Creative Nonfiction:

Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer and editor in New YorkCity.  While earning her BA in Englishfrom Scripps College in Claremont, California, she took a position at the localindie newspaper The Collage, whereshe rose up the ranks from reporter to editor in chief.  As an undergrad, she also began writing fornational magazines.  When she returned toNew York, she took a job proofreading eBooks. That was in 2001.  No one hadreally heard of eBooks back then, and the program soon shut down.  She transferred to Barnes & Noble's tradepaperback division, where she penned introductions to TheodoreRoosevelt's Hunting the Grisly and IsabellaBird's A Lady's Life in the RockyMountains as an associateeditor.  By then she had received acertificate in editing from New York University and first interned thenvolunteered at the Bowery Poetry Club.  In2006, she became involved in BurnsideWriters Collective, where she is currently the visual arts editor.  In 2009, she founded Asphalt Eden. She continues to write forvarious print and online magazines, and plans to one day finish that book shekeeps threatening to write.

Shiela Bender has been writing seriously since 1975 and has taught writing since 1980. She published her first book about writing (Writing in a Convertible with the Top Down) in 1991 and has continued writing and publishing poetry (Sustenance: New and Selected Poems), reviews (in Poet Lore, The Seattle Times and The World), and articles (Writer's Digest Magazine and The Writer), as well as producing and publishing many more books on writing, the newest entitled Writing and Publishing Personal Essays. Her essays and poems appear online and in numerous North American literary magazines and anthologies including Poetry Northwest, The Seattle Review, The Bellingham Review, Tiny Lights, and Tidepools.

Benjamin S. Lowenkron was born and raised in Virginia, where he learned many skills while earning a BA from the College of William and Mary, located in scenic Colonial Disneyland.  After mastering the arts of churning his own butter and chasing a hoop with a stick, he rolled down the hill to Louisiana, where everything looks like it is rising from the grave.  Ben managed to earn his MFA from Louisiana State University, where they have a live tiger and assigned him the email address, "Blowen1." He spent the salad days of his MFA  on the staff of the New Delta Review, earning his stripes as Editor-in-Chief, Assistant Editor, and indentured servant.  His work appears.  Pasts and futures include: The Café Review, Fresh!, Big Bridge, Unmoveable Feast, Ampersand, The River Writers,  The Pinch and all along the river.  For the past two years, Ben's fictional judgment as been on display in Country Roads' short story competition.  Five dollars can get you a foot-long sub, a fast-food value meal, cheap sunglasses, or a copy of Preacher's Blues, Ben's chapbook soon to be unleashed by Ampersand Books.    

Read Ben's work at The River Writers, Teddy's Juke Joint, New Delta Review, Unmovablefeast, and Ampersand Books. 

Robin Westen is an Emmy-Award winning daytime television writer, 

author of several books -- one of which is Oprah Winfrey's biography 

for a YA audience (all her books can be found on Amazon.com) and writes 

for dozens of national publications including MORE, Ladies Home Journal, 

Family Circle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Parents magazines. She also wrote 

a weekly column for Woman's World  for 18 years and a monthly sex advice 

column for Woman's Own Magazine. She spends warmer months with her family 

in their hilltop glass house in Brattleboro, Vermont, and the rest of the 

time in DUMBO, Bklyn. She can be found walking the Brooklyn Bridge daily 

-- weather is no limitiation-- and considers herself the karmic cousin of 

Hart Crane.

Fiction:

Shawn Rorhback completed his MFA at Naropa University 

in 2000. His book,"Open Your Heart with Bicycling..." 

won the 2008 Indie Book Award.  

His first novel, a suspense thriller titled "Playing 

the Game" was released in 2008.  His collection of 

short stories, "Strays and Other Stories" is in 

pre-release now with a November 1 release date.  

His second novel, a suspense thriller titled "Feast 

Days of the Saints" is being released in mid-November 

of this year. Find out more at www.shawnrohrbach.com 

Poetry:

Since her early teenage years, Rebecca Swanner has been fascinated with 

words. In high school she attended the prestigious Interlochen Academy 

for a summer and focused in poetry and spent her first two collegial 

years at Sarah Lawrence College where she focused on the art. 

Professionally, Rebecca has pursued a career in journalism and since 

2002, has worked at Stuff, Us Weekly, and Penthouse and written for many 

publications including Inked, Metromix, and Alternative Press. During 

these years, she has continued to work on her craft, and has recently 

started reading again near her home in Los Angeles.