Contributors

B.E. Aker
B. E. Aker is fairly new to short story writing and enjoyed the chance to play with the ideas set out in this story. She has recently been practicing writing craft online with Alex Keegan's Boot Camp and is hoping to learn and grow through doing. Many thanks to Wild Violet for linking readers and writers and to PBB for the lesson on hermaphrodism.
Cutting: Aquamarina

Kathryn Atwood
Kathryn Atwood's poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous online and print journals including Afterimage, The Aurora Review, Void MagazIne and PopMatters. When she's not writing or driving her three kids around somewhere, she's usually teaching at a local music studio or performing with her husband.
Essay: Will the Real Mr. Darcy Please Stand Up?
Review: Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Michelle Brooks
Michelle Brooks has published fiction and poetry in Alaska Quarterly Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Orchid, Blue Mesa Review, Confluence, Natural Bridge, Other Voices, and elsewhere. A native Texan, she now lives in Detroit.
Poetry: Texas

Michael Cain
Michael Cain, 33, lives where he grew up in North East Ohio, near the foothills of the panhandle of West Virginia. He's been a waiter, a nurse aid, a bartender (worked briefly as a telemarketer, but didn't have the killer instinct) and now counts money till his fingers bleed at a gaming resort. Not counting the three days one of his stories appeared on the now defunct AstoundingTales.com, this is Michael's first published work. He is grateful, his dog Jack is grateful, and so is the entire Cain family. Michael is now working on the fourth draft of a fantasy novel called Jonas Ring and the Shadow Lands.
Poetry: The Cherry Wood Piano

R.S. Carlson
R.S. Carlson is a professor of English at Azusa Pacific University. He served with the U.S. Army in Quang Tri Province, Viet Nam 1970-1971. In recent years, he has made several short-term trips to China and Southeast Asia with various aid agencies. His poetry has appeared in multiple literary and "little" magazines, including Poetry/LA; Northwest Review; The Texas Review; Birmingham Poetry Review; Poet Lore; The Cape Rock; The Hollins Critic; Poets ON; the Nebraska Review; The Hawai'i Review; Phase and Cycle; The Lucid Stone; Lynx Eye; Viet Nam Generation; Sunstone; The Panhandler; War, Literature and the Arts; Limestone Circle; The Listening Eye; Praesidium; The Chaffin Journal; Viet Nam War Generation Journal; and Illya's Honey.
Poetry: Reef

Ava C. Cipri
Ava C. Cipri has an MFA from Syracuse University, where she served on the staff of Salt Hill. Prior to graduate school, she received the Prague Summer Writers' Workshop Scholarship at Charles University and published work in Kalliope, Problem Child, and The English Alumni Magazine at the Pennsylvania State University. Currently, when she is not working at the local pottery studio, she can be found bouldering or in a dance class.
Poetry: Infertility

Brent Fisk
Brent Fisk tries to capture those moments that shift the way you look at life. Seconds, days, sometimes even years that play a major role in how you walk around in the world. Most of these happen when you are a child, or when you are vulnerable, and they always knock you a bit off-kilter, but usually in a way that, if not always good, is at least instructive. His work has been accepted in over 45 publications and he's thinking about his first book. Now if he could just get past the thinking to actually doing something with a manuscript.
Poetry: To be Waked Again

Steven Gradess
Steven Gradess is a person who lives on the earth and does things. What? More specific? OK, Steven Gradess lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Willowy Town of Willow Grove. He has a boring day job but tries to be silly at least two hours a day, whether he needs to or not. He has done standup comedy, written short and long stories, guest DJ'ed and written for college radio, and has done other things that humans do.
Review: Send Me to the End by Berman

Gayle Elen Harvey
Artist's model, receptionist, and, for the past twenty years, hospital business office clerk, since 1976, poetry's been, for Gayle Elen Harvey, "not art, but breathing". Her publications include Smartish Pace, Plainsong, Phoebe, the Louisiana Review, Willow Springs, Gulf Coast, A Journal of Art & Literature, Hanging Loose, Buckle&, the Bitter Oleander, Americas reviiew, Yellow Silk, The Listening Eye, Peralto Press, Poetry Northwest, Primavera, Artful Dodge, The Birmingham Review, Montserrat review, Visions International, Square lake, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review. In addition to winning numerous awards, she's published seven chapbooks, the most recent three with Sow's Ear, Spir Press (2003) and Pudding House Press (2002).
Poetry: "Bird with a Calm Look, His Wings in Flames"

Linda Oatman High
Linda Oatman High is an author/poet/songwriter/journalist who teaches many writing workshops. She hopes that readers of this article will consider attending her next workshop on May 12-19, 2007!
Essay: Toscana Americana: It’s All Good Under The Tuscan Sun

Margaret Karmazin
Margaret Karmazin's credits include short stories published in over seventy magazines, including North Atlantic Review, Potomac Review, Confrontation, Mobius and Carve Magazine. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine and Words of Wisdom were nominated for Pushcart awards. Pipers' Ash Ltd. published a chapbook of her sci-fi stories, Cosmic Women, and her fantasy novel, Bones, the story of a prehistoric Native American shaman, is available on Amazon.com. She co-wrote the introduction for and has a story included in Still Going Strong, Haworth Press, December 2005.
Fiction: Mrs. Yongé

Jessica Kennedy
Jessica Kennedy is a legally blind, ventilator dependent, quadriplegic and lives in McKinney, Texas. A guest speaker at continuing education classes for respiratory therapists, she enlightens her listeners about the patient’s point of view and educates attendees about spinal meningitis. This is her second published work.
Essay: The Ribbon from His Hair

Holly Kent
Holly Kent is a doctoral student in the history department at Lehigh University. Her research focuses on women's activist literature in the Nineteenth Century United States. A devoted fan of the works of Charlotte Brontë and a loyal New Jerseyian, Kent has spent much of her adult life seeking to induce those around her to 1) read Villette, and 2) respect New Jersey for the great state that it is.
Fiction: Heaven

Michael Keshigian
Michael Keshigian from Londonderry, New Hampshire, musician and educator, works in Boston, performing with various symphonic ensembles while teaching on the collegiate level. He holds an undergraduate music degree from Boston Conservatory and graduate degrees from New York University and Boston University. Writing poetry since the mid-90s, he has been widely published in numerous national, international, and online journals. He has written three chapbooks: Translucent View, Dwindling Knight, and Silent Poems. His fourth chap (Into the Sky) is a work in progress and he is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee.
Poetry: Sage

Erik Kestler
Reviews: Mbconn, Amy Kuney, The Unemployed

David Kiphen
When he was young, inspired by his older brother's attempts to write, David Kiphen tried his own hand at it and was pleased. He went off to college, and though he came away with only a few hours credit, he was fortunate enough to get a job with the Brownsville Fire Department in South Texas. Presently, he has more time to write than many could ever hope to have. He's thankful.
Humor: Times

Beverly Knies
Evenings, you'll catch Beverly tickling ivoriess or forming vocal sensations into a big, shiny microphone. Afternoons, waxing poetically/prosefully, she sits ruminating over and over and over about what it will feel like to see her words in print. Her mornings are best breathing country air as she watches Mastiff Hank chasing chickens through beds of Purple Coneflower. She must write about that next week...
Cutting: The First Day

Richard Lighthouse
Richard Lighthouse is a contemporary writer and poet who has traveled all over the world. An iinventor, artist, pilot, and musician, he holds an M.S. from Stanford University. His work has been published in: West Hills Review: A Walt Whitman Journal, Red Cedar Review, Mudfish, and many others worldwide.
Poetry: this poem can swim

Arlene Mandell
Arlene L. Mandell, a retired English professor now living in Santa Rosa, California, is still an avid reader of The New York Times. When Sophie Maslow's obituary appeared on June 27, 2006, it triggered the memories included in "Still Dancing." She continues to wear Danksin tights... for yoga.
Essays: Still Dancing
Cutting: Aunt Minnie's Second Wedding

Marta Palos
Against her inclinations, Marta Palos almost became a lawyer in her native Hungary when history and circumstance stepped in. Tossed about in the world awhile, she landed in America and turned her attention to literature, her old love. Her life revolves around words — she writes, reads, translates and edits them.
Review: Pleasant Valley by Eralides E. Cabrera

Wayne Scheer
After teaching writing and literature in college for twenty-five years, Wayne Scheer retired to follow his own advice and write. He's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net. His stories have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal, Eclectica, Flashquake, Hamilton Stone Review, Pindeldyboz and Triplopia. Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife. He can be contacted via e-mail.
Fiction: A Bar in Omaha
Humor: Cheaper Than Therapy

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb works as a mentor and as co-editor of the Sustainable Ways Newsletter at Prescott College and is co-founder of Native West Press. Her poetry has appeared in Weber Studies, Wild Earth, Entelechy: Mind & Culture, Out of Line, The Midwest Quarterly, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, The Comstock Review, The Blueline Anthology (Syracuse University Press), Poem, Karamu, Hawai'i Pacific Review, Rainbow Curve, Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments, The Pedestal Magazine, and many other journals. She holds an interdisciplinary MA in Ecosemantics.
Poetry: Eukaryote Blues

Doug Tanoury
Doug Tanoury's verse can be read in electronic magazines and journals across the world. Collections of poetry by Doug Tanoury can be found at Funky Dog Publishing and Athens Avenue. This and other ebook collections of his poetry can be read and downloaded at his site. Doug grew up in Detroit, Michigan and still lives in the area.
Poetry: On Her Sofa

Twixt
Twixt is the mononym-onym of Peter Specker. He has had poetry published in Amelia, California State Quarterly, Pegasus, First Class, RE:AL, Pot-pourri, Art Times, Margie, The Indiana Review, and others. He lives in both Los Angeles (as Peter Specker) and Ithaca, New York (as Twixt).
Humor: Two Short Poems

T. Richard Williams
T. Richard Williams is the pen name for Bill Thierfelder, associate professor of English at Dowling College, Long Island, New York. His recent work includes two volumes of poetry: How the Dinosaurs Devoured the Humans and The Letter S; a collection of short fiction called Ten; and a memoir called Deliberate Living. He has been involved in various social causes for many years, including volunteer and activist work for the Momentum AIDS Project (New York City), GMHC, LIAAC, and LIGALY. He is currently a regular contributor to Outlook Long Island Magazine.
Fiction: Rubble

Alyce Wilson
Alyce Wilson is Wild Violet editor and in her copious spare time writes humor and poetry, keeps an online journal, Musings, and makes plans for a retrofuturistic wedding. She has self-published a book of poems, Picturebook of the Martyrs, and an e-book, Stay Out of the Bin! An Editor's Tips on Getting Published in Lit Mag, both of which can be ordered from her web site.
Reviews: Hanging Garden, The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai, Pound, One Buccaneer, Screaming Masterpiece, The Shutka Book of Records, A Selection of Animated Shorts, Head Space, Tokyo Zombie,Note to Self by Liz De Jesus, Poems to Use While Hiding from the Shadows by Liz DeJesus, Nectar Fragments by Michael Hoffman, The Art of Undressing by Stephanie Lehmann, Godiva by David Rose, Cleveland Anthology of Poets & Secret Life of a Deranged Poet
Probe: Robert Downey Sr. (filmmaker)