Neil Aitken has lived all over the world -- from the small farming towns of Saskatchewan, Canada, to the industrial districts of Taipei, Taiwan. His work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Washington Square, DIAGRAM, and several other journals. He presently serves as the editor of Boxcar Poetry Review.

Shekhar Aiyar's poems have appeared in various publications in India, Sri Lanka, Canada, England and the US. Recent credits include Atlanta Review and The Formalist. He lives in Washington, DC.

Sandeep Bhatnagar did his M.A. in English Literature from the University of Mumbai (India) and plans to do research on aspects of Indian Writing. He is the Honorary Assistant Editor of New Quest, a literary journal published from Pune, India. He currently works as a chief officer in the merchant navy.

Robert Bohm is a poet and culture writer. He was born in Queens, NY. His credits include two books, one chapbook and work published in a variety of print and online publications, including the current Spring 2006 Pemmican. More information about Bohm, as well as excerpts from new as well as older writings, can be found at his recently launched website, Unburials: The Writer as Graverobber.

Bob Bradshaw is a programmer living in Redwood City, California. He is a huge fan of the Rolling Stones. Recent and forthcoming work of his can be found at Eclectica, Slow Trains, Half Drunk Muse, Banyan Review,, Quill And Ink, Paumanok Review and 3rd Muse. He received a 2005 Pushcart nomination from Verse Libre Quarterly.

R. T. Castleberry is a co-founder and director of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe, a literary performance group, and co-editor/publisher of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe poetry publication Curbside Review. Mr. Castleberry has been publishing poetry and fiction since the early 1970s, most notably in Borderland, Pacific Review, RiverSedge, Common Ground Review and Eclipse. In April 1999, he won the Houston Press/ National Poetry Month writing contest. He won the online magazine Liquid Muse 2003 poetry contest. He was Epiphany magazine's featured poet of the month in April 2004. He was included in the Best of Branches 2004 issue.

C.E. Chaffin edits The Melic Review. Widely published on the net and more narrowly in print, he has been the featured poet in over twenty magazines, most recently in Tryst. He teaches a poetry tutorial online for a fee to help support Melic, and can be reached at cechaffin@hotmail.com.

A second-generation native Californian and retired family doctor (FAAFP), on disability for manic-depression and intractable spinal pain, he is married to Kathleen Chaffin, whom he considers a better poet. They are blessed with three daughters, a son and grandson. If you'd like to read more of his work, put "C.E. Chaffin" in Google and plenty of references should appear, but ignore any books; his are out of print.

Todd Christopher Cincala works for a private investigator in Manhattan and studies graduate English at Brooklyn College. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in 5 AM, MOBIUS Magazine, Poetz.com, and the Absinthe Literary Review.

Douglas Cole has been published in The Connecticut River Review, Louisiana Literature, Cumberland Poetry Review, and Midwest Quarterly. He won the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry for a selection of work called "The Open Ward," a chapter from a full-length manuscript. He lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two sons, and teaches writing and literature at Seattle Central College, where he is also the advisor for the literary journal, Corridors.

Margaret Curtis's chapbook of poetry, Milk and Honey, was published by Trillium Press in 1994 and is available through Border's. Other publications by Dr. Curtis include medieval scholarship in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Societe Neophilologique Bulletin of the Modern Language Society and The WVACET Journal. Her name appears in the Working Bibliography for Cotton Nero Ax Project. Journalism, stories, and poetry under her by-line, Meg Curtis, have also appeared in The Morning Call, The Saucon News, Our Cats, 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, and Crescent Blues. Under this name, her art work has been published, too, in Black Bear Review. For the academic year of 2005-2006, Margaret Curtis is Visiting Assistant Professor of English/Professional Writing at Kutztown University.

Patrick Di Fruscia spent most of his childhood years away from the city, having been raised mostly in the Canadian countryside. From the time of his birth in 1970, Patrick’s experiences in nature were to become a large influence in affecting his ultimate passion for the beauties of the natural world.

His love for the arts has grown throughout the years, and he attributes his devotion to interpreting nature in an artistic manner to his parents’ participation in the arts. His father, Joseph, was a professional photographer during a period in his life. His mother, Michele, was gifted with artistic talents such as drawing, painting, and decorating. Her fine eye for details was an influence on Patrick’s perception of nature.

In August of 2000, his employer tasked him with learning to take images of the company’s products in order to save money from hiring professional photographers.  Patrick started reading everything he could get his hands on about photography; he realized that this was an art form that would enable him to express his inner feelings about the world around him.

He also started searching for a style, and it was not long before he was producing images of everything around him, and attending several classes on photography. The crux of his search was found while visiting the magnificent Gaspe’ Peninsula in Quebec Canada. On a warm Fall morning he approached the summit of Mont Ernest LaForce and discovered the breathtaking views spread out before him. At that point he knew this was it! Nature was calling his name loud and clear. This was a magical memory that Patrick will remember forever. The art of photography turned to a true passion. Homepage: www.difrusciaphotography.com

Zdravka Evtimova as born in 1959 in Bulgaria. In her native country she has published several books of fiction and has won the Gencho Stoev National Short Story Award and The Best Contemporary Novel Award for her novel Thursday (2003). Her short stories have appeared in American journals such as Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, Adirondack Review, Bellvue Literary Review, Night Train, as well as in various journals in United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, Russia, India, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Turkey, Nepal, Macedonia and Serbia. Her short story "Vassil" was one among the 15 prizewinning stories in the international short story competition of Radio BBC Worldwide UK 2005, and her short story "It's Your Turn" was one of the ten prizewinning stories by authors from all over the world in the "Utopia 2005" short story competition in the town of Nantes, France in 2005. Her short story collection, Somebody Else, was published by MAG Press, San Diego, California, in 2004, and another collection Bitter Sky (published by Skrev Press, UK, 2003) has been recently reprinted by Route Press, UK.

Zdravka lives with her husband, two sons and her daughter in Pernik, Bulgaria. She works as a literary translator from English into Bulgarian

Jason Fraley works at an investment firm in West Virginia and is pursing his M.B.A. His wife and cat see him occasionally. He has been published in Redactions, Confluence, Whistling Shade, Words on Walls, Pebble Lake Review, and others.

James Grinwis lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife and son. His work has appeared in 3am, Quick Fiction, Snow Monkey, Sleepingfish, Fourteen Hills, Opium, Cafe Irreal, and others.

Aaron M. Hellem attends the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. His work has most recently appeared in Antimuse, Ascent, Facets Magazine, the Bitter Oleander, and the Timber Creek Review. Also, new work is forthcoming in Liquid Ohio, the Gihon River Review, and the Pisgah Review.

For several years Susan L. Helwig produced and hosted the literary programme "In other words" at radio station CKLN-FM in Toronto. Her broadcasting stint closed with a flourish as she interviewed Yann Martel about Life of Pi during the September 2001 launch. Her work has been widely published and anthologized throughout North America, from ACTA victoriana to Zygote. A lifelong obsession with food has started to pay dividends with the inclusion of one of her pieces in a book on Appalachian home cooking. She nourishes her musical appetite by singing in the alto section of the Toronto Choral Society and coaxing pop tunes from her 1911 Martin Orme piano at home. Her first book, Catch the Sweet, was published to great acclaim in 2001. Her second collection, Pink Purse Girl, is due out in the fall of 2006.

J. B. Hogan is a fiction writer and poet living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His latest writing credits include: "Last Flight" (creative non-fiction), Copperfield Review, Vol. 5, Num. 4, Autumn, 2005; "We Do It Every Time," "Why Wars Get Fought," "Some Places We've Been" (poems), Poets Against War, October 25, 2005; "Blue Haze at Signpost 279" and "God Is a Metaphor" (poems), Poesia, Vol. III, No. 4, October 2005, pp. 10-11); "In the Rain" (fiction) The Square Table, Summer 2005, Vol. III, Issue II; "Campesino" (fiction), First Prize winner, Sager Creek Arts Center (Siloam Springs, AR) Short, Short Fiction Contest, May 2005; "Police Action: October 17, 1951" (fiction), The Copperfield Review, Vol. 5, Num. 2, Spring 2005; "He Liked It That Much" (fiction), Megaera, Issue 21, Spring 2005; "Gorki in New York" (creative non-fiction), The Copperfield Review, Vol. 5, Num. 1, Fourth Anniversary Issue, Winter 2005.

In addition, he has had other short stories, poems, and non-fiction in, The Pedestal Magazine, Poesia, Ascent, Megaera, Mastodon Dentist, The Square Table, Mid-America Folklore Journal, Mobius, Viet Nam Generation, The Mark Twain Journal, and San Francisco Review of Books.

Noy Holland's first book, The Spectacle of the Body, was published by Knopf. What Begins with Bird, her second collection, was published in September 2005, from FC2. Holland's short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, The Quarterly, Open City, NOON, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Black Warrior Review, Glimmer Train, and Ploughshares, among others. She taught at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at the University of Florida, before coming to the MFA Program for Writers and Poets at the University of Massachusetts in 1997. She served as the Director of the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts for three years. Currently, she directs the Writers in the Schools project, and is co-director of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action. In 2004, she collaborated with the University of Massachusetts Press in the founding of the Juniper Prize in Fiction.

Holland was educated at Middlebury College and earned her MFA from the University of Florida. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2003. She has been a John Gardner Fellow at Bread Loaf, a finalist for a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Award, and a resident at the MacDowell Colony.

Katherine L. Holmes has been published in print journals such as The South Dakota Review, Phantasmagoria, WordWrights, Talking River Review, The Minnesota Poetry Calendar, Porcupine, Sidewalks, Skyways and Ice Houses (a Walker Art Center exhibition catalogue). Her internet publications include Eclectica, Full Circle, Gin Bender, The Front Street Review, Facets, Rio, Ygdrasil, whimperbang, and The King's English where she was nominated for a Pushcart in Poetry. When not writing, she works with used and rare books.

Patricia Hunt is a writer and graphic designer. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with her husband, two children and a big, lazy dog. In addition to her short-story writing, Patricia is currently putting the finishing touches on a young adult novel. The big, lazy dog thinks she should focus on petting her.

Sam Kean's "Pills & Peaches" is part of a collection of fables, parables and prose poems he is writing called Too Much of Himself in the Thing. He is also at work on a political novel. Other work of his has appeared in Eclectica, The New Pantagruel, Bewildering Stories and Science. In the meantime, he writes appointmentinsamarra.blogspot.com, a site for maxims, clerihews and other short, fun things to make out of words.

Michael Kimball has published two novels, The Way the Family Got Away (which has been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew) and How Much of Us There Was (the paperback version of which was just published: March 2006). He has also published many pieces in many literary magazines, including, most recently, Open City, Prairie Schooner, and Post Road. He lives in Baltimore with his wife.

Mercedes Lawry was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has lived in Seattle over twenty-five years. She has published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Rhino, Nimrod, Fine Madness, Seattle Review, Crab Creek Review and others. She has also published some fiction, as well as stories and poems for children. Among the honors she has received are awards from the Seattle Arts Commission, Hugo House, and Artist Trust. She has also held a residency at Hedgebrook.

Oswald Le Winter has been published widely in such journals as Shenandoah, Sewanee, Contact, the noble savage, Epoch, The Adelphi, Argonaut, Hudson Review, Paris Review, The Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, New Mexico Quarterly, Snakeskin, Richmond Review, Semit, Tarpaulin Sky, Niederngasse, Avvenimenti (Rome) Botteghe Oscure, Kuerbiskern (Germany), Chelsea, Absinthe Literary Review, Ygdrasil, Eclectica, Mississippi Review, Marlboro Review, Blue Fifth Review, Omega Magazine, Quarterly Review of Literature (Singapore), Snow Monkey, Erosha, Best Poems of the English Language, 1962, and many more. His poems have been translated into eight languages. A new collection, Ages of Chaos and Fury: Selected Poems, 1949-2005, was published by Ravenna Press in 2005.

Rob Mackenzie was born in Glasgow in 1964 and ended up in Edinburgh via Seoul and Turin. His chapbook, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published in 2005 by HappenStance Press. His poem, "In the Last Few Seconds," received a commendation in the 2005 UK National Poetry Competition. He blogs at http://robmack.blogspot.com/.

Jacqueline May grew up in rural North Central Texas, started painting at the age of 12 or so, and has remained remarkably stubborn about it despite considerable puzzlement from all and sundry. She received a BFA from University of North Texas, with a concentration in Painting and Drawing, an uncomfortably long time ago. She moved to Austin, and following a number of odd jobs and more education, worked for around six years at Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, doing communications and development, with heavy graphic design, writing, and Spanish translation duties, and eventually sharing some curatorial responsibility as the Museum grew from a small alternative nonprofit to a more major Latino visual art institution. Following the death of a family member in late 1997, she took a sabbatical to grieve and focus on her own artwork. The sabbatical grew into employment as an artist.

She returned to work for two years from early 2003-05 as the lead visual art reviewer and visual art listings editor for the Austin Chronicle, but resigned from regular weekly writing duties last year to once again fully focus on her artwork. Last year, in addition to her regular Austin exhibits, she was accepted into her first show in Chicago, did a lecture series at the Benini Foundation, and was featured as the cover artist for the hardcover college text, Complex Analysis for Mathematicians and Engineers, which is currently in nationwide distribution. She currently lives comfortably in Austin with her two cats, and exhibits as often as possible, writes articles when the mood strikes her or someone asks nicely, enjoys many extracurricular activities, howls at the moon, and feels pretty lucky, all in all.

When Jeff McNeil isn't watching TCM, scanning bar codes at FedEx, taking care of his 4 kids, or adoring his beautiful wife he tries to squeeze out a short story or two. He has managed to finagle being published in Quick Fiction, Stories from the Blue Moon Café IV, and Mississippi Review Online.

Corey Mesler has published prose and/or poetry in Turnrow, Paumanok Review, Yankee Pot Roast, Monday Night, Elimae, The American Drivel Review, Poet Lore, Forklift OH, Euphony, Rattle, Dicey Brown, Cordite, Cellar Door, Heat City Literary Review, In Posse Review, Cranky, and others. He has a chapbook of poems, Piecework, from the Wing and a Wheel Press. He won the Moonfire Poetry Chapbook Competition 2003 and his chapbook, Chin-Chin in Eden, was published by Still Waters Press. Another chapbook, Dark on Purpose, appeared from Little Poem Press in 2004. Two more are due in 2006: Short Story and Other Short Stories, from Parallel Press, and Noctambulation, from Wood Works.

His novel-in-dialogue, Talk, was published by Livingston Press in 2002. His novel, We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon which is also from Livingston Press, was released in February. He has been a book reviewer (for The Commercial Appeal, BookPage, The Memphis Flyer), fiction editor, university press sales rep, grant committee judge, father and son. With his wife, he owns Burke's Book Store, one of the country's oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores.

Terrance K. Miles's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in W49 Magazine, Uprooted, Hyperdrive, and Tangents. His website: www.furthersignals.blogspot.com

Howard Miller recently retired after 36 years of college teaching. He's now catching up on all that reading he wanted to do but didn't have time to before.

Amanda Moore, a Tennessee native, moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, from Atlanta, Georgia, in order to complete her MFA in Photography. While studying at the University of Utah, she became interested in the dying Utah roadside. Her latest body of work reflects her interest in the abandoned manmade Utah landscape and its remnants. By using moving light boxes, her pieces imply the way most of her subjects are seen, by automobile. The entire body of work, entitled Motion Pictures, gives the viewer a unique perspective of a once dominating roadside culture. The final products are unique art pieces that create a system of forgotten places and nostalgia.

Chris O'Carroll is a writer, actor, and comedian. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Blue Unicorn, Folly, Iambs & Trochees, The Melic Review, The Raintown Review, and other print and online journals.

Seeds of Jay Patel's appreciation for beautiful places were planted early in his childhood on numerous trips to some of the most breathtaking locations on the Indian subcontinent. His passion for such magnificent places now manifests itself in a continuous search to capture nature's majestic beauty with his camera. Jay’s career in photography began in the summer of 2001 when he purchased his first digital SLR. In subsequent years, he spent much time reading photographic magazines and Internet articles and studying the styles of great landscape photographers. He has had no formal education or training in photography.

Although Jay produces most of his work in rich vibrant colors, he also enjoys the creativity and latitude offered by B/W photography in digital format. His photographs try to capture both the physical and emotional nature of light. “Light in nature takes on astonishingly diverse shapes, forms and colors that allow us to interact with the world around us. The calm deep blue of twilight, the dynamic fiery red glow of lava, the piercing beams of sun breaking through the clouds and the soft romantic moonlight reflected in a glacial lake all affect our mood, our feelings and our very outlook on life". It is this physical and emotional nature of light that he passionately struggles to capture through his photographs. He is well aware, however, that his photographs can convey only so much of the wonder as it is beyond his abilities to replicate the awe and magnificence of the natural world. He is not sure his efforts will endure the test of time, but he certainly hopes they will provide inspiration for others who may also try to capture the nature of light. Homepage: www.jaypatelphotography.com

Dee Rimbaud is an artist, poet and novelist. He is author of two full-length poetry collections, The Bad Seed & Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels; and one novel, Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God. He edits The AA Independent Press Guide, which is hosted at his website, www.thunderburst.co.uk, alongside his art. He maintains a writer's blog at http://deerimbaud.blogspot.com/ and a travel blog at http://aaron-aardvark.blogspot.com/. You can buy postcard, posters, t-shirts etc with Dee's art on them at http://rimbaud-products.blogspot.com/

Steven D. Schroeder edits The Eleventh Muse, the literary journal of the Poetry West organization, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The National Poetry Review (where he won the Laureate Prize), 32 Poems, The American Poetry Journal, Bat City Review, and elsewhere.

Jeremiah Stansbury points to his paintings as "a visual concept that relates to the complexity involved in living an inspired life." His works are on display at the Univeral Art Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee.

A Michigander by birth, R. L. Swihart now resides in Long Beach, California. His poetry has been published in various e-zines and in print. Currently, he teaches high school mathematics in Los Angeles, California.

David Trame is an Italian teacher of English. He lives in Venice and teaches in a Liceo Scientifico in S.Donà di Piave. He has been writing poetry exclusively in English since 1993. His poems have appeared in around 150 magazines, most print magazines, only lately on-line, since 1999.

Michael Vaughn is the author of the novel-with-poems Rhyming Pittsburgh (lbfbooks.com) and a regular contributor to Writer's Digest. He lives in Tacoma, Washington. Home page: geocities.com/michaeljvaughn .

Justin Vicari was born in New York City. His work appears in American Poetry Review, Interim, Rhino, Eclipse, Slant, Third Coast, Spillway, Disquieting Muses Quarterly, Gin Bender Poetry Review, Poetry Motel, Stirring, Poems Niederngasse, The Adirondack Review, Memorious, and other reviews. He is the author of the chapbooks In a Garden of Eden (Plan B Press, 2005) and Woman Bathing Light to Dark (Toad Press, 2006).

Jonathan Watson earned a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley in 2002, and an M.A. in English from CSU Sacramento in 2004. During his time as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he printed a poetry booklet entitled The Silent Wonder that was featured in select bookstores in cities Berkeley, Davis, and Sacramento.

Maggie Westland grew up in Kentucky where she graduated from the University of Louisville with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing, and an M.D. and daughter, Natasha, from the University of Kentucky. Son Max arrived on the cusp of a Pensacola tornado.

Maggie reads the OED for fun, cooks, hikes, swims, travels, and photographs wildflowers and sunsets. Her poetry has appeared in The Guardian Unlimited, Never Bury Poetry, Daybreak, The Forge, Grinnell Review, New South Revue, North Carolina Award Winning Poems, and Mademoiselle.

The muse has followed her from Florida to Michigan, North Carolina to Texas, and London, England. A three time Californian, she now resides in Thousand Oaks with her husband Richard.

Betsy Wheeler lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she holds the Stadler Fellowship at Bucknell University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Journal, Pindeldyboz, Caffeine Destiny, Octopus, Brooklyn Review, GutCult, can we have our ball back?, and the anthology Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel.

Ernest Williamson III is a self-taught painter and pianist, who has published poetry and visual art in over forty five online and print journals. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in English/Creative Writing from the University of Memphis. Currently, Ernest is a doctoral student at Seton Hall University in the field of Higher Education and a member of The International High IQ Society based in New York City. His website address is www.eyeoftheart.com/ErnestWilliamsonIII.

Stefan Michael Ziewacz began, around the age of six, lying in bed in the dark just before the shroud of sleep would envelop him, asking out loud, and trying to both speak and listen, "who am I...who am I...who am I..." The existential fear that grew out of that exercise has been his best friend ever since; well, next to his wife.

To see where this ambient idée fixe has led, with links and occasional photos, visit his site, Erratum.

He is currently trying to edit and let go of a novel. His stories are waiting for the send key to allow them their manifest destiny. And all manner of distractions intrude upon his metaphysical dialogue, like the smell of that grilled cheese that is calling him now.