Contributor Bios

Annik Adey-Babinski is a Canadian studying for her MFA in poetry at Florida International University.

Yarrott Benz has been a visual artist for several decades, articles about his work have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications, and he has been interviewed on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air, Radiotelevisione Italiana and ARD German Public Radio. Most recently, his stories have appeared in The Montreal Review and Diverse Voices Quarterly. The story in this issue, Wars, is an excerpt from his unpublished book The Bone Bridge: A Brother’s Memoir.

Jonathan Callard is working on a memoir about faith, family, and perfection, portions of which have appeared in Image and Arts & Letters. He has written for The Dallas Morning News, The Witness, Fellowship, and Explorefaith.org, and has done artist residencies with the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Caroline Davidson is a writer and musician originally from Columbus, Ohio. She holds an MFA from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and her poetry has been published in SpringGun Press, Robot Melon, Word Riot, Sixth Finch, and Tinge Magazine.

Rachel E. Hicks has poems forthcoming in Off the Coast and Tiger’s Eye Journal, and has been published in The Penwood Review, Time of Singing, and Women of the Harvest’s online magazine. She currently lives in Chengdu, China, where she homeschools her kids and is working on her first novel.

Lesley Jenike teaches at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Her poems have appeared or will appear soon in Poetry, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Birmingham Poetry Review and other journals. Her first collection is Ghost of and her second, Holy Island, is forthcoming from Gold Wake Press in 2014.

Sean J. Mahoney lives with his wife, her parents, an Uglydoll, and three dogs in Santa Ana, CA. They have been there a little over a year now. If Sean were a cartoon he would be the result of splicing Archer onto Shaggy…with a Jessica Rabbit twist.

Sarah L. Mason is an M.F.A. candidate at Florida International University. She spends her time working on that, mostly. Well, working on that and teaching college newbies “how to write”.  She does all of it usually with headphones in her ears, except for the actual teaching part, because that would be rude.

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a Knight Fellow in fiction at Florida International University and an intern at The Center for Literature and Theater at Miami Dade College. Her work can be found in First Inkling and Blue Lyra Review amongst other publications.

Michael Montlack is the author of the poetry collection Cool Limbo (NYQ Books, 2011) and the editor of the Lambda Finalist essay anthology My Diva (University of Wisconsin, 2009) and its ‘sister’ poetry anthology Divining Divas (Lethe, 2012). He splits his time between New York City and Portland, Oregon.

Christine Morando lives and writes on Miami Beach and occasionally takes breaks to teach freshman composition classes at the University of Miami. She is currently working toward her MFA in fiction at Florida International University.

Karen Parkman grew up in West Virginia and Ohio and now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a BFA from Emerson College. This is her first published piece.

E. D. Watson’s writing has appeared in Mason’s Road and the Texas Observer, among others. She holds an MFA from Texas State University, and volunteers as an educator in Texas prisons. When she isn’t writing or hanging out in jails, she enjoys weed-whacking.