Bonnie Altucher (“Bobby Fear”) grew up in New York City and has also lived in Paris and North Oakland. She received an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. Her poetry was published in Roof Magazine, and she has been awarded residency fellowships in fiction from Macdowell, Ucross, Ragdale and VCCA. In 1998 she founded and edited Documentmag, an online journal about documentary filmmaking. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter, and is finishing a novel about a psychotherapy cult in New York in the 60’s and 80’s.

S.I. Adams (“Pesante Con Moto/Allegro Barbaro”) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in southern Ohio. A Cornell College graduate, Adams now writes poetry and tends bar in Cleveland. This is Adams’s first publication.

William Beem (cover photo) is a portrait and travel photographer based in Central Florida. He writes regularly about photography on his blog at williambeem.com.

Lily Brent (“The Biological Need to Adapt”) is a master’s student at Columbia University. Before graduate school, Lily worked at a holistic residential program for orphaned and vulnerable teenagers in Rwanda. Her experiences are chronicled here. Lily’s writing has previously been published by 42Opus and featured by fictiondaily.org. Lily is a graduate of Oberlin College and a proud New Jersey native.

Andrew Browers (“Somewhere, A Honeybee”) is a freelance writer, theatre artist, and storyteller. Born in Cloquet, Minnesota, he holds a BFA from Bemidji State University, where he learned how to write, perform, fall in love, and keep warm amid life-threatening winters. He is the founding Artistic Director of the Ghost Light Theatre Company, dreams of writing comic books, and will often pump his fists to rock and roll. He currently lives in Minneapolis.

Lauren Guza Brown (“Quintessence”) is a teacher and writer living in New York. She graduated from San Francisco State University’s MFA program in 2012. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The Colorado Review, Spain from a Backpack, LA Inside, and *82 Review. She is currently at work on a novel set in the California desert.

Robert Carrithers (“Bobby Fear”, illustration) is a film director and producer. He also works as a cameraman, writes and develops scripts and has worked as an actor. He has been deeply involved in underground music, art and club scenes going all the way back to New York in the early 1980s. He was a freelance photographer covering cultural events for various magazines and newspapers in New York, London and Paris. He photographed personalities in the club scene in New York and has had several gallery exhibits. He has lived and worked in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, and Berlin. He is presently living and working in Prague.

Kieran Duddy (“Cathedral”) is from Derry, in Northern Ireland. He lives in London were he is currently working on a collection of short stories. He has been published several times in Wordlegs and Acquired For Development….. A Hackney Anthology. In his spare time he likes to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and listen to punk rock.

Jennifer Faylor (“Conversations Overheard in a Bowling Alley…”) is a poet and chocolatier who lives in New York City with her goldfish Edison and Marguerite. She has her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She’s been published in such places as Redivider, Bat City Review, and Straylight. Her chapbook The Case of the Missing Lover is published by Dancing Girl Press.

Jason Gordon (“String Theories”) received an MFA from the University of Maryland, as well as a scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems have appeared in Abbey, Bathtub Gin, the Delmarva Review, Poetry International, and Presa, among others. His first chapbook, I Stole a Briefcase, was a finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition and was published by Pudding House Press in 2008. Currently he lives in Catonsville, Maryland, where he teaches English at a high school for students with emotional disabilities.

Nicole Greaves (“Sack of Scarabs” and “Moments in the Trees”) teaches English and various electives at The Crefeld School in Philadelphia. She holds a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College, an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, and a certification in secondary English from Bryn Mawr College. Her poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review; Philly Edition, Jacaranda, and Calliope. It has been awarded prizes by The Academy of American Poets and the Leeway Foundation of Philadelphia. In 2003, she was the poet laureate of Montgomery County. Recently, she completed a manuscript of poems, In the Waiting Room. She lives right outside of Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

The essays of Andrea Jarrell (“On The Miracle Mile”) have appeared in The New York Times “Modern Love” column, Narrative, Memoir, Literary Mama, The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor among other publications. “On the Miracle Mile” is part of an essay collection she’s working on—a memoir in stories. After growing up in Los Angeles, she lived in Austin, Santa Fe, New York City, a small town on the coast of Maine, Paris, and now suburban Washington, D.C. Place factors into her memoir in significant ways. She is a graduate of the Bennington College MFA program and a recipient of a Martin Dibner Writing Fellowship.

Born in Georgia, Matthew Harrison (“New Worlds Are Old News”) lived in Seattle and Los Angeles before moving to Western Massachusetts, where he’s completing an MFA at UMass Amherst. His work has most recently appeared or will soon in Yemassee,The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Ping Pong, JMWW, and others.

John Oliver Hodges (“My Bitter Love”) lives in New York City, and is the author of War of the Crazies, a novella about commune life in upstate New York, and The Love Box, a collection of short stories. His short stories have appeared in Swink, American Short Fiction, Washington Square and about 50 other journals. He teaches writing at Montclair State University and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

Julia Hogan (“Remnants”) was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. She writes about blues music, birds, and her family, because that is what she loves. Julia is a 2013 Scholastic Gold Medalist in short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, and a portfolio silver medalist. She is also a 2013 Presidential Scholar for the Arts semifinalist and National YoungArts finalist for creative nonfiction. You can find her poetry in the upcoming issue of the Monongahela Review. 

DC Lambert (“Candyland”) is a public school teacher serving an inner city school district and the author of War on Excellence: Our Giant Secret Education Bureaucracy and Me, a nonfiction narrative about the secrets behind the closed doors of our rapidly changing 21st century schools. She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. Her award-winning writing has appeared in such magazines as Stand, ACM, Columbia andConnections, and her academic book, Point of View in Mrs Dalloway: Rooms, Corridors and Houses, was recently published by Edwin Mellen Press. Read more here.

Mercedes Lawry (“Puzzling” and “Breathing Room”) has published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Rhino, Nimrod, Poetry East, The Saint Ann’s Review, and others. She’s also published fiction, humor and essays, as well as stories and poems for children. Among the honors she’s received are awards from the Seattle Arts Commission, Hugo House, and Artist Trust. She’s been a Jack Straw Writer, a Pushcart Prize nominee twice, and held a residency at Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, There are Crows in My Blood, was published in 2007 and another chapbook, Happy Darkness, was released in 2011. She lives in Seattle.

Maggie Light (“Quitter Takes All”) teaches Composition and Theater at Otis College of Art & Design and Literature at Westwood College. She received her BA in Drama from the University of Virginia and her MFA in Creative Writing at Otis University. Her fiction will be published in an upcoming issue of Larva Lamp and she’s currently working on a novel about theater people forming a mild yet effective rebellion.

Carlo Matos (“Honey”) is poet, fiction writer and essayist. He has published three books of poetry and one book of scholarship. His work has appeared in such journals as Paper Darts, Diagram, Atticus Review, Prick of the Spindle, and Arsenic Lobster, among others. He is an English professor at the City Colleges of Chicago by day and an MMA fighter by night. After hours he can be found entertaining clients at the Chicago Poetry Bordello.

Dan Micklethwaite (“The Immaculate Sadness of Peter J. Beech”) lives and writes in Yorkshire, England. When he’s not writing, he’s usually reading, and when he’s not reading, he’s often trying to convince himself he can paint. His stories have featured or are forthcoming in BULL, NFTU, 3:AM, Emerge, and Eunoia, among others. A selection of poetry and prose and links to his other work can be found here.

Lindsay Miller (“A Nice Place to Visit”) lives and works in LA and, as a journalist, spends her days interviewing celebrities and other notable people. She has written for publications including Wallpaper, The Huffington Post, LA Weekly, and Nylon. She holds a BA in print journalism and a masters in nonfiction, professional writing, both from the University of Southern California.

John Michael Mumme (“On (and Off) Consistency”) is a 2013 graduate from Cedarville University where he earned degrees in English and Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). He loves reading, writing, and the Dallas Cowboys. He considers himself an amateur film critic, and you can read his reviews here. By next August, he hopes to be enrolled in an MFA program in Creative Writing with a concentration on fiction. This is his first published piece.

Michael Nagel (“America”) is a writer and editor. He and his wife live in Dallas, Texas.

Filip Noterdaeme (“American Arcadia”) is an artist-provocateur best known for his Homeless Museum of Art (HOMU), a pastiche of the contemporary art museum he created in 2003. He holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a Masters of Arts from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. He writes a blog about art for The Huffington Post, lectures at the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, and teaches art history at the New School, New York University, and CUNY. Noterdaeme was born in Brussels, Belgium, and lives with his partner Daniel Isengart in Brooklyn. His conceptual memoir, The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart, written as an homage to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, was published in March 2013 by Outpost19. Visit the Homeless Museum here . Learn more about his book here.

Jim O’Loughlin (“Leaves of Grass App Update”) teaches in the Department of Languages & Literatures at the University of Northern Iowa.  He is the coordinator of the Final Thursday Reading Series and publisher of Final Thursday Press.  Read more here.

Stephanie Papa (“All This”) is a writer and teacher living in Paris, France. She is originally from Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in the Prose Poetry Project and 5×5 magazine, Rumpus, and Cerise Press. She is a Poetry Editor for Her Royal Majesty magazine. She also organizes the Writers on Writing program, a series of readings with international writers in Paris.

Ashlee Paxton-Turner (“Liney’s Sense of It”) is a native of Williamsburg, Virginia and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was an English major with a concentration in creative writing. Currently, Ashlee is a Teach For America corps member, where she is a high school mathematics teacher in rural North Carolina. To the surprise of her students and colleagues, Ashlee finds something inherently literary about geometry.

David Poplar (“Navigation By Spoonlight”) is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies a number of things. He has published work in Boston Literary Magazine, Apiary Online, and PennAppetit, as well as more avant garde publications, such as the Dickinson Law Review and the New Jersey Law Journal.

Lydia Pudzianowski (“Ghost Story”) was born and raised right where Pennsylvania juts into New Jersey. She migrated to earn a BA in creative nonfiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was managing editor of The Original Magazine. Currently, she is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at Northwestern University, where she served as managing editor of issues 142 and 143 of TriQuarterly. She wants to continue her journey west for the sake of tradition but sees no reason to leave Chicago. This is her first publication in a journal she doesn’t edit.

Alex Schmidt (“Hide-and-Seek”) holds a BA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago, and an MFA in Poetry and Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. He still lives in North Carolina, where he works for Trader Joe’s. When he is not working or writing one might spot him reading a book as he walks his dog, riding his bike to the library, or trying to keep up with his wife when she jogs. Much of his time, recently, is filled with experiencing the various “important” films one might call a necessary supplement to the creative diet. He also maintains a blog semi-regularly here.

Paul Siegell (“We’ve Come for Your Blood Test Results” and “We’ve come for your Yuengling Yammering”) is the author of three books of poetry: wild life rifle fire, jambandbootleg, and Poemergency Room. Born on Long Island, educated in Pittsburgh, employed in Orlando, Atlanta and now Philadelphia, Paul is a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly and has contributed to APR, Black Warrior Review, Coconut, Rattle and many other fine journals. Kindly find more of Paul’s work and concrete poetry t-shirts – at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL.

Jane E. Sussman (“The Runner”) lives in Los Angeles, where she writes fiction for television, the screen and the web. Her writing influences include Hemingway, Didion, Rushdie, and Chandler, as well as the gothic literature of the nineteenth century, Keats, and Milton. She can be followed on twitter and instagram @janeesussman.

Toisha Tucker (“Individuation, Identity, and the Parenthetical”) is a conceptual artist, painter, and creative writer. She received her BA from Cornell University in 2002 and her MFA from PennDesign in 2013. Her work explores language, literature, history and epistemology and how one can engage them in knowing and re-contextualizing time, place, memory and social construction. She recently completed and Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and you will next be able to see her work in Art in Odd Places 2013 Fall festival in New York.

Olivia 子琁 Tun (“What the Stars Are Saying”) lives in New York City, just a few blocks from MOMA’s PS1, which she enjoys. Other things she enjoys include Taiwanese mochi, dogwood trees (pink), Eastern European writers, the gym’s steam room, and her mother’s praises. Things she hates include steroid creams for psoriasis and psoriasis. She is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Columbia University.

Sarah Van Name (“The Wasps and the Queen”) is a recent graduate of Duke University, where she majored in Literature and wrote short stories, poetry, and documentary pieces. She currently works as a marketing writer in Durham, North Carolina, where she is continuing to write fiction in the hope of compiling a collection of short stories.

Anthony Wallace (“Do Not Use Quotation Marks to Indicate Irony”) is a Senior Lecturer in the Arts and Sciences Writing Program at Boston University, where he is also Co-director of “Arts Now,” a curriculum-based initiative to support the arts at BU. Tony has published poetry and fiction in literary journals including CutBank, Another Chicago Magazine, the Atlanta Review, River Styx, Sou’wester, 5-Trope, the Republic of Letters, and Florida Review. His short story “The Old Priest” won a Pushcart Prize and was published last fall in Pushcart 2013. His short story collection The Old Priest is the winner of the 2013 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and will be published this September by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Hannah White (“Adventures in Gym Class”) is a senior history major at the University of Pennsylvania. She works as a program assistant and archivist at the Kelly Writers House, in Philadelphia, and has previously interned at WriterHouse, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sensible Nonsense Project and The Birch Journal.

Desiree Wilkins (“Leap Year Baby”) works in Philadelphia and lives nearby with her husband and their son. Her fiction has appeared in the print literary magazine Happy and online at First Stop Fiction.

Benjamin Woodard (“The Long Green Stretch, the Tall Trees, The Clouds Shaped Like Stars”) lives in Connecticut. His writing has been featured in Numéro Cinq, Drunken Boat, Hunger Mountain, Rain Taxi, and other fine publications. You can find him here .

Chavisa Woods (“This”) is a Brooklyn-based literary author whose work pushes boundaries of narratives around class culture, gender, and sexuality. Her most recent novel, The Albino Album was published by Seven Stories Press, 2013. Woods’ debut collection of fiction, Love Does Not Make me Gentle or Kind (Fly By Night Press, 2008) was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Debut Fiction. The second edition was recently released by Autonomedia Press through the Unbearable imprint in late 2012. Woods was the recipient of the 2009 Jerome Foundation Travel/ Study Award for emerging writers in 2009. She has featured as a reader with a number of renowned institutions and festivals including a multi-day performance at The Whitney Museum in New York City, as a member of Butch Morris’ Chorus of Poets. Woods’ poetry, short stories, and essays have been published nationally and internationally in publications including The Evergreen Review, Matador, The New York Quarterly, Sensative Skin, Jadaliyya, and many others.

William Winfield Wright (“It’s Not a Contest”) is a Fulbright Scholar and a Fishtrap Fellow. He was born in California and lives in Grand Junction, Colorado, where he teaches at Colorado Mesa University. He has published in 14 Hills, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Field, The Ninth Letter, Permafrost, The Seattle Review, The South Carolina Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart and featured on Poetry Daily.

Born in 1991, Jerrold Yam (“Picasso in 10 Lines” and “Snow”) is a law undergraduate at University College London and the author of two poetry collections, Scattered Vertebrae (Math Papre Press, 2013) and Chasing Curtained Suns (Math Paper Press, 2012). His poems have been published in more than fifty literary journals worldwide, including Antiphon, Counterexample Poetics, Mascara Literary Review, Prick of the Spindle, The New Poet, Third Coast, and Washington Square Review. He is the winner of the National University of Singapore’s Creative Writing Competition 2011, and the youngest Singaporean to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More information here.