Mark Belair

Mark Belair's poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, The Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East, and The South Carolina Review. His most recent collection is Breathing Room (Aldrich Press, 2015). Previous collections include Night Watch (Finishing Line Press, 2013); While We’re Waiting (Aldrich Press, 2013); and Walk With Me (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. For more information, please visit www.markbelair.com.

Michael Collins

Michael Collins’ poems have received Pushcart Prize nominations and appeared in more than 50 journals and magazines, including Grist, Kenning Journal, Pank, and Smartish Pace. His first chapbook, How to Sing when People Cut off your Head and Leave it Floating in the Water, won the Exact Change Press Chapbook Contest in 2014. A full-length collection, Psalmandala, was published later that year, and a second chapbook, Harbor Mandala, appeared in 2015. Visit www.notthatmichaelcollins.com/ for more.

Kathleen Kraft

Kathleen Kraft's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals, including Five Points, Gargoyle, Sugar House Review, and The Satirist. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times, and her chapbook, Fairview Road, was published in February 2015 by Finishing Line Press. She lives in Jersey City, NJ, where she is a freelance writer and yoga teacher.

C.W. Emerson

C.W. Emerson is a poet and teacher in Los Angeles. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Atlanta Review, Poetry East, Mantis, G.W. Review and others.

Rick Ewing

Rick Ewing holds an MFA in a field unrelated to writing. A short-story collection, most of which was written while he was homeless in New York City, will be published later this year.

Andrey Gritsman

A native of Moscow, Andrey Gritsman emigrated to the United States in 1981. A physician, poet and essayist, Gritsman has published five volumes of poetry in Russian and has appeared in over 60 literary journals. Gritsman received the 2009 Pushcart Prize Honorable Mention XXIII and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize several times (2005 - 2011), and also was on the short list for PEN American Center Biennial Osterweil Poetry Award.

Gritsman's work has been anthologized in Modern Poetry in Translation (UK), Crossing Centuries (New Generation in Russian Poetry), The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices from the Robert Frost Place, Stranger at Home: American Poetry with an Accent, Visions International, and in Killer Verse: Poems on Murder and Mayhem.

Gritsman received an MFA in poetry from Vermont College and runs the Intercultural Poetry Series in a popular literary club, Cornelia Street Café, in New York City.

Christopher Kuhl

Christopher Kuhl has been published in Big Muddy, Crack the Spine, OVS Magazine, Euphony, Prairie Schooner, The Anglican Digest, Ensemble Jourine, Inscape Magazine, Kane County Chronicle, Mississippi Literary Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Zzbaggins Poetry Victims, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Thin Air Magazine, Tulane Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Alabama Literary Review, OxMag, Superstition Review, The Griffin, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and The Critical Pass Review. His short story, "Wade," was named the Annual Editor's Choice of Best Work in Fiction by Inscape Magazine.

Eleanor Lerman

Eleanor Lerman lives in New York and is the author of six award-winning books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and two novels, most recently, Radiomen, released in 2015 by The Permanent Press. For over forty years, her short fiction and poetry have been widely published in numerous print and online publications. She is a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and a Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her third novel, The Stargazer's Embassy, will be published by Mayapple Press in 2017.

John McKernan

John McKernan, who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, is now a retired Comma Herder/Phonics Coach after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives in West Virginia and Florida. His most recent book of selected poems is Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field and many other magazines.

harps mclean

harps mclean is a professional chef in tennessee. he publishes in the small press, mends fences & cuts his own hair.

Ronald Moran

Ronald Moran has appeared in Stickman Review twice in the past decade or so. His most recent book of poetry, Eye of the World, was published in mid-April 2016 by Clemson University Press.

Tamra Plotnick

Tamra Plotnick's poetry and prose has been published in various journals and anthologies, including: Lurch; The Waiting Room Reader, Vol II: Words to Keep You Company, edited by Rachel Hadas; and Global City Review: International Edition.

After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, Plotnick earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the City College of New York, where she won the New York Times fellowship. While working in adult and continuing education at Pace University, she completed another master’s degree in education and transitioned to teaching high school students in New York City.

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro's novel, Miriam The Medium (Simon & Schuster, 2004), was nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award. Her short story collection, What I Wish You’d Told Me was published by Shebooks in 2014. She's published essays in NYT (Lives) and Newsweek. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in several literary magazines, including The Iowa Review, Los Angeles Review, The MacGuffin, Negative Capability, The Louisville Review, Gulf Coast, Willow Review and others. Her poetry has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and she won the Branden Memorial Literary Award from Negative Capability. She teaches writing at UCLA Extension.

Michele Madigan Somerville

Michele Madigan Somerville's collection of poems, Black Irish, was published by Plain View Press (2009). Her book-length poem, WISEGAL, was also published by Ten Pell Books (2001). Somerville's poetry has been published in Hanging Loose, Mudfish, The Nervous Breakdown, Mad Hat, Puerto del Sol, 6ix, Downtown Brooklyn, Eureka Street, LiveMag, Brooklyn Review, Purchase Poetry Review, Big Time Review, and Quarto. Her essays have been published in The New York Times and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. She teaches in New York City and is an avid painter.

Lucinda Watson

Lucinda Watson’s book of nonfiction, How They Achieved, was published in 2001 by Wiley Publishing. She has been published in The Griffin, Inkwell, Louisville Review, The Magazine, The MacGuffin, and Phantasmagoria.

Watson received her master’s degree in writing from Manhattanville College and her communications degree from the University of San Francisco. She taught communications for 15 years at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.