Heather Anastasiu (“Conversation with My Four-Year-Old”) lives just south of Austin, Texas with her husband and young son. She has a Bachelor's in Theology and is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Literature at Texas State University. She has work forthcoming in Permafrost, The Houston Literary Review, and Mud Luscious.

John Bruce (“The Value of Money”) has degrees in English from Dartmouth College and the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. His writing has appeared recently, or will appear, in 13^th Warrior Review,  Cantaraville, Cut Throat, decomP, Diddledog, DOGZPLOT, Eskimo Pie, Fiction at Work, Greenbeard,  The Journal of Truth and Consequence, Long Story Short, Lyrical Ballads,  Pear Noir!, Press 1, Short Story Library, Why Vandalism?, and Word Riot. His website is http://mthollywood.blogspot.com.

Jeff Carlisle is a freelance concept artist/illustrator who is probably best known for his various Star Wars illustrations. He has designed or illustrated for magazines, role-playing games, miniature games, collectable card games, CD covers, creature effects, art prints, convention posters and concept/level designs for a number of clients, including Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG), COSI Studios, Decipher, GAMA, GenCon LLC, Goodman Games/Sword and Sorcery, Green Ronin Publishing, Knights of Good Productions, Lucasfilm Ltd., Paizo Publishing, Poop House Reilly, Presto Studios/Microsoft Game Studios, The Scarefactory, Inc., Topps and Wizards of the Coast. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and cat.

Gregory Crosby (“And Our Paths Through Flowers”) lives and, in theory, works in New York. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Court Green, Rattle, Copper Nickel, Jacket, and Poem; most recently, his work was included in the 2008 anthology Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State (University of Nevada Press).

Peter David is a bestselling writer whose work has landed atop the New York Times Bestsellers List dozens of times. He regularly writes for comic books such as X-Factor and The Incredible Hulk, although he is best known for his entries in the Star Trek series of novels.

Benjamin Arda Doty (“Constellation”) is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota. His poetry has appeared in HoboEye, Poets Against War, and Drumvoices Revue 16. His fiction appeared in The Parker Issue of Paradigm.

Heather Egret (“On Pondering Heaven and Earth”) works in nonprofit finance in New York City and lives in Queens, NY. Her poetry has appeared in St. Luke’s Review and The Register Citizen. Her full-length play, Oracle Bones, has been developed at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and read by New World Theatre, NY in its summer reading series. 

Tom Fillion (“The Shoe That Didn’t Fit”) is a graduate of the University of South Florida. He teaches mathematics and coaches golf and tennis at a Tampa public high school. His short stories have appeared in many online publications, most recently at The Sante Fe Writer's Project. Forthcoming at Bare Root Review, Read This (Montana State University), Cantaraville, and Rose & Thorn.

Louis Gallo (“Family Album”) was born and raised in New Orleans and teaches at Radford University in Virginia. His work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Berkeley Fiction Review, Wide Awake in the Pelican State (LSU anthology), American Literary Review, Portland Review, Amazon Shorts, storySouth, Texas Review, Missouri Review, and many others. 

Walter Giersbach (“Louise from the bar”) lives in New Jersey with his wife. His recent fiction credits include short stories in Big Pulp, Mystery Authors, Mouth Full of Bullets, Every Day Fiction and Bewildering Stories.  His collection of short stories in two volumes, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue, has been published by Wild Child (www.wildchildpublishing.com).  His career also spanned more than 30 years directing communications at Fortune 500 companies. 

Brant Goble (“Kingdom of Fear”) is a Kentucky author, didgeridoo player, motorcyclist, and perpetual student. His works have appeared in Prick of the Spindle, 55 Words, and ken*again among others. A graduate of the Recording Institute of Technology, Brant is the managing director of PMG Publishing (ASCAP) and the editor of Gander Press Review. He hopes to live long enough to repay his student loans but isn't counting on it.

Leah Griesmann (“The Assassin”) earned an M.A. in Creative Writing at Boston University and has taught writing and literature at Boston University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was a finalist in the Poets & Writers California Voices Contest and her stories have appeared in Fourteen Hills, Toyon, and Swink. She is currently assistant professor of English at Hanyang University in South Korea, where she is working on a novel and a collection of stories.

Charles Haddox (“Perils”) lives in El Paso, Texas. His most current fiction will be featured in the Spring editions of Desert Voices, the Sierra Nevada Review, and is also forthcoming in The Raven Chronicles.

Anne Kaier (“Swing Set”) holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and an MA from Oxford University; she teaches literature and creative writing at Arcadia, Rosemont College, and Penn State, Abington. Her recent non-fiction appeared in the Fall 08 issue of Tiny Lights and is forthcoming from Under the Sun. Her poetry has appeared in Philadelphia Poets, American Writing, Sinister Wisdom, HLFQ and other venues. Her chapbook, InFire, was published recently. She reviews poetry for The Wild River Review. Three new poems are forthcoming from Philadelphia Poets in 2009.

Jasmine Kent (“The Healing Gun”) has a BA in anthropology. Her article in National Geographic Magazine is found in February of 1994. She also has a chapter published in a book called Moon Shadows by Dr. Colin Ross. Kent has a few poems and stories in trade magazines and has spoken at four international conferences on culture change and on religious abuse.

Gavin McCall (“Baby Blue”) was born on a farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, but has spent the majority of his writing career in Honolulu, where he just received his Master’s Degree in creative writing from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He won the 2008 Sudden Fiction Award, which included publication in the most recent issue of Hawaii Review, and his work will be featured in the upcoming issues of several online literary magazines. Gavin is currently working just enough to pay for rent and spends most of his free time writing.

David McLean (“to wake from this sanity”) has a blog at http://mourningabortion.com where he gives details of several books and chapbooks, as well as two forthcoming chapbooks, a forthcoming novella, and a large 300 page anthology laughing at funerals due 2010/01/01 from Epic Rites Press. He edits a couple of zines and the chapbooks at Epic Rites.

Deana Nantz (“Whitman’s Teacher”) is an MFA creative writing student at Eastern Kentucky University. She graduated from EKU with an MA in English with an emphasis in American literature. She teaches high school English in London Kentucky where she was named the 2005 London Kentucky Teacher of the Year. She received two writing awards as an undergraduate and graduate student from EKU on the subject of American Romanticism. 

Sandra Noel (“Imagining Babylon”) is a professional biologist/illustrator who develops interpretive writing and illustrations for environmental education exhibits and teaches art and ecology programs for youth in Sulawesi, Indonesia one month out of the year. Her other passion is poetry– reading and writing it. “Heart of Darkness”, a narrative poem was published in In the Mist, in the January, 2009 edition.