has had poems published in more than 100 poetry journals, including The Ledge, Poetry, and Slant. His five books of poetry include Poet As Bad Guy, Instead of Gifts, Questions/Answers, God’s Haircut and Other Remembered Dreams, and Off–Target. In response to Off–Target, chicagopoetry.com named him a “Top Dog” in Chicago poetry. Offen, who lives in Glenview, Illinois, is founding editor of Free Lunch: A Poetry Miscellany, which has been around for 19 years. The magazine won a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council and had a poem it published included in the annual The Best American Poetry series.

is the editor and publisher of The Ledge Poetry & Fiction Magazine, which he founded in 1988 at the age of 19. “The Ledge” was the name given to the concrete loading dock in back of a factory adjacent to the elevated freight train tracks where he spent a large portion of his adolescence. His own poems have appeared over the years in various publications, including 5 AM, Poet Lore, New York Quarterly, Slipstream, and Rattle. Also an avid photographer, he spends much of his free time exploring abandoned places and railroad stations on the eastern end of Long Island. He lives in Bellport, N.Y.

is the founder and, until recently, managing editor of Hunger Mountain, an arts journal published by the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She teaches writing at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., and online for Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, Maine. Her poems have been published in the Asheville Poetry Review, Louisiana Literature, and Vermont Magazine, among others. Mercurio has a master of fine arts degree from Vermont College and, while there, designed and edited the Stinehour Press Broadside Series and an anthology of the college’s fiction. A freelance editor, designer, and publisher, she lives in Asheville, N.C..

is senior editor of Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women and a member of Calyx Journal’s editorial collective. She has bachelor’s degrees in English and journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s in international studies from Oregon State University. She is co–editor of several Calyx Books anthologies, including A Fierce Brightness and A Line of Cutting Women. AliceAnn Eberman: is also a member of Calyx’s editorial collective. She is a writer, artist, editor, and teacher whose poetry has been published in Calyx, Fireweed, and From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry (OSU Press). Both McFarland and Eberman live in Corvallis, Ore.