Kate Clark is a sculptor who lives in New York and has a studio in Brooklyn. Her work studies the tension between personal and mythical realms by creating "unnatural" sculpture which synthesizes the human face and the body of wild animals. Kate has shown in group shows in New York, Detroit and Korea, and will have a solo show in Korea next Spring. Two of her sculptures were recently added to the David Robert's collection in London. Kate and her husband have lived in New York, Nantucket, Rome, Chicago and Detroit. Kate grew up in Connecticut and attended Cornell University for her BFA and Cranbrook Academy of Art for her MFA.

Born in 1981, in Tehran, Iran,Tala Madani came to the US in 1995. She received degrees in Visual Arts degree and Political Science at Oregon State University. Later Tala spent six months in Germany, working at the German Council of Foreign Affairs. She finished her Master’s degree at the Yale painting program in June 2006.

Justin Richel, from Portland, Maine, received a BFA from the Maine College of Art and studied the technique of icon painting at the Franciscan Monastery in Kennebunk. His work has been exhibited in various group shows throughout the state including the Portland Museum of Art. Justin's interests lie in combining human histories and exploring the excessive nature that pervades Western culture.

Steve McClure was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1971. He graduated from the University of, South Florida with a Bachelor’s degree in 1995. In Tampa he opened, with Eric Breit, the Willie Shaker Gallery, a traveling exhibition space. While living in North Carolina from 1996-2004, he produced the experimental noise show CMP (1998-2001) on WXDU and reopened the Willie Shaker Gallery. Steve has lived and worked in New York City since 2004. He has an abiding interest in the works of Goethe and the visual history of whales.

Nathalie Miebach holds a BA in Political Science and Chinese from Oberlin College and a MFA in Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art. Originally from Germany and France, Nathalie has spent many years living, teaching and making art in Southeast Asia and the United States. Recent awards include the 2006 International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement Award and the Graham Campbell Grant Prize.

Phil Whitman grew up amidst the logging rivers, battlesites and soccer fields of the Southern Adirondacks. He attended Bowdoin College, studying American History and Visual Art. He received an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has shown drawings, paintings and dioramas across the northeastern United States.

Echo Eggebrecht has had solo exhibitions at sixtyseven and Nicole Klagsburn in New York as well as group exhibitions at Nicole Klagsburn, White Box and Monya Rowe in New York, Wendy Cooper Gallery in Chicago, Groeflin Maag Gallery in Basel, Switzerland, and sixspace in Los Angeles. She will be included in the upcoming show Poets on Painters at the Ulrich Museum, Kansas in 2007.

Daniyal Mueenuddin lives in Khanpur, Pakistan, where he manages a farm. He has a degree in law from Yale University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. For a number of years he practiced law in New York City.

Nancy Kathleen Pearson, a Tennessee native, is a recent graduate of George Mason University’s MFA program. She was a finalist for the Walt Whitman Award and runner-up in the Perugia Press First Book Award. Her poetry has been published in MARGIE, Whiskey Island Review, Rock Salt Plum, Adirondack Review, and others.

Second-year fiction Fellow Chris Stuck was born and raised in Virginia and received his MFA from George Mason University in 2001. He is currently at work on a novel.

Samuel Amadon was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and is completing his MFA from Columbia University. His poems have appeared in such journals as American Letters & Commentary, American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, New England Review, Verse, and VOLT. His chapbook, Goodnight Lung, is forthcoming from Octopus Books.

Michael Dickman was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He currently lives in the Midwest where he works as a cook. His poems have appeared recently in FENCE and Tin House.

Patrick Ryan Frank is a graduate of the poetry programs of Northwestern University and Boston University. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Sycamore Review, The Texas Poetry Journal, and others. He has been the recipient of several awards, including, most recently, an Artist’s Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Daniel Khalastchi received his BA in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Octopus Magazine, The New Hampshire Review, Pebble Lake Review, Sonora Review and Fairy Tale Review, among others. A native Iowan, Daniel has been living in Iowa City, teaching freshman composition and working for the University's Young Writers' Studio.

Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He holds a BA / LLB from the University of Melbourne and practiced as a corporate attorney before coming to America to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Zoetrope: All-Story, A Public Space and The Harvard Review. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel.

Lydia Peelle was born in Boston. She received an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Hoyns fellow. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Epoch, Pindeldyboz, The Sun, and Prairie Schooner, as well as Best New American Voices 2007 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006.

Fiona McFarlane was born in Sydney, Australia, and received her BA from Sydney University. She moved to the UK in 2002 and has recently completed a PhD on contemporary American fiction at Cambridge University. Her short fiction has been published and produced for radio in Australia and the UK. She is currently working on her first novel.