Amanda Bales received her MFA from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Her work has previously appeared in The Nashville Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She fishes, teaches, and mangles her accordion in Columbia, Missouri.
Tasha Cotter is the author of That Bird Your Heart (Finishing Line
Press, 2013), and Some Churches (Gold Wake Press, 2014). Her work has
appeared in journals such as Contrary Magazine and Booth. Her fiction has been nominated for a storySouth Million Writers Award and her poetry was recently named a finalist for the Philip Booth Poetry Prize.
Lizi Gilad is an MFA candidate at UC Riverside Low Residency program. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Amethyst Arsenic, burntdistrict, Foundling Review, Melusine, Thrush, and others.
Michael Gray is an MFA candidate at California State University-Fresno and an editorial intern for The Normal School. He won an 2012 AWP Intro Journals Award and first place in the Poetry category of Down to Earth NW's Earth Day 2011 Writing Contest. Poems appear on Down to Earth NW.com, in Rock & Sling, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, the Aurorean, and Puerto del Sol.
Originally from the flatlands of central Illinois, Justin Hamm now lives near Twain territory in Missouri. He is the author of the chapbooks Illinois, My Apologies (RockSaw Press, 2011) and The Everyday Parade/Elegy for Sounds Forgotten (Crisis Chronicles Press, forthcoming). His work has appeared, or will soon appear, in Nimrod, The New York Quarterly, Cream City Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sugar House Review, Big Muddy, and a host of other publications. Justin earned his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2005. His most recent project was a free course for creative writers living in and around the small town of Mexico, Missouri.
Lori Lamothe's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Blackbird, Fogged Clarity, Goblin Fruit, Medulla Review, Psychic Meatloaf, Revolution House, Seattle Review, and other magazines. She teaches part-time at Quinsigamond Community College and has worked as a mentor for The Afghan Women's Writing Project (awwproject.org). She lives in New England with her daughter and their red Siberian husky born on Halloween.
Leah Mooney lives in the small town wilds of western Wisconsin with her husband and daughter. Her work has most recently appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, Atticus Review, Poemeleon, and A River and Sound Review.
Molly Spencer is a poet, an avid reader of poetry and almost anything else, and a mother of three. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Linebreak, Escape Into Life, CALYX, Thrush Poetry Journal, Rufous City Review, and other journals. A native Michigander and erstwhile Minnesotan, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their children.
Karen J. Weyant's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Cave Wall, Cold Mountain Review, Conte, Copper Nickel, Spillway, The Sugar House Review, and River Styx. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Stealing Dust (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt (Winner of Main Street Rag's 2011 Chapbook Contest). She lives and writes in Pennsylvania, but teaches at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York.