Artwork
Robert Horvath, a native of the former Czechoslovakia, received a BFA in painting and printmaking from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, and completed his MFA in painting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Horvath is an assistant professor in the Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University Purdue University–Indianapolis.
Poetry
“Proem for Found Film”—Michael Levan received an MA from the University of North Texas, an MFA in poetry from Western Michigan University, and is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of Tennessee, where he serves as nonfiction editor of Grist: The Journal for Writers. His work can be found in recent or forthcoming issues of Fifth Wednesday, New South, Harpur Palate, The Pinch, Cimarron Review, Cut Bank, and Third Coast. He lives in Knoxville with his wife, Molly, and son, Atticus.
“1998,” “Interrupting Aubade Ending in Epiphany,” & “Self Dialogue Staring at a Mirror”—Marcus Wicker was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His first book, Maybe the Saddest Thing, was selected by DA Powell for the National Poetry Series and is forthcoming from Harper Collins in October. The recipient of a 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, he has also held fellowships from Cave Canem, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Indiana University, where he received his MFA. Wicker will join the creative writing faculty at the University of Southern Indiana in the fall.
“Ohio in Late Summer,” “Springfield,” & “Poem Ending with a line from a Travel Guide”—Gregory Fraser is the author of two poetry collections, Strange Pietà(2003) and Answering the Ruins (2009). He is also co-author, with Chad Davidson, of the workshop textbook Writing Poetry: Creative and Critical Approaches (2008) and the composition textbook Analyze Anything: A Guide to Critical Reading and Writing (2012). His poetry has appeared in journals including The Paris Review, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares. The recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fraser serves as associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of West Georgia.
“Indulgence”—Megan Williams writes, farms, and waits tables in Boise, Idaho, where she curates GHOSTS & PROJECTORS, a poetry reading series. Her poetry was named runner-up in the “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest 2011, and has appeared in journals such as Tin House, PANK, and GEM, among others.
“Rowing”—James Magorian’s poetry has appeared in Connecticut Review, Denver Quarterly, The Montserrat Review, and Ploughshares. His most recent novel is Hearts of Gold (1996). His most recent poetry collection is Geographia(2008).
“Why I Can't Write This Poem”—Angelina Oberdan recently finished her MFA in creative writing at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including Yemassee, Möbius, and Italian Americana. Currently, Oberdan is a lecturer at Clemson University.
“When the Ghost Gives Up It's Still There”—Anne Barngrover is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Florida State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Florida Review, Anti-, and iO: A Journal of New American Poetry, among others.
“Heteroanamnesis”—Laura Ramos is a freelance writer and former magazine editor who lives north of Chicago with her husband and a corgi. She teaches writing at StoryStudio North Shore in Winnetka, Illinois.
“Brains”—James Valvis is the author of How To Say Goodbye (Aortic Books, 2011). He has published hundreds of poems in places like Anderbo, Arts & Letters, New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Rattle, River Styx, and Verse Daily. His fiction is also widely published in places like Los Angeles Review, Potomac Review, story South, and Washington Pastime. Valvis lives near Seattle with his wife and daughter.
“When Robert Lowell Broke Jean Stafford’s Nose for the Second Time,” “When Robert Lowell Fell in Love with the Stewardess on the Flight to Asunción,” “When Robert Lowell Tosses His Eyeglasses Out of the Window of the Payne Whitney Clinic,” “When Delmore Schwartz Reads About Tadpoles in Encyclopedia Britannica, at Yaddo,” & “After Lecturing On Modern American Poetry in Delhi, John Berryman Visits the Cuttack Leprosarium”—Amy Newman is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Dear Editor (Persea Books). Recent work appears in The Missouri Review, Narrative Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere. Newman is a Presidential Research Professor at Northern Illinois University.
Interview
“Almost Biblical: An Interview with Michael Waters”—Michael Waters has written ten books of poetry, including Gospel Night (2011); Darling Vulgarity, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2006); and Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems, finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize (2001). His poems have appeared in various journals, including The Yale Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The Georgia Review and Rolling Stone. Among his awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright Foundation and fellowship residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Tyrone Guthrie Center (Ireland), Le Chateau de Lavigny (Switzerland), and The St. James Centre for Creativity (Malta). He is professor of English at Monmouth University and also teaches in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. Waters lives with his wife, poet Mihaela Moscaliuc, in Ocean, New Jersey.
Contributing editor Matthew Guenette is the author of American Busboy(Akron Series in Poetry) and Sudden Anthem, winner of the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize from Dream Horse Press. His poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, DIAGRAM, The Greensboro Review, Indiana Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The National Poetry Review, and other publications.
Fiction
“All That Was His”—Mary C. Mohr Fiction Award Winner Mary Larkin earned a PhD in creative writing and English at Florida State University and her MA from Hollins University’s Creative Writing Program, where she won the Andrew James Purdy Award. Larkin is a Pushcart nominee, a Fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, an AWP Intro Journals Award nominee, a Writers@Work National Finalist, a two-time finalist for the Doris Betts Fiction Award, and the recipient of the North Carolina Blumenthal Writers Award. Her short stories have appeared in Shenandoah, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, The Nebraska Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Inkwell, The New Purlieu Review, and other journals.
“Encore”—Christine Sneed’s short story collection, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry, won AWP’s 2009 Grace Paley Short Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, first-fiction category. Portraits was also recently selected for Ploughshares’ 2011 first-book award (the John C. Zacharis Prize) and the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award for traditionally published fiction. Individual stories have appeared or are forthcoming in 2012 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, New England Review, Pleiades, and a number of other journals. Her second book, a novel titled Little Known Facts, will be published by Bloomsbury USA in early 2013.
Nonfiction
“Flotsam, Jetsam, and What We Never Let Go”—Cynthia Anne Brandon received her MFA from Northern Michigan University, where she served as a nonfiction editor for Passages North. Her work can be found in Fourth Genre and River Teeth and is forthcoming in Quarter After Eight. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, and teaches composition at North Idaho College.
“A Brief History of Our Flesh and Blood”—Spring Ulmer holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona and an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She’s worked as a photojournalist; a journalist; a teacher of photography and writing to migrant, homeless, and incarcerated youth; an ESL instructor; and a horse hand. Her honors include grants for photography and writing from the Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Andrea Frank Foundation, as well as residencies from the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, and the University of Iowa’s Museum of Art. Ulmer’s book of poetry, Benjamin’s Spectacles, was selected by Sonia Sanchez for Kore Press’s 2007 First Book Award. A collection of Ulmer’s essays, The Age of Virtual Reproduction, was published by Essay Press in 2009.