Jeffrey Alfier lives in Tucson, Arizona, holds an M.A. in Humanities, and has served as an adjunct faculty member with City Colleges of Chicago - European Division. He is a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. His publication credits include The Columbia Review, Conspire, CrossConnect, Electric Acorn, Niederngasse, Penwood Review (2002), Recursive Angel, Stolen Island Review, and War, Literature and the Arts - An International Journal of the Humanities. His poetry and commentaries will appear in the anthology, Because I Fly, forthcoming from McGraw-Hill (November 01).

John Amen's poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications, including Disquieting Muses, Thunder Sandwich, The Adirondack Review, The Charlotte Observer, Stirring Magazine, Wilmington Blues, 2River View, Sanskrit, and Twilight Times. He is editor in chief of the online literary bi-monthly The Pedestal Magazine: www.thepedestalmagazine.com.

Sue Andrews currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and works in social services with Common Ground, an organization providing supportive housing and developing housing solutions. She hopes to relocate temporarily to West Africa in the coming year. Always searching for the convergence of art and social justice, where she'll land next could be anyone's best guess.

Jeff Bahr divides his time between Colorado and California and is on the editorial staff of The Alsop Review. His work has appeared in various publications including Barrow Street, Plainsong, Indiana Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Many Mountains Moving, Rattle, and The Portland Review.

Thomas Bates is an independent researcher and writer residing in Northern Colorado. His interests include nontraditional approaches to education, common sense as a depletable natural resource, and cooking. bates_moss@yahoo.com

Bryher is a lifelong resident of Indiana and has a wide variety of interests, of which poetry -- reading, writing and collecting -- is the largest. Bryher enjoys nature as it relates to mood and setting, science as it relates to the past and future, the history of man- and womankind, as well as current events in the news. You can email Bryher at Brypoetry@bryher.com

Joseph Carcel has written poetry constantly since college, except for a four-year stint in law school and during his first five years of practicing law. When he's not writing poetry, he enjoys rock climbing and reading textbooks on subjects he knows nothing about.

Hannah Craig lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A recent graduate from the University of Chicago, she is currently learning how to write poetry and applying to graduate school. She works in both software design and as a repatriation consultant for several local museums. She's recently had poetry published in the White River Quarterly and Aubade. elora_t@hotmail.com

Richard Fein has been published in many print and web journals, including Southern Humanities Review, Wavelength, The Kerf, Birmingham Poetry Review, Parnassus Literary Review, Half Tones to Jubilee, Poem, The Listening Eye, Sulphur River Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, and many others. More of his poetry can be found at http://expage.com/page/richardspoems e-mail: Bardofbyte@aol.com

Ani Gjika was born in 1978 in Tirane, Albania. She moved to the United States in 1996 with her family where she graduated college with an English major in spring 2001. In the fall of 2001 she will continue on to her Master's studies in English and Creative Writing. Apart from English and Albanian, she speaks Italian and Russian fluently and is currently studying French. Her poetry feeds on a love for language and life but mostly on nature and things as they are and happen. Among her favorite poets and influences are Wallace Stevens, Wislawa Szymborska, Ai, Emily Dickinson, Joe Salerno, Donald Hall, Li Ching Chao, Kenneth Rexroth, Stanely Kunitz, Joseph Carcel and many others, mostly 20th Century and contemporary poets. Ani's poetry has appeared in 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, Nakedpoetry.com and she has won a number of Honorable Mentions from the IBPC (Interboard Poetry Competition). She resides in Massachusetts.

Sterling Green is the pseudonym of a writer who prefers to remain anonymous, although he does enjoy farting in elevators.

Sheri Kandel, formerly Goldstein-Roca, is a psychotherapist and clinical researcher specializing in the use of music and poetry in therapy. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, including Handprints: The Hahnemann University Humanities Magazine, New Hope’s The River, and Power Lifting USA. Her research can be found in The Arts in Psychotherapy. Sheri is currently working as a full-time mom of a budding toddler and as a part-time piano teacher. Writing poetry is not, however, pushed aside; she writes almost daily during those wee hours when her husband and child are both sleeping. e-mail: wooterhead@aol.com

Barbara Lee holds an MA in literature from the University of British Columbia. She is a retired dancer, a poet and painter and currently lives on the Fraser River in British Columbia. http://home.talkcity.com/EaselSt/medusaccc/art.htm

Brian Long makes his home in Tennessee where he manages an inn. He is blessed with a wife of 13 years and a nine-year-old son. He lists his influences as MacLeish, Sandburg, and Naomi Nye. He is 31 years old.

Alison Lowenstein has been published in the Portland Literary Review and ModernBride.com. She has a graduate degree in creative writing from CCNY. Until recently she was an assistant editor at Hyperion Books. She is now teaching creative writing and is working on a collection of short stories.

Danielle McShine was born in Trinidad and Tobago and is currently studying music and French Linguistics at Indiana University. Her poems have also appeared online in Niederngasse and adhocity.com

Shann Palmer is a Texan currently living in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and their two above-average children. She has taught chorus and creative writing at a private Episcopal high school, and also serves as organist/choir director at a small country church. She has been published in numerous print and web publications, and does freelance and an events calendar for Virginia/DC at Poetry.About.com. As a performance poet, she heads a jazz/poetry combo, VILLANELLE, which performs at local coffee shops and book stores.

Dave Ruslander lives with his wife on their 15-acre horse farm in Virginia. A computer network engineer for money and poet by night; his website is www.geocities.com/daveruslander23141

Shoshauna Shy's poems have recently appeared in Poetry Northwest, West Wind Review, on Poetry Daily and in Samsara Quarterly. Her best moments with the pen happen before the waitress arrives, the light turns green or the check-out clerk finishes scanning the week's groceries. Her first chapbook, Souped-Up on the Must-Drive Syndrome was released by Pudding House Publications and is available through Amazon.com. Moon Journal Press will be releasing the next one this fall. ShaunShy@netscape.net

Tony Smith was born in Charlotte, NC and educated at the University of Maryland. He now resides along the Chesapeake Bay where he enjoys fishing, photography and exploring by boat. He is currently working on a collection of poetry celebrating life on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

r l swihart: Though I am many, I'll be contented to spotlight only my quadruplicate-self which, like a nested Matryoshka doll, consists of me and the-family-within: RLS (I'm shy, so until we're more intimate the initials will do), Ania (the devoted wife), Katia (just finished kindergarten), and Nadja (quite the fledgling at 2 yrs.). I read heavily. Imbibe moderately. Work when I have to (math teacher). Am hounded by all nine muses at once.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, yermiyahu ahron taub is a poet who writes in English and Yiddish and, to a lesser extent, in Hebrew and as a translator from Yiddish. His work has appeared in numerous literary publications. He currently works as a librarian at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.

Yolanda Vega (pen name Annie John) was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1977 and came to NY at 17 as a pre-med student. "Sidetracked" by a marriage and three children, she works as a social work supervisor at a nursing home.

Wendy Videlock graduated with a B.A. in Education from the University of Arizona and now lives in western Colorado with her husband and two children. She seeks to write poems which explore the relationship between the ordinary and the mystical, the cynical and the hopeful. Eight of her poems will be published in the upcoming Geography of Hope, Poets of Colorado's Western Slope, Volume II.