Nonfiction

Dave Newman has published more than 100 poems, stories, essays, and articles in magazines and journals around the world. He is the author of five books, including the novel Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), the collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine, and The Poem Factory (White Gorilla Press, 2015). He lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.

Jess D. Taylor teaches English at Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College. A former food writer for the Bay Area alt-weekly The Bohemian, her writing has appeared in Fractured West, Prick of the Spindle, Recess Magazine, Cobalt Review, Brain Child online, Mutha Magazine, Gloom Cupboard, Hobo Camp Review, Hip Mama online, and others. Her essay “Cuba Libre” received a Solas Award for Best Travel Writing from Travelers’ Tales. She lives in Santa Rosa, California, with her guitar-picking husband and her three year-old daughter, Mallory.

John Messick’s work has appeared in Tampa Review, Rock & Sling, Cirque Journal, Alaska Dispatch News, and other publications. His essay “Discovering Terra Incognita” was awarded the AWP Intro Journals Prize in 2013. He has worked as a wildland firefighter, teacher, fish researcher, and sled dog handler. He earned his MFA from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and currently works as a freelance journalist covering Alaska’s Bristol Bay region. He lives on the Kenai Peninsula in southcentral Alaska.

Jonathan Danielson is a frequent contributor to The Feathertale Review. His work was named a finalist for Glimmer Train’s 2012 “Family Matters” contest, and has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Juked, Southern California Review, Monday Night, Gravel, Santa Fe Writers Project, South85, Fiction on the Web, and others. He received his MFA from the University of San Francisco and lives in his home state of Arizona, where he teaches at Scottsdale Community College. He is also an Assistant Fiction Editor for Able Muse.

The daughter of a Turkish-born Army physician, Louise Turan spent most of her childhood overseas. Her short story “Obsessions” won the 2014 Southeast Review Spring Writing Regimen Contest. Other publication credits include Forge, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and Existere. She has recently completed a children’s book set in 17th century Kashmir and is working on her first novel. She lives in Philadelphia and Owls Head, Maine.

Matt Muilenburg is an English instructor and writing consultant at the University of Dubuque. A graduate of the Wichita State University M.F.A. program, his creative nonfiction has been featured in Southern Humanities Review, New Plains Review, South85 Journal, Mojave River Review, and Flyover Country Review. His fiction has also been featured in several literary journals. Matt lives in Iowa near the Field of Dreams with his wife and two sons.

Melissa Wiley is a freelance writer living in Chicago. Her narrative nonfiction appears in literary magazines including Prick of the Spindle, Gravel, Eclectica Magazine, Gone Lawn, Tin House Open Bar, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Split Lip Magazine, Menacing Hedge, Beetroot Journal, Specter, Lowestoft Chronicle, Pithead Chapel, Flyover Country Review, Great Lakes Review, and the Museum of Americana. She serves as assistant editor of Sundog Lit and is currently at work on a collection of essays.

Sean Ironman teaches creative writing and professional writing. He earned his M.F.A. at the University of Central Florida, where he served as the design editor of The Florida Review and as an advisor to The Cypress Dome. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others. His weekly column, “Heroes Never Rust,” can be read online at The Drunken Odyssey with John King.

Sean Prentiss is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Finding Abbey: a Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave. Prentiss is also the co-editor of The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction, a creative nonfiction craft anthology. He lives on a small lake in northern Vermont and serves as an assistant professor at Norwich University.