Ashley Anderson is a choreographer based in Salt Lake City. The piece included, “don’t be cruel,” was made for Movement Forum in Salt Lake City and has been seen at the Masonic Temple and the Rose Wagner Theater. A version will be re-staged for students at the Pre-College Dance Program at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. For more work visit ashleyandersondances.com

Venita Blackburn‘s recent stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Santa Monica Review, American Short Fiction, Faultline, Bellevue Literary Review, Devil’s Lake Review, Bound Off, Nat. Brut., Smokelong Quarterly, and others. Her home town is Compton, California, but she now lives and teaches in Arizona.

Annah Browning lives in Chicago. Her poems have appeared in The Southeast Review, The Bellingham Review, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. Her chapbook The Marriage is forthcoming this fall from Horse Less Press.

Bombadil spent most of 2012 touring and recording the songs that became their latest effort, Metrics of Affection. The album is their most melodic and adventurous outing yet, a cornucopia of styles marked by mischievously surrealistic lyrics and their familiar lush harmonies. Their inventive arrangements add funk, country, boogie woogie, rap, early rock and hints classic pop songwriting, circa 1940, to their already eclectic sound.

Meriwether Clarke is an MFA candidate in poetry at The University of California, Irvine. Her work has previously been published in Off the Coast and Cicada Magazine.

Christopher Citro lives in Syracuse, NY, and his poetry appears or is forthcoming in Subtropics, Third Coast, Salamander, Quarter After Eight, Cream City Review, Southeast Review, The Minnesota Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He has new poetry broadsides available from Architrave Press, Broadsided, and Thrush Press. Find him online at christophercitro.com.

Lydia Conklin is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the James Merrill House, the Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, Jentel, the Astraea Foundation, Caldera, the Sitka Center and Harvard University, among others. She has drawn graphic fiction for Gulf Coast, Salt Hill and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. Her prose fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine, New Letters, The New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Okla Elliott is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois, where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. He also holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University. His non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Letters, A Public Space, and The Southeast Review, among many others. He is the author of a full-length collection of short fiction, From the Crooked Timber, and three poetry chapbooks—The Mutable Wheel; Lucid Bodies and Other Poems; and A Vulgar Geography. His po-mo/sci-fi novel The Doors You Mark Are Your Own, co-written with Raul Clement, is forthcoming in 2014.

Brimming with confidence and creativity, Arrow – the latest offering from Heartless Bastards – sees the group pushing their distinctive sound forward with their most eclectic, energetic collection thus far. The album – the Austin, Texas-based band’s first release with Partisan Records – is marked as ever by singer/guitarist/songwriter Erika Wennerstrom’s remarkable voice, at turns primal and pleading, heartfelt and heroic.

Brooks Long and the Mad Dog No Good: Melding the traditions of vintage R&B and Blues with the aesthetics of classic singer/songwriters, Baltimore singer/guitarist Brooks Long brings the old school into the 21st century in a style all his own. With Ian Trusheim on bass and Dan Samuels on drums, Brooks Long & The Mad Dog No Good’s live shows display the passion, energy and humor rare in today’s music scene. 2012 has been a big year with Brooks being named one of DC/Baltimore’s “Best Emerging Artists” by The Deli Magazine, releasing the EP, Let’s Make Out To Otis Redding in June and playing such festivals as Artscape, Honfest and Baltimore Book Fest. With a full-length album brewing for 2013, Brooks will be bringing his grit-and-wit style to audiences for years to come.

Athena Melton has a BFA in photography from Texas State University. She currently resides in San Marcos, TX and bartends. Her mother owns a retarded chihuahua named Muffin. www.athenamelton.com

Katy Miller lives with her family in St. Louis, Missouri.  She received her B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University in 1994 and her M.S.W. from Washington University in 2001.  She is a grief therapist, having worked in cancer support, end-of-life care and bereavement for the past ten years.  Her poems are often inspired by her work.  Katy is honored to be included in The Nashville Review; other poems have appeared in Pleiades, Margie, Natural Bridge, The American Journal of Nursing, and The Examined Life: the Literary Journal of the University of Iowa, Carver Medical College.

Brianna Noll is a PhD candidate in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her poetry has appeared in Ninth Letter, CutBank, Blackbird, Redivider, Salamander, and elsewhere.

Ann Pelletier‘s manuscript, Strange Invention, was a finalist or semi-finalist for the Word Works 2012 Washington Prize, the Bauhan Publishing May Sarton Award, Lynx House Press Blue Lynx Prize, and the University of Wisconsin Brittingham and Pollak Prizes. Her chapbook, Scape, was a semi-finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Black River Prize. Her work has been published in The Antioch Review, Arts & Letters, Cider Press Review, New American Writing, Volt, and other journals.

Rolli is a writer and illustrator hailing from Canada. He’s the author of God’s Autobio (short stories), Plum Stuff (poems/drawings), and five forthcoming titles for adults and children. Visit his blog (www.rolliwrites.wordpress.com), and follow his epic tweets @rolliwrites.

Channing Showalter grew up in Seattle, Washington. She played classical cello when she was little, but music never felt right until she discovered fiddle and old-time. Stylistically influenced by old ballads and heartfelt tunes, she writes songs inspired by dead foxes, bird bones, and abandoned places. She has traveled widely through this country’s open land and smallest towns. Channing lives in Port Townsend, Washington.

Dara-Lyn Shrager lives in Princeton, New Jersey. She holds a BA from Smith College, where she was the 1989 recipient of The Rosemary Thomas Prize for Poetry, and an MFA from Bennington College. Her chapbook, The Boy From Egypt, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. Her poems have appeared or are soon appearing in journals including The Ontario Review, The Comstock Review, The Greensboro Review, Pebble Lake Review, Animus, The Chaffin Journal and Harpur Palate. Her articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Magazine. Her poetry collection, Archaeopteryx is forthcoming from Tupelo Press where she edits the new electronic literary journal Tupelo Quarterly.

Sarah Mollie Silberman earned an MFA from George Mason University.  She lives in Virginia and has mixed feelings about Washington, D.C.

Tony Walner is from Chicago. He’s currently a sophomore at Emory University. His work has appeared in decomP magazinE, Monkeybicycle, Prick of the Spindle, and the Eunoia Review.

P. J. Williams was born and raised in North Carolina, where he taught high school English for three years before moving to Tuscaloosa and enrolling in the MFA program at The University of Alabama. His poems appear or are forthcoming in PANK, burntdistrict, Mixed Fruit, Salamander, Crab Creek Review, Four Way Review and others. He is lead editor and co-founder of Utter.