Kiik A.K. is a current graduate student of creative writing at the University of California, San Diego. He earned previous degrees from UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Santa Clara University. He is a former editor at Greenbelt Review and The Santa Clara Review. "a ghazel" was written for the poet Terrance Hayes.

Tory Adkisson currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he is both an MFA candidate at The Ohio State University and the poetry editor of The Journal. New poems are forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, Cream City Review, Salamander, Quarterly West, Hawai’i Review, Pebble Lake Review, and Cave Wall.

Paul Ardoin is a PhD candidate in literature at Florida State University. Ardoin's recent work focuses on genre and narratological boundaries. He is a co-editor of the forthcoming volume Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism (Continuum, 2012).

Louis Bourgeois is the Executive Director of VOX PRESS. He also serves as managing editor for Twisted South Magazine. Currently, Bourgeois lives, writes, and edits in Oxford, Mississippi.

Will Cordeiro received his MFA from Cornell University where he is currently a PhD candidate studying 18th century British literature. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, Sentence, Stone Canoe, Requited, Lumina, Comstock Review, and Gulf Stream. He is grateful for residencies from Risley Residential College, Provincetown Community Compact, Ora Lerman Trust, and Petrified Forest National Park.

Nancy Correro calls the Mississippi Delta and Atlanta, GA, home because she was raised in equal portions in both places. Currently, she is enjoying Louisiana as a graduate teaching assistant at McNeese State University, where she is studying poetry in the MFA program.

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Night Songs (Gold Wake Press, 2010), Compendium (Cow Heavy Books, 2011), and The Body is a Little Gilded Cage: A Story in Letters & Fragments (Gold Wake Press, 2011). She has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation, as well as grants from the Vermont Studio Center and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her poems appear in Third Coast, Barn Owl Review, RHINO, Cider Press Review, Gargoyle, and many other journals.

William Doreski teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Waiting for the Angel (2009). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Atlanta Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Worcester Review, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, and Natural Bridge.

Dr. Heather Duerre Humann teaches a variety of writing, literature, and special topics courses in the English Department at the University of Alabama. Her writing has been published in African American Review, Clues: A Journal of Detection, South Atlantic Review, Black Warrior Review, Chelsea, Indiana Review, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology, and elsewhere.

Marit Ericson is a poet originally from New England. Some of her recent work has appeared in L.E.S. Review, NAP Magazine, and Forge Journal. She lives and writes in New Jersey.

Sarah Gray-Panesi is completing an MA in English literature at Middle Tennessee State University. Her specific areas of interest within literature center on the roles of religion and women and how these roles have evolved through the centuries and across genres.  She is currently researching her master’s thesis on the Gothic drama and its role in the moral edification of British and American theatre-goers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Justin Hamm, originally from the flatlands of central Illinois, now lives near Mark Twain territory in Missouri. He is the author of Illinois, My Apologies, a chapbook from RockSaw Press. Publications in which his work has appeared, or will soon appear, include Nimrod, The New York Quarterly, Cream City Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and the recent anthology The Captain’s Tower: Seventy Poets Celebrate Bob Dylan at Seventy. Justin earned his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His latest project is a free creative writing course for writers living in and around the small community of Mexico, Missouri.

Mark Jackley is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Every Green Word (Finishing Line Press), and of a full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait (Plain View Press). He lives in Sterling, VA.

Alyse Knorr is the poetry and co-blog editor of So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, based out of George Mason University, where she is pursuing her MFA in poetry and teaching undergraduate English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Salamander, Cold Mountain Review, Lumina, and The Minnesota Review, among others.

Christopher Lowe’s fiction and poetry have appeared widely in journals including Third Coast, Sport Literate, Bellevue Literary Review, and War, Literature, and the Arts. His collection of short fiction, Those Like Us, is available from Stephen F. Austin State University Press. He serves as editor for Trigger and as an assistant fiction editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal.

Andrew McSorley was born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin. He is currently a student in the MFA program in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in The Minnesota Review and Blue Earth Review.

Keith Meatto is a graduate of Yale College, has an MFA from The New School, and teaches writing at LIM College in New York. His fiction has appeared in Artifice, Harpur Palate, Opium, and elsewhere. He is the co-editor of Frontier Psychiatrist, a journal of arts and culture. "Rosyln" is part of a collection of short fiction entitled "I Am Not Your Boyfriend: 99 Love Stories." He lives in Brooklyn. www.keithmeatto.com, www.frontpsych.com.

Allene Nichols is a Dallas-based writer who is currently pursuing a doctorate in humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as Naugatuck River Review, New Plains Review, and the anthology Dance the Guns to Silence: One Hundred Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa. Her plays have been produced at venues across the country.

Martin Ott is a former U.S. Army interrogator who currently lives in Los Angeles and still finds himself asking a lot of questions. His poetry and fiction have been published in more than 100 magazines and anthologies. His poetry book Captive won the 2011 DeNovo Prize and will be published by C&R Press in 2012. Poets’ Guide to America, a collaboration with John F. Buckley, will be published by Brooklyn Arts Press in 2012 as well. More at www.martinottwriter.com.

Keith J. Powell's plays have appeared in Elements of English 12, Dramatics Magazine and at Playscripts, Inc. His fiction has appeared in Able Muse. He currently serves as Managing Editor of Switchback.

Davis Schneiderman is an ORIGINAL writer who believes plagiarism is wrong and that copying is just something you do when you are OUT of your own ideas and because you are weak and stupid and should stop writing. Jerk. davisschneiderman.com.

Ephraim Scott Sommers was born in Atascadero, California, and received his MFA from San Diego State University. A singer and guitar player, Sommers has produced three full-length albums of music and toured internationally both as a solo artist and with his band Siko. Most recently, his work has appeared in Afterimage, Barnstorm, Blue Earth Review, City Works, The Coachella Review, The Columbia Review, New Madrid, Philadelphia Stories, San Diego Poetry Annual and Verse Daily. He is the managing editor of Flashpoint: A Journal of Literature and Music, and he teaches writing at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and Cuesta College. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/ephraimscottsommers.

Steven Trebellas lives in an unconverted gas station in the river town of Burlington, Iowa. Ivan the cat is his constant companion. He has an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and he’s trying to get a book in print. He works as a substitute teacher and also does odd jobs. He was raised in the Chicago suburbs in the 60s and has lived in the Midwest all of his life.

Helen Vitoria’s work can be found and is forthcoming in many journals, including elimae, MudLuscious Press, decomP, FRIGG Magazine, and Dark Sky Magazine. She is the author of four chapbooks, and her full-length poetry collection, Corn Exchange, is forthcoming from Scrambler Books. Her poems have been nominated for Best New Poets and The Pushcart Prize. She is the Founding Editor and Editor in Chief of THRUSH Poetry Journal and THRUSH Press. Find her here:  http://helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com/

Chelsea Whitton lives in Manhattan where she is a poetry MFA candidate at the New School. Her poems have appeared in Headwaters, The Meadowland Review, and Cimarron Review, among others.

Francine Witte lives in NYC. Her flash fiction chapbook Cold June won the 2010 Thomas A. Wilhelmus award for fiction and was published by Ropewalk Press. Her poetry chapbook First Rain was published by Pecan Grove Press, and her poetry chapbook Only, Not Only is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She is a high school English teacher.

Sheri L. Wright is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Slow Talk Of Stones. Her works of poetry appear in numerous journals, including Out of Line, Chiron Review, Clark Street Review, Darkling and Earth's Daughters, and Crucible. She has won awards with Jesse Poets, Green River Writers, and the Kentucky State Poetry Society. She has read extensively throughout the Kentucky/Indiana area and has appeared at New York City’s Cornelia Street Café. Ms. Wright works as a freelance editor in a variety of genres, and she is currently the host of From The Inkwell, a literary radio show live-streaming at www.CrescentHillRadio.com.