Memory of Hope—Mark W. Anderson grew up on the high plains of western Nebraska, and attended the University of Nebraska. After teaching in public schools he earned his MFA at Wichita State University. His prints are in numerous private, public, and corporate collections, including The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Ford Motor Company. He has exhibited nationally, and has been active as a visiting artist and juror. Recent work has metaphorically referenced, in part, the phenomena of dementia and the reality that life is never lived in a straight line. He is a Professor of Art at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, where he was named Regents Professor in 2004.
Another Side of Truth & The Weight of the World—Janet Ballweg trained in traditional printmaking techniques in the 1980s. Since 1995, she has researched the use of digital 3D modeling and imaging in conjunction with contemporary printmaking processes. Her characteristic style incorporates common household imagery in an intimate domestic interior. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad, and is included in collections in China, Japan, India, Italy, Egypt, and Romania. In 2008, Ballweg was awarded an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and in 2009, the OAC awarded her a three-month residency in Provincetown, MA.
Quaking Marker 36—Mary Bookwalter's prints imply an earthy direction and invite the close-up attention of the viewer through her depictions of altered landscapes, maps, and symbols which tell a story of a love for the land with ink, paper and press. She holds an MFA in printmaking and drawing from Northern Illinois University. Although trained in traditional printmaking methods, her work of the last decade has embraced digital technology, direct scans, pinhole photography and artist’s books. Now retired from her position as University Professor of Art at Governors State University in Illinois, she advances the use of safe printmaking technology through non-toxic procedures in her studio practice. Her work is shown regularly in Chicago, St. Louis, and New Mexico.
The Philosopher’s Tree—Gary Day works in printmaking, computer generated imagery, and animation and is the current director of the UNO Print Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His prints and animations have been exhibited nationally and internationally and are part of many public and private collections. Day has been a visiting artist in Belgium, Israel, Spain, and the American Academy in Rome. He has received numerous awards including an Individual Artists Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987. His work includes traditional and digital prints, computer generated animation, and computer games based on historical and contemporary information devices.
A Seeker Studying Failed Knowledge—John D. Gall was introduced to printmaking while attending Guilford College (89-92). Since then he established Avonwood Press, a studio/shop, where he creates and publishes his original prints, in addition to working in other media. His work explores a surreal relationship between the human figure and mathematical symbols and equations that exist in a fabricated, whimsical world. His iconic characters are called "Knowledge Seekers," who never seem to get things right. His work is in various public collections including the University of Dallas, Guilford College, Purdue University, University of West Georgia, Arkansas State University, Capital Bank, Essex Plastics Corporation, and numerous private collections.
Extra Ordinary Bird—Matthew Egan utilizes traditional and digitally assisted printmaking techniques to create images with a satirical narrative reflecting societal issues. Egan’s work has been exhibited across North America, Europe and the Middle East, and has been included in dozens of juried exhibitions, including the Bradley International in the U.S. and Stone, Plate, Grease, Water in the U.K., and recently won the best of show award at the Southern Printmaking Biennial. Prior to his current appointment at East Carolina University, Egan taught in the United Arab Emirates; he continues to build bridges between artists of differing cultural and religious backgrounds.
Liminal Deploy—Karla Hackenmiller is an associate professor and Printmaking Program Chair at Ohio University, Athens, where she has been teaching since 2003. Her work has been included in numerous exchange portfolios and has been shown nationally and internationally, noting forty exhibitions over the last year with ten awards. Active in her field, she served the Mid America Print Council (MAPC) for six years and was the co-organizer of the 2006 MAPC Conference.
Birth of the Vinyl Venus—Neal Harrington received a BFA from the University of South Dakota with an emphasis in painting in 1998. He enrolled in the MFA program at Wichita State University and graduated with an emphasis in printmaking in 2001. Currently, Harrington is an assistant professor of Art running the printmaking area and serving as the gallery director of the Norman Hall Gallery at Arkansas Tech University. He has exhibited extensively across the nation, most recently in "Works on Paper" at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in New Jersey and the "Prints U.S.A. 2009" exhibition at the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri.
The Woodsman—Having pursued the arts from a very early age, Andrew Kosten received a bachelors degree in painting from Washington University in St. Louis in 2001 and a masters degree in printmaking from the University of South Dakota in 2005. Kosten is currently an instructor of drawing and printmaking at the University of Southern Indiana and takes part in a multitude of juried, fine art competitions both nationally and internationally.
Angry Dragon II—Meredith Setser is a print maker and textile artist currently employed as an assistant professor of printmaking at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana. She attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where she completed her MFA degree in 2004. Recent shows include the 4th Print Biennial at the Arizona State Museum; 21st Annual Parkside Small Print Exhibition in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Beyond Printmaking at Landmark Arts, Texas Tech University; and Folly, a solo exhibition at the Basile Gallery in Indianapolis. Along with teaching printmaking, Meredith has given several workshops and demonstrations in the textile medium of felt making across the United States. She currently resides in Indianapolis with her partner, George; three iguanas; four birds; and nine tortoises.
"Sister Anonymous" & "Specimens"—Amy Fleury's collection of poems,Beautiful Trouble, won the 2003 Crab Orchard First Book Award and was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2004. Her poems have appeared in The American Life in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, North American Review, and The Southeast Review, among others. She is an associate professor of English at McNeese State University.
"For a Party at a Friend’s House"—Rob Griffith is the editor of Measure. His work has appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, the North American Review, and The Oxford American, among others. His latest book is A Matinee in Plato¹s Cave(2008). He teaches American literature and creative writing at the University of Evansville, Indiana.
"(it was so hot)," "(when the hostess comes out)," & "the busboy training schedule"—Matthew Guenette is the author of Sudden Anthem, winner of the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize from Dream Horse Press. His work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, DIAGRAM, The Greensboro Review,Indiana Review, Southern Indiana Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and other publications. He is an English instructor at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, WI.
"40 Plus," "Hating the Courthouse," & "Ann Onymous"—Allison Joseph is the author of the chapbook Voice: Poems and five full-length collections of poetry:What Keeps Us Here, Soul Train, In Every Seam, Imitation of Life, and Worldly Pleasures. She teaches at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she also serves as editor and poetry editor for Crab Orchard Review and directs the Young Writers Workshop, a summer workshop for high school writers.
"Wind Chimes," "Poise and Perception," & "In the Parking Lot of the Dry Cleaners"—Norman Minnick earned an MFA in creative writing from Florida International University in Miami the same year he was awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize. His work has been included in such journals as The Notre Dame Review, The Seattle Review, Appalachian Heritage, and The Caribbean Writer. His collection, To Taste the Water, blends elements of nature, family, and Asian poetry, and was awarded the First Series Award for Poetry by Mid-List Press.
"Backyard"—Jason Schossler is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of the 2009 Edwin Markham Prize in Poetry sponsored by Reed Magazine. His work has appeared in more than 30 magazines and journals, including The Sun, North American Review, and The Antioch Review, and he is the recipient of fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Germany. He teaches writing at Temple University.
"Voyager 2"—Robert Tillett has taught literature and writing at universities in New York, Arkansas, and Ohio. He holds MA and MFA degrees in poetry from SUNY Brockport and the University of Arkansas, respectively. He was a recipient of a Breadloaf scholarship and has been published in Poetry Northwest, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, By Line, and other magazines.
"Stake Horse"—Adam Vines has published poems recently or has poems forthcoming in Tampa Review, Greensboro Review, North American Review, New Orleans Review, American Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, Third Coast, Barrow Street, and other journals. He teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and co-edits Birmingham Poetry Review.
"Who is This Host Arrayed in White"—Benjamin Percy is the author of a novel,The Wilding (forthcoming from Graywolf Press in late 2009), and two books of stories, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk. His fiction and nonfiction have been read on National Public Radio, performed at Symphony Space, and published by Esquire, Men’s Journal, The Paris Review, the Chicago Tribune,Glimmer Train, and Best American Short Stories. His honors include the 2008 Whiting Writers Award, the Plimpton Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. He teaches in the MFA program at Iowa State University and the Pacific University low-residency program. His story "Refresh, Refresh" was adapted into a graphic novel—co-authored by filmmaker James Ponsoldt and illustrated by Eisner-nominated artist Danica Novgorodoff—published by First Second Books (a division of Macmillan) in fall 2009.
"Conversations We Never Had"—Luan Hall Pitsch holds an MA in creative writing from University of Nebraska and masters in public administration from the University of Utah. She worked as Intake/Probation Officer for the Third District Juvenile Court in Salt Lake City, Utah, for eight years. Her stories have appeared in theadirondackreview.com, mendacityreview.com, and Red Rock Review, and have been nominated for the 2009 Million Writers Award and a Pushcart Prize. She is currently working on a novel.
"First Love"—David James Poissant's stories have appeared in Playboy, the Chicago Tribune, Willow Springs, The Chattahoochee Review, Redivider, and in the anthologies New Stories from the South 2008 and Best New American Voices 2008 and 2010. He has won the Playboy College Fiction Contest, the AWP Quickie Contest, the George Garrett Fiction Award, Second Prize in the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, and was a runner-up for the 2006 Nelson Algren Award. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati and lives with his wife, Marla, in Northern Kentucky.
"Cardigans"—is an excerpt from Kyoko Mori's new memoir, Yarn: Remembering the Way Home. Her many critically acclaimed books include Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures; The Dream of Water; the novel Stone Field, True Arrow; and two novels for young adults, Shizuko's Daughter and One Bird. Her essays and short stories have appeared in journals such as The American Scholar, Harvard Review, and The Kenyon Review She teaches nonfiction at George Mason University and fiction in the MFA program at Lesley University.
"Taking Place"—Kathryn Wilder lives on Maui at the edge of a culture. She writes about place, people, language, and canoes for regional publications such as Spirit of Aloha, Hana Hou!, and Hawai`i Magazine. "Taking Place" is the title piece for Taking Place: Pieces of Hawai`i, a work-in-progress.
"Inkblots, Mardi Gras, and Beethoven’s Fifth: An Interview with Michael Martone"—Matthew Baker has degrees in creative writing and English literature from Hope College, where he was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize, and he recently accepted an offer to study in Vanderbilt's Creative Writing MFA Program for Fiction. His work has appeared in Hunger Mountain and Lumberyard, and will be featured in a forthcoming anthology, Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.—Michael Martone has recently published Double-wide, a collection of his work over the past two decades, and Michael Martone: Fictions, a memoir in contributor’s notes. He is the author of many books of short fiction including Seeing Eye, Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle, Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler’s List, Safety Patrol, and Alive and Dead in Indiana.
"Toni Morrison's A Mercy" & "Dick Lourie's Pilgrimage"—Contributing editor Brenda DeMartini's stories and poems have appeared in Confrontation, Kansas Quarterly, Minnesota Review, Mississippi Mud, The Sun, and Three Rivers Poetry Journal.
"Erin McGraw's The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard"—Kyle Minor is the author of In the Devil's Territory, a collection of short fiction, and co-editor of The Other Chekhov, an anthology of Anton Chekhov's lesser-known fiction. His recent work appears in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2008. He is visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Toledo.