Bernise Carolino is a recent graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, and has since then been engaged in a drawn-out existential battle with herself on what she should do now with her life and God-given talents, to the great dismay of her long-suffering parents. Berry spends most of her time indoors and never gets bored. She likes iced coffee, the band Tegan and Sara, and books of all sorts and subjects. She lives in Marikina City, Philippines, and can be contacted at blackydano@gmail.com.

Kevin Bray writes and teaches in Toronto. He studied at the Humber School for Writers and the Vermont College of Fine Art. His essays often appear in the Globe and Mail and other writing is found in Airplane Reading, The Danforth Review, The Healing Muse and Biostories. His essay, “The Fragmentary Blue of a Butterfly,” is contained in the anthology How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting (Touchwood Editions). He blogs at www.kevinbraywriter.com.

Brett Petersen is a writer from Albany, NY who loves language and gets a kick out of arranging words in various combinations. He obtained his B.A. in English from the College of Saint Rose in 2011 and is planning on pursuing his Master’s sometime in the near future. Aside from writing poetry, fiction and essays, he plays drums in the band Dynamite Pleasure Chair and has recorded over ten solo albums on which he sings and plays guitar, drums and bass.

Sharon Goldberg lives in Seattle and previously worked as an advertising copywriter. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Under the Sun, The Avalon Literary Review, The Chaffey Review, Temenos, Little Fiction: Listerature, three fiction anthologies, and elsewhere. Her stories “Caving In” (2012) and “Ghost” (2011) were finalists in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. Sharon was the second place winner of the 2012 On The Premises Humor Contest and Fiction Attic Press’ 2013 Flash in the Attic Contest.

Sara Backer, author of the novel American Fuji (Penguin/Berkley 2009), is guilty of Envy and Wrath, but is serving a life sentence in Sloth for multiple charges of Procrastination. Despite this, her writing has been awarded Djerassi and Norton Island artist residencies and appeared in over 100 journals, most recently in theNewerYork, Turtle Island Quarterly, PANK, and Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. For links to her writing published online, please visit sarabacker.com.

M. Brett Gaffney, originally from Houston, Texas, is an MFA student in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and an associate editor of Gingerbread House literary magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Medulla Review, Newfound, Ruminate, Psaltery & Lyre, Stone Highway Review, Slipstream, and Wind.

K. Michael McIntosh’s short stories have appeared in the Beloit Fiction Journal, American Literary Review, Potomac Review, Jabberwock Review and have been nominated for Best New American Voices. His short story Stayin’ Alive can be read here.

Simon Rhee is a writer out of San Diego, California. He is currently studying Nanoengineering at the University of California at San Diego.

Richard Fein was a finalist in the 2004 New York Center for Book Arts Chapbook Competition. A chapbook of his poems was published by Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been published in Reed, Southern Review, Roanoke Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, Paris/Atlantic, Canadian Dimension, Black Swan Review, Exquisite Corpse, Foliate Oak, Ken*Again, Oregon East, Southern Humanities Review, The Morpo Review, Skyline, Touchstone, Windsor Review, Maverick, Parnassus Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Terrain Aroostook Review, Compass Rose, Whiskey Island Review, Bad Penny Review and many, many others. His digital photography has also been published in a number of poetry magazines.

Adam “Bucho” Rodenberger is a 34-year-old writer from Kansas City living in San Francisco. He holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy & Creative Writing and completed his MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco in 2011. He has been published in Number One Magazine, Alors, Et Toi?, Agua Magazine, The Red Pulp Underground, Offbeatpulp, Up The Staircase, The Gloom Cupboard, BrainBox Magazine, Cause & Effect Magazine, the Santa Clara Review, Aphelion, Glint Literary Journal, Criminal Class Review and Phoebe. He blogs at http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com.

Timothy Leyrson’s poetry has appeared in Atticus Review, Midwestern Gothic, & elsewhere. He has also written essays for collections about Stephen Dunn, as well as race & poetry. Timothy received his MA in English from Missouri State University in May of 2013, & is currently pursuing his MFA as a Durwood fellow at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He can be reached at arguingwithmuses@gmail.com. [Photo credit: Paul Andrews Photography]

Kate Dempsey is an English poet living in Ireland where her poetry and prose are widely published. She won the Plough Prize for a short poem and was shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award. Her dinky poetry book Some Poems was published in 2011 by The Moth Editions. She is a member of the fabulous Poetry Divas @PoetryDivas, a glittery collective of women poets. She blogs at emergingwriter.blogspot.com.

R. Hoyte Raney is a Paramedic Field Chief for the Chicago Fire Department, and the front man for the Chicago based Alt/Americana band “Drama Junkies.” His writing has appeared in N.E.I.U’s the Apocalypse, The Chicago Tribune, and the Oklahoma Review (Spring, 2013), and will be featured in Emerge Literary Journal (Fall, 2013).

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Cindy E. King currently lives in Lancaster, Texas, where she teaches at the University of North Texas Dallas as an Assistant Professor of English and Writing. Her most recent publications include poems in Callaloo, the North American Review, the African American Review, the American Literary Review, jubilat, and Barrow Street. Her work can also be heard online on American Weekend, a production of National Public Radio, in RHINO Poetry, and in PANK Magazine.

Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Reanne Derkson is a writer and author working and living in Vancouver, BC. In 2013, she graduated from the University of Victoria with a Major in Creative Writing and Minor in Professional Writing. She has been previously published by Live Young and Free, Elite Daily, The Martlet, Change Heroes, and the anthology This Side of West: Deep and Meaningfuls. She is inspired by her travels, flâneurism, the clever absurdity in mundane situations, glamorous fashion, and most of all, by her family.

John McCaffrey received a graduate degree in Creative Writing from the City College of New York. He is a former New York Times Writing Fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee. He teaches creative writing, directs a nonprofit in New York City, and is the Interviews Editor for KGB Bar Lit Magazine. His stories have been published widely and also anthologized. His debut novel, The Book of Ash, will be released this fall by Boxfire Press.

Katharine Diehl is 22 and lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BA in psychology and her poetry has been published in the online journals Squalorly and Fickle Muses. She is very poor because she is an artist. If anyone would like to pay her to write poems for them, she is available. She blogs about writing and writes about other stuff at frozenseawriting.tumblr.com.

Dennis Vanvick is a retired, self-employed technical consultant. He winters among the 8 million inhabitants of Bogota, Colombia and summers amongst the flora and fauna of northwest Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Rosebud Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, Birmingham Literary Magazine, Flashquake, Golddust Magazine, Wilderness House Review, Lowestoft Chronicle (chosen web Story of the Month, July 2012, by The Committee Room), and other places. Two works are forthcoming in 2013, in Aethlon (East Tennesee University) and Lifelines (Dartmouth School of Medicine).

Scott Jessop lives in the haunted Midland Railroad Station in Manitou Springs, Colorado with his daughter Kathleen. For cash, he’s a filmmaker (mostly TV commercials), and for his sanity, he writes short stories and poems. Scott’s short story “Mephisto” was one of the nominees for a Pushcart Prize submitted by Penduline Press in 2012.

Mary Beth O’Connor is a writer and teacher in Upstate New York. Her work has appeared in Literary Bohemian, River Lit, Inkwell, The Healing Muse, Painted Bride Quarterly, Red Fez, Printer’s Devil Review, Fiction Daily, Café Irreal, Prick of the Spindle, The Comstock Review, Compass Rose, The 
Massachusetts Review and others. Smackdown! Poems about the Professor Business won the 2006 
Teachers’ Voice Chapbook Competition and was reissued in a new edition in 2010.

Winner of the 2013 Able Muse Write Prize for Fiction, Donna Laemmlen’s stories appear in Tin House online, Fourteen Hills, SmokeLong Quarterly, Slice magazine, Switchback Literary Journal, the anthology Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from the University of San Francisco, and is an award-winning screenwriter who teaches graduate and undergraduate film studies at the Academy of Art University. Visit her at www.donnalaemmlen.com. [Photo credit: Ben Aronoff]

Susan was spawned in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where bagpipers and pubs rule. She is a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and also studied at Parsons and Cooper Union, New York. She has published with Revolution House and productiongrayeditions. She likes to write about jaded characters whose weaknesses drive them. Susan lived several years in Amsterdam, which she still lusts for. Currently, she resides in Montreal and is finishing a novel.

Trina Gaynon’s poems have appeared in the anthologies Bombshells and Knocking at the Door, and numerous journals including Natural Bridge, Reed and the final issue of Runes. Her chapbook An Alphabet of Romance is available from Finishing Line Press. Forthcoming publications in anthologies include: A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford, Saint Peter’s B-list: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints, Obsession: Sestinas for the 21st Century, and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of Sonnets of the Early Third Millennium.

Patricia George was born in Kansas and has the wind flowing through her dreams. She was happily transplanted to California where she continued her education from the 7th grade through college. She has taught public school, been a private tutor, worked as a graphic artist and is currently working as a piano accompanist for the high school choirs in the little California valley town where she lives. Her goal is to make a poem of her life and to communicate that life to others.

Nina Rockwell, the daughter of fate and worry, is a Portland native. She now lives in the vast outskirts of Columbia, Missouri. She has been published in the Portland Community College literary journal, The Pointed Circle, and Nailed Magazine. Most of her writing education has come from The Literary Kitchen, Ariel Gore’s School for Wayward Writers, and from having two eyes and a heart.
She is currently, and always, writing her story of survival.

Paul Lamb lives near Kansas City but escapes to the Missouri Ozarks whenever he finds the chance. His stories have appeared in About Place Journal, Bartleby Snopes,The Little Patuxent Review, Danse Macabre, The Platte Valley Review, Midwest Literary Magazine, and others. He blogs about his writing and other oddments at Lucky Rabbit’s Foot. He rarely strays far from his laptop, unless he’s out running, which he’s been doing a lot lately.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines. Her chapbook A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn was recently published by Fowlpox Press, and her fantasy novel Amethyst Epiphany is forthcoming from Assent Publishing under their imprint Phantasm Books.

After growing up in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area, Ron Morita studied neurophysiology at UCLA’s Brain Research Institute because so much of what we consider ourselves to be is in the brain. Finding himself unsuited to the minutia of academia, he earned a Masters in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve and became an electrical engineer. His fiction has appeared in Cigale Literary Magazine and is forthcoming in The Chamber Four Literary Magazine and Star 82 Review. Ron has four unpublished novels. His Facebook page is www.facebook.com/RonMoritaStories.

Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio Northern University, Claude Clayton Smith has authored seven books and is co-editor/translator of an eighth. He holds a BA from Wesleyan (CT), an MAT from Yale, an MFA in fiction from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, and a DA from Carnegie-Mellon. His latest book is Ohio Outback: Learning to Love the Great Black Swamp (Kent State University Press, 2010). His work has been translated into five languages, including Russian and Chinese. He lives in Madison, WI.

Manny Blacksher is a writer, teacher, and editor. He grew up in Alabama but has lived and worked for long periods in Montreal and Dublin, Ireland. He is currently enrolled in Carnegie Mellon’s Masters program in Professional Writing. His work has appeared in journals including Poetry Ireland Review, Measure, and Digital Americana.

Raul Palma earned an MA in Writing & Publishing from DePaul University. Presently, he is a first-year Ph.D student in fiction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A recipient of the Soul-Making Keats Short Story Prize, a three-time finalist in Glimmer Train Press contests, and a finalist in Cutthroat‘s 2012 Rick DeMarinis Contest, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Saw Palm: Florida Literature & Art, Extract(s), 34th Parallel, *82 Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife and daughter.

Tiffany Michelle Brown is a native of Phoenix, Arizona, and received her bachelor’s degrees from the University of Arizona in English and Creative Writing. When Tiffany isn’t working on her latest collection of short stories about the darker side of the human psyche, she can be found baking cupcakes, pole dancing, and reading the works of Neil Gaiman. Read more of Tiffany’s work at tiffanymichellebrown.wordpress.com.

Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in such leading venues as Trinacria, Soundzine, The Lyric, 14 by 14, qarrtsiluni, The Raintown Review, The Best of the Barefoot Muse (Barefoot Pub), and Caduceus (Yale University). She has been nominated for both The Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her next book, Remind Me, is forthcoming with Ancient Cypress Press in September.

Will Cordeiro lives in Tucson, Arizona. He has recent or forthcoming publications in burnt district, Copper Nickel, Crab Orchard Review, CutBank online, Drunken Boat, Fourteen Hills, Memoir, Sentence, and elsewhere. He is grateful for residencies from Risley Residential College, Provincetown Community Compact, Ora Lerman Trust, ART 342, Blue Mountain Center, and Petrified Forest National Park. More of his fiction can be found here and here.

Jessica Lakritz has lived in five cities in five years. She loves her traveling life and she loves her dog and she loves love. Jessica has an MFA from Eastern Washington University. She keeps a photo haiku blog and her work has been published in Grist, Third Coast, Northwind, Pif Magazine, and cream city review, among others. She is currently living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, working on publishing her first collection of poems and moving back to Mexico.

Hassan Riaz is a physician, financier, and writer. His fiction has appeared in Slice Magazine, Retort Magazine, and Paragraph Line, among several others. He lives in Los Angeles and can be found online at hassaninla.com. [Photo credit: Edwin Jimenez]

Ed O’Casey received his MA from the University of North Texas. He loves all things narcissistic, and lives with his unruly wife and daughter. His poems have appeared or are upcoming in Danse Macabre, Tulane Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Euphony, Cold Mountain Review, Northern Liberties Review, NANO Fiction, and South 85. He is currently an MFA candidate at New Mexico State University.

Cyndi Gacosta was born and raised in San Diego, California. She spent a few years of her early childhood in Sorsogon, Philippines. She studied literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in other literary journals such as The Walrus, Monongahela Review, The Toucan, Vanilla, and Skive Magazine. She lived and worked in Seoul, Korea as a teacher, but returned to the States for graduate studies.

Christopher David DiCicco loves his wife and children—not writing stark minimalist stories in the attic of his home in Yardley, Pennsylvania. But he does. It’s something he has to do, like sleeping or eating catfish. His work has recently appeared in Nib Magazine, Intellectual Refuge, Sundog Lit, Cease, Cows! and Bohemia Arts & Literary—and is forthcoming in The Cossack Review, WhiskeyPaper, Flash Fiction Online, Bartleby Snopes, and First Stop Fiction. You can follow him on twitter @ChrisDiCicco or visit him @ www.cddicicco.com.

Louis Gallo was born and raised in New Orleans and now teaches at Radford University in Virginia. His work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Berkeley Fiction Review, Missouri Review, Southern Quarterly, New Orleans Review, Mississippi Review, Portland Review, storySouth, Bellingham Review, Greensboro Review, Tampa Review, The Ledge, New Oregon Review, Pennsylvania Literary Review, Rattle, Baltimore Review, Texas Review, WIDE AWAKE IN THE PELICAN STATE (LSU fiction anthology). He is founding editor of the now inoperative Barataria Review and Books: A New Orleans Review.