Paul David Adkins lives in New York and works as a counselor.  He served in the US Army for 21 years.

Sylvia Ashby’s background is in theatre, acting and writing; her 15 published plays for family audiences have had thousands of productions. (An adaptation of Anne of Green Gables has been produced on three continents.) Last spring, after seeing her short memoir in Anderbo.com, she was prompted to send out poetry. Now her work appears or will appear in various lit mags: Vine Leaves, Right Hand Pointing, Abyss & Apex, Glass, Mezzo Cammin, Constellations, etc., plus a forthcoming anthology of Black Mountain College poetry. Her theatre website is Sylviaashby.com.

Philip Belcher has published poetry and critical prose in a variety of literary journals, including Passages North, Shenandoah, Asheville Poetry Review, South Dakota Review, Southeast Review, Fugue, and The Southern Quarterly.  In 2007, his chapbook, The Flies and Their Lovely Names, was published by Stepping Stones Press at the University of South Carolina.  He is an Advisory and Contributing Editor for Shenandoah and holds degrees from Furman University, Southeastern Seminary, the Duke University School of Law, and Converse College (MFA).  He currently serves as Vice President, Programs, of The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina in Asheville, NC.

Michael Biehl’s poetry has appeared in Image, Callaloo, The Saranac Review, The Great River Review,The Comstock Review, and Blue Unicorn, among others. He has new work forthcoming in Verse Wisconsin and The Cape Rock. He is currently an instructor of English as a Second Language to foreign university students and business executives.

Katie Blakely graduated from the MFA program at Brooklyn College (CUNY) in May, 2012. She is a Queens native and currently works as an Adjunct English Instructor at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College (CUNY). Her favorite poet is Frank O’Hara.

Aaron Brame teaches English at a private school in Memphis, Tennessee. His poetry has appeared in Straight Forward, The Squawkback, and The Copperfield Review, and his essay about witnessing the Challenger disaster was published in Greenhaven Press’s Perspectives on Modern World History. He has a writing degree from Rhodes College and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in literature from the University of Memphis. When not writing, he is likely tending his blog, aaronbrame.org, or watching baseball. He lives with his wife and two children in Memphis.

Lauren Camp is the author of two volumes of poetry, most recently The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith, 2013), winner of the New Mexico Press Women 2014 Poetry Book Prize and a World Literature Today “Editor’s Pick.” Her third book, One Hundred Hungers, won the Dorset Prize, and will be published by Tupelo Press in 2016. Her poems have appeared in Brilliant Corners, Beloit Poetry Journal, Linebreak, Nimrod, J Journal, and elsewhere. She hosts “Audio Saucepan,” a global music/poetry program on Santa Fe Public Radio, and writes the blog Which Silk Shirt. www.laurencamp.com.

Sherry Chandler’s poems have  appeared in The Louisville Review, The Cortland Review, The South  Carolina Review, and many other magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two full-length collections, The Woodcarver’s Wife and Weaving a New Eden.

Ian Cook is an American born, internationally raised writer who has recently completed his degree in Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. He hopes to further his studies in graduate school after teaching for the Peace Corps in Indonesia. He writes about the world around him and the endless processes that shape his understanding of reality. He is forever working on his first collection of poems and songs titled Vishuddha.

Luisa Dasilva is happily retired in Sunrise, Florida. Luisa is a wife and a mother of two. Luisa enjoys photography, she has no formal training in professional photography, but has taught herself by reading articles and through the inspiration of other photography. She enjoys capturing the beauty and reality of nature, mostly macros, butterflies, and flowers. Luisa grew up and studied Law in Colombia. When she was little she had a passion for oil painting, but her career as a lawyer did not allow her to develop her love for art. Now that she is retired she turns back to her passion for art by expressing it through her photography, capturing nature at its best, and adding a special touch to her photography with digital alterations. To check out more of Luisa’s photogaphy visit her page at http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=7139849 or if you want to contact her write to her at godmylord4all@gmail.com

Caroline Davies’ Convoy was published by Cinnamon Press in 2013. She was born in Norfolk to Welsh parents and spent much of her childhood by the sea. She studied East European History at the University of London and Creative Writing with the Open University. Convoy was inspired by the experiences of her grandfather, James ‘Jim’ Honeybill, who served on the Blue Funnel Line ship M.V. Ajax during the Malta convoys and also by her mother’s stories of growing up in North Wales during the war. She blogs occasionally at http://advancingpoetry.blogspot.com/. She is working on a collection of poems in collaboration with Vanessa Gebbie in response to war memorials which will be forthcoming from Cinnamon Press in 2016.

Stay Strong & Live with Passion
Patrick Di Fruscia
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Julie Finch lives in Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin where she majored in communications, minored in English. She worked for many years as an advertising copywriter until her conscience got the best of her. Today, she makes a living in the staffing industry, and writes as often as she can. Her work has been published by Blazevox, ditch, the Bitchin’ Kitsch, Black Cat Poems, and Underground Books. She reveres poetry, and believes it can save a life.

Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals, such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review,  In the past she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review.  She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005 with Light Persists. Her fifth poetry collection, The Red Coat, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2013.

Zachary Scott Hamilton grew up in Oregon, and spent many years traveling, where he began a fascination for the composed word. On occasion he writes for Metazen. His booklet Identification (authored with Brandy Gump of The Miss Rockaway Armada) won an AxP award, and can be purchased at Powell’s Books, Last Word (Olympia,WA) and Floating World Comics.

Mike Harrell lives in Brooklyn, NY and makes his living in the film industry as a props person. He is a graduate of the University of Florida, where he received a degree in English. He has been published in Apocrypha & Abstractions, IthicaLit, The Centrifugal Eye, Clapboard House, Soundzine, Barnwood Magazine, Deep South Magazine, and The Alligator.

Berrien C. Henderson’s poetry has appeared in Jabberwocky, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and The Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Currently, he has a paperback mini-collection of poetry and fiction out via Papaveria Press: Old Souls and the Grammar of Their Wanderings.

Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer and translator. Her background is in creative writing, literary translation, film and comparative literature. She has received her M. F. A in Creative Writing and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has published translations and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, The Haro, The Literary Yard, Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, among others. She lives in Vancouver, Canada. Her website is www.desireejung.com

Terence Lane is a fiction writer from Greenlawn, New York. His work can be found in Corium Magazine, Smokelong Quarterly and The Southampton Review.

Fran Lock is a sometime itinerant dog whisperer and poet, now living, working and wearing a cardigan in London with her husband and her basenji.

When not writing and performing poetry, or wrestling with intractable dogs, Fran is involved in various ways with anarcha-feminist activism.

She has an M.A in Creative Writing from Kingston University, and is currently in the process of applying for her PhD. Her debut collection Flatrock (Little Episodes) was launched in May 2011. Her work has appeared in various places, including The Alarmist, Ambit, Poetry London, The Morning Star, The Stinging Fly, and in Best British Poetry 2012 (Salt). Her second collection The Mystic and the Pig Thief (Salt) is due out in June.

Diane Lockward is the author of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop (Wind Publications, 2013) and three poetry books, most recently Temptation by Water. Her previous books are What Feeds Us, which received the 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize, and Eve’s Red Dress. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Against Perfection and Greatest Hits: 1997-2010. Her poems have been included in such anthologies as Poetry Daily: 360 Poems from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times, and in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.

Gary Maggio is from Brooklyn, and now lives in Albany, NY. Semi-retired, he works part-time as an actor/teacher standardized patient at Albany Medical Center. As an actor he’s worked both in theatre and corporate videos. As a visual artist, his work has appeared in various shows, both solo and group. Poems have been published in several small press literary mags., including The Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, Bryant Literary Review, Lifeboat, and Rio Grande Review.

Known for his magnificent bronze and stone sculptures, which can be viewed in such places as the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., the Vatican and around the world, artist Brian Mark has created a complete new medium, quite possibly the most interesting the art world has seen in years.
“ Emily T. Simon Harvard University Gazette”

It’s not often that someone creates an entirely new mode of self-expression. Most people are stuck within the confines of tradition or certain stylistic tendencies, be it in writing, film or fine art. Brian Mark, on the other hand, is one of the select few to have transcended convention, using an innovative method of pouring acid on stainless steel. This bold medium allows for an experience that is wholly unique and deeply mesmerizing.
“Tony Libera, Minnesota Daily The Art of Dripping Acid.”

In inventing this new medium of art, I employ precious metals of gold, nickel and silver electro plated on a stainless steel panel, which is bathed in a multitude of acids To reveal ghostly images of the subconscious merging to our conscious. My work can be found in Courthouses, Cathedrals and Corporations around the world.
“ Brian Mark”

To learn more please visit @ www.brianmarkart.com

C. Boyce McKay, from Lafayette, Indiana, now lives, with his family, in Columbus, Ohio. Fiction and poetry appear, or will soon appear, in The Write Room.

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Camel Saloon Books on Blog, Blueline, Vine Leaves, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications.  She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Four of her books have been published by fine literary presses.

She has recited her work at the National Arts Club, New York City, State University of New York, Oneonta, McNay Art Institute, San Antonio and other distinguished venues.  A recent reading was sponsored by the American Academy of Poetry.  Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky, A.P.D. Press, Albany, New York.

For years, Britt Melewski has been trying to find his way out of an impossible network of underground pipes.  He has no professional skills and cannot put together a suitable map of the territories he’s explored.  He’s cut every circuit breaker he has found.  Melewski listens for footsteps but only hears the enormously loud drip of a thousand leaks.  He has poems, he remembers.  The New Yorker Backwards, Deep Hilt Magazine, Maybe, Another.  He has climbed the ladder to each and every hatch to find that all holes are covered and sealed shut with rubber fittings or liquid metal.  Britt no longer asks the hollow question, what’s that smell?  He’s committed to straightening words one letter at a time to make a snake, or a device that he might be able to slide into the world to wiggle around, to beg for help.   He could be underneath New York City.  He could be anywhere else.

Elaina Mercatoris grew up in rural Pennsylvania and studied literature at Allegheny College. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Fine Arts in poetry at the University of Florida, where she also teaches composition and technical writing courses.

Jamie North holds an MFA from St. Mary’s College of CA. She has worked as a teaching assistant at UC Berkeley and St. Mary’s College and offers experiential poetry workshops in the Bay Area of California.

Leslie Philibert is a London-born Englishman of French parenthood. He studied English Literature at the University of Coleraine in Ireland. He works as a social worker and writer in South Germany.

Julia Pickerill lives and writes in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She studied English and Creative Writing at The Ohio State University and Bowling Green University and has been writing poetry for over twenty years. Her work has also been published in The Bangalore Review.

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His theater and restaurant reviews have been published in various newspapers, with poetry and interviews appearing in numerous national journals, among them Portland Review, Main Street Rag, Kestrel, Scarlet Literary Magazine, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Penny Ante Feud, New Plains Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Muse-an International Journal of Poetry, and Clockhouse Review. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.

Anthony Rintala is an instructor at the University of Southern Indiana, where he is the Media Editor for the Southern Indiana Review. His work has most recently been published in New Plains Review, Kudzu Magazine, Muse: A Quarterly Journal, Ishaan Literary Review, Oklahoma Review, Copperfield Review, A Few Lines Magazine, Mad Hatter’s Review, Foundling Review, Muddy River, Penwood Review, St. Ann’s Review, Sakura Review, and the Avatar Review.

Trish Rooney is a reviewer living near Boston. She has never been to Italy. http://www.thebowedbookshelf.blogspot.com is her blog about books.

Helen Rossiter was born in Kenya, educated in England and raised a family in New Zealand before immigrating to Canada where she freelances as a business and promotional copywriter. Her first short story was published when she was nine. Fiction awards of which she is most proud include winner of the Alice Munro Short Story contest and winner of the Canadian Authors Association short story contest. Recent fiction appears in Byline, Story Shack Magazine and Club House Press.

Danny Earl Simmons is an Oregonian and a proud graduate of Corvallis High School. He is a friend of the Linn-Benton Community College Poetry Club and an active member of Albany Civic Theater. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals such as Naugatuck River Review, Off the Coast, Shadow Road Quarterly, Grey Sparrow, and Verse Wisconsin.

Since 1985 David Spiering has been a student in the William Faulkner School of creative writing and hard knocks. Sol books of Minneapolis published his first full length collection, My Father’s Gloves. He’s published three chapbooks, chief among them, Crooked Litanies from Snark Press in 2005. His poems have been printed in Spillway, Poetry East, The Chiron Review, and Clackamas Literary Review and others. Currently, Spiering is looking for a teaching job or a teaching fellowship. He has three full length poetry collections he’s getting ready for submission.

R L Swihart currently lives in Long Beach, CA, and teaches high school mathematics in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various online and print journals, including Rhino, Right Hand Pointing, 1110, decomP, and Pebble Lake Review. His first collection of poems, The Last Man, was published in 2012 by Desperanto Press.

Vladimir Swirynsky started writing at the age of 45 after two weeks at Mardi Gras. His 20th book “Poetry” The Patron Saint of Words is just out from New Kiev Publishing. He hopes to move out west, hopefully where the car breaks down, somewhere in Arizona near a Drive-in showing a double feature.

Sidney Thompson lives in Denton, Texas, where he teaches creative writing at Texas Woman’s University. Poems about his wife’s pregnancy and the birth of their daughter have also appeared in A capella Zoo, Burningword Literary Journal, The Fat City Review, The Fertile Source, IthacaLit, Literary Mama, and RHINO. His fiction has recently appeared in such journals as 2 Bridges Review, Clapboard House, Cleaver Magazine, The Cortland Review, Danse Macabre, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Grey Sparrow Journal, NANO Fiction, Ostrich Review, Prick of the Spindle, storySouth, and TINGE Magazine. He is the author of the short story collection Sideshow.

Sarah Winn lives in Fairfax, Virginia. She is a Completion Fellow at George Mason University’s MFA in Poetry program. She was runner up for the 2012 Virginia Downs Poetry competition. In her life as a librarian, she reviewed books for School Library Journal, and currently reviews for So to Speak. Her poems have appeared in Egg and will be appearing in the upcoming December 2013 Memory themed issue of Halfway Down the Stairs.

Emily Wong is a writer/editor in Chicago, where she spends her time investigating deviations at pharmaceutical companies and playing fetch with her one-eyed Shih Tzu, Gatsby. She is pleased to say that, a mere eight years after receiving her MFA in poetry, she has finally found her voice.