Jacob M. Appel is the author of the novels The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up (2012) and The Biology of Luck (2013), and the short story collection Scouting for the Reaper (2014).  He practices psychiatry in New York City and teaches at the Gotham Writers' Workshop.  More at www.jacobmappel.com.

Jeffrey D. Boldt is an attorney and administrative law judge in Madison Wisconsin. Publishing credits include: Interim, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Blueline,  RE: Arts and Letters, Berkeley Poetry Review, Tikkun, Mickle Street Review, Clare Literary Journal and Seems. Boldt has a short story forthcoming in The MacGuffin. Follow/contact at jeffreyboldtwrites.blogspot.com.

Dennis Braden holds a Master’s Degree in Literature from the Colorado University
at Boulder. He has been assisted by a writing residency from the Edward F. Albee Foundation.
His work has appeared in journals such as Bellingham Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Confrontation, Forum, several anthologies, and in the chapbook In Things Completed, published in a limited edition by Konglomerati Press of Florida.

Lauren Camp is the author of two books of poems, The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith, 2013) and This Business of Wisdom (West End Press, 2010). She has been a guest editor for World Literature Today (international jazz poetry) and Malpaís Review (poetry of Iraq). Her writing is forthcoming in The Portland Review, Sweet, and Feminist Studies. Lauren is a radio producer and host on Santa Fe Public Radio and an acclaimed visual artist. www.laurencamp.com.

Byron Case, an imprisoned thirty-four year-old writer, has published poems in a number of periodicals, including Common Ground Review, Rockhurst Review, and the online Hyperlexia Journal.  Additional information about him and his work can be found at www.pariahblog.com.

Michael Casey 's latest book is Check Points, dealing with the military police. His new and selected poetry book will be out from the Loom Press in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 2014.

Ron Darian has spent the bulk of his professional career in the entertainment industry, having written and produced such television shows as Frasier, Mad About You, and 7th Heaven. His fiction has been published extensively. He won the 2012 Kirkwood Prize, and is a recent nominee for the Pushcart Prize.

Apala G. Egan (translator, The Princess Baby) grew up in India and is fluent in Bengali and English. A former community college instructor, she focuses on translating and writing. She has visited Rajasthan numerous times to research the backdrop of the stories.

Ronald M. Gauthier has short fiction and nonfiction published in Witness Literary Journal, Times-Picayune, Atlanta Voice, Library Journal, Quarterly Black Books Review and Deep South Magazine and The Long Story.  He is the author of Killing Time: an 18 Year Odyssey from Death Row to Freedom that won the Innocence Project Media Award, the Indie Award, and it was selected by the Chicago Sun Times as one of the best books of 2010.

Michael Graves is the author of Adam and Cain (Black Buzzard, 2006), In Fragility (Black Buzzard, 2011) and two chapbooks, Illegal Border Crosser (Cervana Barva, 2008) and Outside St. Jude’s (R. E. M. Press, 1990).  In 2004, he received a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Thirteen of his poems appear in the James Joyce Quarterly. He has read from his poems to a gathering of the Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mart in New York City. He is a former student of James Wright, who directed two semesters of Independent Study in Creative Writing for him.

John Heinz’ fiction has appeared in Children, Churches & Daddies andThe Round Up Writer’s Zine.  One of his stories was chosen as a finalist for Glimmer Train literary magazine’s 2013 Family Matters contest. His journalism has appeared in Gotham, Hamptons, Ocean Drive, Trump, and Vegas magazines. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel.

Richard Krawiec’s second book of poems is She Hands Me the Razor (Press 53). His work appears in Chautauqua Literary Journal, Blue Fifth Review, Prime Number, Shenandoah, sou’wester, Witness, Connotation, etc.   He has published two novels, a story collection, and four plays, won fellowships from the NEA and NC Arts Council. He is founder of Jacar Press, a Community Active publishing company. He has worked extensively with men and women in prison, including Death Row.

Laurie Lamon’s work has appeared in journals and magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Ploughshares, Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture, Plume, The Literary Review, 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Ordinary Days, and others.  She has two poetry collections published at CavanKerry Press, The Fork Without Hunger, and Without Wings. She isthe recipient of a Pushcart Prize and was selected by Donald Hall as a Witter Bynner Fellow in 2007. She is a professor of English at Whitworth University, and poetry editor for the literary Journal Rock & Sling.

Saretta Morgan completed her Bachelor of Arts at Columbia University after serving overseas in the U.S. Military from 2006-2010.  Her work explores the various modes of storytelling that we encounter and participate in daily. She lives in Harlem with her partner, their dogs, and two parrots.

Christopher Mulrooney has written poems in Red Branch Journal, The Germ, Auchumpkee Creek Review, Epigraph Magazine, Futures Trading, Or, Pomona Valley Review, Black & BLUE, The Seventh Quarry, The Cannon's Mouth, Decanto, and The Criterion.   

George Newtown is a Professor of English at Centenary College of Louisiana.  He underwent radical prostatectomy in 2003 and since then has circumscribed his cancer in personal essays.  His work has appeared in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Angelaki, The Antioch Review, Soundings, The Southern Review, Ten Spurs, and now J Journal.  He has twice won awards at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction conference, including the top prize in 2006, The Dallas Morning News Nonfiction Prize for Literary Excellence.

Jyotirmoyee Sen, born in 1894 in the kingdom of Jaipur, Rajasthan, wrote under the pen name Jyotirmoyee Devi during her long widowhood. She won several awards including the prestigious Rabindra Puraskar for Bengali writing in 1973. Her work is part of the Women’s Studies curriculum at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She died in 1988.

Rob McClure Smith is the John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Chair in English at Knox College. His fiction has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Manchester Review, Barcelona Review and many other literary magazines.

Jason Trask’s novel I'm Not Muhammad was published by Red Wheelbarrow Books (New York, 2011). He taught on Rikers Island from 1991 to 1994. “Mountain Man” is the 4th segment of his Rikers book to be published (see also J Journal, "The New Plantation" and DownAndOut.com, "Why We Should Kill the White Man, Parts 1 and 2"). He's had other stories published in Fiction and Instant Classics. He currently teaches in an alt. ed. program in western Maine. He's married and has three sons.

Vaughn Wright is a Philadelphia native and long-term prisoner who has written hundreds of songs, poems and stories.  His work has most recently appeared in Thema, Pearl, Tales of Talisman, PKA’s Advocate, and a previous issue of J Journal.  His collection of short stories, Tales from the Inside, can be viewed at www.PrisonsFoundation.org.

Paula Anne Yup has had over a hundred poems published, including those appearing in The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States, Passages North Anthology, What Book!?, Mid American Review and several Outrider Press anthologies.  Her work has also appeared in several earlier issue of J Journal. Her first book of poetry Making a Clean Space in the Sky was recently published by Evening Street Press.  She was born in Phoenix, Arizona and received her MFA from Vermont College.  She has lived in the Marshall Islands a dozen years.