POETS
Emily Alexander (A Few Things...) is an aspiring writer and a clumsy waitress, slowly working her way through an English degree at the University of Idaho. More of her work can be found in the Harpoon Review, A Literation, and Vagabond City Literary Magazine, as well as on Tumblr at amplifiedstillness.tumblr.com.
Ian Brand's (Apostate) poems have appeared in numerous publications including The Manhattan Review, American Letters and Commentary, Third Coast, and Poet Lore. He resides in Brooklyn.
Chelsea Dingman (On Our Tenth Anniversary...) continues her MFA and teaches in the University of South Florida graduate program. In 2016, her work can be found in The Normal School, Phoebe, Harpur Palate, The Adroit Journal, Grist: A Journal for Writers, Boxcar, Sou’wester, and The Raleigh Review, among others. She is originally from Western Canada. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
Christine Gosnay (I Wanted To) is the founding editor of The Cossack Review, and her work has appeared recently in POETRY, Redivider, Sixth Finch, and Sugar House Review. Her first book of poetry was selected by Angie Estes as the winner of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, and will be published in 2017 by Kent State University Press.
Kathryn Hunt (Avatar) makes her home in Port Townsend, Washington, on the coast of the Salish Sea. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Sun, Orion, Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, The Missouri Review, The Writer’s Almanac, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her collection of poems, Long Way Through Ruin, was published by Blue Begonia Press in 2013. Dorianne Laux selected a poem from the book for the Argos Prize. Hunt is the recipient of residencies and awards from Ucross, Artists Trust, and Willapa Bay AIR, and has studied poetry with Margaret Atwood, Gary Copeland Lilley, and Leslie Marmon Silko. She has also directed documentary films, including Take This Heart, a feature-length documentary that was honored with the Anna Quindlen Award for Excellence in Journalism. Her film No Place Like Home was screened at the Venice Film Festival. She has recently completed a new collection of poems titled You Won’t Find It on a Map.
Peter LaBerge (Dear Leona...) is the author of the chapbooks Makeshift Cathedral (YesYes Books, 2017) and Hook (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015), recently included on the American Library Association's Over the Rainbow List. His work appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets 2014, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Iowa Review, Pleiades, Sixth Finch, and Washington Square Review, among others. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Bucknell University Stadler Center for Poetry, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Adroit Journal. He lives in Philadelphia, where he is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.
John A. Nieves (Nouns And Verbs...) has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: Southern Review, Pleiades,Crazyhorse, The Literary Review, and Verse Daily. He won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio (2014), won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.
Elizabeth O'Brien (A Secret History...) holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and was awarded a Loft Literary Center Emerging Writer’s Award in 2015. Her work—poetry and prose—has appeared in The New England Review, Diagram, Sixth Finch, Ampersand Review, B O D Y, Revolver, Bayou Magazine, decomP, Swink, PANK, Versal, Night Train, The Drum, A capella Zoo, The Found Poetry Review, Everyday Genius, The Emerson Review, Slice Magazine, and elsewhere.
Eric Rawson (The Picture Of Things) lives and works in Southern California. He is the author of The Hummingbird Hour and Expo.
Jo Sarzotti (Adaptation) is the author of Mother Desert (Graywolf 2012). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in journals including Ploughshares, Southwest Review, Denver Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, and the anthologies Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion and The Traveler’s Vade Mecum (Red Hen Press). Her second book, Dark Horse, is just completed in manuscript.
Kyla Sterling's (Culling The Flock) earned her MFA in poetry at UNC-Greensboro. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Barrow Street Journal, Notre Dame Review, and cream city review, among others. She was the recipient American Academy of Poets’ 2011 Noel Callow Poetry Award and The Greensboro Review’s Amon Liner Poetry Award. Originally from a small town in Western New York, she currently lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband and their one-eyed cat.
Camille-Yvette Welsch (Full Snow Moon) teaches at The Pennsylvania State University and serves as Book Reviews Editor for Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, The Writer's Chronicle, Atticus Review, and Menacing Hedge, and her chapbook, Full, is forthcoming from dancing girl press. Her manuscript, The Four Ugliest Children in Christendom, was a semi-finalist for the 2016 Perugia Press First Book Prize.
Sarah Wolfson's (From Above..., A Study) poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian and American literary journals including CV2, AGNI, Tupelo Quarterly, Mid-American Review, and Gulf Coast. She has received a Quebec Writers' Federation mentorship, was a finalist for the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Fellowships, and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Originally from Vermont, she currently lives and teaches in Montreal.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Annalisa Barron is an artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently earning an MFA in sculpture from the Pratt Institute. Her work and films have been shown at the Cooper Union, Penn State University, and Bunker Projects, as well as internationally. Learn more at annalisabarron.com.
Susan Bennerstrom's works in oils and pastels have been exhibited in solo shows in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, New York, and Ireland, and she is represented by Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle, and Sue Greenwood Fine Art in Laguna Beach. She has received many awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Award, two Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowships (Ireland), a Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award (Seattle Art Museum), and three Artist Trust GAP Awards. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Whatcom Museum, Western Washington University, the U. of WA. Medical Center, the Washington State Art Consortium, Microsoft, the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, and the Empress Zoe Hotel in Istanbul. Learn more at susanbennerstrom.com.
Paul Bilger is an experimental photographer. His work has been featured in literary journals Brevity, SmokeLong Quarterly, quarrtsiluni, Hot Metal Bridge, and Blue Mesa Review; and as cover art for the musical collectives Dead Voices on Air, Autistici and Brian. More album art can be viewed at Discogs. In 2012, he was a featured artist for Kompresja, a Polish journal of Art & Science. He teaches Philosophy for Penn State University and Chatham University. He lives in Pittsburgh. Learn more at chronophotic.weebly.com.
Ashley Valmere Fischer is from the San Francisco Bay Area, but has lived in many other places, including seven years in New York City. She completed her B.F.A. from New York University's Tisch Photography and Imaging program, and just recently finished a Master of Fine Arts degree at Stanford University. In between, Ashley has made various documentary projects and books and worked as a commercial photographer and architectural retoucher. Her documentary projects combine photographs and audio recordings to capture the unique feeling of rural and ecological communities. Her current area of research is with alternative photographic printing methods, exploring abstract image making through chemical manipulations and transparent surfaces. Learn more at ashleyvalmere.com.
Interdisciplinary artist and designer Shannon Rankin founded the creative studio Selflesh in 1996. Originally from California’s San Joaquin Valley, she currently lives and works in Rangeley, Maine. Rankin works across disciplines, from unique illustrations created with vintage maps and thread, to conceptual fine art collage and intricately detailed installations. She exhibits her fine art nationally and internationally. Learn more at shannonrankin.com.
Winona Salesky was born in Summertown TN in 1977. She completed a BFA with a concentration in painting at Alfred University in 1999. Her current work focuses on finding the beauty in the small moments of everyday life. Winona’s paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New England and Pennsylvania. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
Hannah Sessions graduated with a major in art and political science from Bates College (cum laude 1999) and started a family and a farm and cheese business (Blue Ledge Farm) with her husband, Greg Bernhardt. Her work has been in various juried and solo shows and is currently shown at the Edgewater Gallery in Middlebury, VT; The Drawing Room Gallery, Cos Cob, CT; and online at blueledgegallery.com.
Tema Stauffer is a photographer whose work examines the social, economic, and psychological landscape of American spaces. Her work has been exhibited at Sasha Wolf, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, and Jen Bekman galleries in New York City, as well as galleries and institutions internationally, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. In 2010, she was awarded an AOL 25 for 25 Grant for innovation in the arts for her combined work as an artist, curator, and writer. She was a finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013; she was also the recipient of the 2012 Women in Photography – LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant and a 2014 Workspace Residency for her documentary portrait series, Paterson, depicting residents of Paterson, New Jersey during the years following the American economic crisis. She received her BA from Oberlin College and her Master’s degree in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stauffer is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography (LTA) at Concordia University in Montreal. Learn more at temastauffer.com.