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Contributors

Jeffrey C. Alfier lives in Tucson, Arizona. His recent publication credits include New Madrid, Rattle (forthcoming), and The Saint Ann’s Review. He is author of two chapbooks, Strangers within the Gate (2005), and Offloading the Wounded (2009). He is co-editor of the San Pedro River Review.

Rane Arroyo is the author of 10 books of poems, a book of short stories and the forthcoming New & Selected Poems. He was won many prizes while living in and writing in mysterious Toledo, Ohio. Contact the poet through www.myspace.com/ranearroyo or at ranearroyo@gmail.com.

Ruth Bavetta is a poet and artist, a lifelong resident of Southern California whose work has appeared in many venues. She loves the light on November afternoons, the smell of the ocean, and a warm back to curl against in bed. She hates pretense, fundamentalism and sauerkraut.

Candace Black’s poems have been published in many magazines—most recently in Third Coast, Rhino, Colere, and Ninth Letter. Her book of poetry, The Volunteer, was published by New Rivers Press in 2003. Her current passions include Hostas, mojitos, and knitting.

Kenneth Brewer, a Professor of English at Utah State University for 32 years, was Utah’s poet laureate from 2003 until his death in 2006. He published ten books of poetry, hundreds of individual poems in literary journals, and many essays and articles. He conducted writing workshops and gave numerous readings throughout the West.

Teresa Cader is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently History of Hurricanes from TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. She’s won the Norma Farber First Book Award, The Journal Award, and the George Bogin Memorial Award, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. She teaches poetry in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University.

Rob Carney is the author of two books—Weather Report (Somondoco Press, 2006) and Boasts, Toasts, and Ghosts (Pinyon Press, 2003), both winners of the Utah Book Award for Poetry—and two chapbooks: New Fables, Old Songs and This Is One Sexy Planet. His work has been published in dozens of journals and in Flash Fiction Forward (W.W. Norton, 2006). You may write to him at rob.carney@uvu.edu.

Star Coulbrooke is responsible for Helicon West, a bi-monthly open readings/featured readers series in Logan, Utah. She directs the Utah State University Writing Center and organizes an annual Beat/Slam Poetry Night. Her poems appear in Poetry International, Hunger Magazine, Ellipsis and others.

Tobi Cogswell is a co-recipient of the first annual Lois and Marine Robert Warden Poetry Award from Bellowing Ark (2008). Her work can be read in SPOT Lit(erary) Mag(azine), Penumbra, Newport Review, Essence (UK), Seven CirclePress, Forge Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review and Fogged Clarity among others, and is forthcoming in KNOCK Journal, Transcurrent and Main Channel Voices. She has three chapbooks and is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).

Brock Dethier runs the Writing Program at Utah State University, writes books for college composition teachers, and has published poems in more than 20 different journals.

Cat Dixon earned her MFA from the University of Nebraska, Omaha and is now an adjunct instructor at the university. She is the volunteer Marketing Director for The Backwaters Press out of Omaha, Nebraska and a mother of two. Her work has appeared in Temenos, Poetryfish, Eclectica and Fine Lines.

Gary Dop lives with his wife and three amazing daughters in Minneapolis, where he directs the Taproot Reading Series and moonlights as a professor, playwright, and comic. Dop’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in North American Review, Rattle, Agni, Poet Lore, New Letters, Poetry Northwest, and The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry. When lonely, he calls the White House Information Center and leaves weird messages in hopes that someone out there has to add pages to his FBI file.

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various electronic and print journals, and in several collections, most recently Waiting for the Angel (2009).

Justin Evans lives in rural Nevada with his wife and three sons, where he teaches history and English at the local high school. His most recent chapbook, Working in the Birdhouse, was released in 2008 by Foothills Publishing, and his poetry was recently published in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and hoi polloi. He is the editor of Hobble Creek Review.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 11 poetry chapbooks.He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for the Best of the Net anthology. His first full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, has just been published by from The Poetry Press of Press Americana.

Dustin M. Hoffman has an MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University. He is currently working on his PhD in creative writing at Western Michigan University. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Earth Review, Other Poetry, Conclave: A Journal of Character, Black Warrior Review, and Gargoyle.

Natasha Kessler co-edits the online poetry journal Strange Machine. She is a poet and graduate student. She likes Nebraska rain, cold coffee, and feeding stray cats.

Robin Linn lives in Andover, MA. A new teacher of English Comp, she’s taught poetry workshops in places like prison and the library. Originally from Texas, she is semi-fanatical about Patriots’ football and passionate about poetry and other delicious things (music, food, visual art and ideas). She likes to paint when she takes a break from juggling. Robin received a BA in creative writing and art, and an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University.

Grant Loveys lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland—a city perched on Canada’s eastern edge. His work has appeared in nearly a dozen North American publications.

Matt Mason has won two Nebraska Book Awards as well as been published in over 150 magazines and anthologies. His first full length collection, Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know (The Backwaters Press, 2006), is available at MidVerse.com and Amazon.com. Mason earned his MA in Creative Writing from the University of California at Davis, then, of course, moved to Omaha where he now lives with his wonderful wife Sarah and baby daughters Sophia and Lucia.

Michael McLane completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Colorado State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Interim, Colorado Review, and Salt Flats Journal, among others. He currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Paul Muldoon’s eleventh collection of poems, Maggot, will be published in 2010. He is Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

J.R. Pearson played “Jonny B. Goode” in 1st grade with an audience of 15 people. Once he ate a whole case of Elmer’s Glue. He was terrible at finger painting but he’s proud of these poems. Read his stuff in A Capella Zoo, Sage Trail, Word Riot, Ghoti, Weave, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal.

Nanette Rayman Rivera, three-time Pushcart Prize nominee is the author of the new poetry collection: shana linda ~ pretty pretty, published by Scattered Light Publications. She is the first winner of the Glass Woman Prize for nonfiction and was included in Best of the Net 2007. Slant Journal and Up the Staircase nominated her for Best of the Net 2009. Publications include Oranges & Sardines, Carve Magazine, The Berkeley Fiction Review, Whistling Shade, Magnolia, Pebble Lake Review. Upcoming: Blue Fifth Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Furnace Review, Chaparral, The Monongahela Review and Bolts of Silk.

Richard Robbins was raised in California and Montana. His recent poetry collections include Famous Persons We Have Known and The Untested Hand, and he has two more books coming out in the next few months. His grandfather worked for Jimmy Hoffa, and his wife grew up with the drummer for Pearl Jam, so they are all about organized labor, all about rock and roll.

Jerome Rothenberg is a poet and editor who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics. A prolific writer, he has received many awards, including an American Book Award, two PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Awards, and two PEN Center USA West Translation Awards. “Hero” will appear next year in Uncollected Poems 1955–2005 from Junction Press.

Sam Ruddick’s work has appeared widely in various literary magazines and is forthcoming in Glimmer Train Stories and North American Review. In 2007, he received a Henfield Prize for fiction. He lives in Boston.

Ki Russell currently lives in Lafayette, LA where she is in hot pursuit of a PhD in English at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. When she’s not scuttling among literary texts or dodging swamp monsters, she enjoys painting and laughter. Her work has previously appeared in or is forthcoming from places such as Fifth Wednesday Journal, Kaleidotrope, Bare Root Review, and Fickle Muses.

Natahsa Sajé was born in Germany and grew up in New York City and northern New Jersey. Her collections are Red Under the Skin (Pittsburgh, 1994) and Bend (Tupelo Press, 2003). Her work has been honored with the Campbell Corner Poetry Prize and the Robert Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America. Sajé teaches at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and in the Vermont College MFA Writing Program.

M.E. Silverman currently resides in Georgia and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Cloudbank, Pacific Review, The Shout, Neon, Mississippi Crow, and other magazines. He was a finalist for the 2008 New Letters Poetry Award. His unpublished manuscript, The Music Mud Angels Make, is looking for a publisher.

David Starkey is the Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College. Among his poetry collections are Starkey’s Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press’s Spring 2000 chapbook contest. A Few Things You Should Know about the Weasel will be published by the Canadian press Biblioasis next year.

Joanna Straughn received an MFA in poetry from the University of Utah. Her chapbook, Instinct, was published Fall of 2006 by Bright Hill Press. She completed a juried residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City. Originally from a small town in west Texas, she has also lived in Germany, Long Island, the Catskills, and San Francisco. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in Salt Lake City. Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Beacon Street Review (now Redivider), Quarterly West, Weber Studies, Asheville Poetry Review, and Meridian.

Billy Swift lives in Somerville, MA. He wears a black, felt bowler hat when he writes under the watched eye of his cat, George, who will never understand poetry. Billy received an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in 2008. While teaching in the Expressive Language Department at The Landmark School in Prides Crossing, Massachusetts, he continues his education pursuing a M.S. Ed. at Simmons College. He sometimes skips breakfast. His E-chap, Afterthought, can be found at Goldwakepress.org.

Jacqueline West lives and writes in Minnesota, surrounded by books, border collie fur, and paintings waiting to be hung. Her work has appeared in journals including The Pedestal Magazine, St. Ann’s Review, Inkwell Journal, Barnwood, flashquake, and Goblin Fruit, and her chapbook, Cherma, is forthcoming from Parallel Press. More about her work can be found at www.jacquelinewest.net.

Shari Zollinger is currently on sabbatical from her work in the trenches of independent bookselling to pursue opportunities in Europe. She lives in London and performs such tasks as adviser, nanny, personal assistant, psychologist, nutritionist and ill-fated guru. She has a BS in History from Utah State University and Certificate of Completion from the Stanford Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies in Taipei, Taiwan. Native of Utah, she considers the world her palette, and the West her home.