Johannes Finke is an author and publisher based in Stuttgart, Germany. He is author of 4 books of poetry and prose including 2004's critically acclaimed Ego Themenpark and is editor for the dynamic Stuttgart-based Lautsprecher Verlag, which has published many of the most original voices of recent German literature.

Dan Fisher's poems are forthcoming in Bay Area Poetics and Viz. He currently lives in the East Bay where he tries to get avian visitors to his bird feeder.

Jenny Gillespie lives in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Texas with her M.A. in Creative Writing, where she won the Keene Award for Poetry in 2004. She is also a singer/songwriter.

Thomas Hibbard has had reviews and poems published in many places off and online. Recently, he reviewed Cole Swensen's Goest in issue 8 of 'word/ for word'. He has a review in the current issue (28) of Jacket. Other publications where his work has appeared include Moria, Milk, earlier issues of Jacket, Goodfoot, AUGHT and Jack.

Mandy Kalish is working on a novel that will serve as her MFA Thesis in Creative Writing.  She has lived in New York, San Francisco, Australia, Las Vegas and currently freezes her butt off in Chicago.  Mandy has never injured anyone in a hunting accident and does not usually eat duck.

Mark Kanak is an author and translator based in Seattle. Recent work appears in Prague Literary Review, Circumference and others. His book croix noire is forthcoming from Horse Less Press; recent translations include Aquamarine by Austrian author Peter Pessl (upcoming 2006, Twisted Spoon) and Helicopter Hysteria by Heinrich Dubel. He is poetry editor for London-based Stimulus Respond.

David Krump attends the Masters of Studies in Creative Writing at University of Oxford. His attempts at poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Fifth Review, Colorado Review, Cricket Online Review, DMQ Review and a goat's handful other publications. Also, he hath snuck off with several awards for poetry, including a winter writer's residency at Caldera, and publication of a chapbook Night is a Good Child, recipient of the 2005 Florence Kahn Memorial Award.

Tom Leonard was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1944. His collected poetry of 1965-2004 is available in two volumes, Intimate Voices and access to the silence from Etruscan Books, Devon. He teaches Creative Writing at Glasgow University.

Christopher Mulrooney has contributed poems and translations to Clara Venus, Chiron Review, Segue, Burning Leaf, The Drunken Boat, and Voices Israel, criticism to Small Press Review and The Film Journal, and is the author of a book of poetry called notebook and sheaves (AmErica House, 2002).

Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). An anthology she edited, Bearing Life: Women's Writings on Childlessness, was published in January 2000 by The Feminist Press. She lives in New York City, where she is Executive Editor of American Book Review and reviews regularly for Library Journal. More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

denni s omera plays the text collector in the cuts/interstices taking the WOR D irection on the page, through performance, or collaboration. his play on the page can be found in the last couple CHAIN's, TINFISH #14 and upcoming POMPOM.

Stephanie Young lives and works in Oakland, near the lake. Also online on good days: www.stephanieyoung.org/blog, and in a book: Telling the Future Off (Tougher Disguises Press, 2005).

Wes Tilson, a 52- year-old school teacher of seventh grade language arts in Tampa, turned to Macromedia Flash to present information to students in a more interesting format. These cycling mandalas represent a synthesis combining animating techniques and realization of the cyclic nature of education and the learning experience.