to get to the nearest fast-food restaurant. In her free time, she enjoys singing, snow shoeing, learning how to cross-country ski, and teaching her Pomeranians, Makana and Kismet, to skijor. She writes using the pen name RoseMaree VannaLeigh.

Christopher Munde completed his MFA at the University of Houston in 2008, and received an Academy of American Poets Prize in the same year. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Beloit Poetry Journal, Blackbird, The Hollins Critic, Hunger Mountain, Massachusetts Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere.  He currently lives in western NY, where he teaches as an adjunct instructor at Jamestown Community College. 

Athena Nilssen lives in Los Angeles where she works as a legal secretary. Her poems and short stories have been published or are forthcoming in journals such as ZYZZYVA, POOL, The Somnambulist Quarterly, Breadcrumb Scabs, and Lana Turner.

Michael Onofrey was born and raised in Los Angeles. Currently he lives in Japan. His stories have appeared in Alimentum, Arroyo, Cottonwood, The Evansville Review, Imagination and Place (anthology), Natural Bridge, Road to Nowhere, and Other New Stories from the Southwest (anthology, University of New Mexico Press), Two Hawks Quarterly, and The William and Mary Review, as well as in other literary journals and anthologies. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lynne T. Pickett is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Syracuse University and a two-year postgraduate certificate in acting from Broadways’ Circle in the Square Theatre School. She has worked as a news reporter in radio and newspaper as well as an actress in commercials and theatre. She was selected to present her short stories at the West Hollywood Book Fair and other events in Los Angeles. Other short stories of hers have recently been published by Diverse Voices Quarterly and Foliate Oak Literary Journal.

Suzanne Richardson earned her MFA in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the University of New Mexico. She currently lives in Utica, New York where she is an Assistant Professor of English at Utica College where she teaches English and creative writing. You can find more of her work at: www-suzannerichardsonwrites.tumblr.com.

Staci R. Schoenfeld is an MFA candidate in poetry at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and managing poetry editor at Revolution House. Her poem “Attempts at Flight” was named a finalist in Yemassee’s 2012 Pocataligo Poetry Contest. She was awarded an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 2010 and recently was a featured poet at the Holler Poets Series in Lexington, Kentucky, and the Rivertown Reading Series in Paducah, Kentucky. Her poems appear in or are forthcoming from Accents Publishing’s Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems, Bellevue Literary Review, diode, Appalachian Heritage, Still, New Plains Review, and The Chaffey Review.

Steve Slaughter is currently working on his M.A, in English at Stetson University in Deland, Florida where he is researching the literary history of mead. He is previously a winner of a New Jersey Press Award for feature writing.

Steven D. Stark is the author of four books and one e-book. He has been a commentator for National Public Radio and has written extensively for such publications as the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly. He recently won first prize in the Clapboard House short story contest. 

Natalie van Hoose is a native of Cocoa Beach, Florida, and a recent graduate of the MFA program at Purdue University. A former resident of the Netherlands, she is a devotee of Dutch bicycle culture, the reality show "Boer Zoekt Vrouw," and a certain Flemish musician. She also admires cows. She currently resides in Indiana.

Sujaya Venkatesh is an ex-teacher with more than a decade experience in teaching English Literature and Language for undergraduates. She has co-authored books based on the English language. She has also designed a website for English grammar: www.grammargrasp.in. She has written The XY Factor (e-book published by Virtualbookworm) based on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with a simple style with intended changes. Its Tamil version, Ivann-Avann, is published by Geetham Publishers. She is the author of LifeS Musings-LoveS Deals-NatureS Affluence — a collection of poemlets (e-book - Shook Up Publications). Right now She’s penning poemlets on various themes.

Will Walker’s work has appeared in Bark and Passager. His chapbook, Carrying Water, was published by Pudding House Press, and his full-length collection, Wednesday After Lunch, is a Blue Light Press Book Award Winner (2008). He received his bachelor's degree in English history and literature from Harvard University. Over the last decade, Will has attended numerous writing workshops with Marie Howe, Thea Sullivan, Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Allen Shapiro, and Mark Doty. He was also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. When not putting pen to paper, he enjoys placing bow on string and playing the cello. He and his wife spend their summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Katie Walsh received her BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College in May 2012 and has been writing and working as a waitress in Cambridge, Massachusetts since. She has been previously published in Stork Magazine and The Emerson Review.

Suellen Wedmore’s work has appeared in Apalachee Review, The Chaffin Journal, Cimarron Review, College English, Eclipse, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review, The Ledge, The Louisville Review, The MacGuffin, Manorborn, New Verse News, Oyez Review, Phoebe, Poem, Quiddity, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and many others. Her chapbook Deployed won first place in the Grayson Books annual contest, and her chapbook On Marriage and Other Parallel Universes was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. She has been awarded first place in the Writer’s Digest rhyming poetry contest, and first place in the Rambunctious Review annual contest, was an international winner in the 2006 Atlanta Review poetry contest, and in 2007 was selected for a writing residency at Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. Recently she was a winner in the Obama Millennium competition sponsored by New Millennium Writings, and three of her poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Melissa Wiley is a freelance food and culture writer living in Chicago, who seizes every opportunity to walk barefoot with half-painted toenails through airport security and stammer in pidgin tongues. When writing, in full-throttle English, she often invokes the memory of her parents, the insanity of her marriage, her loneliness in this world, and the beauty that still remains. Her creative nonfiction has been published in a number of literary magazines.

Joan Marie Wood has studied with Diane di Prima and Pat Schneider, and recently completed a master's degree at St. John's College (the "great books" school) in Santa Fe. AWA Press published her book of poems, Her Voice Is Blackberries, in 2004. Her poetry has appeared in Peregrine and decomP, and is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review.

Kristen Yamamoto is a junior undergraduate student at Pacific University, majoring in creative writing. She is from Honolulu, Hawaii.