Cecile Barlier was born in France and received her master’s degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris. For over a decade, she has lived in the United States, where she is raising her family and working as an entrepreneur. In addition to her time in France and the United States, she has traveled extensively and lived in Mexico, Spain, and England. She has been a regular student and occasional teacher at the Writer’s Studio in San Francisco for a number of years. Her work is featured in the Bacopa Literary Review (first place for fiction, 2012) and forthcoming in Cerise Press.
Guy R. Beining has recently appeared in Cairn, Slab, The Gihon River Review, Skidrow/Penthouse, A Cappella Zoo, Illuminations, and Sierra Nevada Review. His last few books were Nozzle 1-36 (Presa Press, 2011) and Out of the Woods into the Sun (artwork–Kamini Press, Stockholm Sweden, 2011).
Lucy Biederman lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she is a doctoral student in English Literature at the University of Louisana. She is the author of a chapbook, The Other World (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), and has poems in recent or forthcoming issues of Parcel, RHINO, The Tusculum Review, Connotation Press, The Literary Review, and Word Riot.
Julialicia Case’s fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in such publications as Water-Stone Review, Confrontation, The Pinch, Descant, and Carolina Quarterly. Recently, she won the University of New Orleans Writing Contest for Study Abroad in the nonfiction category, and in 2006 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany. Currently, she’s at work on a collection of essays about growing up in West Germany in the 1980s, and a collection of linked stories exploring the emotional challenges of the Internet.
Jacqueline DeRobertis, a Baton Rouge native, is currently a junior pursuing a dual degree in Philosophy and Creative Writing at Louisiana State University. Her work was recently published in LSU’s undergraduate journal, delta journal vol. 54. Upon graduation she plans to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing.
Emily Fridlund’s fiction has appeared previously in Boston Review, New Orleans Review, Sou’wester, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Portland Review, Philadelphia Stories, and The Chariton Review, among others. She grew up in the Twin Cities and received her MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis. She is currently an Endowed Fellow at the University of Southern California, where she is pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. She lives with her husband outside Philadelphia.
Susan Myhr Fritz was born and raised in Great Falls, Montana. She first attended the University of Pennsylvania but, eventually transferred and graduated from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized study. She has lived multiple lives in multiple locations: a yoga instructor in Dallas, an unpaid housekeeper at her mother’s motel on the Oregon coast, and an actress in NYC, (to name a few). Currently, Susan identifies herself as a “nomad” after the death of her husband from cancer in 2009. She is at work piecing together a book about her experiences. This is her first published poem.
Patty Houston lives in Cincinnati and teaches at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, The Louisville Review, The Fiddlehead, and other journals. Her novel and short story collection will soon be finished.
Ana Hušman was born in Zagreb in 1977. She studied multimedia and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb, Croatia, graduating in 2002. Ana has participated in a number of Croatian and International festivals and shows, screening her work across Europe, in China, Korea, Brazil, Pakistan, and the United States. Since 2006 Ana has held a position at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the Animated Film and New Media department. Her recent work has received many international awards; “Football” was awarded best director and the Oktavijan Prize for Best Experimental Film by the Review of Croatian Films.
Rich Ives has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines for his work in poetry, fiction, editing, publishing, translation and photography. His writing has appeared in Verse, North American Review, Massachusetts Review, Northwest Review, Quarterly West, Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fiction Daily and many more. He is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. In 2011 he received a nomination for The Best of the Web and two nominations for both the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. He is the 2012 winner of the Creative Nonfiction Prize from Thin Air magazine. The Spring 2011 Bitter Oleander contains a feature including an interview and 18 of his hybrid works.
Derek Jackson graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a Bachelors degree in History and Religious Studies. He wrote stories and poems for fun and formally worked as a technical writer for JP Morgan Chase.
Michael Jemal was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He finally escaped the great outdoors of the city some years ago and studied under Stephen Dunn and BJ Ward. He now lives in Norfolk, Virginia with his wife and young son who has turned out to be this greatest teacher.
Min Kang is a 2nd-year MFA student at LSU. She is the co-coordinator of the 5th Annual Delta Mouth Literary Festival in Baton Rouge, LA, from March 14 to 16, 2013. Her poems have been featured in Asia Literary Review, Santa Clara Review, and most recently in Where Are You From?: An Anthology of Asian American Writing.
Suzanne Levine’s first poetry collection, Haberdasher’s Daughter (Antrim House, 2010), was a finalist for an Eric Hoffer Award. She holds an MFA from Vermont College and teaches the craft of memoir writing with her husband, Lary Bloom, at the Florence Griswold Museum, the Mark Twain House, R.J.Julia Booksellers, Connecticut libraries and community centers. Suzanne has poems in The Drunken Boat, Bellingham Review, Stand Magazine (UK), Permafrost, Quiddity International Literary Journal, California Quarterly, and many others. She and Lary are co-founders of Writing at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT and Praiano Writers, a writers’ conference held on the Amalfi coast. For more information, see praianowriters.com and suzannelevine.net.
Stephen Massimilla is a poet, critic, teacher, and painter. His newest book, The Plague Doctor in His Hull-Shaped Hat, is forthcoming as a contest winner from Stephen F. Austin State University Press. He won the Bordighera Poetry Prize for Forty Floors from Yesterday, the Grolier Prize for Later on Aiaia, a Van Renssalaer Award judged by Kenneth Koch, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and three Pushcart nominations. His volume Almost a Second Thought was runner-up for the Salmon Run National Poetry Book Award judged by X.J. Kennedy. Massimilla has recent work in AGNI, the American Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Barrow Street, The Bitter Oleander, The Colorado Review, The Greensboro Review, Denver Quarterly, Provincetown Arts Magazine, The Southern Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many other journals and anthologies. He is a founding member of the Urban Range poetry collective and holds an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He teaches literary modernism, among other subjects, at Columbia University and the New School. For more info: www.stephenmassimilla.com
Ross Nugent hails from the wilds of Western Pennsylvania. He earned a BA in Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (’03), studied film and video production at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Media Art Center, and completed an MFA in the Film Dept at UWM (’11). Ross teaches both production and theory courses in the department, and serves as the Faculty Advisor for the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, a student-run, international film festival. His film, video, installation and sculptural work is rooted in examining nostalgia, decay, and working-class ethos as mediated through cinema. This also includes live cinema projects. Exhibitions of these multi-projector performances include The Museum of Modern Art (NYC) as part of a group show utilizing Analyst projectors, Mono No Aware (NYC), and the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival (Chicago). Currently, Ross is completing a series of works on the documentary tip, focused on men and machines in Western PA; perhaps he is a “Rustbelt Romantic”.
Alissa Nutting is author of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls (Starcherone/Dzanc 2010) and an Assistant Professor of Fiction Writing at John Carroll University. Her fiction has or will appear in publications such as The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Literature, Tin House, Bomb, and Conduit; her essays have appeared in Fence, the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, and other venues.
Robin Stein is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Seattle, WA. Primarily working with photography, moving images and sound, his work is rooted in an inquisitive and adventurous exploration of geography, history, and human interactions with the built and natural landscape. His photography, installations and music have been recognized and exhibited widely, having shown in venues in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Mexico City, Seattle, and Portland. More information about Robin and his work can be found at his website: www.originaldocuments.net.
Doc Suds is all sip, no slur. A proud Wisconsin native, and former resident of Izushi, Japan, he currently lives in Miami, Florida where he reads books, writes poems, and listens to hip-hop.
Jill Moyer Sunday teaches writing at a small Pennsylvania university, where she and her students are just about always mid word. Shaped by her first real job (as an investigative journalist), her writing generally emerges as creative nonfiction. Sometimes, though, poetry appears on the page. She’s not quite sure what to think when that happens. For more of Jill, visit http://jill-jms.blogspot.com/.
Jason Tandon is the author of three collections of poetry, Quality of Life (Black Lawrence/Dzanc, forthcoming 2013), Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt (Black Lawrence/Dzanc, 2009), winner of the 2006 St. Lawrence Book Award, and Wee Hour Martyrdom (sunnyoutside, 2008). His poems have appeared in Bellingham Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Poetry Review, and featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac.