Adam McOmber
Adam McOmberis the author of The White Forest (Touchstone 2012) and This New & Poisonous Air (BOA Editions 2011). He teaches literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago where he is also the associate editor of the literary magazine Hotel Amerika. His fiction has recently appeared in Conjunctions, Third Coast and The Fairy Tale Review.
Mary Biddinger
Mary Biddinger is the author of the poetry collections Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books, 2007), Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), O Holy Insurgency (Black Lawrence Press,2012), and A Sunny Place with Adequate Water (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). She is also co-editor of The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics (U Akron Press,2011). Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Barrelhouse, Bat City Review, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, Crab Orchard Review, Forklift, Ohio, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Redivider, and Quarterly West, among others. She teaches literature and poetry writing at The University of Akron, where she edits Barn Owl Review, the Akron Series in Poetry, and the Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics.
Ed Bok Lee
Ed Bok Lee is the son of Korean immigrants, his mother from what is now North Korea, his father from the South. Lee was raised in South Korea, North Dakota and Minnesota. A former phys ed instructor, bartender, journalist, and translator, he studied in the U.S., South Korea, Kazakhstan and Russia, earning an MFA from Brown University. Lee has shared his work in journals, anthologies, and on stages across North America, Europe and Asia, as well as on public radio and MTV.
His new collection of poetry, Whorled, won the 2012 American Book Award and the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, and was a national bestseller in poetry. It follows his sensational debut, Real Karoke People, also a national bestseller in poetry, and the winner of a Many Voices Prize, an Asian American Literary Award (Members’ Choice), and the PEN/Open Book Award.
Brian Malloy
Brian Malloy’s three novels are The Year of Ice (St. Martin’s Press), Brendan Wolf (St. Martin’s Press), and Twelve Long Months (young adult novel, Scholastic). His books have been a Book Sense pick, a New York Times New and Notable title, and a Booklist editors’ choice for the best of 2002. Honors include grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Jerome Foundation, the 2003 American Library Association Alex Award, and a 2009 Minnesota Book Award. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and previously taught fiction writing at Emerson College (Boston).
Patti See
Patti See is a Distinguished Student Services Coordinator and teaches developmental education and women's studies courses at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She also supervises tutoring programs for multi-cultural students, students with disabilities, and first-generation/low-income students. Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Salon Magazine, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Journal of Developmental Education, The Wisconsin Academy Review, The Southwest Review, HipMama, Inside HigherEd, as well as other magazines and anthologies. She is the co-author (with Bruce Taylor) of Higher Learning: Reading and Writing About College, 3rd edition (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2011) and a poetry collection, Love’s Bluff (Plainview Press, 2006). She was the recipient of the 2004 Academic Staff Excellence in Performance Award from UW-Eau Claire and the 2006 University of Wisconsin-System Regents Award for Excellence.