Salar Abdoh is the author of the novels The Poet Game (Picador, 2001) and Opium (Faber & Faber, 2004). He teaches in the English Department of The City College of New York.

Malaika King Albrecht’s poems have been or are forthcoming in many
literary magazines and anthologies, such as Kakalak: An Anthology of
Carolina Poets, Pebble Lake Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Shampoo, New Orleans Review, and The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel - Second Floor. She has taught creative writing to sexual abuse/assault survivors and to addicts and alcoholics in therapy groups and is also a volunteer poet in North Carolina schools.

Janée J. Baugher has collaborated with many visual artists, as well as had her work adapted for the stage and set to music. Her first manuscript, Coördinates of Yes, was a finalist at Carnegie Mellon Press, and is available through interlibrary loan. Her second manuscript, The Body’s Physics, was a finalist at Black Lawrence Press. Baugher, who earned an MFA in 2001, teaches Poetry and Fiction at UW Experimental College (Seattle) and Interlochen Center for the Arts (Interlochen, Michigan).

Sarah Cortez has been in policing since 1993. Her collection How To Undress A Cop (Arte Público, 2000) was the winner of the 1999 PEN Texas Literary award in poetry. One of her poems was chosen for the nationwide Poetry In Motion program and many others are anthologized. Ms. Cortez has edited Windows into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives (Arte Público, 2007), an anthology of short memoir written by young Latinos in the U.S.

Adam Cushman’s stories have been published in The Mississippi Review, Konundrum, Carve, The Portland Review and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives in Los Angeles.

Michael Graves is the recipient of a substantial grant from the Ludwig
Vogelstein Foundation for 2004. He has published two chapbooks, Outside St. Jude’s (REM Press, 1990), reissued as an ebook by Rattapallax, and Illegal Border Crosser (Cervena Barva, 2008). His first book is Adam and Cain (Black Buzzard, 2006). (Poems reprinted from Adam and Cain with permission from Black Buzzard.)

George Guida has published two poetry collections—Low Italian
(Bordighera, 2006) and New York and Other Lovers (Smalls Books, 2007)— and a volume of criticism, The Peasant and the Pen (Lang, 2003). His novel Letters from Suburbia (Smalls Books) is forthcoming, and his play “The Pope Play” is in development. His writing appears in many journals and anthologies. George is associate professor at New York City College of Technology, co-producer of the Intercollegiate Poetry Slam, and son of a retired NYPD detective.

Kenneth E. Hartman (#C-19449) is serving life without the possibility of parole in the California prison system. A longtime activist, he was instrumental in the founding of the Honor Program (www. prisonhonorprogram.org). He is an award-winning author, most recently published in the Los Angeles Times and The Prison Journal. He plans to complete and publish his memoir “Doing Time” soon. For more information see www.kennethehartman.com.

Brad Johnson is an associate professor at Palm Beach Community College, FL, and has two chapbooks, Void Where Prohibited and The Happiness Theory available at puddinghouse.com.

C. L. Knight is the associate director of Anhinga Press, where she designs and edits books. Her poetry has appeared in Louisiana Literature, Tar River Review, Earth’s Daughters, The Ledge, Slipstream, Comstock Review, Epicenter, Redactions and in the anthologies Off the Cuffs, Touched by Eros, and North of Wakulla. She is the co-editor of Snakebird: Thirty Years of Anhinga Poets. She was nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize. She was married to a police officer for 15 years.

Kahlil Koromantee has dedicated himself to the overall development of at-risk youth for the last twenty years, including teaching life skills to male inmates at Rikers Island. He holds a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology and currently advises at the City University of New York. His book BeforeYou Fly Off was selected as part of the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival. He is currently working on his first book of poetry and prose.

Laura LeHew is an award winning poet whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Alehouse Press, Ellipsis, Elysian Fields Quarterly, HeartLodge, Homestead Review, Pank, PMS and Tiger’s Eye. She is on the Lane Literary Guild’s steering committee, an active member of the Eugene/Springfield chapter of the OSPA, and co-founded Uttered Chaos, which organizes local readings.

Phillip Mahony’s most recent publication is From Both Sides Now, an anthology of Vietnam War-related poetry published by Scribners. In 2003, he retired from the New York City Police Department after a 22-year career. In 2005 he graduated from New York Law School and is currently a lawyer in a major New York law firm. (Poem reprinted from Catching Bodies with permission from North Atlantic Books.)

Jane Marston has taught composition and literature at Vanderbilt University and, most recently, The University of Georgia. Her research interests have included basic writing, human values in medicine, and nineteenth century American fiction. Since taking an early retirement, she has published poetry in, among others, Poem, Birmingham Poetry Review, and California Quarterly. A resident of Athens, Georgia, she grew up in Greenville, North Carolina, where tobacco farming was the mainstay of the economy.

William Orem’s first collection of stories, Zombi, You My Love, won the GLCA New Writers Award, previously given to Sherman Alexie, Alice Munro, Louise Erdrich, and Richard Ford. His poems and short stories have appeared in over 95 publications, including The Princeton Arts Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Sou’Wester and The New Formalist, and he has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. He is currently Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College.

Louis Phillips has published two collections of short stories: A Dream of Countries Where No One Dare Live (SMU Press) and The Bus to the Moon (Fort Schuyler Press). His third collection, The Woman who Wrote King Lear, will be published this spring 2008 by Pleasure Boat Studio.

Ruthann Robson is Professor of Law & University Distinguished Professor at CUNY School of Law. She is the author of a/k/a (novel, St Martin’s Press) and Sappho Goes to Law School (theory, Columbia University Press) among other books. For more information, view her website at www.ruthannrobson.com.

Nancy Scott’s first full-length book of poetry, Down to the Quick (Plain View Press, 2007) chronicles her work on behalf of abused children, foster children, homeless families and other disadvantaged people in New Jersey. She is the current managing editor of US1 Worksheets, the journal of the US1 Poets’ Cooperative. Her poetry has appeared in Witness, Slant, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Big Scream, The Ledge, Out of Line and other literary journals.

Marc J. Sheehan is the author of Greatest Hits, a collection of poems from New Issues Poetry Press. He has published poems, essays, articles, fiction and book reviews in such journals as Apalachee Quarterly, Fine Madness, High Plains Literary Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Water Stone and many others. He is a communications officer at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.

Shoshauna Shy’s poems have been published in numerous journals and magazines, including The Seattle Review, The Comstock Review, Cimarron Review, Rosebud, Poetry Northwest. One of her poems was selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program launched by Billy Collins and subsequently published by Random House. She is the author of four collections of poetry published by Parallel Press, Pudding House Publications, Moon Journal Press and Zelda Wilde Publishing.

Jonathan “Blaze” Sierra. Born July 25, 1972. Incarcerated March 26, 1999 at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. From 2000 to 2005, Jonathan was an active member of the monthly creative writing workshop at the NJ State Prison, which was directed by Kal Wagenheim.

Dana Stamps, II’s publications include Vox, THEMA, Left Behind: A Journal of Shock Literature, The Iconoclast, Plainsongs, American Dissident, Genie, Main Street Rag, Blue Unicorn, Paradoxism and Avocet. His first chapbook Sexy Jesus and Other Poems (2007) was published by Petroglyph Books. Also, his drawings and art photography have appeared in Epicenter, Blind Man’s Rainbow, and Art Talk.

Jason Trask taught on Rikers Island from 1991 to 1994 when he moved to western Maine to write and teach in an alternative education program. A chapter of his novel, Putting Out the Sun, appears in the most recent issue of Fiction. “New Plantation” is adapted from a longer work.