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About the Contributors
Megan Ayers is currently pursuing an MFA at Bowling Green State University where she is an assistant editor for Mid-American Review.
Jim Bainbridge is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a recipient of a National Science Foundation fellowship for graduate studies at UC Berkeley. He has recently completed a literary speculative fiction novel for which he hopes to find a home in the coming year.
Elizabeth Banning was born and raised in Los Angeles, but now lives in northern California with her husband. When she's not off gallivanting with fictitious characters, you'll find her working in her garden or hiking on the nearby mountain. She's currently completing her second novel and a collection of interrelated short stories about California's central valley. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Talking River Review, descant, Willard & Maple, Zone 3, and Global City Review.
Amelia Beamer works as an editor and reviewer for the newsmagazine Locus. Her fiction has appeared in publications including Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Oats.
Nick Beier is a sophomore at the University of Michigan pursuing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering. He is one of the tallest people you'll ever meet. He attended Pioneer High School and has lived in Ann Arbor his whole life. In addition to photography, Nick enjoys reading, slacklining, listening to a wide variety of music, and eating his popcorn with sugar. He shoots both film and digital, depending on his mood.
Joan Colby has published seven books of poetry including The Atrocity Book, The Lonely Heart Killers, and How the Sky Begins to Fall. Over 800 of her poems have been published in such journals as Poetry, the new renaissance, Atlanta Review, Epoch, Hollins Critic, and Another Chicago Magazine. [End Page 105] She was the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the 2007 GSU Review Poetry Contest. She works as an editor for Illinois Racing News, a publication for the Illinois Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Foundation and lives on a small horse farm with her family.
Okla Elliott is an MFA student at Ohio State University. He also holds an MA from UNC-Greensboro. In addition to his American education, he has studied at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. His nonfiction, poetry, and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Mesa Review, Carolina Quarterly, Cold Mountain Review, International Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Pedestal Magazine, The Rambler, and the Sewanee Theological Review, among others. He is the author of The Mutable Wheel and Lucid Bodies and Other Poems.
Charles Grosel is a writer, editor, and stay-at-home dad. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife and two children. He has published stories in Western Humanities Review, Water-Stone, Front Range Review, and The MacGuffin, and poems in The Threepenny Review, Poet Lore, Slant, and The Comstock Review, among other publications.
David R. Hammel runs a sales and marketing company in Houston, Texas. He is the author of several short stories, and an (as of yet) unpublished novel set in Paris. Mr. Hammel attended high school in Brussels, Belgium, and college in Paris, ultimately graduating with a degree in journalism from Kent State University. He has been married for the past 32 years to his high school sweetheart, Tina. They return to France each year to relive their youth, and to pretend they never left. His photograph was taken November 11, 2006.
Samantha Hederman, a sophomore at MSU, is a liberal arts student with a pervasive love of theoretical physics and mathematics. She is an assistant director for the ROIAL Players, while still managing to find time to be a general nuisance and plan total world domination. She is unhappy with Calliope, because the muse is a fickle being and has a tendency to [End Page 106] forget about Samantha for long stretches of time before showing up at the most inopportune moment. As such, most of Samantha's poetry can be traced back to a pile of scribbled-on napkins stuffed in a desk drawer.
Greg Jahn is a photographer living in the mountains in Idaho, where he has made the discovery of remote, mysterious, and untouched natural places his primary passion. In the past 20 years these explorations have grown to include experiencing the lands and cultures of other countries, including volunteer humanitarian work in El Salvador and for the Tibetan Government in exile in north India. An extensive collection of his images can be viewed at www.GregJahnPhoto.com.
Stephen Kopel is a teacher, cyclist, art collector, and devoted wordsmith. He was a nominee for Pushcart Prize XXV and San Francisco Poet Laureate 2006/07. He is the author of crux, crax (calliope press–No. Beach) and books Spritz and Tender Absurdities (Meridien PressWorks). He was included in Who's Who 2006; and has work residing in publications such as MARGIE, ONTHEBUS, Antigonish Review, Harpur Palate, BPR, Poetry New Zealand, 580 Split, Coe Review, Porcupine, and the Dalhousie Review. He is the creator of Word Painters poetry programs presented at branch libraries, and the host of "Poetry Scene" at the Lighthouse live on Friday, at 10:30 am (PT) at: www.lighthouse-sf.org/audio/streaming.php. He's proudly called the punmaster par excellence!
Eric Gabriel Lehman is the author of three published novels, Waterboys, Quaspeck, and Summer's House, and the forthcoming Fear of Trains. His short stories and essays have appeared in Raritan, Michigan Quarterly Review, River Styx, Turnrow and the New York Times, among others. He teaches literature and creative writing at Queens College in New York City, where he lives.
Nicole Nguyen is a junior at Michigan State University working toward degrees in English/creative writing and professional writing. She is a Texas native, and generally likes living in Michigan, except in the winter, which seems to take up half of the calendar year. In addition to writing, she enjoys web design, coffee, and traveling. [End Page 107]
David Sapp is an artist and writer living near Lake Erie. He teaches studio art and art history at Firelands College, Bowling Green State University, in Huron, Ohio. He creates graphite drawings and writes poetry. His poems have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, The Cape Rock, The Licking River Review, The Hurricane Review, Sidewalks, The Bad Henry Review, Meat Whistle Quarterly, Limestone, Red Cedar Review (volume 39), and elsewhere. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Creative Behavior. He has published a chapbook, Close to Home, and a novel, Flying Over Erie.
Jan Shoemaker teaches and writes in mid-Michigan. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, The Sun, The Rambler, The Other Side, The Redwood Coast Review, Karamu, Driftwood, and in other magazines and journals. She lives with two fine and gentle males: her affable husband, Larry, and her perfect golden retriever, Atticus. [End Page 108]
