Jennifer Ballard is a writer, elementary school librarian and riding instructor. Books are among her three favorite things, along with horses and chocolate. When not working or writing, she enjoys hiking, playing tennis and competing in horse shows. She writes a regularly for her hometown newspaper and "Collective Connection," the newsletter of The Living Writers Collective. Her stories have appeared in local and national publications, most recently, the trade journal, Professional Farrier and Cats, a collection of stories.

Lynore Banchoff is a retired social worker living in California after many years in Rhode Island. She enjoys writing classes at nearby Stanford, a poetry group, biking and her three children and six grand daughters. She is always delighted to see a beautiful horse--one of the finest of creatures. She's been writing since she was a child, but most of her poetry dates from 1980. Some of the publications include the Friends Journal (1999), Juggler’s World (1997), Knowing Stones: Poems of Exotic Places  (2000) and poems in a volume of the series Writing Down Our Years, edited by McMaster Centre for Gerontological Studies, Ontario (2008). In 2003 Lynore won second prize in the Rhode Island Writer’s Circle Anthology. In 2009, she published Past Tense and Parts of Speech on Beech Street. The poem Home on the Range is included in it.

Franz Baskett is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Arkansas. His poetry has appeared in the Southern Review, The Pacific Review, Negative Capability, Innisfree Poetry Journal and The Delinquent, et al. His book, The Accident Prone Man, was published in 1994 by Orchises Press of Washington, D.C. Franz is the recipient of the Raymond L. Barnes Award, the Eve of St. Agnes Prize and The Academy of American Poets Prize. He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas where he works in the newspaper industry.
 

John Blandly is an actor, artist, poet, screenwriter and filmmaker. Trailers for films that he has shot can be found on YouTube by searching johnblandly. His films have been selected to be exhibited at a number of film festivals recently: among them, Simon's Rock Film Fest, 2008, (Phantom Of The Art Gallery), Electric City Film Festival, 2008, (Screenplay Contest), and Albacon (Phantom Of The Art Gallery). He was also lead actor in G-Rated which won the People's Choice award in the 2006 EdWood Film Fest. A book of his poetry, "New And Easy Poems," published in 2008 by Synergebooks, was nominated for an EPPIE. His paintings, sometimes featuring horses, have been selected for exhibition at The Arts Center of the Capital Region and at Fulton Street Gallery in Troy, NY.
 

Stephen Cribari teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School.(http://www.law.umn.edu/facultyprofiles/cribaris.html) His recent work includes "It Seems a Lifetime Away" (July, 2009, Damazine); "Massage Therapy" (forthcoming, Chest); "Il Veduto dal Croce" (forthcoming Oracle); "You Should Have Seen It" (2007 Best of Tigertail); "Fingerprinting a Corpse" (verse play, The Playwrights’ Center Monologues for Men); "Radio Traffic" (play, with Don Judges) Center for Independent Artists (2008). He is co-librettist for WHERE ARE WE NOW? - “ein Friedensoratorium - a Peace Oratorio,” composed by Carola Assali for eight solo voices, orchestra and chorus and children's chorus. It premiered 19 May, 2000, at the Providenz Kirche, Heidelberg, Germany.
 

Philip Dacey’s latest of ten books is Vertebrae Rosaries: 50 Sonnets
(Red Dragonfly Press, 2009). The winner of three Pushcart Prizes, two
NEA grants, and a Fulbright to Yugoslavia, he has written collections
of poems about Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Eakins, and New York
City.
 

Alixa Doom has been writing poetry since the early 1970s when she studied poetry writing with Michael Dennis Browne at the University of Minnesota.  She has published in numerous magazines since that time. Some of her poems have also been published in anthologies including This Sporting Life by Milkweed Editions, 1987, and County Lines by Loonfeather Press, 2008. She lives part-time in Le Sueur, Minnesota, and part time in Upper Westside Manattan.
 

Clyde Fixmer has taught creative writing and literature in several universities, including Oklahoma, Southern Illinois, and San Diego State.  In the Seventies he worked in the Michigan Poets in the Schools program.  His work has recently appeared in Mobius, the magazine, and online in Perigee.  A new book of poems, Chaos Theories, is due out this Summer.  He now lives in Southern California with his wife and their greyhounds.
 

Gail Folkins, originally from Washington State, has also made homes in Switzerland and Texas. Her essays about horses have appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review and the anthology Horse Crazy (2006). Her creative nonfiction book Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit was published by Texas Tech University Press (2007).
 

Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet and writer, is the author of three books and a writing workshop leader for more than 15 years. She is on the Chicago Public Library’s list of “Top Ten Most Requested Chicago Poets” and named one of “100 Women Making a Difference” by Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine.
 

Glasser, Sydell 
www.sydellglasser.com
(contributing artist)

Sydell Glasser studied art at the State University of New York at Binghamton where she was a leader in the art community on campus.  She was the first B.A. student to have a solo exhibition in the student gallery in the history of the university and also received the Martha Norcross award in monotype and won student awards for her work in mixed media.  Upon her graduation from the university in 2004, Sydell moved back to Long Island where she started to look for and connect with other artists.  She has worked at Haven Art in Port Washington, studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan, and been a part of critique groups with other emerging artists in the city and Long Island. In the past few years Sydell has been a part of several group shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn. 
 

Alexandra Isacson lives and teaches in the Phoenix area. "Belladonna" is from an emerging collection of stories. Alexandra's prose and poetry currently appears or will be appearing in such places as Wilderness House Literary Review, PANK, FRiGG, DOGZPLOT, and Scapegoat Review.
 

Freelance writer Annie Kassof's essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Adoptive Families magazine, and many others. She lives in Berkeley, California with her son and daughter, but no horses (yet). 
 

William Keener is a writer and environmental lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area. His poems have been published in literary journals including Atlanta Review, Rattle, Appalachia, Margie, Water-Stone Review, The Main Street Rag and Autumn Sky Poetry (online). His collection of nature poetry “Gold Leaf on Granite” won the 2008 Anabiosis Press Contest and was recently published.
 

LaVonda Krout is a nurse, writer and gardener living among the limestone hills of southern Indiana. She has previously been published in Main Channel Voices, Weeds Corner, Thoughts For All Seasons, The Neovictorian/ Cochlea, Midwest Outdoors, and the anthologies Rhyme and Reason and Gardening at a Deeper Level.
 

Lyn Lifshin’s Another Woman Who Looks Like Me  was  published by Black Sparrow at David Godine October, 2006. It has been selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for previous finalists of the Paterson Poetry Prize. (order@godine.com ). Also out in 2006, Lyn's prize winning book about the famous, short lived beautiful race horse, Ruffian: The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian from Texas Review Press. Lyn has published more than 120 books of poetry, including Marilyn Monroe and Blue Tattoo. She won awards for her non fiction and edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including Tangled Vines, Ariadne's Thread and Lips Unsealed. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass, available from Women Make Movies. Forthcoming in 2010: Katrina from Poetic Matrix Press
 

Kristen Lynch lives in Boise, Idaho where she enjoys life with her
husband and their four children, two dogs and one cat. She also enjoys writing stories in
every extra minute that she can find. "The Horsebraider's Daughter" is Kristen's first published story.
 

The poetry of John Manesis, a retired physician, has appeared in 35 publications, including several anthologies. His first book, With All My Breath, was published by Cosmos in 2003 and his second, Other Candle Lights, was published by Seaburn Publishers in 2008.

Thomas Michael McDade lives in Monroe, CT with his wife, no kids.  He is a computer programmer.  He works on software used in the retail / wholesale plumbing industry.  Thomas also served two hitches in the U.S. Navy.  His work has most recently appeared in Angelic Dynamo, Sunken Lines, and Leaf Garden.
 

Alison Merschoff is a professional artist and designer, as well as a lifelong equestrienne, in southern Pennsylvania.
 

Carol F. Peck taught at University of Maryland for over 30 years, was Writer/Composer-in-Residence at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, and has conducted Artists-in-Education poetry workshops in schools since 1971. She also works with at-risk teens, hospice patients, and prison inmates. Her publications include From Deep Within: Poetry Workshops in Nursing Homes, “I Ain't Gonna Wrote No Pome!”, two children's musicals, and several articles and poems in Christian Science Monitor, Michigan Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, South Coast Journal, Without Halos, Teachers & Writers, Little Patuxent Review, and other journals. 
 

Danielle Pieratti's poems have appeared in a number of literary journals including The Paris Review, Boston Review, Gulf Stream, Circumference, & Rhino. In 2004 she was awarded The Paris Review’s Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry. The poem published here was originally published in her chapbook, By the Dogstar, which won the Edda Poetry Prize and was published by Sarasota Poetry Theater Press in 2005.  She currently lives on a hobby farm in upstate New York with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and two horses.
 

An avid equestrian, Julie Sabin is a writer and photographer.
She lives in Davidson, North Carolina.
 

Leah Shelleda is Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Philosophy at the College
of Marin. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, and her
chapbook, A Flash of Angel, was recently published by Blue Light Press.
 

Judith Skillman’s twelfth book The Never is forthcoming in May, 2010 from Dream Horse Press.  The recipient of an award from the Academy of American Poets for her book Storm (Blue Begonia Press, 1998), Skillman’s work has appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Southern Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Seneca Review, and numerous other journals and anthologies.  A writer, educator, and editor, Skillman holds an M.A. in English Literature from University of Maryland, and lives in Kennydale, Washington.
 

J.R. Solonche is coauthor (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His work has appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies, including The New Criterion, The Progressive, The American Scholar, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Poetry Northwest, and Salmagundi. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
 

Stamm Rosenfeld, Marjorie
marjorierosenfeld@sbcglobal.net  
(contributing poet)

Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld is a former SMU Press Manuscript Editor, SMU English instructor, and Navy missile analyst with three Web sites on perished Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Her poetry can be found nationally and internationally in journals, anthologies, and on the Web.
 

Terry Theiss is a poet and photographer who was terrified of horses, due to an unresolved incident in her childhood. After participating in programs at Generation Farms in Nanaimo, BC she has emerged into a renewed and fearless love affair with horses. Her biggest crush is on Odie, a small donkey.
 

Beth Winegarner is a poet, journalist and the author of four books. Her poetry has appeared in New Verse News, Tertulia, Terrain, Bardsong, and Lime Green Bulldozers. She is currently at work on her fifth book, a work of nonfiction. She lives in San Francisco with her partner and daughter.