Nin Andrews’ books include The Book of Orgasms (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2000), Spontaneous Breasts (Pearl Editions, 1998), Why They Grow Wings (Silver Fish Review, 2001), Sleeping with Houdini (BOA Editions, 2008), and Southern Comfort (Notable Voices) (CavanKerry Press, 2009).

Celeste Auge writes both fiction and poetry. Last year, she received a bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland to complete her second collection of poetry. In 2009, she was short-listed for a Hennessy Literary Award. She lives in the west of Ireland with her husband and young son.

Bipin Aurora has worked as an economist, an energy analyst, and a systems analyst. His fiction has appeared in Quarterly West, Epiphany, Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, North Atlantic Review, Southern Indiana Review, and Prism Review, and is forthcoming in Southern Humanities Review and Eclipse.

Kristina Bicher lives in New York. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Inkwell (winner of the Elizabeth McCormack Poetry Prize), Willow Review, Freshwater, River Oak Review, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, and others. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University and Manhattanville College, respectively.

"We Live Here" Listen

Carol Carpenter’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Snake Nation Review, Orbis (UK), and various anthologies. She received the Hart Crane MemorialAward. She lives in Michigan.

Poet and composer Judith Cody has been published in more than eighty journals and anthologies. Her poetry is in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection and has received honors and/or awards from The Atlantic Monthly, Amelia, and The National League of American Pen Women. She is a University of California Master Gardener.

"Deer Road" Listen

Mary Crow’s books include I Have Tasted the Apple (BOA Editions, 1996), Borders (BOA Editions, 1994), Vertical Poetry: Last Poems by Roberto Juarroz (White Pine Press, 2011), three chapbooks, and five volumes of poetry translation. Among her honors isa poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was Colorado’sPoet Laureate 1996-2010.

Michelle Demers holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has published in The Café Review, Diner: A Journal of Poetry, and Moments of the Soul (Marcoclicks, 2010). Her award-winning chapbook, Epicenter, was published in spring 2007 by Blue Light Press. She lives in Williston, Vermont.

T.M. De Vos completed her MFA at New York University in 2004. She is the recipient of a fellowship for the Summer Literary Seminars Lithuania 2011 session and a Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tidal Basin Review, and The Los Angeles Review. She is a staff member of Many Mountains Moving and a contributor to Fiction Writers Review.

Stephanie Dickinson’s poetry and fiction appear in Mudfish, Green Mountains Review, Water~Stone, Hotel Amerika, and RHINO, among others. Her novel Half Girl won the Hackney Award (Birmingham-Southern) and is published by Spuyten Duyvil (2009). Corn Goddess, a collection of her poetry, is available from Rain Mountain Press (2007).

Gary Dop lives with his wife and three daughters in Minneapolis, where he moonlights as a comic, scriptwriter, and professor. Dop received a special mention in the 2011 Pushcart Prize Anthology (Pushcart Press, 2010), and his poems have appeared recently in New Letters, AGNI, Rattle, Poet Lore, and North American Review.

"Pothead Pete's English Presentation" Listen

Born in The Hague, Mylène Dressler has written The Medusa Tree (MacAdam/Cage, 1997), The Deadwood Beetle (Bluehen Books, 2001), and The Floodmakers (Putnam Adult, 2004). She has been a faculty member or a visiting writer at the University of Texas at Austin, the National Autonomous University of Chiapas, the University of Groningen, Rice University, and the University of St. Thomas, among others. Honors and awards include the Fulbright Fellowship and the Paisano Fellowship in Fiction.

Susan Ehtesham-Zadeh was born in her mother’s native United States and raised in her father’s native Iran. In search of a happy medium between her two cultures, she later lived for many years in Spain. Somewhere along the way, she received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University. A career English teacher, she has taught scores of students on several continents.

Nene Giorgadze was born in the Republic of Georgia in 1971. She has an MA in Georgian literature from Ilia State University (Tbilisi, Georgia). She has lived in the United States since 1999 and speaks three languages: Georgian, English, and Russian. She has written poetry and prose since childhood. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Ann Arbor Review, Raleigh Review, RHINO, and others.

Collin Blair Grabarek is a lifelong Virginian and an MFA candidate at George Mason University. He is the fiction editor of George Mason’s Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art.

"Any Old Bird" Listen

Emily Hayes received her MA in English literature from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She teaches at Carbondale Community High School in Illinois and is co-editor of The Village Pariah. Her works have appeared in various journals, including The Broad River Review, Compass Rose, The Paterson Literary Review, and Review Americana.

"Cooking Green Beans" Listen

Amanda Hempel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work is forthcoming in The Literary Review, The Mochila Review, The Briar Cliff Review, and REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, among others.

Timothy Kercher’s manuscript “Nobody’s Odyssey” was recently selected as a finalist for the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, and his translation of Besik Kharanauli’s long poem, “The Lame Doll,” is set to be published in the Republic of Georgia early next year. Originally from Colorado, he has lived in Mongolia, Mexico, Bosnia, and the Republic of Georgia. He presently resides with his wife and twin daughters in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Robert Klose teaches biology at University College of Bangor in Maine. The single father of two adopted sons, from Russia and Ukraine, he is a regular contributor to The Christian Science Monitor and is the author of several books, including the most recent, The Three-Legged Woman and Other Excursions in Teaching (University Press of New England, 2010). His work has also appeared in Newsweek, The Boston Globe, Reader’s Digest, Exquisite Corpse, and elsewhere.

Kate Krautkramer writes from rural northwest Colorado where she lives with her husband and children. Her work has appeared in numerous literary publications, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading (Mariner Books, various dates) and The Best of the West 2010 (University of Texas Press, 2010). Kate teaches writing at South Routt Elementary School.

"We Are The Children" Listen

Susanna Lang’s first collection, Even Now, was published in 2008 by The Backwaters Press; Two by Two, a chapbook, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including New Letters, Kalliope, Green Mountains Review, and Inkwell, where her poem won the 2009 competition.

"Instructions" Listen

Mercedes Lawry has published poetry in Poetry, RHINO, Nimrod, Poetry East, The Seattle Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook There Are Crows in My Blood was publishedby Pudding House Press. Another chapbook, Happy Darkness, is forthcomingfrom Finishing Line Press.

Amy McNamara is a writer and photographer. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of literary journals, most recently Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review, Versal, New CollAge Magazine, Kestrel, and Drunken Boat. Her young adult novel, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, will be published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (fall 2012).

Marsha McSpadden holds an MFA from the University of Memphis. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Jelly Bucket, and subTerrain. She teaches at the University of Alabama. When she isn’t cheering on the Tide, she is at work on her first novel.

"How to Take a Punch" Listen

Kate Mohler lives in Arizona and teaches at Mesa Community College, but Minnesota is her home. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Tampa Review, Lake Country Journal, and several online publications, including MinnPost Blog Cabin and Skirt!

"How To Remain Single and Childless" Listen

Travis Mossotti is an English lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose poetry continues to appear widely. His poem “Decampment” (published in the winter 2010 issue of Southern Humanities Review) has recently been adapted to screen as an animated short film

Felicia Olin earned an associate of arts degree from Springfield College in Illinois and a BFA in painting from Illinois State University. She is a member of the Prairie Art Alliance, and her most recent solo show, “The Waking Dream,” is at Chicago’s State Street Gallery. She lives with her husband, Jim, and their two cats and one dog. Growing up, she enjoyed eighties fantasy art as well as strange and unusual things, and she weaves these into her dream world.

Richard T. Rauch was born and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans and currently lives along Bayou Lacombe in southeast Louisiana. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in California Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Many Mountains Moving, Milk Money, Oxford American, Westview, and others.

"Cotillion Days" Listen

Robert Rice’s stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary magazines, including Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Letters, North American Review, The Saint Ann’s Review, and West Wind Review. He has also published three novels, including The Last Pendragon (Walker & Company, 1992) and The Nature of Midnight (Forge Books, 2003). He lives in Montana.

Dennis Saleh has published books of poetry, prose, and artwork, and he contributes widely to publications in the United States and overseas. In 2011, he will be Featured Poet in Psychological Perspectives, with both poetry and prose, and an article on his work.

In 2008, Maya Sarishvili won the SABA Prize for Poetry, the Republic of Georgia’s top literature award, for her collection Microscope. She is the author of one other poetry collection, Covering Reality (Merani, 2001), in addition to three radio plays. She lives in Tbilisi, Georgia, and is the mother of four children, ages six to thirteen. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Guernica and Versal, among others.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro, thrice Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts, is the author of a professional book, many journal articles, about 185 published poems, and three books of poetry. A Quaker and a psychologist, she is a devotee of the study of the soul.

A Chicago native, Keli Stewart has been published or has work forthcoming in Meridian, Naugatuck River Review, WarpLand: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas, Letters to Fathers from Daughters (Wyatt Mackenzie, 2007), Torch Poetry, Hip Mama, On Becoming, CALYX, and Reverie. She was recently awarded a Hedgebrook Fellowship and received the 2010 Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Award.

Juned Subhan is a young writer from England whose work is published in numerous magazines and journals, including Critical Quarterly, Wasafiri, The Reader, North American Review, Cimarron Review, Ontario Review, Louisiana Literature, Portland Review, and most recently Moon City Review. He is currently working on a debut novel.

Maria Terrone’s book, A Secret Room in Fall, won the McGovern Prize from Ashland Poetry Press in 2006. She is also author of The Bodies We Were Loaned (Word Works, 2002) and a chapbook, American Gothic, Take (Finishing Line Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in more than a dozen anthologies.

"In Hiding" Listen

Tomoko Yagi was born and raised in Japan and holds a BA in psychology from the College of William & Mary and an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.