Nan Cohen is the author of Rope Bridge (2005). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, The New Republic, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Prentice-Hall Anthology of Women's Literature, and other magazines and anthologies. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She teaches in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California and is the Poetry Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.

Matthew Henriksen received a MFA in Poetry from the University of Arkansas in 2004. The Boston-based publisher Black Ocean released his first book of poems, Ordinary Sun, in 2011. The book received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, was listed as one of “20 of the Best Books on Independent Presses You Should Know About” on The Huffington Post, and was a poetry finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards 2011. He is also the author of the chapbooks “Another Word” (DoubleCrossed Press, 2010) and “Is Holy” (horse less press, 2006). Some recent poems have appeared in Mandorla, Fence, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Fulcrum, Bright Pink Mosquito, Handsome, Realpoetik, Raleigh Quarterly, Alice Blue Review, Sink Review, and So & So Magazine. A special feature of Frank Stanford’s unpublished poems, fiction, and correspondence, selected by Henriksen, appeared in Fulcrum #7 in 2011. In Brooklyn, New York, in 2004, he founded Cannibal Books, a book arts poetry press, and The Burning Chair Readings. He continues to manage both projects in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Additionally, he co-edits Typo, an online poetry journal and teaches creative writing at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith.

Sandy Longhorn is the author of Blood Almanac which won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. New poems have appeared recently in 32 Poems, The Cincinnati Review, Crazyhorse, North American Review, and elsewhere. Longhorn teaches at Pulaski Technical College, where she directs the Big Rock Reading Series. In addition, she co-edits the online journal Heron Tree, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty.

Melinda Palacio is an award-winning poet and novelist. She lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans. She holds two degrees in Comparative Literature, a B.A. from UC Berkeley and an M.A. from UC Santa Cruz. She is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow and a 2009 poetry alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place 2009 award. She is the author of the novel, Ocotillo Dreams (ASU Bilingual Press 2011), for which she received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards and a 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Her short story and excerpt of her novel-in-progress was a 2012 Glimmer Train Finalist. She also writes a column for La Bloga. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies including Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature, PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art, Pilgrimage Magazine, Eleven Eleven, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Southern Poetry Anthology, New Poets of the American West, and Mary: a Journal of New Writing. Tia Chucha Press published her first full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is A Story, Waiting, (2012).

Peter Nichols is the author of five books of memoir, fiction, and nonfiction. His nonfiction books A Voyage for Madmen (a finalist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year) and Evolution's Captain were both national and international bestsellers. His novel Voyage to the North Star was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award. His essays and journalism have appeared in The London Review of Books, Ecotone, Outside, Men's Journal, Gourmet, Salon.com. He has taught creative writing at Georgetown University, New York University (Paris), Bowdoin College, and the University of Arizona.

Diane Payne is the author of Burning Tulips and A New Kind of Music. She has been published in hundreds of literary journals, such as New Verse News,Slow Trains, Word Riot, 3 am, Failbetter, Small Spiral Notebook, Pindelboyz, Christian Science Monitor, In These Times, and elsewhere.

Dr. Cherri Randall is the author of The Memory of Orchids (novel, 2011 Cyberwit). She has been published in Blood Lotus, Lake Effect, Paradigm, The Fertile Source, Blue Earth Review, Permafrost Review, The Potomac Review, Colere, Bewildering Stories, Dos Passos Review, Mudfish, The Taj Mahal Review, Splash of Red, Cooweescoowee, O Tempora!, Main Channel Voices, Literary Chaos, Paper Street Press, Hogtown Creek Review, Mid-America Poetry Review, The Rectangle, Amelia, and several other magazines. She teaches at Pennsylvania Highland Community College in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and is also a faculty editor for the Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society publication The Rectangle.

Mark Spencer is the author of the novels The Masked Demon, Love and Reruns in Adams County, The Weary Motel; the nonfiction book A Haunted Love Story; the history Images of America: Monticello; and two collections of short stories. He has won four national awards for his fiction, including the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award, The Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Bradshaw Book Award, and The Cairn/St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Award. His short stories and articles have appeared in a variety of national and international journals, such as The Chariton Review, Texas Review, Florida Review, South Dakota Review, The Laurel Review, The Double Dealer Redux, Fiction, Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, New Mexico Humanities Review, Chelsea Hotel, The Dos Passos Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Natural Bridge, Kansas Quarterly, and elsewhere.