Land of Filth and Sunshine, His Last Lunch, Do It Father, A Bitter Heap, Various Ways of Doing Things, Johnny Appleseed, A Bright and Shining Star, Amongst Gentlemen, The Cockfighter, Of Doubt and Paranoia, and They Came from the Country—Andrew Kosten is currently an instructor of drawing and printmaking at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, Indiana, and takes part in a multitude of juried and group exhibitions on a regional and national level. Kosten has received various awards and has works in a number of collections at universities and museums across the country.
"Train from the South"—Catherine Anderson is the author of two collections of poetry, The Work of Hands (Perugia Press) and In the Mother Tongue (Alice James Books). Poems have appeared in Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Harvard Review, and others. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
"First Touch"—Jazzy Danziger is currently a Henry Hoyns/Poe-Faulkner fellow in the MFA program at the University of Virginia. Her work has been published in Mid-American Review and Boxcar Poetry Review.
"Cutthroat"—A native of Kentuckiana, Chris Mattingly, has published poems in The Louisville Review, Margie: The Journal of American Poetry, and Public Republic. He also has been the featured poet for the award-winning radio program Accents on Lexington's WRFL. His chapbook AD HOC is forthcoming from Q Avenue Press. Mattingly is currently finishing his MFA. in Poetry from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.
"Out of Death valley"—Rick Anthony Furtak's poems and translations have recently appeared in Janus Head, Illuminations, Poetry Depth, and Blue Unicorn.
"The Web"—Pamela Garvey's chapbook Fear is available from Finishing Line Press. She has published poetry in many literary journals including The North American Review, Sonora Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Pleiades, and others. Garvey is an associate professor of English at St. Louis Community College-Meramec, and lives in the city of St. Louis with her husband and son.
"Isa" and "Those Days We Ate the Knuckles from Our Fingers"—Otis Haschemeyer attended Stanford University as a Stegner Fellow, spent a year at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, and currently lives in Oregon with writer Zondie Zinke and their daughter, Ozymandius Wild Zhaschemeyerinke.
"The Fathers Who Never Seem to Speak"—Angie Macri was born and raised in southern Illinois. A recipient of an individual artist fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, she teaches in Little Rock. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Folio, Nimrod, Quiddity, Redactions, and Tar River Poetry, among others.
"Teaching Myself to Type"—Linda Lancione Moyer writes poetry, essays, and fiction. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, Crazyhorse, Jabberwock, The MacGuffin, Notre Dame Review, Poet Lore, and Post Road, among other literary journals, and will soon appear in Compass Rose,Connecticut Review, and Eclipse. Her most recent chapbook, 2% Organic, 32 Short Poems from a West Marin Dairy Barn, is a best seller at Mrs. Dalloway's in Berkeley, California, her local independent bookstore. She's recently been a resident at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in New Mexico.
"These Words Are Not About"—Jake Ricafrente holds an MFA from The Johns Hopkins University and is pursuing a Ph D at Texas Tech University as a Chancellor's Fellow. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, South Carolina Review, Sewanee Theological Review, and elsewhere. He resides in Richmond, Texas.
"I Know the Neck Pain," "I Almost Sent a Different Card," and "Your Father's Been Hiding"—Hilary Sideris is the author of two chapbooks, The Orange Juice Is Over (Finishing Line Press) and Baby (Pudding House Press). Her poems are forthcoming in Brooklyn Review, Confrontation, and Connecticut Review. Sideris lives in Brooklyn, New York.
"Such Great Misery of Late"—Jon Davies is a native of California, currently residing in Georgia. His work has appeared in such places as Cutbank, Summerset Review, and The Yalobusha Review.
"Vivian's Story"—Faith S. Holsaert's defining experience was as the daughter of two mothers in a biracial 1950s household. With five others she is an editor of the forthcoming Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (University of Illinois Press). She lived for many years and raised her children in West Virginia and now lives with her partner in Durham, North Carolina, where she is working on her third novel.
"Mr. Smith's Tip-Top Tale of Woe and Horror"—Nancy Holyoke has worked for The New Yorker, Wigwag, American Girl magazine, and the Rowland Reading Foundation. She's the author of a half-dozen children's books and the editor of far more. Holyoke has an MFA from the Iowa Workshop.
"The Natural Order of Things"—Scott Saalman is a widely unread writer residing in Jasper, Indiana. His work has also been represented in the anthology Home Again: Essays and Memoirs from Indiana; Lost Magazine; The Evansville Review; Evansville Living magazine; WNIN Public Radio's "This I Believe"; The Coconut Telegraph; The Flying Island; Country Magazine; Editor's Workshop; and numerous newspapers. Saalman's humor column appears frequently in The Herald (Dubois County, Indiana).
"Unwarranted"—Jay Shearer lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he teaches (UIC, Purdue Calumet) and writes (fiction, essays, songs). He is currently a PH D candidate in English Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he won the 2007 Goodnow fellowship award for prose. His writing has appeared most recently in Other Voices, Beloit Fiction Journal, Main Street Rag, and The Southeast Review. Shearer lives on the west side of Chicago with his wife and son.
"Hiddenscape"—In the midst of climate change, Barbara Haas finds it necessary to focus her attention on the Ice Age, especially the Des Moines Lobe, the last continental glacier to visit the U.S. Other Pleistocene Epoch essays of hers have appeared in The Wapsipinicon Almanac, the Iowa Review and elsewhere. She teaches in the Creative Writing & Environment MFA program at Iowa State University.
"My Skillet and I are Disappearing"—Robert Long Foreman is from Wheeling, West Virginia. His nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, among other journals. One of his essays was listed in "Notable Essays" of Best American Essays 2008.
"The Best American Poetry 2009," and "Black Sabbatical"—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.