red lion sq.

Amy Watkins grew up with the alligators and armadillos in the Central Florida scrub, the daughter of a nurse and a carpenter. Somewhere between Willie Nelson and J. Alfred Prufrock she realized what she wanted to be when she grew up. She has a BA in English from the University of Central Florida, a MFA in writing from Spalding University, and a pretty decent day job that has nothing to do with poetry. She lives in Orlando with her husband, her daughter and a big, shaggy dog.

You can read Amy's poems online at LiteraryMama, The Pedestal Magazine and BloodLotus and in the print anthologies poem, home: An Anthology of Ars Poetica and Women. Period. She plays Lu in the fantasy novel podcast, Cowry Catchers.

Jae Newman lives with his wife and daughter in Western New York. He works part-time as an adjunct college instructor and part-time as a cook in a grocery store. His poems have been published online in Perihelion, Bloodlotus and Kennesaw Review. More work has appeared in print via Korean Quarterly, Bellingham Review and Redivider. He holds a BA in English from Lindsey Wilson College and a MFA in Writing from Spalding University.

Freelance comic artist and animator Shawna Mills graduated from Art & Design High School in NYC. She's done poster work for Korby Mark's Stormbringers comic and concept work for a halted animated series project, Junglecrooks. She's currently an animator for a talented hip hop artist and has recently taken on the position of comic artist for the producer of UVC magazine. Ultimately, she says she makes art to entertain herself.

You can see more of her work at www.LazyMills.com.

Alex Copeland is a jack of all trades. He makes pottery and mosaics, plays a little guitar, holds a degree in environmental planning and humanities from Rollins College and can even design a website if the occasion calls for it. Although he says he wants to be the one devoted fan of poetry that has no interest in writing it, he once opened a reading for Billy Collins.

Cye is a registered nurse and songwriter who holds a BA in English from the University of Central Florida, where he worked on The Florida Review. Mistie is a painter and earned her BA in English from Rollins College, where she worked on the magazine Specs and wrote her honors thesis on Ernest Hemingway.

Jules Archer writes random stories of great genius and heartbreaking torpor while keeping her day job in marketing. Her poems have been published in Metazen, The Glass Coin and Negative Suck. Check out her blog here.

Anne Babson wrote the libretto for the opera Lotus Lives, which is touring as part of the repertory of Meridian Arts Ensemble. Her chapbook Commute Poems is forthcoming from Gravity Presses. Other of her work can be found in Atlanta Review, Barrow Street and the urban gospel hip hop CD The Cornerstone.

Thomas Birchmire can be found most Monday nights reading poetry by flashlight at the Audubon Park Community Market. He believes in finding poetry audiences in innovative ways, such as the projects at 62ndNetwork.com.

Sander Blome began writing poetry only in this decade. Bipolar and finally stabilized in his 50s, he writes about the inner workings of the mind and about making life decisions. Sander's work can be found in The Houston Literary Review, Kerouac's Dog Magazine, The Toucan Literary Magazine and 50 to 1, among others. Currently, Sander studies liberal arts at State College of Florida.

Therese L. Broderick volunteers for the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and has taught poetry classes for the Knowledge Network. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Paper Kite Press's anthology poem, home. She blogs about poetry at theresebroderick.wordpress.com. She lives in Albany, New York, where she's very active in the poetry and arts community.

Mark Russell Brown is a graduate of Spalding University's brief residency MFA in writing program. His poems have appeared in The Louisville Review and BloodLotus, among other fine magazines. He has presented poetry and literary criticism at the LGBT Center in New York and at Princeton.

John F. Buckley writes to try and escape the well of ego, to get out of his present sense of self and into a transmogrified version of his past or other location. Sometimes too, he just likes to fart around with an idea or handful of phonemes that grab him.

Holly Burnside is a native of Toledo, OH, where she lives, works and writes. Her work has appeared most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, La Fovea and Stirring. She teaches composition and works as a writing tutor at Owens Community College and is co-editor of Glass: A Journal of Poetry.

Salvatore Buttaci is the author of the book Flashing My Shorts. Why haven't you ordered it yet? You can find out more about his work at his blog.

Lauren Camp is a teacher and poet who lives in a rural farming village near Santa Fe, NM. She tries to capture her experience of the high desert in a way that replicates her favorite music: jazz. The author of This Business of Wisdom (West End Press 2010), Lauren is also an accomplished artist and radio host for Santa Fe Public Radio. Visit her at www.LaurenCamp.com.

Sherry Chandler writes poems for the ear as well as the eye. Her work can be found online at Umbrella, Bumbershoot, Soundzine and qarrtsiluni. Her first full-length collection, Weaving a New Eden, is forthcoming from Wind Publications. Sherry has had financial support from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She is a long-time member and past board chair of the Green River Writers.

Kevin Clark is an award winning teacher and the author of three chapbooks and two full-length collections, In the Evening of No Warning and Self-Portrait with Expletives. Find out more, and order his books, at KevinClarkPoet.com.

Gerry Crinnin is the winner of the Galway Kinnell/Pawtucket Arts Council Poetry Prize. His chapbook, False Shuffles and the Disappearing Ace is available online from Paradigm Press.

Debra Kang Dean is the author of three books of poetry: Back to Back, News of Home and Precipitates. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Louisville Review, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, a new online journal.  She teaches at Indiana University and in the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University. Find out more about her books at www.debrakangdean.com.

Ryan De Cinque works as a ski coach to pay for college where he will study fine art with an emphasis in painting and printmaking. He loves the quiet, makes a mean pad Thai and surrounds himself with the nicest people he knows.

Teneice Durrant Delgado is co-founder and poetry editor of BloodLotus, a literary e-zine. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Goldilocks Complex and Flame Above Flame, which won second honorable mention in Finishing Line Press's New Women's Voices chapbook contest.

Maureen Doallas writes daily at Writing Without Paper. A writer and editor for more than 30 years, Maureen also owns a small art business, Transformational Threads, which licenses original fine art for rendering into limited edition, hand-embroidered "thread paintings" by Vietnamese artisans. She has a poem in the forthcoming anthology Oil and Water...and Other Things that Don't Mix, sales of which benefit residents recovering from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sandra Evans Falconer is a past recipient of an Individual Artists Award in Poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her new book, The Six O'Clock Siren was published by Otter Bay Books in 2009. She is currently adapting a collection of poems, The Lucky Spot Dance into a play.

Robert Ferrier is the author of four published novels. His poetry has appeared in ten literary journals. His video chapbook, The Dante Dreams: Inferno appears on YouTube. In 2006, he was a nominee for Poet Laureate of Oklahoma. He lives in Norman, OK.

Darlyn Finch is a Florida native and former writer-in-residence at the Kerouac Project, which gave her the chance to live and work in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums. She is the author of the short story and poetry collection Red Wax Rose and, with her fiancee Brad Kuhn, the collection of love poems Three Houses. Find her books and her projects at DarlynFinch.com.

Stacia M. Fleegal's first full length poetry collection, Anatomy of a Shape-Shifter is forthcoming from WordTech. She is one of the founders and editors of BloodLotus and of Imaginary Friend Press. Her poems have been widely published in journals and two chapbooks, A Fling with the Ground (Finishing Line, 2007) and The Lines Are Not My Friends (Cervena Barva, 2009).

Leila A. Fortier is a writer, artist, poet, and photographer currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa, Japan. Her work has been published in dozens of literary magazines, journals and reviews both in print and online. She has appeared in several books, anthologies, and other freelance publications including Treasured Poets of America, Satiated Sunrise and A World of Love: Voices for Carmen. She is also the author of Metanoia's Revelation through iUniverse. Find more of her work at LeilaFortier.com.

Anthony Frame is an exterminator who lives in Toledo, Ohio, with his wife and their spoiled cat. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Third Coast, Versal, Mobius, Connecticut River Review and New Plains Review, among others. His chapbook Paper Guillotines was recently released by Imaginary Friend Press. He is also co-editor of the online journal Glass: a Journal of Poetry. Find out more at Anthony-Frame.com.

A-Gonzaga (Oluchukwu Aloysius-Gonzaga Nwikwu) is a Nigerian-born, Nordic-educated essayist, poet and songwriter. His essays and poetry have appeared in various English-language magazines and anthologies in Africa, Europe and North America, including Helsinki Times, The New Black Magazine, Itch and Aunt Cleo: A Journal of Artful Candor. In addition to writing, he is currently pursuing further education in music and development studies and splits his time between Finland and Ireland.

Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a clinical psychologist in Claremont, CA. In another life, she was a German Lit major so that she could read poetry for credit. Her poems and photographs have or will soon appear in Off the Coast, Umbrella and Poemeleon.  She was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.  Her first chapbook, Eggs Satori, was a finalist in Pudding House Press’s 2010 competition, and will be published in 2011.

Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM.  His poetry appears mostly on the web as he prefers to spend SASE and reading fee monies on pumpkin spice cookies for his Dianne.  His latest book of poems is Fluid Shape of an Empty Womb.  To learn more about Kenneth, visit his website.

Ken Hada has published two full-length poetry collections: Spare Parts (Mongrel Empire Press, 2010) and The Way of the Wind (Village Books Press, 2008). He directs the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held annually the first week of April at East Central University in Ada, OK. Find more of his work at KenHadaPoetry.com.

David Harrity is a writer from Kentucky. His work has appeared in New Southerner, The Minnetonka Review and The Xavier Review. His chapbook, Morning and What Has Come Since (Finishing Line, 2007) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Kentucky Literary Award.

Leigh Anne Hornfeldt lives in Kentucky with her husband and three young sons. She wrote her first poem at age six while "camping" in the back of a pickup truck. Her work has appeared in Plain Spoke, LiteraryMama and Foundling Review, among others.

Simon Peran Hosken says of writing poetry, "I love the music of words and the way that they shape meaning. Poetry is intimate and pierces the mind's eye quite like nothing else. Electricity flows through my hands as I write a poem that takes effect."

Terry Hummer is the author of eight books of poetry, including The Infinity Sessions (LSU, 2006). He is a Mississippi native and a long-time lover and practitioner of jazz. Follow his blog here.

Kim Hutchinson is writer and filmmaker, a former Detroiter and an AmeriCanadian living on the border. Her fiction has appeared in online journals, and her journalism has been featured on television and radio and in print. Kim's short films have been in international distribution and played at film festivals in the US and Canada, and she's a regular contributor on Fictionaut, here.

Jason Irwin grew up in Dunkirk, NY, but now lives in Pittsburgh. His first book, Watering the Dead (Pavement Saw Press, 2008) won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental Poetry Award. In 2005, his manuscript Some Days It's a Love Story won the Slipstream Press Chapbook Contest. His work has also appeared in several journals, including Blue Collar Review, Miller's Pond and Sycamore Review.

Ellyn Lichvar Johnson received a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to produce a manuscript of work based on the women in her family. She works for The Louisville Review.

Marci Rae Johnson holds an MFA in Poetry Writing from Spalding University. She currently works as an Adjunct Faculty member at Valparaiso University, and is the Poetry Editor for WordFarm press; in fact, she edited RLS contributor Erin Keane's book Death Defying Acts. Her poems appear in Perihelion, The Louisville Review, Phoebe, The Christian Century, Minnetonka Review, Strange Horizons, and 32 Poems, among others.

Erin Keane is the author of The Gravity Soundtrack and Death Defying Acts and an extremely busy lady. She writes, reviews, teaches, blogs, edits and manages the InKY reading series in Louisville, Kentucky. Keep up to date on all her numerous projects at www.sensilla.com.

Karen Kelsay is the author of five chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The New Formalist, Boston Literary Magazine and The Lyric, among other magazines. A native Californian, Karen regularly travels to England to visit her husband's family and enjoy the countryside.

Russ Kesler is the author of A Small Fire (Pecan Grove Press, 2001). His poems have appeared in Quarterly West, Southern Humanities Review and many other magazines. He teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida where he is poetry editor of The Florida Review. You can read his blog about poets and poems here.

Kathryn King is a poet living in rural Vermont surrounded by forest, field and a multitude of other living things from which she draws her inspiration. She is also a pencil artist doing primarily pet and person portrait work.

Jill Kelly Koren writes and teaches poetry in Indiana. Her poems have appeared in The Louisville Review, Public-Republic and Women. Period. She is a full-time mother and a full-time writer. She writes a poetry blog with RLS contributor Matthew Vetter at 2poets.blogspot.com and plays acoustic bass and sings in the folk rock group The Chestnuts.

Steve Kronen is author of the books Empirical Evidence (University of Georgia Press, 1992) and Splendor (BOA, 2006). His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including Poetry and The Georgia Review. He lives in South Florida with his wife, the novelist Ivonne Lamazares, and their daughter. Read more of his work at his website, www.stevekronen.com.

David W. Landrum is professor of humanities at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI. He has published poetry and short stories in many magazines and journals, including Web Del Sol, The Barefoot Muse and Driftwood Review. He is currently at work on a series of poems about 16th century English poet Robert Herrick. He edits the online journal Lucid Rhythms.

Harriet Leach pretty much left herself alone to write poetry for several years until she got the fiction bug back again a couple years ago, since then she has had to make excuses to write poetry, like National Poetry Month. She has degrees in poetry from the University of Louisville and Spalding University; she is currently writing a novel. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and recently in her chapbook, Bad Mood on Earth Day (Imaginary Friend Press, 2010).

Tony Leuzzi is a teacher and writer in Rochester, NY.  The author of two books of poems, Tongue-Tied and Singing (Foothills 2004) and Radiant Losses (New Sins Press 2010) he is at work on a third.  His interviews with several American poets will be gathered into a single book in 2012.

Colleen Kolhoff Little is a writer and artist living in Michigan. She has won several writing awards, including The New Century Writer Awards. Her work has appeared in Red River Review, Aesthetica and Insolent Rider, among others, and is forthcoming in Short, Fast, and Deadly and The Smoking Poet.

Martin Lothner is a poet from South Africa.

Patricia Maaru is inspired by events and people she sees in the world around her, stories that are often overlooked.

Aimee Mackovic is the author of the chapbook A Sentenced Woman (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She teaches English composition online.

Ashley Anna McHugh is one of the editors of the 'zine Linebreak, which published a single poem in text and audio each week. Her book Into These Knots will be published later this year by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago. Its title poem was the winner of the 2009 Morton Marr Poetry Prize.

Benjamin Myers is a poet, essayist, and academician living in Chandler, OK. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from Washington University in St. Louis, and is an Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. His first book is Elegy for Trains.

Richard Newman is the author of Borrowed Towns, Domestic Fugues and several poetry chapbooks. He lives in St. Louis where he edits the literary magazine River Styx. You can read his poems, find out how to buy his books, and see his drawings of weird little aliens riding vaccuum cleaners at www.vacuumpacked.net.

Loreen Niewenhuis is at work on a novel and a nonfiction book, A 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach: One Woman's Trek of the Perimeter of Lake Michigan. Her story collection, Scar Tissue was a finalist for the 2009 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Find more of her projects at LoreenNiewenhuis.com.

Dan Nowak is co-founder and co-editor of Imaginary Friend Press and one of the editors of Original Sins Press. His chapbook, Of a Bedframe is forthcoming from Accents Publishing. Find out more about his work at TheDanNowak.com.

Dan O'Brien's poems have appeared recently in 32 Poems, Margie, Greensboro Review, Crab Orchard Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, New South and Nimrod. He served as a Hodder Fellow in playwriting at Princeton and is currently in residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy.

Mary O'Dell is founder and president of Green River Writers, Inc. and author of several books including Poems for the Man Who Weighs Light and The Sweet Letting Go. Learn more about her projects at GreenRiverWriters.org or at her blog, here.

Doug Paugh is from Binghamton, NY, and the author of four poetry chapbooks. He has been writing poetry for over 30 years. His chapbook, Rattling Cages won the 2002 Flash!Point Chapbook Competition. His work has been widely published in the US and internationally.

JR Pearson played "Jonny B. Goode" in first grade with an audience of fifteen people. Once, I seen him eat a whole case of Elmer's glue. He was terrible at finger painting, but he's proud of these poems. Read his stuff in A Capella Zoo, Word Riot, Ghoti, Weave, Boxcar Review and Tipton. He was recently included in an anthology Burning Gorgeous: Seven 21st Century Poets.

Daniel Romo is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte, but represents the LBC.  His recent poems can be found in Foundling Review, Underground Voices Magazine, The Acentos Review and Caper Literary.  His first book of poetry, Romancing Gravity, is forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press.  He’s currently looking for a publisher for a book of prose poems.  More of his writing can be found at danielromo.wordpress.com.

Jesse Jay Ross is a teacher, healthy transportation advocate and active artist in the Central Florida community. His poetry and fiction has been published in numerous journals, including McSweeney's. He writes a column, Dance for the Non-Dancer, for the blog DanceOrlando.

Barbara Sabol’s poetry and prose have appeared in Public-Republic, Blood Lotus, Poets 350, the Tupelo Press Poetry Project, Tributaries, Common Threads and on the Akron Art Museum's website.  Her chapbook, Original Ruse, will be published in the fall of 2010. She is currently working toward her MFA at Spalding University.  Barbara is a long-practicing speech therapist, living in northeastern Ohio with her partner and dogs.

Thomas Starr has always dreamed of being a hip hop artist/chippendale dancer. Which explains his home decor: an 808 and a stripper pole. Having both dreams dashed by the man, he finds a much deeper passion in writing poetry. This is his first publication, and he would like to thank his family and friends for being the greatest collection of oddballs anywhere and, thus, a huge inspiration.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer writes poetry and prose in English and Bulgarian. Her first book, The Air around the Butterfly / Въздухът около пеперудата, is bilingual. She is the host of Accents-A Radio Show for Literature Arts and Culture on WRFL 88.1 FM in Lexington, Kentucky, and founder of Accents Publishing, an independent press for brilliant voices. Find out more at www.KaterinaKlemer.com.

Marcela Sulak is the author of Immigrant (Black Lawrence Press, 2010) and the chapbook Of All The Things That Don't Exist, I Love You Best (Finishing Line Press, 2008). She has translated three books of poetry from the French and Czech, and she currently directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is a senior lecturer in American Literature.

Andy Trevathan is a doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas. She is a woman of mystery.

Matthew Vetter won the 2009 Danny Miller Memorial Award in the graduate creative writing category and had poems featured in the Journal of Kentucky Studies. Other of his poems have appeared in Midwest Quarterly, Literary Mama, and the Poetry Foundation’s syndicated column American Life in Poetry. For more of his work, check out matthewvetter.wordpress.com.

victorgodot lives in Berlin, Germany, and writes poems in English and Italian here and here. He is the author of a self-published chapbook called Dramatic Frogs.

Jonathan Weinert grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts and now lives in Concord. His first book, In the Mode of Disappearance won the 2006 Nightboat Poetry Prize. His poems and reviews have been widely published in national journals, and he has done design work for many writers' websites and book covers. Read more of his poems and find out where to buy his book at www.jonathanweinert.net.

Johnathon Williams's poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, the Pebble Lake Review, and Unsplendid. He lives in Fayetteville, AR, with his wife and daughters. He is co-editor and publisher of the weekly poetry 'zine Linebreak.

Sheri L. Wright is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which is The Slow Talk Of Stones with Finishing Line Press. Her award-winning work has appeared in journals across the country. Currently, she is the host of From The Inkwell, a literary radio show on www.CrescentHillRadio.com.

John Thomas York grew up in Yadkin County in northwestern North Carolina. In 2003 he was named Teacher of the Year by the NC English Teachers Association. His work has appeared in many magazines, including Appalachian Journal, Greensboro Review and International Poetry Review. His third poetry collection, a chapbook entitled Naming the Constellations, was published in 2010 by Spring Street Editions. He and his wife, Jane McKinney York, live in Greensboro, where they have raised three daughters, Elizabeth, Kathryn, and Rachel.

Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé has edited more than 10 books and co-produced three audio books. Trained in book publishing at Stanford, with a theology masters in world religions from Harvard and fine arts masters in creative writing from Notre Dame, Desmond is a recipient of the Singapore Internationale Grant and Dr. Hiew Siew Nam Academic Award. He has recent or forthcoming work in Caper Literary Journal, Cricket Online Review and Dark Sky. Also working in clay, Desmond sculpts commemorative ceramic pieces for his Potter Poetics Collection. These works are housed in museums and private collections in India, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.