Rachel L. Olivares is a New Jersey/New York expatriate exploring other parts of the country; currently in Portland. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from CCNY and spends her time writing, working and analyzing the vast difference between NYC and the rest of the country.

Lynn Patmalnee is a born-and-bred Jersey Girl living her lifelong dream of having a Tilt-A-Whirl in her backyard in Keansburg, NJ, and her heart still beats a bit faster every time she crosses into Manhattan. As Lynn Crystal, she can be heard throughout the five boroughs and beyond as host of WFDU-FM's long-running Carnival of Song radio show.

The author of a book of poetry and short stories entitled, I See Through Eyes, Eric Payne was born and raised in Chicago, but moved to Jamaica, Queens after grad school a little more than a decade ago to "make it" in NYC.  No longer sure what "making it" means, he now lives in Mount Vernon with his wife and kids -- his nightly retreat from his marketing job in Manhattan. 

Willie Perdomo is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime and Smoking Lovely.  He spends his free time looking for ghosts on Lexington Avenue, between 103rd St. and 125th.

Jana Perskie is a Human Resource Consultant who has lived in Manhattan for almost 30 years. Before that she lived in Latin America & Iran for 15 years working for an NGO and doing other "stuff." She loves the City and was about 10 blocks away from the Twin Towers when the first plane hit. She saw the second plane strike and lost neighbors (3 in her building, including a Captain in the fire dept), friends and colleagues on 9/11. She still grieves. She volunteered at Nino's Restaurant, on Canal Street, which served food 24/7 to those working at ground zero.

Don Pomerantz ' poems have appeared in Failbetter, Eclectica, Stylus Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.  He came to New York City from Western Massachusetts in the early 90s, more or less trading nature for possibility.  He spends his days as a special education teacher on the Lower East Side making his everyday life a bit of an adventure within an adventure.  He is happily attached to Barbara Feinman, semi-famous East Village milliner.

Dominic Preziosi attended college at Fordham University and eventually moved to Brooklyn, where he's lived for the past 20 years. His fiction most recently appears or is forthcoming in Avery, Cezanne's Carrot, Front Porch, Menda City and SmokeLong Quarterly.

Lynne Procope (Poetry Edtior) makes poems and is a New Yorker at heart, since her heart has lived in this city for 18 years, but she’s Trinidadian by birth and disposition which counts for a lot. She is a former National Poetry Slam champion and Cave Canem fellow whose work appears or is forthcoming in Washington Square Review, Quarter After Eight, Drumvoices Revue, His Rib, Word Warriors and Bowery Women, among others. She curates the louderARTS Project Reading Series in Union Square.

Jacob Rakovan is a resident of Rochester, New York.

John Rodriguez is a Harlem-born, Bronx raised Puerto Rock who sends a shout out to any folks reading these notes who grew up on Gun Hill Road.

Diane (sounds like w-a-h) Roy is a Haitian-American artist/street photographer from Queens, NY. She moved here in 1986 with her parents -- political activists by day, cabbies by night -- and fell in love with the exploring and documentation of urban subculture. Now, as an anthropologist first, photographer second, she's ready to shake things up.

Robert Ross is editor of The Leader, a magazine published by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. He spent one eternal day in New York City's echoing canyons with a girl from Nutley, N.J.

Jon Sands was a member of the 2007 LouderARTS New York City Poetry Slam team.  He performs poetry throughout the nation from University Theaters to Manhattan needle exchange centers, and lives in New York City where he spends the majority of his time trying to find what makes the sloppy muscle beneath our ribs tick into such a beautiful mess.

Gerard Sarnat has intermittently worked and played and visited his children living throughout New York City for over forty years. He is a father of three, seeker and Jewbu, physician to the disenfranchised, past CEO and Stanford professor, and virginal writer 'til the tender age of sixty. He now splits time between his Northern California forest home and Southern California's beaches, where he and his wife care for their first grandson.

Wayne Scheer made the journey from Brooklyn to Atlanta, where he's still searching for a stickball game.  Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net, his stories have appeared in Notre Dame Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Pedestal Magazine, Eclectica and flashquake.

Shappy Seasholtz moved to New York City 3 weeks after 9/11 to help open the Bowery Poetry Club. He is now NYC-Urbana's Slammaster and author of the forthcoming book, The Ass Menagerie (Kapow! Press).

Janet A. Shainheit lives in Worcester, Massachusetts surrounded by citizens of Red Sox Nation.  Her husband is a lifelong Yankee's fan.  Quite possibly, this living on the edge is what caused her to turn to poetry.

Skip Shea is an actor, artist, performer and poet. His one man show Catholic (Surviving Abuse & Other Dead End Roads) made its debut at the Bowery Poetry Club and his artwork has been shown at chezTGN Gallery in Brooklyn.

Matthew Charles Siegel is a New York City transplant.  Most days, he is a healthy transplant, but some days he feels like a rejected organ and writes poems about it.  A social worker from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn by day, he is a curmudgeon by night, and considers the MTA his mortal nemesis.  He walks to work.

Diane Simmons has published short fiction in Northwest Review, Fiction, Green Mountains Review, Local Knowledge, College Hill Review and Hamilton Stone Review. Her novel, Dreams Like Thunder (Story Line Press), won the Oregon Book Award for Fiction.  She heads the Writing and Literature Degree Program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on Chambers Street.

Patricia Smith's four books of poetry include Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection and winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Poetry; Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, which will be published in 2008. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review and many other journals--in addition, she is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam.  NYC reminds her what her hometown of Chicago would be if it were doused briefly in an exciting vat of acid.

Fish Vargas (Poetry Edtior) is a Bronx-born, Nuyorican poet. He facilitates poetry workshops with various organizations all throughout New York City. He founded Acentos Bronx Poetry in 2003 and continues to develop and nurture emerging talent in the NYC community.

Jeanann Verlee writes poems and short fiction, sometimes wields protest signs, drinks cheap beer, scratches her pup’s furry head, competes in poetry slams, and is coach and Co-Slammaster for the Urbana Poetry Slam series at Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. The moment her five-year old feet hit the pavement on her first visit to NYC, Jeanann felt the city’s magnetic pull; she arrived permanently in 2000.

Brooke Wacha, a radio chick who started writing somewhere along the way, recently moved into New York City after completing a summer fellowship with the International Radio and Television Society. She lives with her best friend, an Alaskan, and a kitten who tries to eat her turtle, "Baby."

Lauren Wheeler was born in Chicago, grew up in Miami Beach, lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and loves New York... from a comfortable distance. She has competed twice at the National Poetry Slam, and her work has appeared in Other Magazine, Lodestar Quarterly, and 365 tomorrows. After making video games for four years, she now works for a national non-profit that advocates for children of LGBT parents.

Beverly Wilkinson lives in Hockessin, DE.  Whenever she visits New York she always arrives underground.  She once performed a poem to a PATH car full of curious onlookers going from Hoboken to Manhattan just so she would have something interesting to put in her bio.  Beverly visits NYC whenever she is feeling bored with her suburban routine.

David Winter studies creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and escapes to NYC whenever he can. Aside from escaping, he also facilitates a writing workshop for prison inmates through the Right to Write program.

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