HOLLY ALLIN refers to Anchorage, Alaska as home, but there are no roots growing under her feet. She has traveled in over 50 countries on 7 continents and bicycled more than 13,000 miles. She shares about her last bicycling adventure at Holly Would On A Bike and is in the process of writing a book of her travels. She is one of less than two hundred women who have spent the winter at the South Pole. “A Single Step” is Holly’s publishing debut.

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CHARLES FINN is the editor of High Desert Journal and author of Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters (OSU Press 2012). His essays and poetry have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, anthologies, newspapers and consumer magazines. A self-taught woodworker, he began A Room of One’s Own in 2004, building “microhomes,” one-room wood cabins constructed entirely out of reclaimed lumber and materials. Originally from Vermont, he lives in Missoula with his wife, Joyce Mphande-Finn, and their two cats, Pushkin and Lutsa.

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SHASTA GRANT holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook in 2007 and is an editor for Storyscape. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared inCorium, WhiskeyPaper, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Freight Stories and elsewhere. She grew up in New Hampshire and currently divides her time between Singapore and Indianapolis. She moved to Asia in 2010 and likes living there, except for her Barbie-sized refrigerator.

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A professional French horn player, KATIE HAGEN has performed with the Nashville Symphony and as a studio recording musician, touring internationally and performing at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, among others. Her essays have appeared in Art House America and The Tennessean. She delights in chatting boisterously in real time with her husband and two young daughters in Nashville, Tennessee.

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LISE MENN is coeditor of The Widows’ Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival (Kent State University Press, 2014). She is professor emerita of linguistics at The University of Colorado, Boulder and has published a lifetime’s worth of research in language development, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. In 2007, she began writing about the loss of her second husband, linguist William Bright, encouraged since 2008 by her new partner, poet and film historian Bruce Kawin.

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LESLIE F. MILLER likes to break things and put them back together in a random, yet tasteful, order. She is the author of the nonfiction book Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt (Simon & Schuster, 2009) and the poetry collection BOYGIRLBOYGIRL (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Though her poetry, essays, and stories have appeared everywhere, she is still satisfaction-less in Baltimore.

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JOEL PRINCE is a freelance photographer currently based in Athens, Ohio, where he is pursuing a master’s degree in visual communication at Ohio University. He has worked for various news publications–including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. His personal work deviates from journalism–blurring the lines between documentary and fine art photography–and often focuses on the relationships between humanity and nature.

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ERIN E. TOCKNELL grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, but she moved to Chattanooga when she realized it had both mountains and rivers, which are pretty much her favorite things. Her essay collection, Confederate Streets, was published by Benu Press in 2011, and her essays have appeared in the Tampa Review and The Southern Review. Most of her essays are explorations of place and its influence on people. Erin teaches at The McCallie School and lives on campus with her intrepid fox terrier, Winston.

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BILL VERNON served in the United States Marine Corps taught college-level English literature. Writing is his therapy, along with exercising outdoors and doing international folkdances. Five Star Mysteries published his novel Old Town in 2005, and his poems, stories, and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. He plays Uncle Sam in his hometown Dayton, Ohio’s annual festival A World A’Fair.

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