Special Snowflakes!

Gregory Crosby was an art critic, but then thought better of it. His poems have appeared in places like Court Green, Epiphany, Copper Nickel, Paradigm, Jacket, and any other number of journals whose namessound like indie bands. When sanguine, his favorite film is Secretary; when despairing, his favorite film is Vertigo.

Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory for 24 years. His books include Suckers, For the Birds, and Longing for the Mother Tongue (March Street Press).

Claire T. Feild has had her poetry published in numerous print journals, such as Runes; The Carolina Quarterly; Birmingham Arts Journal; Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita; and most recently in Black Magnolias Literary Journal; Windmills (Deakin University, Australia); Perceptions: Magazine of the Arts; Convergence Review; and Polluto (U.K.).

MaryAnne Kolton is the Interview Editor at THIS Literary Magazine. Most recently her fiction has been chosen to appear in the Lost Children Charity Anthology, the first print Collection of Pure Slush Flash Fiction - Slut, The Toucan Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Anatomy, Larks Fiction Magazine and Connotations among others. You can contact her at Attn: MAK thiszine@gmail.com or via her blog site Echoes & Visions. She can also be found on Facebook.

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1982, Valerie Melichar lived in the USA, South America and the UK for the last ten years, where she studied creative writing, amongst other endeavors. She has recently moved back to Vienna, is working as a freelance translator, playing her guitar and trying to polish up her German.

Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He is the author of four novels, 3 books of short stories, 2 full-length collections of poetry, as well as numerous chapbooks of poetry and prose. He and his wife own Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN.

Maurice Oliver writes poems with a humorous edge and insists they are a form of therapy, his own personal remedy for not being able to fulfill his dream since childhood of living on an iceberg. Good thing he found a cure too, what with global warming and all.

Kenneth Pobo has a chapbook forthcoming from Deadly Chaps called Tiny Torn Maps. He won this year’s Qarrtsiluni Chapbook Contest for his manuscript called Ice and Gaywings. It will be coming out this year.

Jessy Randall's collection of poems A Day in Boyland (Ghost Road Press, 2007) was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She has a collection of collaborative poems with Daniel M. Shapiro, Interruptions, forthcoming in 2011 and a solo collection, Injecting Dreams into Cows, forthcoming from Red Hen in 2012. Her website is http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall.

Michelle Reale is an academic librarian on faculty at Arcadia University in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of venues including Gargoyle, Pank, JMWW, Smokelong Quarterly, Staccato, Word Riot, elimae and others. Currently she is working on a collection of prose poems featuring the experiences of North African immigrants into the indifferent society of southeast Sicily, where she has witnessed their struggles first hand. She is currently pursuing Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution studies. Her short fiction collection, Natural Habitat, was published by Burning River in 2010. Her short fiction chapbook, Like Lungfish Getting Through the Dry Season is now available from Thunderclap Press. Her work was included in Dzanc's 2010 Best of the Web Anthology.

Beth Rolingson lives outside Austin, Texas on Pan’s Farm, a place where roses and mesquite trees grow and where she has raised angora goats, children, and grandchildren. She has been writing poetry for 40-some years and a dream journal for nearly 20. She helps fight poverty and social injustice in her day job at Advocacy Outreach in Elgin.

Daniel M. Shapiro is a schoolteacher who lives in Pittsburgh. He is the author of the chapbooks "Trading Fours" (Pudding House Press, forthcoming) and "Teeth Underneath" (FootHills Publishing), and he is the co-author of "Interruptions" (Pecan Grove Press, forthcoming), a collection of collaborations with Jessy Randall. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Chiron Review, Gargoyle, and Oyez Review.

Ben Spies is a human living in Chicago. He shirks responsibility and is trying to figure a way around his student loan debt.

Jessica Stilling has won numerous writing awards and been published in numerous literary magazines. She teaches at City College and lives in New York City.

Guy Traiber was born and raised in Israel. After a decade of traveling extensively throughout India, Southeast Asia and Europe he pitched himself in Bavaria where he found love. In the last three years he tries to bring into paper what his heart has seen and study Sociology and Political Science. His writing has appeared in (very) few journals. You can talk to him via email at o13m@yahoo.com

Meg Tuite's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Berkeley Fiction Review, 34th Parallel, Valpairaso Literary Review, One, the Journal, Monkeybicycle, Hawaii Review and Boston Literary Magazine. She is the fiction editor of The Santa Fe Literary Review and Connotation Press. Her novel Domestic Apparition (2011) is now available through San Francisco Bay Press (http://www.sanfranciscobaypress.com/). She has a monthly column, “Exquisite Quartet”, up at Used Furniture Review. Her blog: http://megtuite.wordpress.com/.