BETTY STANTON is a writer who lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is currently a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso. Her work has appeared in various journals including Siren, Silver Birch Press, and Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry and is forthcoming in several other publications. (@bfstanton)

*

JARITA DAVIS is a poet and fiction writer with a B.A. in classics from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. Her work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Plainsongs, Tuesday; An Art Project, Verdad Magazine, and Cape Cod Poetry Review. Her poetry collection Return Flights is forthcoming from Tagus Press in March 2016. She lives and writes in West Falmouth, MA.

*

STEPHEN M. JAMES hails from Manchester, UK and writes about doors, walls, vegetables, and his feelings. He has been published, self-published, and refused-to-be-published. He hopes you are having a nice day. (folknwords.tumblr.com)

*

OLGA KREIMER is a writer and editor currently based in the Bay Area. She is interested in almost everything, but especially in local food systems, women’s health, immigrant nostalgia, walkable history, and facilitating self-expression. She is a 2016 Fellow at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and New York University. (@kreimero)

*

After graduate school in creative writing, JOE RUBINO became a freelance writer and a photographer. In the last fifteen years, while continuing to do photography, he has shifted the primary focus of his work to producing videos for non-profits, foundations, and schools in Baltimore and throughout the United States. (@closeupbmore)

*

ERIKA M. SCHRECK is a writer, reiki master, communications and marketing consultant, tarot reader, and crafter who grew up in southeastern Wisconsin but found her home and peace in Colorado. After spending 14 years as a university writing instructor, Erika now offers holistic and intuitive services and assists entrepreneurs and writers with a multitude of professional services. She believes life is too short to be crabby and deeply loves and appreciates her wise dog Harley. (@ErikaMSchreck)

*

KEPH SENETT is a writer and activist from Toronto, Canada whose passions for travel and soccer have led her to play the beautiful game on four continents. Senett writes about human rights, travel, LGBT and gender, sports, and her own folly in a wide variety of publications. When not writing, Senett spends her time trying to figure out how to qualify for a soccer squad in Asia, Australia, or Antarctica. (@kephsenett)

*

ALLISON JANE SMITH is a Canadian writer whose articles and essays on travel, humanitarianism, and politics have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, ONE, TakePart World, and Matador Network, among others. Following two years in Cambodia, she is now based in Ottawa, Canada. She misses drinking iced coffee year-round and dreads Canadian winter. (@asmithb)

*

KELLY THOMPSON is a member of Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado. She has writing published or forthcoming in Oh Comely, The Rumpus, Manifest Station, Witch Craft, The Writing Disorder, and 49 Writers. “Hand Me Down Stories,” is from her memoir in progress, Oh Darling Girl, which explores a transgenerational legacy of addiction, violence, and shame. Sunflowers grew in Kelly’s grandmother’s garden and became a powerful symbol of the love and strength that paralleled that legacy. (@stareenite)