Issue Thirty: January 2012
Scott Beal's poems have appeared recently in Indiana Review, Dunes Review, and Radius. He earned his MFA in 1996 from the University of Michigan. He teaches poetry and fiction workshops at the Neutral Zone and 826michigan, and serves as a writer-in-the-schools for Dzanc Books in Ann Arbor and for InsideOut Literary Arts in Detroit. He recently co-authored Underneath: The Archaeological Approach to Creative Writing with Jeff Kass (Red Beard Press, 2011).
Jason Cook is the Chief Mastermind behind Ampersand Books. His writings have appeared (or will soon) in Creative Loafing, Keyhole, Underground Voices, and American Book Review.
Tom DeBeauchamp lives in Middletown, CT. where, on a sunny day not too long ago, he was nearly run-down by legendary psycho-acoustic composer Alvin Lucier, or at least a stunning likeness in a BMW convertible.
Phedra Deonarine is currently the Truman Capote Fellow at Rutgers University M.F.A Creative Writing program. Her story "Pelau" was long-listed for the 2010 CBC Literary Award.
Margaret Eaton writes very short fiction when she is not earning a living helping social change organizations. Her stories have appeared online in Opium, Rumble, Onomatopoeia, Short Story Library, and LITSNACK. She was an early contributing editor to Dowser, an online news source for social entrepreneurs. She lives in St. Louis; she is a dog person.
Laura Ender earned her MFA in fiction from Eastern Washington University, where she worked as an assistant managing editor for Willow Springs. Her stories have appeared in Ascent, Monkeybicycle, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere.
Laird Hunt is the author of four genre-bending novels: The Impossibly, The Exquisite, Indiana, Indiana and Ray of the Star. His books have been translated and released in France, Italy, and Japan, and The Impossibly is available as an audio book through Iambik Audio. Born in Singapore and educated at Indiana University and The Sorbonne in Paris, Hunt has also lived in Tokyo, London, The Hague, New York City, and on an Indiana farm. A former press officer at the United Nations and current faculty member at the University of Denver, he now lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Victor D. Infante is a poet, editor and journalist living in Worcester, Mass. He is the editor of the online literary journal, Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge, and the author of City of Insomnia, a poetry collection from Write Bloody Publishing. His poems and stories have been published in numerous periodicals, including Pearl, Chiron Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Spillway, Word Riot, and Dark Horizons.
Charles Jensen is the author of The First Risk (Lethe Press 2009), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and the chapbook The Nanopedia Quick Reference Pocket Lexicon of Contemporary American Culture (MiPO Chapbook Series, 2012). His poems have appeared in Court Green, Field, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and Willow Springs. He currently teaches at community colleges and in the master's writing program at University of Denver and serves as an arts nonprofit consultant. He is active in the national arts community by serving on the Emerging Leaders Council of Americans for the Arts and locally by rebooting the Tucson Emerging Arts & Culture Leaders group.
Luke Johnson is the author of the poetry collection After the Ark (New York Quarterly Books, 2011). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, New England Review, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
Kirsten Kaschock is the author of two books of poetry: A Beautiful Name for a Girl (Slope Editions) and Unfathoms (Ahsahta Press). Her first novel, Sleight, was recently published by Coffee House Press. She has earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia and is currently a doctoral fellow in dance at Temple University. Kirsten lives with her three sons and their father in Philadelphia.
Shena McAuliffe’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, Western Humanities Review, Black Warrior Review, Pank, and elsewhere. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is working on her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature.
Four Way Books will publish Rose McLarney's book, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains, in 2012. She is currently a nominee for the Pushcart Prize, was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship this year, and her poems won Alligator Juniper’s 2011 National Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including The Kenyon Review, Orion, New England Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Provincetown Arts Magazine, and many other journals. McLarney earned her MFA from Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers and teaches writing at the college. She grew up in rural western North Carolina, where she continues to live on an old farm.
Christopher Merkner teaches creative writing for the University of Colorado Denver. These short fictions are part of a series he's calling "The Rise and Fall of the Scandamerican Domestic." Other pieces in this series have been or are soon to be in Gulf Coast, New Orleans Review, CutBank, Black Warrior Review, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, Smokelong Quarterly, BLIP Magazine, Laurel Review, and Fairy Tale Review.
Sarah Tourjee lives in Rhode Island. Her fiction has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, PANK, Anomalous Press, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and The Sonora Review. She is pursuing an MFA at Brown University.
Matthew Vollmer is the author of a story collection, Future Missionaries of America, and is co-editor, with David Shields, of Fakes: an Anthology of Psuedo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts and Other Dubious Documents, forthcoming from Norton in Fall 2012. To read more of his work, please visit www.matthewvollmer.com.