R. Flowers Rivera is a Mississippi native with an M.A. from Hollins University and a Ph.D. in African American literature and creative writing from Binghamton University. Her work has been published in American Poets & Poetry, The Amherst Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Southern Review. Her first poetry collection, Troubling Accents, is forthcoming from Xavier Review Press. View more of her work by visiting http://www.promethea.com. AJ Roberts is an intellectual property lawyer and law professor. Her poems have appeared in nibble, OVS Magazine, and Emerge Literary Journal, and her essay about law and poetry was recently published in the Texas Law Review. Cynthia Sampson is a Master’s student in the Southland, studying football culture and 18th century theatre. She is the 2011 recipient of the Francis W. Kerr Writing Award for Poetry. Frank Scozzari lives in Nipomo, California. He is an avid traveler and once climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, his short stories have previously appeared in numerous literary journals and have been featured in literary theatre. Virginia Shank earned an MFA at the University of Idaho and a PhD from Binghamton University. She currently teaches poetry and composition at Irvine Valley College in California, where she rides her velomobile daily. Her work has appeared in several online and print journals. Radford Skudrna served as Assistant Poetry Editor and Assistant Managaing Editor of roger, an art & literary magazine. He earned his BFA in Creative Writing and BA in Anthropology/Sociology from Roger Williams University. Currently, he works at the National Foreign Language Center and is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at the University of Maryland, College Park Emily Strauss is usually a poet, but on this occasion she snapped a shot of the Pacific off the shore at Monterey on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. This came after a fairly disastrous weekend with Mother who refused to walk 50 yards to the beach to enjoy the show. Emily is retired from teaching and has other photos online at Straight Forward and Subliminal Interiors.
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