Aaron Devine is a first-year MFA student in fiction writing at UMass-Boston. He can be found online at aarondevine.net.

• Experience Clarified in Words: A Conversation with the Transatlantic Adam Haslett

Alexis Stratton is a native of Illinois but has spent her life in many homes, from New Orleans to South Korea. Although her nomadic self is calling her to see other parts of the world, she is currently working, teaching, and writing in Columbia, South Carolina, where she’s enrolled in the University of South Carolina’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Her fiction has most recently appeared in The Drum Literary Magazine, Two Hawks Quarterly, and Pure Francis.

• Izakaya

Allison Leigh Peters won an Academy of American Poets Prize in 2010. Her most recent work has been published in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Burner Magazine, Connotation Press, Dark Sky Magazine, Third Wednesday, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Avatar Review, Fortnight Literary Press and more. She studies English, creative writing and film at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she is a literary magazine editor, works in publishing, volunteers at 826 Michigan and teaches English at Community High School.

• Crescent Sun

Amber Whitley holds an MA in English from Northern Kentucky University and teaches composition and speech at a 4-year college. Her writing has most recently appeared in The Licking River Review, Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, and on CellStories. Her first e-book entitled Blackout was released from May December Publications and is available for purchase on Amazon.com. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and three crazy cats.

• Talk of Sex and Politics in Central Asia

Avery Beckendorf is an MFA student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her poetry and prose have previously appeared in Orlando Weekly, Susquehanna Review, and Takedown Magazine. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, one tail-less cat, and three hermit crabs.

• Booze Cabinet
• Serpent Box

• Reading Kipling In The Suburbs

Janet Freeman lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she serves as the founding editor of Rough Copy. Her award-winning stories have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Cottonwood, Main Street Rag, PANK, Prick of the Spindle, Storyglossia and elsewhere. She can be found online at janetfreeman.com.

• Mermaids

Raised in Michigan but now living in Southern California, John F. Buckley and Martin Ott began their ongoing games of poetic volleyball in the spring of 2009. Poetry from their collaboration Poets’ Guide to America has been accepted by more than twenty-five publications, including Confrontation, Evergreen Review, Post Road, Slant, Verse Wisconsin and ZYZZYVA.

• Ruins of Roanoke

Judith Skillman is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently The Never (Dream Horse Press, 2010.) She is the recipient of awards from many organizations, including the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have appeared in Midwest Quarterly, The Iowa Review, New Poets of the American West, and many other journals and anthologies. Skillman has an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Maryland, & teaches on occasion for the Richard Hugo House. She lives in Kennydale, Washington. A collection about the seven deadly sins titled “The White Cypress” will be published by Cervéna Barva Press in March, 2011. She can be found online at judithskillman.com.

• Thirteen

Laura Deily is an MFA candidate at the University of Florida, where she also teaches writing. Her poems have been published in Prick of the Spindle and her interview with Kevin Prufer appears on the Subtropics website. She is originally from Boston, Massachusetts.

• Red-light, Amsterdam
• Nocturnal

Mark Decarteret’s poetry has appeared in Agenda (England), AGNI, Ars-Interpres (Sweden), Atlanta Review, Boston Review, Caliban, Chicago Review, Conduit, Cream City Review, The Del Sol Review, Diagram, failbetter, Gargoyle, Hotel Amerika , Killing the Buddha, Le Petite Zine, Mudfish, New Orleans Review , Phoebe, Poetry East, Pool, Quick Fiction, Salamander, Salt Hill, Sonora Review, Spinning Jenny, Superstition Review, Tampa Review, and Third Coast as well as the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000), and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press, 1999).

• Spelled

Panika M. C. Dillon resides from time to time in Fairbanks, AK or Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in Stirring, Oranges & Sardines, Copper Nickel, Shampoo Poetry and Spindle Zine. She believes that Coleridge’s “best words, best order” can be applied to and change our national conversation. She implements this strategy as a political organizer.

• a scene like this should break (your heart)

Robert E. Wood teaches at Georgia Tech. His critical work includes an essay on The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a study of Hamlet. His poetry has appeared recently in Minnetonka Review, Jabberwock Review, Sojourn, and Prairie Schooner. His chapbook, Gorizia Notebook, was published by Finishing Line Press.

• Sleight of Hand

Rose Postma is working on an MFA in poetry at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Plainsongs, Atlanta Review, Camas, The Little Balkans Review and The Briar Cliff Review, among others.

• Unrequited

Vanessa Norton was born in Buffalo, NY, but now lives on the foggiest beach in California. She completed her MFA in Fiction from the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon in 2007 and has since read at several literary events in and around San Francisco and been granted residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, as well as the Jentel Artist Residency Program. Her work can be read in South Dakota Review as well as the anthology, Sex for America.

• No Blood

After 15 years in San Francisco, Tim Duffy returned to his hometown of Dorchester in 2008, where he completed a BA in Studio Art. Tim currently spends his time painting landscapes, applying for Graduate programs, and planning his career in the visual arts.

• Sugar High

Issac Acosta is a student at UC Berkeley majoring in Public Health. His main interests are capitalism, sociology, teaching, biology and philosophy. He enjoys nature, urban photography and sharing his photos with his close friends.

• Graffiti 1
• Graffiti 2

Calvin Hennick is a second-year MFA fiction writer at UMass Boston.

• “Playing a one-person role-playing game”: Alexander Yates on writing his debut novel Moondogs

Lisa Duffy is a second-year fiction writer in the MFA program at UMass Boston. She holds a BA in Women’s Studies from UMB and is the founding editor of ROAR Magazine. She is a Boston area native who lives on the South Shore with her three children. She is currently working on her first novel.

• Book Review: Moondogs by Alexander Yates