Dawn Schout’s poetry has appeared in Breadcrumb Scabs, Down in the Dirt, Fogged Clarity, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Midwest Literary Magazine, Muscle & Blood Literary Journal, Poetry Quarterly, The Centrifugal Eye, Tipton Poetry Journal, and a dozen other publications. She lives near Lake Michigan.
Dorene O’Brien is a fiction writer and a teacher of creative writing. She has won numerous awards for her fiction, including the Red Rock Review’s Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Award, the Iowa Literary Award the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award and the international Bridport Prize. She was also awarded a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her short stories have appeared in the Connecticut Review, the Chicago Tribune, The Best of Carve Magazine, Short Story Review, Passages North, New Millennium Writings, Cimarron Review, Detroit Noir and others. Her short story collection, Voices of the Lost and Found, won the 2008 National Best Book Award in short fiction. Her website is www.doreneobrien.com.
Eamonn Lorigan is an annuated Irishman with a spotty publication history trying to write one decent poem every couple of days for the rest of his miserable God-bedeviled life in the obviously contradictory hope that he will thereby find salvation. Age has not brought him maturity and he tends to be the oldest guy at his local poetry slams. Eamonn's work has appeared in such venues as Carve Magazine, Muse Apprentice Guild, Literary Potpourri, Literary Burlesque, Slowtrains, a Literary Journal, New England Architecture and Poetry Superhighway. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two sons.
Erin Croy lives in Omaha, NE. She doesn't love talking about herself like this, but thinks you should visit her at www.facebook.com/erinccroy because she wants to talk to people who read poems. Erin has other poems in Origami Condom and Breadcrumb Scabs, and upcoming work in Open Minds Quarterly and The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women's Poetry.
Kate Frank is a fifth generation Oregonian going to school in Western Massachusetts, where she co-hosts a weekly poetry open mic and slam. Her work has appeared in The Reader and on various stages from Maine to Minnesota. She believes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, brunch and beer
Kimberly Casey is a Massachusetts poet who has made her home in every corner of the state. An Emerson College graduate and member of Emerson's 2010 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational team, Kimberly remains active in the poetry scene both in Boston and Worcester, while nesting in her current town of Westfield, where she can be spotted constantly sipping tea, writing, and dreaming.
Matthew Byrne is an insurance broker in Chicago. His poetry appears in some journals, most notably Best American Poetry 2007. He is married and has 3 children. He is addicted to hot sauce, practices yoga, and harbors an (irrational?) aversion to U2 and Dave Matthews.
Meaghan Ford was born a witch but lost all of her magic in an a card game at the Cantab Lounge on poetry night. This led to a paradox in the universe causing people to misspell her name for the rest of her life. This year she received her Masters in Creative Writing, Nonfiction from Emerson College and officially declared herself an ardent liar. She's been recently published in both The Legendary and The Scrambler and aspires to one day be Queen of the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts.
Megan Kennedy has been forging dark art for over ten years, and hopes one day it will make her an oracle. Her work has been featured in SNAP! and Vicious Magazine, Fantastic Horror Magazine, as the cover art for numerous local and international bands, as well as an upcoming release from Random House Australia.
Paul Hellweg has had over one hundred poems published since his debut in 2009. He won the 2009 Coatlism Press full-length poetry book contest, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Alas, he has nothing scandalous to confess, but he thinks that's a grand idea and he promises to do something scandalous as soon as inspiration strikes.
Robert McDonald's work has appeared recently in Court Green, Pank, elimae, La Petite Zine, and The Prose-Poem project, as well as issue number seven of Phantom Kangaroo. He lives in Chicago, works at an independent bookstore, and blogs at http://livesofthespiders.blogspot.com. He is almost ready to believe he is being haunted by the ghost of his sister.
Sarah J. Sloat is a reluctant non-smoker who works for a news agency in Germany. She has seen a flying saucer, but would be glad to be wrong. Her poems have appeared in Bateau, Court Green and Linebreak, among other publications. Her chapbook “Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair” will be published by dancing girl press in 2011.
Susie Swanton's poetry has appeared in the cream city review, MUZZLE Magazine, and decomP magazinE. She performed in the entry of The Encyclopedia Show in Chicago that featured slices of John Wayne Gacy's brain.
Wesley Dylan Gray resides in Florida with his wife, Brenda and daughter, Elizabeth Jadzia. In his spare time, he writes; with these words he attempts to exude a disposition of resplendent contrast, writing things of light and of darkness, things of beauty and of the grotesque. Such writings can be found in various small press magazines and anthologies. Find him online at www.wesleydylangray.com.