R. Steve Benson studied with James Hearst at the University of Northern Iowa. He and his brother Barry have co-authored two collections of their poems—most recently Poems by the Skunk River Valley Boys in 2015.
Tori Bertelsen is a recent graduate of the English M.A. program at the University of Northern Iowa with an English studies emphasis. She continues her studies in the Postsecondary Education: Student Affairs Master’s program and expects to graduate with her second Master’s degree in December 2018.
Catherine Byun is a freelance illustrator based in San Francisco. She spends her time drawing, watching movies, and hiking around California.
Daniel Donaghy is the author of two poetry collections, Start with the Trouble (U of Arkansas Press, 2009) and Streetfighting (BkMk Press, 2005).
Arielle Dylan, PhD, is an Associate Professor with the School of Social Work at St Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, where she lives with her family. Her scholarly and research areas include Indigenous realities, Romani issues, transnational practices, mental health and addictions, complementary and alternative ontological understandings and wellness approaches, environmental social work and eco-justice, group work, and critical pedagogy.
Anne Finger is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent publication is the short story collection, Call Me Ahab.
Wendy A. Gaudin is an American historian, an essayist, a poet, and a university educator. She is a descendant of Louisiana Creoles who migrated to California.
Lynn Casteel Harper's work recently appeared in Kenyon Review Online and Catapult. A Deming Fund Grant recipient, she is completing a collection of essays, When I Have Dementia.
Moriah Henkelman is an MA student working on poetry. When not working, her stalwart soul dons warm corduroy pants, a maroon sweater, and a maroon bathrobe to more effectively inhabit the reanimated body of Frank O'Hara.
Clark Holtzman lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Thanks to 2 River View, Antiphon (UK), One, Verse-Virtual, and West Trade Review for Publishing the author's poems in 2016. He can be reached at choltzman@runbox.com.
Mary Ann McGuigan is the author of three previous YA books, one a finalist for the National Book Award, she was an editor for many years, and also has experience teaching. Her essays and short stories have been published in literary journals and newspapers.
Susan Neville is the author of four books of nonfiction including Sailing the Inland Sea, Fabrication, and Iconography. Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and the Richard Sullivan Prize, her stories and essays have appeared in the Missouri Review, Southwest Review, Boulevard, the Pushcart Prize, and other magazines and anothologies. Shes lives in Indianapolis and teaches at Butler University and the Warren Wilson MFA for Writers.
Jeannie Phan is a Toronto-based freelance illustrator.
Wyatt Townley is the Poet Laureate of Kansas Emeritus. Her books include four collections of poetry: Rewriting the Body (forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin University Press), The Breathing Field (Little, Brown), Perfectly Normal (The Smith), and The Afterlives of Trees (Woodley Press), a Kansas Notable Book and winner of the Nelson Award. Her work has been read by Garrison Keillor on NPR, featured in Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry,” and published in journals including The Paris Review, Nimrod, North American Review, Pleiades, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Common, and The Yale Review. The confluence of poetry and poetry-in-motion has shaped Wyatt’s life. Formerly a dancer, she has taught yoga for decades and is the founder of Yoganetics ®, a therapeutic system practiced on six continents. Her book on the method, Yoganetics (HarperCollins), was selected an Editor’s Choice by Yoga Journal. Her mission remains two-fold: to bring people home to poetry and poetry home to people. www.WyattTownley.com
Charlotte Zoë Walker is a former NEA Fellow in Creative Writing, and O. Henry Award winner. She has published a novel, Condor and Hummingbird, as well as numerous essays and short stories, including “The Very Pineapple” (Prize Stories 1991: The O. Henry Awards), and “Goat’s Milk” (listed among “100 Distinguished Stories” in Best American Short Stories, 1993), She is the editor of two books on naturalist John Burroughs published by Syracuse University Press, Sharp Eyes (2000), and The Art of Seeing Things (2001), and much of her writing is influenced by the natural world of upstate New York. Her current project is Gray Face and Eve, a novel about a 12th century stone carver as told by his sculpture of Eve.