Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer. Other stories of his may be found in several anthologies including Best New Writing 2011 and numerous magazines and journals including Redivider, Temenos, The Apalachee Review, Hobart, Needle, The William and Mary Review, and Hiss Quarterly.

He writes because conversation involves a lot of give and take, and he’s always thought of himself as more of a giver.

Visit Tom at his web site, www.tjbarlow.com.

Holly Kabat is a graduate of the College of Wooster, where she completed an Independent Study which culminated in a collection of original short fiction and poetry. Selections of her work have been published in the college’s annual literary magazine, The Goliard, and a poem was chosen as the first place winner of the Vonna Hicks Adrian award. She is 22 and lives in Northeast Ohio, where she works in a public library and is pursuing her M.L.I.S.

Ann Batchelor Hursey’s work has appeared in the Seattle Review, Crab Creek Review, Chrysanthemum, and Pontoon, among others. Ann has been awarded writing residencies with the Jack Straw Writers Program (Seattle, WA), Hypatia-in-the-Woods (Shelton, WA.) and Soapstone: A Writing Retreat for Women (Oregon). Besides collaborating with visual artists and musicians, she has written poems to compost and hand-made-things. This summer she graduates with an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop @ Pacific Lutheran University. Born and raised in Ohio, she now calls Washington State home.

Stephanie Seguin received a B.A. in English and French from the University of Florida that remains in her closet protected by the cardboard tube it was mailed in. Her humor blog, www.stephaniesays.net, features relevant topics such as fake collectible primate babies, chubby girls running marathons, and rubber truck testicles. Her online journals about her battle with thyroid cancer are read by people from all over the world. She currently lives in Gainesville, Florida where she writes, mothers, and conspires to overthrow tyranny.

John Aylesworth teaches handicapped kids in Southeast Ohio. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Comparative Arts from Ohio University and an M.A. in teaching children with learning disorders from Ohio State. After school, he stayed in the Hocking Valley and lives with his wife and two dogs in Athens. He’s had poems published in The Tule Review, Caesura, and The South Carolina Review recently.

Byron Barton received his Ph.D. from the University of Vermont in 2007 and is currently living in Santa Cruz, Aruba. He is putting the finishing touches on his debut novel, Saving Grace.

Theresa Williams has published stories and poems widely in such magazines as Chattahoochee Review, DMQ Review, Gargoyle, Hunger Mountain, Lingerpost, Paterson Literary Review, The Sun, Thrush, and Weave. Her chapbook, The Galaxy to Ourselves, will be available June 2012, and her novel, The Secret of Hurricanes, was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. She’s the recipient of an Individual Excellence Grant from the Ohio Arts Council and was selected for a summer residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She has lived in Northwest Ohio since 1987.

Jeremy Hauck is currently pursuing an M.F.A. degree at Temple University and lives in Philadelphia. He is the managing editor of Temple University’s online literary journal, TINGE Magazine. His fiction has most recently appeared in the third issue of TAV, and he reviews literary journals and interviews editors for The Review Review. He is a native of Clinton County, Ohio.

Ginger Knowlton is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in publications such as 5 trope, the Bark, Marginalia, Many Mountains Moving, Segue, Sentence, Tarpaulin Sky and Surface Design Journal. Her paintings and drawings are held in private collections across the United States and in New Zealand. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and received awards from the Academy of American Poets and Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute. For more, please see gingerknowlton.com.

Brendan M. Regan was born in Iowa and grew up in Northwest Ohio. On his way to Seattle, he lived in Toledo and Denver. His work has appeared in Chronogram, Prairie Margins, Syntax, and other publications. He also writes and plays folk music which can be heard at youtube.com/raincityceltic.

You can download a free version of his chapbook of NW Ohio-themed poems, Swamp, River and Ditch, here.

Byron Edgington capped a forty-year aviation career in 2005 to write and to return to college full time. He will graduate from The Ohio State University in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, then will pursue an MFA in creative writing. His work in progress includes a novel, Waitin’ for Willie Pete: a Helicopter Novel of Vietnam, and an aviation memoir entitled The Sky Behind Me. His essays have appeared in Gemini, The Evening Street Review, The Lantern, and The Chrysalis Reader.

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Maggie Glover earned a BA from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and an MFA from West Virginia University, where she was awarded the James Paul Brawner Poetry Award in 2007. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry has appeared in Verse Daily, The Journal, Ninth Letter, Smartish Pace and other literary journals. Currently, she lives in San Francisco, CA.

Duy Nguyen is a Bostonian living in Los Angeles, where she works as a freelance television production coordinator. Her short stories “My Lover Is a Former Fat Kid” and “Where Will You Be When You Are Reading This” were finalists in Hunger Mountain’s 2010 and 2011 Howard Frank Mosher Short Story Contests. “My Lover Is a Former Fat Kid” appeared in Hawaii Women’s Journal.

Tim Kahl is the author of Possessing Yourself (Word Tech, 2009) and The Century of Travel (Word Tech, forthcoming). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Notre Dame Review, The Journal, Parthenon West Review, and many other journals in the U.S. He appears as Victor Schnickelfritz at the poetry and poetics blog The Great American Pinup and the poetry video blog Linebreak Studios. He is also editor of Bald Trickster Press and Clade Song. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Center. He currently houses his father’s literary estate—one volume: Robert Gerstmann’s book of photos of Chile, 1932.

Daniel Coshnear – coshn@sonic.net – lives in Guerneville, California, works at a group home for men and women with mental illnesses, teaches in a variety of SF bay area university extension programs, and is author of Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine 2001), winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Award. He hopes to publish a new collection of short fiction in 2012 with Kelly’s Cove Press, tentatively titled You Can Put Your Name On It If You Want To.

Laura Grace Weldon is a writer, editor, and occasionally useful farm wench. She lives with her family on Bit of Earth Farm (www.bitofearthfarm.com) where they raise cows, chickens, bees, and the occasional ruckus. Her newest book is Free Range Learning (Hohm Press). Her essays have recently appeared in L’Initiation, Geez, New Awareness, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Natural Life, Farming, Grit, and Lilipoh and she twirls ideas around in what she hopes is an optimistic manner on her blog.

Lauren E. Watkins holds a BA in English and Political Science and is currently pursuing an MFA at Texas State University. She has been published in Persona, the Texas State University literary journal, and USA TODAY College. She is currently working on a debut novel as well as a collection of short stories she hopes to have published. When not reading or writing, she can be found wakeboarding at the lake. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her giant golden retriever, Tyler.

Ed Hamilton is the author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York’s Rebel Mecca (DaCapo, 2007). His fiction has appeared in various journals, including Limestone, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, River Walk Journal, Exquisite Corpse, and Modern Drunkard. His non-fiction has appeared in The Villager, Chelsea Now, the Huffington Post, and, more recently, in the Czech Republic’s Host, Germany’s Zwiebelfisch, and the anthology Experienced: Rock Music Tales of Fact and Fiction (Vagabondage Press, LLC 2011). Follow his blog here.

Donald Dewey has published 30 books of fiction, nonfiction, and drama for such houses as Little, Brown and HarperCollins, as well as contributed scores of stories to magazines and other periodicals. His latest novel, Wake Up and Smell the Bees, will be published in July.

Paul Alan Fahey is a writer who resides in Nipomo, California. His short stories have recently appeared in Gertrude, The African American Review, Long Story Short and in the Sisters in Crime anthology, Somewhere in Crime. He is currently editing an anthology of personal essays called THE OTHER MAN wherein noted gay writers describe being the other man, suffering the other man or having their lives affected by infidelity. Paul is a member of NightWriters, the premiere writing organization of the central California coast.

Nick Sweet’s short stories have appeared in Descant, issues 117 and 118 of the Evergreen Review, Cutthroat, Fertile Source, Bartleby Snopes (twice), Shelf Life, SN Review, Offcourse Literary Journal, Paper Skin Glass Bones, Forge, Sliver of Stone, Ink Tank, and an anthology of Asian stories. Two more stories are to appear in an anthology from the Liberated Muse Productions (Volume II). His novel Gemini Games, available from Amazon, was praised by acclaimed authors DM Thomas, DJ Taylor and Andrew O’Hagan.

Kate LaDew is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cat, Charlie Chaplin, and is currently working on her first novel.

Zach Fishel is a recent Pushcart nominee and graduate student at the University of Toledo. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from Gloom Cupboard, A Few Lines Magazine, Magic Cat Press, Bolts of Silk, The Montucky Review, Mad Swirl, and many others. His mantra is rye or die, and he can read palms if the price is right. Feel free to find him on Facebook.

James Russell teaches and writes in New Jersey. He blogs at notanotherblahg@blogspot.com and tweets @JamesRussell49. “The Camp Seminole Wiener Wall” is from his short story collection, Strange Arrangements. His work has also appeared in Blip Magazine and The Quotable. He is looking for a home for Jesse Rules, his 78,000-word novel about the fall from grace of a homo-repressed, would-be Catholic school class president, set in grungy 1994.

Stephanie Dickinson was raised on an Iowa farm and now lives in New York City. Her novel Half Girl and novella Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil. Other works include Corn Goddess and Road of Five Churches. Her stories have been reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2008 and 2009. She won New Delta Review’s 2011 Matt Clark Fiction prize judged by Susan Straight. She is an associate editor at Mudfish and with Rob Cook edits Skidrow Penthouse.

Mercedes Lawry has been publishing poetry for over thirty years in such journals as Poetry, Rhino, Puerto del Sol, Folio, New Madrid, Seattle Review, Nimrod, and Salamander. Her chapbook There are Crows in My Blood was published by Pudding House in 2007; her chapbook Happy Darkness was released by Finishing Line Press in 2011. She has received honors from the Seattle Arts Commission, Jack Straw Foundation, Artist Trust, and Richard Hugo House. She has also published fiction as well as stories and poems for children.

Robyn Parnell’s short story “Here is What” is published in the current issue of Bellevue Literary Review. She is an Author’s Guild, SCBWI and Oregon Writers Colony member whose works have appeared in a variety of journals, anthologies and books. A collection of her short fiction, This Here and Now, was published by Scrivenery Press. Coming attractions include a story in the Joy: Interrupted anthology and a juvenile novel (Scarletta Press, 2013).

Ariel Gore is the author of seven or eight books of fiction and nonfiction including Atlas of the Human Heart, The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show, and Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness. She teaches creative writing and cooks up vegan snacks at The Literary Kitchen.

Michelle Cruz Gonzales recently finished a memoir, Pretty Bold For a Mexican Girl: Growing Up Chicana in a Hick Town, and she teaches English and Creative Writing at Las Positas College. Michelle has never published, but she played drums and wrote lyrics in an all-female punk band in the 1990s. The band, Spitboy, toured Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States. She blogs about writing and recollections here and lives in Oakland with her husband, son, and their two Mexican dogs.

Simon Ditlevsen is an avid environmentalist, aid worker, and international marathoner. He wrote the manuscript for the 1991 film It’s Best Aloft, a documentary about life on board the tall ship Danmark. He has also written several articles on swimming technique and coaching. Among his literary influences are novelists Karen Blixen and Astrid Lindgren, and poet Søren Ulrich Thomsen. “When a Man’s Nobler Parts…” is fiction based on anecdotes and experiences he had during a year spent in a rural village in northern Tanzania.

As literacy director for Open Books, Erin Walter helped writers of all ages and backgrounds share their stories. Her own work has appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, the Oregonian, Bookslut, Fametracker, Love, Chicago, On the Fly: Stories in Eight Minutes or Less, and more. She performed at Reading Under the Influence in Chicago and most recently with the punk rock choir Blue Ribbon Glee Club. An enthusiastic traveler, Erin drags her husband and daughter on a quest for Mexican food in every country they visit.

Harried mother of four wild boys, Susan escapes reality between dodging random flying objects and folding mounds of laundry by going into the happy bubble of her writing world. She loves to live in the quiet place of subconscious where stories fester and yearn to be told. Her first novel, Fury, was published in 2003; she was the lead editor for the Las Positas College Anthology and has had several short stories published.

Jenny Hayes grew up in Berkeley, California, and now lives in Seattle. Her writing has been featured in a variety of publications including music magazines (Fizz), alternative local papers (Tablet), tiny li’l zines (Spider Stompin’), and online literary experiments (Significant Objects). She co-authors the blog Yard Sale Bloodbath and is putting the finishing touches on her novel Highway to Hella.

Carrie Herzner falls back on her scissors daily, working as a hairstylist. She falls into her pen nightly, writing poetry and short stories. “Father’s Day 2010” is an excerpt from her upcoming novel. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and fine-tunes her poetry and prose as a member of the Greater Cincinnati Writer’s League.

Jon Vanderlogh lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two dogs. He spends his summers writing and making music—he’s a synthesizer enthusiast who loves experimenting with sounds—and in the other nine months of the year, he teaches English to at-risk teens. “An Unknown Journey into Wheezing” is a section from a novel he is currently working on about six individuals, all out to change their lives in drastic ways, who instead plunge deeper down the path they desperately wanted to avoid.

Vickie Fernandez is an award-winning writer. Her stories have appeared in many online publications including The Rumpus, Spurt Literary Journal, FYLM and Tiki Tiki. She is the recipient of the 2011 Judith Stark award and a finalist in Hunger Mountain’s 2010 competition for creative nonfiction. Vickie is currently working on a memoir while simultaneously wrangling a new set of unruly tales into submission. She resides in Philadelphia with her handsome and talented husband.