Contributors

Rusty Barnes lives in Revere, MA, where he maintains webspace at www.rustybarnes.com.

Timothy Gager is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. He's been nominated for many awards including five Pushcart Prizes and has won nothing. He lives on www.timothygager.com.

Sharon Gerald teaches English at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, MS. She holds degrees, though not so much pedigrees, from Oklahoma State University and the University of Southern Mississippi. At the potluck, she's the one who brought the Sour Cream Lay's and Oreos because she forgot to cook. She blogs like she cooks, but you can follow her at www.writerlyhaphazardry.net.

James Guttman is the king of worldwrestlinginsanity.com. He's also the author of World Wrestling Insanity: The Rise and Fall of a Family Empire and Shoot First . . . Ask Questions Later.

Stephen Graham Jones often thinks of many unhelpful things. Sometimes in sequence, sometimes in montage. The end result is seven books on the shelves so far. The last two are Ledfeather and The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti. The next is sure to change the world, will more than likely be akin to that moment when the apes we were raised their chins, started staggering along on two feet, their eyes set now on the stars. As for this story specifically, he dedicates it to Brenda Mills, who gets it. And, to all the veterinarians out there considering suicide in lonely places: read this story first, reconsider. There's a whole nother world out there, under this one.

Nathan Graziano lives somewhere in The San Fernando Valley where he's starred in films such as The Sperminator IX and Return of the Dirty Sanchez. He likes balloons and talking in baby voices.

Twelve years ago, Karl Koweski left Chicago for the mountains of Northern Alabama to escape the snow, crime and culture. No matter how far he goes, however, he can't outrun his Cubbies obsession. His first full length collection of stories, Blood and Greasepaint, will be available late summer from www.epicrites.org

Adrienne Lewis is from Saginaw, Michigan, a county with at least twenty mobile home parks (that is a county trailer park density of 13%, maybe more; she never was very good at Math). Lewis did recently complete the course work necessary to receive her MA in English Language and Literature from Central Michigan University though and has taught English full-time at a local University for the last several years. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry: Coming Clean (Mayapple Press, 2003) and Compared to This (Finishing Line Press, 2005); she also cooks a mean hamburger. ("Confession" first appeared in Flutter and in the Greenhouse Anthology for the Rustbelt Roethke Writers' Workshop. "White-Nosed Months" appeared in MO: Writings from the River.)

Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006). He has also published numerous chapbooks and one full-length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems. His book of short stories, Listen, came out in March, 2009. He has been nominated for a Pushcart numerous times, and one of his poems was chosen for Garrison Keillor?s Writer's Almanac. With his wife, he runs Burke's Book Store in Memphis, TN. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

T.A. Noonan's first collection, The Bone Folders, received the 2007 Heartland Poetry Prize from Cracked Slab Books. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, RHINO, Phoebe, and many others. She is also the editor of Flaming Giblet Press.

Rebecca Schumejda received her MA in Poetics and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and her BA in English and Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz. Her new collection Falling Forward was released from sunnyoutside press sunnyoutside press in February of 2009. In addition, sunnyoustide published her chapbook Dream Big, Work Harder in November of 2006 and her poem "Logic" on a postcard. Green Bean Press published her first chapbook The Tear Duct of The Storm in 2001. Most recently, her work has or will appear in The Blind Pen, Full of Crow, The Lyric Section of Somerville News, Night Train, Outsider Writer, Rusty Truck, Words Dance and Zygote in my Coffee. You can check out more of her work at www.rebeccaschumejda.com. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and daughter.

Erin Elizabeth Smith grew up in a double-wide on a dirt road in the trailer park capital of the U.S., Lexington, SC. She is the author of the book The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles Press 2008) and the chapbook The Chainsaw Bears, which is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her poetry and nonfiction have previously appeared in The Florida Review, Third Coast, Crab Orchard, Natural Bridge, West Branch, The Pinch, Rhino, and Willow Springs among others. Erin is also the managing editor of Stirring and the Best of the Net Anthology and will be joining the English Department at the University of Tennessee this fall.

Vallie Lynn Watson's recent flash fiction can be found in Pindeldyboz, 971 Menu, Journal of Truth and Consequence, Product, and Ghoti. She is assistant managing editor for Mississippi Review.

J. Webster lives and labors in Hattiesburg, where he studies creative writing at The University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. He originally hails from Jackson, Michigan, once home to the world’s largest walled prison until they tore down the walls and put up fencing topped with razor-wire Slinkys.

Gary Wilkens was born in 1976 in Charleston, SC and raised in North Carolina and Arkansas. He’s lived in several trailer parks and the Salvation Army more than once. He currently pursues a PhD in Creative Writing at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. His first book, The Red Light Was My Mind, was released in 2007. His poems have also appeared in the Texas Review, Passages North, Yellow Medicine Review, and The Prague Revue.

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