Ryel Alviola has worked behind the scenes as a legislative staff for the past four years. She divides her time between her home town of Cebu City and the capital Manila.
Recommended poet: Ana Escalante Neri.
Lisa Bower's work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Southern Review, Subtropics, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, Poetry Southeast, The Hollins Critic, The Florida Review, and The Mississippi Review. She is allergic to many things, including tuna (chicken of the sea) and chicken (yes, really). Lisa currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia. (lisamgbower@gmail.com).
Recommended poet: Steve Scafidi.
Patrick Ryan Frank studied poetry at Northwestern University and Boston University. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Carolina Quarterly, River Styx, and other publications. He is the recipient of an Artist Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and two Writing Fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. (patrickryanfrank@gmail.com).
Recommended poets: David Ferry, Glyn Maxwell.
Robin Halevy worked for twenty years as a public school librarian and student creative-writing mentor on Long Island, New York. She is now a resident of the Florida Keys. She spent many years believing that fiction was what she wanted to write before realizing the truth of the matter. Better late than never.
Recommended poet: Aaron Anstett
Raina J. León, Cave Canem graduate fellow (2006) and member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, has been published in Xavier Review, MiPoesias (edited by Evie Shockley), Torch, Poetic Voices without Borders, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade, Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces, AntiMuse , Farmhouse Magazine, Furnace Review, Constellation Magazine and Tiger's Eye Journal among others. (leon_info@yahoo.com).
Recommended poet: DeLana Dameron
Robert McDonald's poems have appeared in Court Green, Southern Poetry Review, Gertrude, and 42 Opus, among many others. He lives in Chicago, where he works as the buyer for an independent bookstore. He also the co-author of the book A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago. (robmc1002@yahoo.com)
Recommended poet: Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Tomas Q. Morin studied at Texas State University and Johns Hopkins University. He has work published or forthcoming in Ploughshares, New Orleans Review, Boulevard, and Slate. (ezekiel371@yahoo.com).
Recommended poet: Gerald Stern
William Neumire's work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, Stone Canoe, Main Street Rag, and Rattle. His chapbooks include Resonance of Kin (Pudding House, 2003) and Between Worlds (Foothills Publishing, 2003). He teaches in Syracuse, NY. (wjneumire@msn.com).
Recommended poet: Jesse Ball
Erick Piller attends Loyola University New Orleans. He has published poetry in Lowe's Prose and Poetics, In Other Words: An American Poetry Anthology (2007), Illogical Muse, and Loyola's ReVisions, and essays at PerceptionEngine.com and in the Reader's Response, Loyola's academic journal. In 2006 he won first place in a Louisiana Scholastic Press Association writing competition for journalism and, in 2007, a Dawson Gailliard Award for Screenwriting. (ejpiller@gmail.com)
Recommended poet: C. K. Williams
Suzanne Rindell originally hails from Northern California, but is currently working toward her Ph.D. in English literature at Rice University. Recent and upcoming fiction and poetry publications include Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod, StorySouth, The Texas Review, Convergence, Sulphur River Literary Review, The Georgetown Review, The Absinthe Literary Review, Whistling Shade, and others. (suzannerindell@hotmail.com).
Recommended poet: Sharon Olds, Robert Hass, Susan Wood
Christian Tablazon 22, finished his BA in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is a member of U.P. Quill and .U.P. Ugnayan ng Manunulat (U.P. Writers' Guild), and his works have appeared in university and national publications, the most recent of which are his vignettes anthologized in City Lights by Psicom Books and his story included in a flash fiction anthology released by Milflores Publishing. He currently teaches English and Literature at a college in Camarines Norte, Philippines while working on his fourth short film. (magbalik.sa.lemlunay@gmail.com)
Recommended poet: Eric Gamalinda
Karen Weyant's poems have appeared in Slipstream, Phoebe, Nerve Cowboy, Paper Street, Labor and The Comstock Review and are forthcoming in Pennsylvania English and the minnesota review. She is a 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow. (KarenWeyant@mail.sunyjcc.edu)
Recommended poet: Sherry Fairchok