Contributors

• Merridith Allen is a playwright, actress, martial artist, yogini and Jane-of-all-trades, residing in New York City. Her work will be featured in this year’s “Best Women’s Stage Monologues and Scenes,” as well as the Best Men’s counterpart anthology. For news and updates about her work, please visit Merridith’s website at www.merridithallen.com.
• Polyxeni Angelis was born in Athens, Greece. She emigrated from Greece to America with her family in 1967. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. Her work has appeared in the 2011 Montreal Prize Global Poetry Anthology. Writing is her passion. She resides in Minnesota with her son.
• Shannon Austin is a writer, student, and Batman fanatic living in Baltimore, Maryland.  Currently in the process of earning her MA in English Literature from Notre Dame of Maryland University, she works as an editorial production assistant at a publishing firm in Towson, Maryland.  Her paper “Batman’s Female Foes: The Gender War in Gotham City,” is forthcoming from The Journal of Popular Culture.

• Elizabeth Ayres is the author of four books and the founder of the Center for Creative Writing, which has provided inspiration and support to aspiring writers for 25 years.  She lives in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay area, where she paces shell-strewn beaches to pluck words from the soft salt breeze. The poems in The Variety Show are from a work-in-progress entitled Azimuth of God: poems of absence and presence. Elizabeth can be contacted through her website: http://www.CreativeWritingCenter.com.
• Cassie Benson is a senior undergraduate student at Murray State University, where she was awarded the Racer Fiction Writer of the Year Award. She is aiming for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a minor in Youth and Nonprofit Leadership.  She is hoping to continue her studies in a Creative Writing MFA program after she graduates.
• Danielle Blasko lives, works, and plays in Detroit. She is co-creator of the 30 Day Poetry Challenge, and co-editor of a recently released anthology entitled Ready for Consumption. Her poems have most recently appeared in Ready for Consumption, Rhyme and PUN-ishment Anthology, Etchings, and march will be march.
• William Bradley’s work has appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including The Normal School, The Missouri Review, Brevity, Fourth Genre, and Creative Nonfiction.  He lives in Canton, New York, where he teaches at St. Lawrence University.
• Jonathan Brown holds a BA in Communication from the College of Charleston and an MA in Writing and Consciousness from The New College of California. He is currently working on his MFA at The University of New Orleans.  He won the 2010 and 2012 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Poetry Slam in New Orleans. His poems have been published in the Worcester Review, Wordplaysound, The Nashville Review and Indiefeed: Performance Poetry.  He recently received the John Woods Scholarship to study in Prague.  Alongside teaching high school full time, he fronts a rock band and describes their sound as heartbreak-hotel-donkey-monster-word-music.
  Check out some of his songs at https://soundcloud.com/jonathanbrownmusic
• Anastasia Carl spends her days peddling science fiction and fantasy at Third Place Books in Seattle. In her free time she likes to ride big pretty horses, knit with colorful yarn, and read tales about spaceships and dashing heroines.
• Carrie Chappell is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. Currently, she lives in New Orleans where she teaches English at Delgado Community College and serves as a Writer-in-Residence with Big Class. Some of Carrie’s poems have appeared in Bateau Press, The Offending Adam, Thrush Poetry Journal, Juked, and THE VOLTA.
• Kristen Clanton was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, which is also where she works as an adjunct professor, a tutor, a seamstress and a welder’s apprentice. She was previously published in Sugar House Review.
• Kimberly Clouse graduated from the UNO Creative Writing Workshop MFA program in 2012. She is currently working on a short story collection, revising a screenplay, and beginning a novel. Her favorite pass time is to travel across the country to visit friends, hike on random trails, admire sunsets, listen to birds chirp, and on occasion read fortunes when what is to come isn’t written in a book.
• Cathy T. Colborn’s flash fiction will be in the upcoming issue of Apiary. Her historical fiction is in Strangers of Different Ink by WragsInk Publishing. Her poetry can be found in Transient Magazine (Issue 2), Outrider Press Anthology (Family Gatherings), and Big River Poetry Anthology. Cathy has a literary journal called, Philly Flash Inferno with the ongoing theme of The Seven Deadly Sins. Currently, she is working on a steampunk series called Madame Lola’s Marvelously Amazing Medicine Show. On the weekends, she likes prepping for the zombie apocalypse and baking cupcakes (but not at the same time). 
• Raymond Cothern studied writing at LSU under Walker Percy and Vance Bourjaily. He is winner of both the Deep South Writers Conference and the St. Tammany National One-Act Play Festival. Two of his plays have been produced in New York City, The Long Hymn of Dilemma as part of the DTE New Play Festival, and Fat Girl From Texas in the Distilled Theatre Company Short Play Festival. He was also a 2011 semi-finalist in the Playwrights First Award sponsored by the National Arts Club of New York City and a finalist in the 5^th Annual Play Tour sponsored by cARTel Collaborative Arts LA. His fiction, poetry, and essays have been published in Manchac, Intro 8, Two Thirds North, American Antheneum, and in the book Meanwhile Back at the Café Du Monde. He recently completed work on a memoir, Swimming Underwater, about growing up in Louisiana and framed by the story of the devastating effects of viral encephalitis on his daughter and of her triumph in achieving a normal life.
• Sara Crawford has a BA in English from Kennesaw State University and an MFA in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans. She has two books of poems out currently, and her poetry has appeared in publications such as Ceremony and Share: Art and Literary Magazine. For more information, visit http://saracrawford.net.

• Wayne Cresser’s fiction has been nominated for awards and prizes at New Letters, the Tennessee Writer’s Alliance and the Newport Review, published in the print anthologies Motif 1: Writing by Ear, Motif 2: Come What May and Motif 3:  All the Livelong Day (Motes Books), online at Shark Reef, The Written Wardrobe (@ModCloth),The Oklahoma Review, and The Journal of Microliterature, and in such print journals as The Ocean State Review and The Sound and Literary Art Book (SLAB) .
• Marta Delannoy, a poet, fiction writer, and scriptwriter living in Salem, Massachusetts, has published in the online magazine “Red Skies,” as both a feature writer and fiction writer. She recently served on the editorial board of the literary magazine “Soundings East.” Currently, she is maintaining her own blog (Laces Loose in Salem), as well as working on the upcoming literary journal “Buck Off Magazine.”
• Andrew P. Dillon is an MFA candidate and graduate teaching associate at the University of Tennessee.  His work has appeared recently in Connotation Press, China Grove, and Beecher’s.  He also works as a technical writer to balance things out.  He strongly supports the use of semi-colons, em dashes, and the serial comma.  He can be reached at andrewpdillon@gmail.com
• Neil Ellman, a retired educator, writes from New Jersey.  He has been nominated for the Best of the Net on two occasions, as well as for the Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.  More than 800 of his poems, many of which are ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern and contemporary art, appear in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world.  His first full-length collection, Parallels: Selected Ekphrastic Poetry, 2009-2012, includes 210 of his previously published works.
• Allegra Frazier’s work can be found in Story Magazine, Carrier Pigeon, theNewerYork, and elsewhere. She is the winner of Bayou Magazine‘s 2013 flash fiction contest and has ranked as one of Storychord.com‘s top twenty contributors. She was raised in Tucson, Arizona.
• John Gery’s books of poetry include The Enemies of Leisure (1995), Davenport’s Version (2003), A Gallery of Ghosts (2008), and Lure (2012), among others, with a new collection, Have at You Now!, forthcoming from CW Books in 2014. His poetry has appeared in journals throughout the U.S. and Europe and has been translated into half a dozen languages. He has also published criticism extensively on a wide range of poets, from John Ashbery to Marilyn Chin, has edited several poetry anthologies and critical books, and has worked as a collaborative translator. His awards include an NEA Fellowship, a Fulbright (Belgrade), and residencies at Bucknell, University of Minnesota, Beijing Institute of Technology, Centro Studi Americani in Rome, and elsewhere. A Research Professor at the University of New Orleans, he directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature, Brunnenburg, Italy, summer seminars in Poetry Writing and the Poetry of Ezra Pound.
• Mitchell Krochmalnik Grabois was born in the Bronx and now splits his time between Denver and a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old, one room schoolhouse in Riverton Township, Michigan. His short fiction, poetry and columns have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines in the U.S. and internationally. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story “Purple Heart” published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is available for all e-readers for 99 cents. Click for Kindle here. Click forNook. Click for the print edition available through Amazon.
• Erin Grauel is a nonfiction graduate of The Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans.  She does not blow things up, but she is clumsy so she often sweeps glass debris from the floor.  Erin has been published in Superstition Review and Ellipsis and has work forthcoming at Bellejournal.com.
• Tawnysha Greene received her PhD in English from the University of Tennessee where she served as the fiction editor of Grist: The Journal for Writers. Her work has appeared in PANK, Bellingham Review, and Weave Magazine. Her first novel, A House Made of Stars, is forthcoming from Burlesque Press in 2015.
• John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in The Lyric, Vallum and the science fiction anthology, “The Kennedy Curse” with work upcoming in Bryant Literary Magazine, Natural Bridge, Southern California Review and the Oyez Review.

Michael Haeflinger is a native of the Midwest who has lived all over, including Chicago, Berlin, and Philadelphia.  He currently lives in Tacoma, WA, where he works at a used bookstore and teaches writing and drama after school at a middle school. His latest collection, The Days Before, was published by Dog On A Chain Press as part of the Lantern Lit series. His visual art and links to his published poems can be found on his website, www.michaelhaeflinger.com.

• Valerie Harbolovic While born in England, Valerie grew up in Angola and Iran. She has also lived in Australia. She currently resides in Chicago with her partner Christopher Hunter. She has two sons named Joe and Rob. She graduated with an MFA in December 2011 from the University of New Orleans.
• Ann Yu Huang was born in Shanghai, China and moved to Mexico when she was a teen. She is a graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first chapbook collection Love Rhythms was published in October 2012 by Finishing Line Press, and was reviewed and noted by Orange County Metro. Her poem “I Left the Radio On” was published last year at www.EveryWritersResource.com. Her more recent poems “Harmonica” and “Summer Fields” are forthcoming in Blue Fifth Review this October.

• Gabriel Hernandez will tell you that he hails from somewhere in the hottest fucking part of Arizona because he likes to say the word “hails.” He prefers to keep his past a mystery, if only to distract from the fact that his life is so uninteresting that the only thing that stands out to him is, when wearing sunglasses, everyone telling him he looks like Agent Smith. He writes for his own blog and even shamelessly promotes it whenever he can (gabriel360live.wordpress.com – See? Shameless!). There are three basic rules that he lives by. First: No guys. Second: Regret is for suckas… bitch. Third: If you want to call him “The Devil’s Underwear” because he sometimes wears a T-shirt that reads “I hug Satan’s crotch,” you can go right ahead and do that. Peace out. Mad props to Kenzi.
• A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com.  She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals.  She is currently the editor for six online poetry journals for Kind of a Hurricane Press (www.kindofahurricanepress.com).  Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222.
• Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  He has been published in more than 875 small press magazines in twenty-seven countries, and he edits 9 poetry sites.    Author’s website http://poetryman.mysite.com/  He has over 70 poetry videos on YouTube:   https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos
• Liza Katz is an alumna of Boston University and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and an ESL teacher in the Boston Public Schools. Her poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Omniverse, the Critical Flame, the Quarterly Conversation, and Arts Fuse.
• Meredith King  is not actually a writer. She just gets angry sometimes and then words happen.
• Lania Knight’s first book, Three Cubic Feet, is a 2012 Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Debut Fiction. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Fourth Genre, New Stories from the Midwest, PANK, Missouri Review, Jabberwock Review, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She currently teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University. Read more about her at http://www.laniaknight.com.
• Anna Knowles received a BA in Spanish from the University of Colorado Denver where she was an associate editor for the journal Copper Nickel. She currently lives in Denver.
• Nathaniel Kostar, originally from Central New Jersey, now lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where he is pursuing his MFA in poetry at The University of New Orleans. He is in the process of researching and writing The Renaissance Man Project, a book that will detail his journey to six countries in an attempt to learn the skills expected of an ideal Italian Renaissance Men. So far the project has taken him to Italy to study poetry, Thailand for kickboxing, Paris for visual art, and New Orleans for music. He can be contacted at natek205@aol.com.
• Steven Casimer Kowalski lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.  He loves Twitter so if you’re down for that; @casimerkowalski .
• Eva Langston received her MFA in fiction writing from The University of New Orleans, and her fiction has been published in The Normal School, The Sand Hill Review, and the GW Review among others.  She won 3rd place  in the Playboy fiction contest in 2010 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011. Currently she is taking time off from her job as a high school math teacher. She works part-time as a tutor, a wine promoter, and a bar trivia host. Check out her blog at www.inthegardenofeva.com.
• Amanda Leduc was born in British Columbia, Canada, and has lived in BC, Ontario, East Sussex, and Edinburgh. Her essays and stories have appeared across Canada, the US, and UK, and her novel, THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN, is out now with Toronto’s ECW Press. She writes, bakes, and procrastinates in Hamilton, Ontario.
• Jake Lees views Spaceballs with such frequency, he chuckles in anticipation of the next joke. Earning an MFA in creative writing from Ashland University propelled him to teach middle school English and history. When not gaming with his kindergardener and her younger brother, he ballroom dances with his wife in Columbus, Ohio between marathons. Scratch your curiosity at jakelees.com.
• Casey Lefante appreciator of words, Oxford commas, and cupcakes–earned an MFA from The Creative Writing Workshop at The University of New Orleans, where she served as Associate and Fiction Editor for Bayou Magazine. Her work has appeared in Third Coast, Zone 3, Fwriction:Review, Slush Pile, and The Atlantis Now. Her novel was short-listed for the William Faulkner Novel-in-Progress contest, which made her pretty happy once she figured out what short-listing meant. She currently teaches English at an all-girls high school in New Orleans, which means she gets to talk about grammar and syntax and synecdoche all day long. Also, her students bake her tasty treats. So there’s that.
• Mark Liebenow followed John Muir from Wisconsin to California.  He now lives in Illinois where he writes about nature and grief recovery.  His essays, poems, and critical reviews have appeared in numerous journals like River Teeth and Colorado Review.  The author of four books, his work on Yosemite, Mountains of Light, was recently published by the University of Nebraska Press.  His website is www.markliebenow.com.
• Jesse Loren is a mother of three, poet, beekeeper, chicken rancher,  and retired teacher who lives in Northern California with her saintly husband, and soon to be empty nest.  Jesse’s brother continues to be a kick ass example of what a father should be, even over the miles.
• Ally Malinenko has been writing for awhile now and occasionally she gets things published. She is the author of the poetry collection The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press) and the children’s novel Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna Books). She lives in the part of Brooklyn recently voted to have the best halal truck and she blogs at allymalinenko.com
• G.M. Palmer preaches, teaches, and wrangles children on an urban farm in Northeast Florida. His criticism and poetry can be found throughout various blogs and magazines, both in print and online. His children can be found throughout the neighborhood or at their grandmother’s house. His notes can be found on legal pads and spiral notebooks. His first book, With Rough Gods, is now available from Amazon and other retailers. His business cards can be found with neat little poems on the back of them.
• Dawn Manning is a writer, photographer, and rogue anthropologist living in the Greater Philadelphia area. In addition to receiving the Edith Garlow Poetry Prize, her poetry has won the San Miguel Writer’s Conference Writing Contest and placed second in the 81st Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition for non-rhyming poetry. Her poems have been published through American Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Fairy Tale Review, and other literary journals.  In her spare time, she herds cats.

• Robert Morrison is a poet and singer/songwriter currently living in Charlotte, NC. At the moment he teaches English and composition at a local community college while working on his MFA in Poetry Writing from Ashland University. In those rare moments where those two endeavors aren’t keeping him busy, he enjoys collecting copious amounts of vinyl records and singing a mean karaoke tune. Check out tunes at facebook.com/robertmorrisonmusic and send good thoughts regarding the writing/editing/revising of his upcoming thesis collection.

• Sarah Neilson is a New Orleans native, currently working as a freelance editor in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes, performs, and drinks full pots of coffee and tea.  Twitterflies can catch her @SarahMNeilson.
• Marc Nieson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and NYU Film School. His background includes children’s theatre, cattle chores, and a season with a one-ring circus. Excerpts from SCHOOLHOUSE: A MEMOIR IN 13 LESSONS have appeared inLiterary Review, Iowa Review, Green Mountains Review, Chautauqua, and a notable listing in Best American Essays 2012. Recent fiction is in Conjunctions, Hawk & Handsaw, and Folio. His prose has earned two Pushcart Prize nominations, the Literal Latte Fiction Award, and Raymond Carver Short Story Award. His award-winning feature-length screenplays include SPEED OF LIFE, THE DREAM CATCHER, and BOTTOMLAND. He serves on the faculty of Chatham University, and is presently working on a novel, HOUDINI’S HEIRS.
• Eric Parker  was born and raised in California. He currently lives in Tuscaloosa, AL, and teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at The University of Alabama.
• Corey Pentoney is currently working on finishing his Master’s degree at Binghamton University.  Besides inventing the strawberry rhubarb waffle, his work has been published in several small magazines, and has received the North Country Writer’s Festival Award.
• Matt Peters has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans and a BA in English from the University of Central Florida. His other publications include Voices Rising: Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project edited by Rebeca Antoine; the anthology Keeping Track edited by Yelizaveta P. Renfro; the horror anthologies Bits of the Dead and Skeletal Remains, both edited by Keith Gouviea, and in the journals 580 Split and Burrow Press Review.  He lives in Orlando, FL and runs Beating Windward Press.
• Mark Petrie’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Devilfish Review, Artemis, Lunch Ticket, Geist, Booth, and other journals. He shares his time between New Orleans and Lafayette, LA.
• Jesse Manley earned an MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans and has published in the Rio Grande Review,Words and Images, Ellipsis, The Extrovert, and Bigger Than The Appear: An Anthology of Short Poetry. He is also an editor emeritus of Bayou Magazine and an English professor at Dillard University. He performs improv comedy and writes Transformer haiku under the nom de plume Optimus Rhyme.
• Stanley Noah has a BGS degree from The University of Texas at Dallas.  He has been published in the following: Verse Wisconsin, B.O.D.Y., Main Street Rag, South Carolina Review, Poetry Nottingham and other publications in the U.S.A., Britain, Canada and New Zealand.  He spends his time watching old movies and drinking gallons of coffee late
  into the night.
• Sarah Rae lives in Chicago with Maya, her beautiful bilingual cat.  She has worked as an English teacher and guidance counselor in high schools near Chicago, and is in the process of earning her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans.  Her poems have previously appeared in Tata Nacho Press, the Poets’ Corner section of the multilingual arts website fieralingue, and Solamente in San Miguel, an anthology of literature about the town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  She is thrilled to make this appearance in the innovative, dynamic Burlesque Press!
• Trisha Rezende hails from the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Currently, she teaches writing at the University of New Orleans.
• Kevin Ridgeway is from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat.  His latest book of poems, All the Rage, is now available from Electric Windmill Press.
• Brett Riley is the Pushcart-nominated author of The Subtle Dance of Impulse and Light (Ink Brush Press). His short fiction has appeared in Folio, The Wisconsin Review, Red Rock Review, The Evansville Review, and many others. His feature-length screenplay, Candy’s First Kiss, has placed in four screenwriting contests. Follow him on Twitter @brettwrites and on his official website, http://officialbrettriley.com/.
• Pam Riley is a native New Yorker, who still misses the Big Apple. She likes to spend her free time going to the theatre, museums and traveling. She has been writing for years and enjoys working in both poetry and prose. The little quirks and imperfections of life are her inspiration.
• Nicole Santalucia is a PhD candidate in English with a concentration in creative writing at Binghamton University. She serves as the poetry editor of  Harpur Palate and assists the Director of The Binghamton Center for Writers. Nicole founded a literary outreach program in 2011—The Binghamton Poetry Project—and continues to work as the project’s Director.  She received her MFA from The New School University in 2008.  Her work has appeared in Pax Americana,Clockhouse Review, Paterson Literary Review, Bayou Magazine, Gertrude, Barley South Review,and others. Nicole received honorable mention awards from Astraea Lesbian Foundation Writers Fund as well as the Allen Ginsberg Award.
• Fred Shaw is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, and Carlow University, where he received his MFA.  He teaches writing and literature at Point Park University.  His poems have been published in 5AM, Permafrost, Floodwall, Nerve Cowboy, Mason’s Road, Shaking Like a Mountain, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh City Paper, where he currently reviews books. In a parallel life, he has also worked in the service industry for the past twenty-three years.  He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and rescued hound dog.
• Tim Snyder lives in Tampa, Florida and is a graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University. For the past few years, he has corroded his mind as a writing slum lord, working as the editor and lead journalist for a sufferable automotive journal. He is currently at work on his second novel, Berserker.
• Mitchell Sommers lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he practices law, concentrating in the field of bankruptcy and debtor/creditor rights. He is currently fiction editor of Philadelphia Stories, a regional literary magazine. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, received his law degree from Penn State, Dickinson School of Law and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans.  He has been published in PHASE, Philadelphia Stories, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Nailpolish Stories, The F&M Alumni Arts Review, and will be published later this year in Apiary Magazine.
• Jennifer Steil is an American writer, journalist, and actor currently living in La Paz, Bolivia. Her first book, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (Broadway Books, 2010) is a memoir about her experiences as editor of the Yemen Observer newspaper in Sana’a. The book received accolades inThe New York Times, Newsweek, and the Sydney Morning Herald among other publications. TheMinneapolis Star-Tribune chose it as one of their best travel books of the year in 2010, and Elle magazine awarded it their Readers’ Prize. National Geographic Traveler recently (December 2013/January 2014) included the book in their recommended reading list. It has been published in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, and Poland. Jennifer’s second book, a novel titled The Ambassador’s Wife, will be published by Doubleday in the spring of 2015. The Ambassador’s Wife recently won the 2013 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Best Novel award. She is currently working on two novels.
• Ambika Thompson is a parent, writer, all around fabulous human being, and one half of the cello riot grrl band Razor Cunts. http://ambikathompson.com
• Juliet Swann reads, watches daft tv shows, reads, plays with her cats Joe & Lola, wishes she could time-travel (or teleport, she’s not too fussy), cooks, thanks the universe for sending her Graeme Henderson and letting her keep him, and reads. She tried blogging regularly once and it went quite well but now she tends to keep her rants to 140 characters. She is grateful & thrilled to have the opportunity to witter about books, reading and authors for Burlesque Press.
• Jen Violi  is the author of Putting Makeup on Dead People.  She also mentors writers, helping them to bring forth the books they were meant to write. Over the last twenty years, she’s created and facilitated hundreds of retreats, workshops, and experiences for people seeking to discover themselves, their own stories, and their creative potential. Jen enjoys making her life amidst the green and caffeine of Portland, far from Pennsylvania, where she was born.  She’s always had a little west coast in her soul, and one of her superpowers is making dipping sauces.  Learn more, and sign up for her free monthly newsletter at www.jenvioli.com.
• Daniel Wallace is studying his PhD at the University of Tennessee. His first novel is represented by Inkwell Management. He was the Toni Brown scholarship winner to the 2012 Winter Getaway and has been a finalist in several writing contests. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Tampa Review, Fiction Writers Review, HTML Giant, and Air Schooner.
•   Tawni Vee Waters  is a writer, actor, college teacher, and gypsy.  Her first novel, Beauty of the Broken, will be released by Simon/Pulse in Fall 2014.  Her first poetry book, Siren Song, will be released by Burlesque Press in Winter 2014.  Her work has been published in Best Travel Writing 2010, Bridal Guide Magazine, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Albuquerque Journal, Albion Review, ABQ Arts Magazine,So To Speak, Blood Lotus, and Conceptions Southwest, among others.  She is a regular contributor to Burlesque Press and was a regular contributor Albuquerque’s East Mountain Telegraph.  In 2010, she won the Grand Prize in the Solas Awards Travel Writing Competition.  In 2009, she won the Editor’s Award for Fiction from Ellipses Magazine.  She teaches creative writing at Estrella Mountain College.  She lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her children and a menagerie of wayward animals.  In her spare time, she talks to angels, humanely evicts spiders from her floorboards, and plays Magdalene to a minor rock god.
• Amy Wright is the Nonfiction Editor of Zone 3 Press and the author of three poetry chapbooks with her fourth forthcoming. Her work appears in a number of journals including Drunken Boat, Freerange Nonfiction, Brevity, and American Letters & Commentary. She was awarded a 2012 Peter Taylor fellow for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.
• Julian Zabalbeascoa is a graduate of University of New Orleans. He has recently been published in Post Road, Zone 3, and THEMA.