Rane Arroyo is the author of six books of poems, including the forthcoming The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems. He lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio. His next book is The Roswell Poems (WordFarm) and it’s about the UFO crash in the New Mexico desert.

Retired after three decades of teaching high school and college English, Lois Shapley Bassen has appeared in many literary magazines and has won several national awards for playwrighting, fiction, and poetry. Her play, The Month Before the Moon, was published by Samuel French, Inc. Married for 39 years, she has two daughters and recently moved from New York to Rhode Island.

E. G. Burrows has had four poetry collections, a verse play and five chapbooks published including The House of August (Ithaca House), The Birds Under the Earth (Owl Creek Press), and Sailing As Before (TDM Press). His poems have appeared in over 250 journals.

Janet Butler relocated to the Bay Area after many years in Italy. While there she collaborated with Romeo Giuli in the translation of his poetry. Her own poems have appeared in Scrivener’s Pen, ken*again, Prose Toad, SubtleTea, Carnelian, The Penwood Review, Miller’s Pond, Wild Violet, Slow Trains, The Green Muse, Wild Violet and others. Future publications include Niederngasse, Amarillo Bay, and The Indented Pillow. She was featured writer for Sage of Consciousness, 2005; an online chapbook, Eden Fables, will be published by Language and Culture, 2007. She is included in an anthology to be published by Mannequin Envy, and Collection: Ekphrastic Poems by Robert Schuler and Janet Butler will be published in 2007 by Canvas Press.

Meagan Cass’s poetry has appeared in Stirring and Pebble Lake Review, and her short fiction is forthcoming in The South Carolina Review. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

A writer, editor and wit, R.T. Castleberry is assistant editor at Lily Literary Review, a co-founder and director of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe—a literary performance group, and former co-editor/publisher of the poetry publication Curbside Review. His work has been published in Green Mountains Review, Texas Review, The Alembic, Common Ground Review, Pacific Review, Poet Lore and myriad other journals, both nationally and internationally. Mr. Castleberry lives and works in Houston, Texas.

Darien Cavanaugh is a student in the MFA writing program at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. He lives with his wife, Meeghan.

Allan Douglass Coleman writes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, makes music, photographs, and produces various other forms of visual art. His poetry and fiction have appeared or are scheduled for publication in The Cape Rock, Hazmat Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Lalitamba, Nimrod, Poetry Harbor, and the e-zine Urban Desires. Under the pen name A. D. Coleman, he publishes critical writings on photography, art and mass media. His creative work can be found online at: villaflorentine.us

Mark DeCarteret’s work has appeared in the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press, 2000). His book (If This Is the) New World was released by March Street Press this year.

Nancy Devine teaches high school English in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she lives with her husband Chuck and their two dogs, Whitey and Yo-yo. She co-directs the Red River Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. Her poems have appeared recently in Bear River Journal, Main Channel Voices, Matter 09: Fuel. and 42opus. She has work forthcoming in VOX and Thieves Jargon.

Daniel DiStasio’s short stories will appear this year in The Caribbean Writer and Pinyon. A former editor at General Media/Penthouse, his travel and entertainment features have appeared nationally in The Out Traveler, Video and New Jersey Magazine. He lives in Key West and leads adventures tours throughout the world including: Peru, Iceland and Vietnam. He received his MFA from Spalding University.

Terry Godbey’s chapbook Behind Every Door won Slipstream’s 19th Annual Poetry Chapbook Contest in 2006 (www.slipstreampress.org). Her poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, Rosebud, Primavera, Potomac Review, Pearl and Rattle, and she was nominated for two 2007 Pushcart Prizes. She is a copy editor at the Orlando Sentinel.

Mark Harrison’s poems appear in North American Review, Alimentum: The Literature of Food, Third Coast, Saranac Review, The Comstock Review, Manzanita, The Seattle Review, and elsewhere. He has worked on the research staff of a national primate center, as a chemist for a California winery, and as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Alaska. He has received degrees from Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and Syracuse University. He teaches writing in Palo Alto, California.

David Harrity is a writer from Kentucky. He is a graduate of Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Currently he is working toward his MFA in poetry at Spalding University. His poems have appeared in Ars Interpress (arsint.com), Blood Lotus (bloodlotus.org), The St. Linus Review, Limestone, and Kudzu. His chapbook, Morning and What Has Come Since, is forthcoming in 2007 from Finishing Line Press.

Liam Hysjulien grew up in Durham, North Carolina. As a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he now balances his time teaching cultural studies to some of the brightest future minds, while trying to find time for his own writing.

Bev Jafek writes: “I have published about 20 of my stories in the literary quarterly and university press publications. Some have also been translated into German, Italian and Dutch and have won many literary awards, including publication in the annual “prize” anthologies, The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize; the Carlos Fuentes Award and the Editor’s Prize for fiction from Columbia; as well as first prize in the 2001 Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation short story competition for “redemption of gay history” through creative writing. I was also a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford. A collection of my short fiction, The Man Who Took a Bite Out of His Wife was published by The Overlook Press in 1993, reprinted in paperback in 1995, and was cited as one of the best story collections of the year in The Year’s Best Fantasy (7th edition, Teri Windling. I have recently finished my second story collection, a departure into longer and more realistic fiction, making use of richly omniscient narration with fully fleshed characters set in the midst of historical trauma and turmoil. The stories are often set in foreign locations (Patagonia, Switzerland, Afghanistan, Mexico) and involve expatriate American characters and foreign characters as well as the evocation of a different cultural world. I am currently working on a novel, which is about a third complete, and looking for a publisher for the collection as well as a literary agent to represent my work.”

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland, and has published a chapbook of poems and original graphics, A Leather Dress Fur Mother. He began writing shortly after learning how to hold a crayon and started transcribing his ideas onto paper shortly thereafter. His poetry has been published in The GW Review, Cer*ber*us, Poetica, MM Review, Kairos, Tomorrow Magazine, Liberty, Syncopated City, Synæsthesia, ABRAXAS, Articulata, The Burning Cloud Review, Bulldog Breath, Middle Class Review, Scribble, Beltway, Innisfree, Poetry Depth Quarterly, and Main Street Rag.
In 2001, he received the “Best of Issue” award from WordWrights! magazine, and several of his poems have appeared in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Executive Office Building Poetry Gallery. Luther recently received an award from Kulanu for his poem “Seferad, 1492”, which appears in an anthology of poems on Jewish diversity, Under One Canopy, published in the Fall of 2003. In July, 2006, Luther appeared with “Cabaradio”, during the first Washington DC Capital Fringe Festival.

Marci Rae Johnson holds a MFA in Poetry Writing from Spalding University. She is Founder and Director of the Poetry Factory reading and workshop series at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph Michigan, and serves as Poetry Editor for WordFarm, a small Midwestern publisher. Her poems appear in The 2005 Rhysling Anthology (The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2004), the anthology Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing from Rising Generations, Garbanzo, Strange Horizons, and 32 Poems, among others. Her poem “Red Shirt” was nominated for a 2005 Rhysling Award. Marci lives with her husband and two children in Three Oaks, Michigan.

Arthur Winfield Knight is the author of novels Johnnie D. (Forge, 2000) and Blue Skies Falling (Forge, 2001). His imaginary autobiography of James Dean, James Dean’s Diaries, was published by The King’s English in 2005. He has taught autobiographical writing and multi-cultural literature at the University of San Francisco.

Susan Koefod holds an MFA in Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul. Her poems have been featured in June Cotner’s 2006 Everyday Blessings calendar and Miracles of Motherhood: Prayers and Poems for a New Mother, and The Talking Stick. She is seeking a publisher for her first novel, Lucid, a story of grief and recovery set in western Minnesota.

Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English Department at The City College of New York, and Director of The Poetry Outreach Center at the university. A member of The American Academy of Poets, Poets & Writers, The Poetry Society of America, PEN America, and The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a great deal of her work has been published: a volume of poetry, Central Station; four poetry chapbooks; five picture books; two young adult novels; a play and hundreds of poems and short stories. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Ira, daughter, Samantha and son, Craig.

Mary F. Lee, mother of four sons, teaches music at John S. Duss Memorial Music Conservatory in Duluth, Minnesota, and performs professionally on saxophone and voice. She writes profiles for Duluth’s local glossy magazine, Woman Today. Her poetry has appeared in Dust and Fire anthologies from Bemidji State University; The Reader Weekly; on jazz great Ernie Watt’s website; an excerpt from that poem used in a national ad campaign by J. Keilworth Instrument Manufacturer, and in Poetry Magazine’s Humor Issue of July/August ‘06.

Nathan Leslie’s five collections of short fiction include Believers (Pocol Press, 2006), Reverse Negative (Ravenna Press, 2006), and Drivers (Hamilton Stone Editions, 2005). Leslie’s work has appeared in over 100 literary magazines including Boulevard, Shenandoah, South Carolina Review, North American Review, and Cimarron Review. He is fiction editor for The Pedestal Magazine and of The Potomac, and his book reviews and articles have been published in newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Kansas City Star, and The Orlando Sentinel. His website is www.nathanleslie.com.

Robin Lippincott is the author of a collection of short stories (The Real, True Angel), and two novels (Mr. Dalloway and Our Arcadia: An American Watercolor). His third novel, In the Meantime, from which an excerpt appears here, will be published in October. His fiction and nonfiction have also appeared in The Paris Review, Fence, The New York Times Book Review, The Literary Review and many other publications, as well as several anthologies. The recipient of multiple fellowships to Yaddo, as well as to the MacDowell Colony, he teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Spalding University and at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Joanne Lowery’s poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Birmingham Poetry Review, 5 AM, Passages North, Atlanta Review, and Poetry East. Her chapbook Diorama was the winner of the Poems & Plays 2006 Tennessee Chapbook Prize. She lives in Michigan.

Susan H. Maurer has published several volumes of poetry, including: By the Blue Light of the Morning Glory (published by Linear Arts); Dream Addict (Backwood Broadsides); and, with Mark Sonnenfeld, in2 (Marymark Press). Her work has been published in 12 countries and in more than 300 magazines and anthologies, including Off the Cuffs (Softskull Press), Help Yourself! (Autonomedia), Virginia Quarterly Review, Literary Imagination, Cross Connect, and Orbis. She has also participated in a Rattapalax CD and an Anna Siano photography show and poetry reading. She has been nominated by editors three times for the Pushcart, and is currently causing a new book manuscript to make the rounds.

Jae Newman was born in South Korea in 1982 and adopted by American parents in the same year. He grew up in western New York where he met and married his high school sweetheart. He holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University. His poems have appeared in 5 AM, Redivider, Korean Quarterly, and The Bellingham Review.

B. Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Arthur Saltzman is the author of ten books, including the creative nonfiction collections Objects and Empathy, which won the First Series Creative Nonfiction Award from Mid-List Press; Nearer, which came out last spring from Parlor Press; and two forthcoming volumes, Solve for X (University of South Carolina Press) and The Obligations of the Harp (Parlor). He is a Professor of English at Missouri Southern State University.

Carol Severino, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Center Director at the University of Iowa, teaches travel writing, second language writing research, and courses that prepare tutors and teachers of writing. Her travel essay about visiting Italy and learning Italian, “Arriving in Turin,” was recently published in VIA: Voices in Italian Americana. Besides learning new languages, she likes to play the drums, keep up with her twin sons, and walk in the woods with her black lab.

Glenn Sheldon is a widely published poet and critic. His first full-length poetry book, Bird Scarer, is due in May 2007 from Cervena Barva Press (W Somerville MA). Currently he is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at The University of Toledo.

Paul Silverman has worked as a newspaper reporter, sandwich man, olive packer and advertising creative director. One of his commercials won a Silver Lion at Cannes. His stories have appeared in The South Dakota Review, Tampa Review, The North Atlantic Review, Word Riot, Eclectica, In Posse Review, The Pedestal Magazine, The Timber Creek Review, Alimentum, The Front Range Review, The Jabberwock Review, Jewish Currents, The Coe Review, Hobart Online, Amarillo Bay, The Adirondack Review, The Paumanok Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Subterranean Quarterly, Thieves Jargon, The Summerset Review, and others. His piece, “Getaway,” published by Verbsap, is on the 2006 Million Writers Award shortlist list of Notable Online Stories. Byline Magazine, Lily and The Worcester Review have nominated his stories to the Pushcart Committee. New work was recently accepted by The Pikeville Review, Oyster Boy Review and Ragad.

Ann Struthers was born and grew up on an Iowa farm. She has published widely; her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, The American Scholar, The Iowa Review and others. She has two collections and two chapbooks. She also publishes short fiction and academic articles. She was once a student in the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, and has had two Fulbright Fellowships, one to Syria and one to Sri Lanka.

Dennis Vannatta has published stories in many magazines and anthologies, including Boulevard, Antioch Review, and Puschart XV, and three collections: This Time, This Place and Prayers for the Dead, both by White Pine Press, and Lives of the Artists by Livingston Press.

Catherine Senne Wallace. In her first few lives, Kate experimented with various grown-up activities: English teacher to less-than-enthusiastic flower children of the 70’s; account executive in the three-martini-lunch world of advertising; and communications manager at a bank that took itself much too seriously. Now she teaches at an Edina middle school in the autism spectrum program, trying to make a difference in this very strange world, one child at a time. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and newspapers as well as on compact discs. She lives in Minneapolis with one husband and one dysfunctional cat.

Susan Wallack lives within 20 miles of the third largest mall in America. Her work has appeared in many journals including Threepenny Review and Rhino.

Daniel Williams, poet of the Yosemite region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California, has a master’s degree in English Literature from San Jose State University and has taught at Foothill College, Columbia College, and Metro. State in Denver. He has been a frequent reader for PoetsWest at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, and has also read at Epilogue Books and Cody’s Books in Berkeley. Recent work has appeared in Into the Teeth of the Wind, Tree Magic, Sierra Songs & Descants, A Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare, Grrrrr: Poems about Bears, Rockhurst Review, and Artlife.

A. D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer and photographer. His work has been published internationally. A poem of his was set to music and performed in 2005 at Tully Hall. Winner of a 2006 PEN National Josephine Miles Literary Achievement Award. Presa Press just published a book of his selected poems, The Other Side of Broadway: Selected Poems: 1965-2005.

Fredrick Zydek is the author of eight collections of poetry. T’Kopechuck: the Buckley Poems is forthcoming from Winthrop Press later this year. Formerly a professor of creative writing and theology at the University of Nebraska and later at the College of Saint Mary, he is now a gentleman farmer when he isn’t writing. He is the editor for Lone Willow Press.

Minnetonka Review is proud to be environmentally conscious. This issue is printed on Rolland recycled paper—produced from post-consumer fiber in a plant fueled by biogas energy.