Contributor’s Notes

Amber Atiya has performed at the Museum of Modern Art, the Nuyorican Poets Café, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-, Muzzle, Kweli Journal, and Tribes Magazine. She is a native Brooklynite, and member of a women’s writing group celebrating 12 years next spring.(vol. 9)

Ruth Awad received her MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Republic, Anti-, Rattle, The Missouri Review Poem of the Week, Epiphany, Drunken Boat, Copper Nickel, RHINO, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2011 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest, the 2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and she was a finalist for the 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Check out her website to see how cute her dogs are.(vol. 9)

Jeremy Bass is a musician and poet based in Brooklyn. His poems and reviews have appeared in The Nation, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, Kenyon Review Online, and others. He has received scholarships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Summer Literary Seminars, and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes. He is the musical director and bandleader for The Secret City (www.thesecretcity.org), a non-profit arts organization that hosts services in Los Angeles and New York City, fostering inspiration and community for creative individuals. He is currently at work finishing his first solo album.(vol. 9)

Tommye Blount grew up in Detroit, Michigan and is a recent graduate from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. A Cave Canem alum, his work has appeared in The Collagist, Upstreet, Another & Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series, and Cave Canem Anthology XII. He is currently working on his first manuscript—Trapped in the Wrong Body Again.(vol. 9)

Alana I. Capria is the author of Hooks and Slaughterhouse (Montag Press, 2013). She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Capria resides in Northern New Jersey with her husband and rabbit. You can find her website here.(vol. 9)

Wendy Chin-Tanner is the author of the poetry collection Turn (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014) and co-author of the graphic novel American Terrorist (A Wave Blue World). She is a founding editor at Kin Poetry Journal, poetry editor at The Nervous Breakdown and Stealing Time Magazine, staff interviewer at Lantern Review, and co-founder at A Wave Blue World. Born and raised in NYC, she was educated at Cambridge University, UK and now lives in Portland, OR.(vol. 9)

Heather Cox is the founding editor of Ghost Ocean Magazine and the chapbook press Tree Light Books. Her work appears or is forthcoming in [PANK], Mid-American Review (Editors’ Choice, 2012 Fineline Competition), Front Porch, Boxcar Poetry Review, Thrush Press, Whiskey Island, and elsewhere. She is a current Luminarts Fellow, and her poetry been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Chicago with her partner and can be found online here.(vol. 9)

Jaydn DeWald lives with his wife and daughter in San Francisco, CA, where he teaches at San Francisco State University, plays bass for the DeWald-Taylor Quintet, and serves as Senior Poetry Editor for Silk Road Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Common, Fairy Tale Review, The National Poetry Review, Poet Lore, and others.(vol. 9)

Denise Duhamel is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Blowout, Ka-Ching, Two and Two, and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems. Duhamel has co-edited, with Maureen Seaton and David Trinidad, Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry. The recipient of numerous awards, including an NEA fellowship, she has been anthologized widely and recently served as guest editor for The Best American Poetry 2013. She teaches at Florida International University.

Maureen Seaton is the author of fifteen poetry collections, both solo and collaborative. Her most recent book is Fibonacci Batman, New and Selected Poems (1991—2011) (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Her work has received numerous awards, including the Iowa Poetry Prize, Lambda Literary Award, the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award, an NEA, and the Pushcart. Her memoir, Sex Talks to Girls (University of Wisconsin Press, Living Out Series), also garnered a “Lammy.” She teaches at the University of Miami.(vol. 9)

Julia Guez is the online editor at CIRCUMFERENCE, a journal of poetry in translation. Her poetry has appeared in No Dear, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, DIAGRAM and Washington Square. A handful of interviews and essays are available online at BOMBLog.(vol. 9)

Janice N. Harrington’s Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her latest book of poetry is The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home.(vol. 9)

Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s first book, Sightseer, won the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry. Her second book, Paper Doll Fetus, is forthcoming from Persea Books in 2014. Hoffman has been a Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the recipient of a Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Artist Fellowship, and a Director’s Guest at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy. Her work has appeared as an Intro Feature in Pleiades, an internal chapbook in Mid-American Review, and in Fence, The Missouri Review, The Journal, and elsewhere. Visit her online here.(vol. 9)

Perry Janes was born and raised in metro-Detroit, Michigan, where he was the recipient of numerous collegiate honors including eight Hopwood Awards, a Lawrence Kasdan Screenwriting Scholarship, and an Arthur Miller Arts Prize from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals including Prairie Schooner, Glimmer Train, and The Collagist. In 2012, his short-film Zug (www.zugfilm.com) screened at film festivals across North America, and was subsequently named a winner in the 2013 Student Academy Awards.(vol. 9)

Jesse Mack lives in Boston, Massachusetts and holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire. His poems have previously appeared in journals such as Columbia Poetry Review, Bodega, Cloud Rodeo, MOJO and many others. His first chapbook, The End of Theme Parks, is forthcoming in 2014 from Strange Cage Press.(vol. 9)

Kyla Marshell is a poet in New York. Her poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including Blackbird, PMS poemmemoirstory, SPOOK Magazine, Calyx, and Eleven Eleven. She attended Spelman College, where she was a founding editor of Aunt Chloe, the College’s literary magazine. More recently, she has shared her work and ideas at the Studio Museum of Harlem, Barnard College, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Bluestockings Books, and Powerhouse Arena, among others. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, and the Cave Canem retreat for Black poets. Visit kylamarshell.com.(vol. 9)

Sam Martone lives in Tempe, Arizona, where he spends his evenings attempting to defeat the final boss of Dragon Quest V. Visit him at here.(vol. 9)

Jessica Morey-Collins is a Southern California expat who currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan. Her work can be found, or is forthcoming, in the North American Review, Buddhist Poetry Review, Poetry Quarterly, Tin Cannon and elsewhere. Her poem “California Triptych” won the Wild Lemon Project’s 2012 Sense of Place poetry prize. She is slated to begin work on her MFA at the University of New Orleans in the fall of 2014.(vol. 9)

Marc Paltrineri is the author of the chapbook Foxglove, forthcoming from Strange Cage Press. You can find his poems in journals such as H_NGM_N, Sixth Finch, The Laurel Review, Inter/rupture, Green Mountains Review, and Washington Square. He teaches writing and lives in New Hampshire with his wife, the poet Kathleen Maris.(vol. 9)

Meghan Privitello’s first book, A New Language for Falling Out of Love, will be published with YesYes Books in September 2014. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sixth Finch, Phantom Limb, Drunken Boat, Boston Review, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Best New Poets 2012 & elsewhere. She currently serves as co-editor of The New Megaphone.(vol. 9)

Ross Robbins lives, writes, and loves in Portland, Oregon. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Spork, BlazeVOX, California Quarterly, and HOUSEFIRE. His self-published chapbooks, 80 Poems and I want to say how I feel and be done with it forever are available from Powell’s Books, and the latter was selected for the Independent Publishing Resource Center’s December 2013 Zine of the Month. Visit Ross online here.(vol. 9)

Curtis Rogers received his MFA in poetry from NYU. Previously, his poetry has appeared in La Petite Zine and Phantom Limb. He lives and works in Washington, D.C.(vol. 9)

Wesley Rothman’s poems and criticism have appeared or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Asheville Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, PANK, Rattle, The Rumpus, Similar:Peaks::, Thrush, Tupelo Quarterly, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. He has worked with Copper Canyon Press, Ploughshares, Narrative, and Salamander, and teaches writing and cultural literatures at Suffolk University and Emerson College.(vol. 9)

Steven D Schroeder’s second book is The Royal Nonesuch (Spark Wheel Press, 2013). His poetry is recently available or forthcoming from New England Review, Barrow Street, The Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and iO: A Journal of New American Poetry. He edits the online poetry journal Anti-, serves as co-curator for Observable Readings, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer.(vol. 9)

Janey Smith is writer of The Snow Poems and Animals. Her writing will appear in the anthology 40 Likely To Die Before 40: An Introduction To Alt Lit. She is contributing editor at HTMLGIANT. She hosts the 851 reading series in San Francisco.(vol. 9)

Laura Swearingen-Steadwell is a Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, and associate editor for Muzzle Magazine. She is currently an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College. You can find information about Laura’s workshops and performances at shadowboxersanonymous.com.(vol. 9)

Dennis James Sweeney’s short-shorts appear or are forthcoming in Fractured West, Harpur Palate, NANO Fiction, wigleaf and elsewhere. He is the author of What They Took Away, forthcoming from CutBank Books. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon.(vol. 9)

Robert Whitehead received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. His poems have recently been published in Assaracus and Gulf Coast. He lives in Brooklyn.(vol. 9)