Contributor’s Notes

Justin Bond’s poetry has appeared most recently in NAP, Kindling, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. He lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Follow him on Twitter @Elbondo1980.(vol. 8)

Malika Booker is a British writer of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage. Her poems are widely published in anthologies and journals including: Ten New Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010), the India International Journal 2005, and Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry (The Women’s Press, 1998). She was the inaugural Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company and is the author of two poetry collections: Breadfruit (flippedeye, 2008) and Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013).(vol. 8)

Traci Brimhall is the author of Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton), selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems have appeared Kenyon Review, Slate, The Believer, Ploughshares, New England Review, The New Yorker, and Best American Poetry 2013. She’s received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the King/Chávez/Parks Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.(vol. 8)

Jericho Brown is an Assistant Professor at Emory University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals and anthologies including The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, The New Yorker, Oxford American, The New Republic, and The Best American Poetry. His first book, PLEASE, won the American Book Award, and his second book, THE NEW TESTAMENT, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.(vol. 8)

Annah Browning lives in Chicago, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, Anti-, The Bellingham Review, Sixth Finch, Handsome Journal, Anobium, and Harpur Palate. You can find more of her work here.(vol. 8)

Jen Coleman is a finalist for the Poetry Foundation’s 2013 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southeast Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, New Welsh Review, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Hollins University and lives in Virginia with her two Manx cats.(vol. 8)

Jay Deshpande’s poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Phantom Limb, Bodega, Narrative, Sixth Finch, Atlas Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He holds an AB from Harvard and is a graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University, where he also taught writing. In 2012 he was a winner in Narrative’s Fourth Annual Poetry Contest. He is a former poetry editor of AGNI and curator of the Metro Rhythm Reading Series. He lives in Brooklyn and works in magazine publishing. (jaydeshpande.com)(vol. 8)

Tafisha Edwards is a Guyanese Canadian poet, Cave Canem fellow, Jiménez-Porter Writers House graduate and an unapologetic glamourpuss. She lives and works in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area after earning her B.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland College Park. You can find her work in Vinyl Poetry, Toe Good Poetry, Stylus, and three editions of Out Loud. You can find her in between bookshelves, on a bus to Brooklyn, or somewhere between Takoma Park and U Street.(vol. 8)

Elaina M. Ellis holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and lives in Seattle. Her first book, Write About an Empty Birdcage (Write Bloody Publishing) has been called “an unorthodox instruction manual for the brokenhearted.” She serves as Associate Editor at Copper Canyon Press.(vol. 8)

Katy Gunn is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama with writing forthcoming from Birkensnake, LIT, Paper Darts, and more.(vol. 8)

Nicole Higgins’s poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, Passages North, Toe Good and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, she teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and serves as Poetry Editor of Hyphenate.(vol. 8)

John Fenlon Hogan works in commercial real estate. His poems are forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, The Journal, and elsewhere.(vol. 8)

Robert Krut is the author of This is the Ocean, winner of the Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize from Bona Fide Books (coming October 2013), as well as The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox, 2009). His chapbook, Theory of the Walking Big Bang, was published by H_NGM_N Books in 2006; subsequently, he began serving as an Associate Editor for the journal/press. He teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara and lives in Los Angeles.(vol. 2)(vol. 8)

Kevin McLellan is the author of the chapbooks Shoes on a wire (Split Oak, forthcoming), a runner-up for the 2012 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry, and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010), a collaborative collection. He has recent or forthcoming poems in books and journals including: 2014 Poet’s Market, American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Horse Less Review, Kenyon Review Online, Sixth Finch, Western Humanities Review, and Witness. Kevin lives in Cambridge MA, and sometimes teaches poetry workshops at the University of Rhode Island in Providence.

Derek Pollard is co-author with Derek Henderson of the book Inconsequentia (BlazeVOX 2010). His poems, creative non-fiction, and reviews appear in American Book Review, Colorado Review, Court Green, Diagram III, H_ngm_n, Pleiades, and Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, among numerous other anthologies and journals. He is Assistant Editor at Barrow Street, Inc.; is a Black Mountain Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and is on faculty at Pratt Institute and at the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, New York.(vol. 8)

Derrick Mund holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Colorado. He is the poetry editor of SpringGun Press. He lives in Denver where he curates the “Leon Presents” reading series.(vol. 8)

Christina Olivares earned a BA from Amherst College in Critical Multicultural Studies in Education and an MFA from Brooklyn College in Poetry. She is the recipient of a 2012 Vermont Studio Center Artists Grant, a 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant for Emerging Writers to Cuba, and 2008-2009 Teachers and Writers Collaborative Fellowship. Her poem "Shining" was nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in Tidal Basin Review, PALABRA, nth, The Acentos Literary Review, and The Brooklyn Review.(vol. 8)

Morgan Parker received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA in poetry from NYU. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in PANK, Painted Bride Quarterly, Handsome Journal, Forklift, Ohio, Phantom Limb, and the anthology Why I Am Not A Painter, published by Argos Books. A Cave Canem fellow, she lives in Brooklyn with her dog Braeburn. You can find her at morgan-parker.com.(vol. 8)

Allyson Paty’s poems can be found in Tin House, Best New Poets 2012, Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, the PEN Poetry Series, and elsewhere. She is from New York, where she is editor of Singing Saw Press.(vol. 8)

Sarah Stanton is a translator, editor and writer from Western Australia who has spent the past three years living and working in Beijing. She has been published in a number of magazines and indie affairs, including Clarkesworld, Voiceworks, Hunger Mountain, Cha and Conte, and can be found online at www.theduckopera.com or tweeting @theduckopera.(vol. 8)

Jacob Sunderlin received an MFA from Purdue University, and a poetry fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Poems appear or are forthcoming from Colorado Review, Cream City Review, Caketrain, Rattle, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere.(vol. 8)

Angela Voras-Hills earned her MFA at UMass-Boston and was a fellow at the Writers’ Room of Boston. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Linebreak, among others. Her first full-length manuscript was recently a finalist for Milkweed Editions’ Lindquist & Vennum Prize in Poetry. She currently lives in Madison, WI.(vol. 8)

Miles Walser is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Individualized Studies in English, Social Justice, and Youth Studies. In 2010 he represented the U of M at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational where his team placed 3rd in the nation and he was named Best Male Poet. He has also represented Minneapolis, Minnesota and Madison, Wisconsin at the adult national level in poetry slam, and appeared on Group Piece Final Stage with the former team. In 2012 he won the award for Best Poem by a Male Poet at the Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational. His work has appeared in literary journals The Legendary, Used Furniture Review, and The Bakery as well as the audio podcast IndieFeed. His first collection of poetry, What the Night Demands on Write Bloody Press will be released in April 2013.(vol. 8)