The Diegesis

Chas Hoppe generally wins any staredown contest he has with his fish. He enjoys these nonsense activities quite regularly, as they are far more entertaining than the activities he engages in in order to pay his bills. Armed by his favorite mantra, “that’ll do, pig,” he has seen modest success with poems in Alligator Juniper, Glass, and Jeopardy. Although he keeps promising Joshua Young that he’ll get better at submitting poems in the future, he finds reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation to be sufficiently distracting. One day, one day.

Joshua Young does not write fun bios, he lets Chas have all the glory. He is the author of When the Wolves Quit: A Play-in-Verse (Gold Wake Press). He lives in Chicago where he studies poetry in the MFA program at Columbia College Chicago. He also teaches and serves as the Poetry Programs Assistant. For more information about his films, writings, and projects visit http://thestorythief.tumblr.com

Close Your Eyes, Look at Me

E. Marie Bertram completed her MFA in poetry, along with a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a fellow. The author of eight chapbooks, including The Vanishing of Camille Claudel (Seven Kitchens Press, forthcoming) and Inland Sea, which received the 2009 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize, she is currently a Fellowship Instructor in English at Augustana College. She has lead creative writing workshops for homeless individuals in transition, a prisoner, and students at the elementary, high school, and college level.

Cover art by Kelvin Mason

Handshake Trouble

Ryan Collins is the author of a chapbook, Complicated Weather. Some of his recent work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Leveler, Spittoon, Ping Pong, Knock, Handsome, Diagram and H_NGM_N. He lives in the Illinois Quad Cities. He can be reached at ryanrichardcollins@gmail.com.

Cover image by Joshua Ford | www.joshuaford.com

To Shadowy Blue

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Love in a Time of Paranoia from Diamond Point Press, Inspired Remnants from Red Ceilings Press and The Penalty for Trying from Ten Pages Press.

Before Doubt

MeLaina Elise Evans is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, most recently published in elimae, Anti-, and The Whistling Fire, among others. She is a contributor to The Hipster Book Club and lives in Virginia. Photo by J Hackett (http://www.flickr.com/photos/completedrivel/).

Exit Strategies

David Tomaloff (b. 1972) | is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence | likes: jazz | hates: jazz | photography: yes | his work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, Thunderclap!, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more | he has an e-chap, MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press, 2011) and another forthcoming with NAP Literary Magazine | David Tomaloff resides in the form of ones and zeros at: davidtomaloff.com

Psalms of the Wreckage

Joshua Young holds an MA in English from Western Washington University, and begins an MFA in Poetry at Columbia College Chicago in fall of 2011. Information about his writing, films, and other projects can be found at http://thestorythief.tumblr.com

Cat People

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. His work has been published in Decomp, Blue Fifth Review, Thunderclap Press, and others. He is the author of three other chapbooks: Avenue C (Scars Publications), Fuzzy Logic (Punkin House Press), and Amsterdam and Other Broken Love Songs (Flutter Press).

Random Cartography Notes

Helen Vitoria lives and writes in Effort PA. Her work can be found and is forthcoming in many journals including: elimae, PANK, Commonline, Mud Luscious Press, >kill author, Poets & Artists Magazine and Dark Sky Magazine. She has been thrice nominated for Best New Poets Anthology 2010. She is completing her first full length collection: Corn Exchange, with an expected release Fall, 2011. Find her here: http://helenvitoria-lexis.blogspot.com/

Art by David Ohlerking

8bitskulls

Michael Bernstein is the author of 10 chapbooks, including Well (Splitleaves Press), the Fire District (Differentia Press), and nanostars (greying ghost press). His work has appeared in publications such as New American Writing, Columbia Poetry Review, Puppy Flowers, and BlazeVOX. With Michael Crake, he edits the online literary arts magazine Pinstripe Fedora, and sometimes writes book reviews for other publications. Michael lives and writes in Cleveland Heights, OH.