Michael Casalena is a satirist and writer currently living in the pine-barrens region of New Jersey. His written work seeks to both attack and redeem the conditions of contemporary culture through the use of humor and self-realization. He continues to catalogue his experiences (both humorous and serious) through his website: http://michaelcasalena.squarespace.com. Michael also continues to play poker, though only as a hobby. He holds a BA in Business Administration from Stevenson University. Those interested in writing collaboration or correspondence should contact him at: baglife@gmail.com.
Chris Zickefoose is a Baltimore based artist. He earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. In addition to writing poems, he makes paintings, sculptures, and music. He hopes to one day build himself a house in the mountains.
Donavon Davidson's work was short listed for the erbacce-prize from erbacce-press and his chapbook, The Last Place On Earth, was a finalist for the Blood Pudding Press 2014 Chapbook Contest. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in:Bird's Thumb, Sink Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, InDigest, Blood Lotus, Bone Parade, Black Heart, Dressing Room, Dead Snakes, Identity Theory, ditch, FRiGG, Spork, Softblow, Juked, Pedestal, MiPOesias, Anti-, Stirring, and many others. He currently lives in New England where he serves as an adjunct professor.
Kentucky native CD Collins follows the storytelling traditions of the South, both as a solo artist and when accompanied by musicians. Her short fiction collection Blue Land was published by Polyho Press, and her poetry collection Self Portrait with Severed Head by Ibbetson Street Press. Her work has been archived in four compact discs: Kentucky Stories (winner Best Spoken-Word album Boston Poetry Awards) Subtracting Down, and Carousel Lounge. Her most recent disc, Clean Coal/Big Lie, is currently being released in a series of one-woman shows.
Collins has performed in a variety of venues including Berklee College of Music Performance Hall, Boston Public Library, Club Passim, Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and the New York Public Library. Collins’ fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines including StoryQuarterly, Phoebe, Salamander and The Pennsylvania Review.
Collins has received grants and awards from Massachusetts College of Art, Somerville Arts Council, the St. Botolph Club, Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Cambridge Arts Council and Women Waging Peace.
Collins holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Kentucky where she studied with author and activist Wendell Berry.
She was recently a guest at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. for a pilot conference to advance the development of innovative technologies that support the inclusion of people with disabilities.
Her recent projects include:
A book of essays, titled Night Animals, to be released in a limited edition letter press format with original artwork. The publication will be followed by a launch for multimedia tablet display. This book is a project of MHM Fine Art Studios in Lowell, MA and Dutch artist and designer Markus Haala.
A collaboration of spoken-word and music with Russian-born Santon, a blind, autistic musical savant and recent graduate of Berklee College of Music.
Meghan Guidry is the author of eight books, including Light and Skin, published as part of the collaborative release Axiom Radnor: Year One by Empty City Press in 2009, and the forthcoming Tarography, an interactive poem about Tarot and false memory. She is also a working librettist who has collaborated with composer Oliver Caplan on four world premiere songs, and with composers Dominick DiOrio and Polina Nazaykinskaya on the operas The Little Blue One and Genetics. She is a staff writer at Applied Sentience, where she writes about bioethics and humanist philosophy. Meghan currently studies bioethics at Harvard Divinity School, where she focuses on the ethics of valuation ingrained in debates about physician aid-in-dying. She currently lives in Cambridge with her boyfriend and a cat named Mahasamatman (but who everyone calls ’Sam’).
Keith Backhaus melds genre work with an anarcho-punk aesthetic, and operates as an experimental musician. His first novel, A Still Pool was published as part of a collaborative release entitled Axiom Radnor: Year One by Empty City Press; his existential fantasy novels, A Fitting Epilogue and I, Dagger are also available through Empty City Press (2014 & 2016 respectively). His most recent novel Empire of Ghosts Vol. 1 (Precursors) was released in late 2018. He acted as the guest editor for the 2015 release of the Empty City Press journal The Grey Alley Volume 1 and the 2017 release of The Grey Alley Volume 2. His musical efforts can be found by consulting releases and archival media associated with the bands Cream Center and Human Host (Mt6 Records, Fall Records, Firecracker Firecracker Records, Large Father Limited) ; he toured the U.S. extensively with both bands in the years 2006-2009. He currently plays in the heavy-psych band Homuncumulus.
Keith holds a B.A. in Art History/Theory from St Mary’s College of Maryland and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College in VT. He currently teaches Literature at Harford Community College.