Austin Alexis has published poetry, fiction and criticism in a number of journals, including Barrow Street, The Journal, Danse Macabre, Lips, Paterson Literary Review (forthcoming) and The Writer.  He has work in several anthologies, including Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and about the Police (Soft Skull Press).  One of his plays was selected for the Samuel French Short Plays Festival.  He has received a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Scholarship, a Millay Colony Scholarship, a Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant and a Pushcart Prize nomination.  He’s currently working on fiction.

Joel Allegretti is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently, Europa/Nippon/ New York : Poems/Not-Poems (Poets Wear Prada, 2012). His second collection, Father Silicon (The Poet’s Press, 2006), selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006, a list that included novels by Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon. He wrote the texts for three song cycles by Frank Ezra Levy, whose symphonic work is released on Naxos American Classics. Allegretti is a member of the Academy of American Poets and ASCAP.

Guillermo Filice Castro is the author of a chapbook, Cry Me a Lorca; his work appears in journals such as Assaracus, Barrow Street , Bellevue Literary Review, Court Green, Fogged Clarity, among others, as well as the anthologies Divining Divas, Saints of Hysteria, and many more.

Steven Cordova currently has poems in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry and Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on The Women Who Inspire Them; his first collection, Long Distance, appeared in 2011 from Bilingual Review Press.

Seren Divine is an Educator, a Performance & Visual Artist, Producer, Playwright, Published Writer, and Award Winning Poet.  Seren earns a living facilitating Performance & Writing Workshops for youth from Queens to Brooklyn , and in Colleges and Universities along the east coast. Seren has five collections in print, two recordings & is widely anthologized; most recently in Bowery Women Poems, Bowery Arts & Science, Ltd.  She recently debuted her first multi-media one woman show at New York City ’s historic WOW Café Theater; Be Here Now.
Find her at
·           http://facebook.com/seren.divine
·           www.boweryartsandscience.org
·           http://www.urbanwordnyc.org
·           http://www.urbanarts.org/

Ron Drummond’s first collection of poems is the prize-winning Why I Kick at Night. His poetry also appears in the Penguin textbook Literature as Meaning, and in the anthologies Poetry Nation, Poetry After 9/11, This New Breed, and Saints of Hysteria. His translations, in collaboration with the Guillermo Filice Castro, have appeared in U.S. Latino Review, Terra Incognita and Guernica. He has been awarded fellowships from Ragdale, VCCA, and Blue Mountain Center , and is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Ron has poems forthcoming in DUCTS and Ocean State Review.

Andrew Durbin co-edits Wonder, a publisher of artist books, pamphlets, ephemera, and glossies. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Antennae, InDigest,  Washington Square, West Wind Review, Web Conjunctions, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn .

Jameson Fitzpatrick is a poetry editor for Lambda Literary Review and a reader for Barrow Street . Visit www.jamesonfitzpatrick.com for more info.

Davidson Garrett is a native of Shreveport , Louisiana , and lives in Manhattan. He trained for the theater at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is a member of Screen Actor’s Guild, Actor’s Equity, and AFTRA. A graduate of The City College of New  York with an M.S. in Education, his poetry, prose, and articles have been published in newspapers, literary magazines and online journals including: The New York Times, The Episcopal New Yorker, Sensations Magazine, Third Wednesday, Big City Lit, and the Marco Polo Arts Magazine.  In 2006, he published a collection of poetry and prose: King Lear of the Taxi, (Advent Purple Press).  In December 2011, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Davidson has been a New York City taxi driver for over 30 years to help subsidize his art. Davidson’s website: www.adventpurplepress.com

Stephanie Gray Filmmaker-poet Stephanie Gray’s first book Heart Stoner Bingo was published by Straw Gate Books in 2007, and her super 8 films deal with a range of topics from the gentrifying city to queer pop culture icons (at least to her) such as Joan of Arc, Laverne & Shirley, and of course, Kristy McNichol who, as we all know, recently finally came out! Her work has appeared in Aufgabe, 2ndAvenuePoetry, Sentence, The Recluse, The Brooklyn Rail and other publications. You can read her poem about Eileen Myles here at her publisher’s website, and learn more about her work: www.leafscape.org/StrawGateBooks/gray.html

Tanika LA Harbor  is a Performance/Healing Artist, using voice, sound, body, characterization and laughter to question, transform, ignite and entertain, navigating this through: ¼ Poet/Writer, ¼ Blues Child, ¼ Actor/Director, ¼ Drag/Burlesque. She is Poetic-Justice, serving the community as a New York City Police Officer, whose passion is advocating/protecting victims of domestic violence/sexual assault and mentoring youth within the community.  A proud Two-Spirited Detroit native, though the family roots lye in a small village/town in the Louisiana Bayou, she has been sharing/performing her work for over 10 years.  After completing undergraduate work in Theater and Africana Studies, Tanika moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in Acting. Her writing/work is infused with notions of race, gender, sexuality, spirituality and growing up urban: turning love, lost, oppression and conflict into Art. Tanika has been seen in NYC performances that include, FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, AUGUST IN APRIL, A TACK ON AN AMERICAN CONSCIENCE and a preview of her one-person show, entitled, MAKE ME WANNA’ HOLLA.’   www.TanikaLaDawn.com

Scott Hightower
 
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is from Panama City , Panama and holds degrees in creative writing from the University of Michigan and the University of Houston . He is the recipient of scholarships to Cave Canem, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, various awards, writing fellowships, and writer’s residencies. He and his work have appeared in TIME Magazine, the Caribbean Writer, on the Best American Poetry blog as one of the Phantastique 5, and elsewhere. He currently resides in New York City , and the latest news about his performance work with Preston Witt can be found at darrelandpreston.com

Saeed Jones: A 2011 Pushcart Prize Nominee, Saeed Jones received his MFA from Rutgers University—Newark. His work has appeared or forthcoming in publications like Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jubilat, West Branch & Blackbird. His chapbook When the Only Light is Fire is available from Sibling Rivalry Press. He blogs regularly at saeedjones.com.
 
Zoe Contros Kearl is a Texan poet living, working and writing in New York.
 
Collin Kelley is the author of the novels Remain In Light, a 2012 finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and Conquering Venus. His poetry collections include Better To Travel, After the Poison, Slow To Burn and the forthcoming Render (2013, Sibling Rivalry Press). His poetry, essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in journals, magazines and anthologies around the world. www.collinkelley.com

Michael Klein’s book “then, we were still living” was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and his next book of poems “The Talking Day” will be published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013.

Jee Leong Koh is the author of three books of poems, most recently Seven Studies for a Self Portrait (Bench Press, 2011). Born and raised in Singapore , he lives in New York City and blogs at Song of a Reformed Headhunter.

Dean Kostos is the author of Rivering (forthcoming), Last Supper of the Senses, The Sentence That Ends with a Comma, and Celestial Rust. He edited Pomegranate Seeds and Mama’s Boy. His poems have appeared in Boulevard, Chelsea, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at The City University of New York. His Web site is www.deankostos.com

Bill Kushner: my latest book is Walking After Midnight by spuyten dyvil press.

Jimmy Lam Dominican by birth, Caribbean by choice and Gringa by accident, Jimmy Lam writes poetry, short stories, memoirs, political and cultural analysis and short essays.  He studied @ the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo School of Medicine and Humanities and obtained a BA in English and French.  He completed an MA in International Relations at City College. His writing has appeared in English and “Dominicanish” in the Dominican Republic, New York and on the web in: El Listin Diario, El Nuevo Diario, Antologia de la Literatura Gay Dominicana, Colour Life Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Village Voice, Siempre, Dominican Today and Cielonaranja.com. Jimmy’s essay, In Defense of Pleasure: Sensuality and Eroticism in Dominican Women Writers in the US, appeared in the anthology Mujeres de Palabra at La Feria del Libro Dominicano in 2010.  Most recently his poetry was featured in Mary, a Literary Quarterly, and The Best of Panic. His short story Midnite Waters just appeared in the collection: “From Macho to Mariposa. New Gay Latino Fiction”  His book “Sexile” is scheduled for release in the fall of 2012.  He lives in Jeisey City with his paitner, Oskar, and continues to write the interminable memoirs, “Neurosis of My Own.” my email: jimmylam1992@gmail.com
blog: jimmylamgaydominicanwriting.blogspot.com

Sam LaRoche
 
Tony Leuzzi lives in Rochester , NY .  His second book of poems, Radiant Losses, won the New Sins Editorial Prize in 2009, and was published the following year. In 2011, Anything Anymore Anywhere UK published a limited edition of his third book, Fake Book.  He is currently looking for an American Publisher. BOA Editions will publish his book of interviews with 20 American poets in November 2012.

Dawn Lundy Martin’s first full-length collection, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering ( University of Georgia Press , 2007), was selected by Carl Phillips for the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her second collection, Discipline (2011) was chosen by Fanny Howe for the 2009 Nightboat Books Poetry Prize and is a finalist for the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is also the author of three chapbooks, Candy (Albion Books, 2012) The Undress (Belladonna Books, 2006) and The Morning Hour (Poetry Society of America, 2003), which was selected by C. D. Wright for the Poetry Society of America’s National Chapbook Fellowship. She is the co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation ( New York ), feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support young women and transgender youth ages 15 to 30, and she is a founding member of The Black Took Collective, an experimental performance art/poetry group. She is currently an assistant professor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh .
 
DOUGLAS A. MARTIN is the author of books of poetry and prose, including: Once You Go Back, In The Time of Assignments, Branwell, and They Change the Subject.  His first novel, Outline of My Lover, was selected by Colm Tóibín as an International Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement and adapted in part by the Forsythe Company for their multimedia ballet/live film, Kammer/Kammer.
douglasarthur.blogspot.com

Charan P. Morris is a poet/performer/educator transplanted from Chicago to New York. Poetry takes its rightful place in her life—neck and neck with teaching. A LAMBDA Literary Foundation 2011 Emerging LGBT Voices Fellow, her work has been published in The Gallatin Review and Brownstone Magazine. She has performed as a feature poet for various audiences along the East Coast & Midwest. She has shared a stage with artists such as Gill Scott-Heron, Climbing Poetree, The Last Poets, Staceyann Chin, Lemon Anderson, Toni Blackman, Ishle Park and others. Her work fuels public dialogue around the destructive nature of colorism, homophobia and the effects of war. Of course, sometimes she writes about being human.
 
Angelo Nikolopoulos is the recipient of the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize and a graduate of NYU’s Creative Writing Program. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2012, Best New Poets 2011, Boston Review, Cortland Review, Los Angeles Review, Meridian, New York Quarterly, North American Review, Tin House and elsewhere. His first book of poems, Obscenely Yours, is the winner of the Kinereth Gensler Award and is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2013.

Eric Norris is the co-author (along with Gavin Geoffrey Dillard) of Nocturnal Omissions, available from Sibling Rivalry Press. He is also the author of two books available on Lulu.com: Terence, and Takaaki, an epic love poem written in the style of Alexander Pushkin. His poems have appeared in both foreign and domestic literary journals. He is a founding editor of KIN, an international poetry journal due to launch in April. Eric is a co-host of Carmine Street Metrics monthly reading series at The Bowery Poetry Club in New York City .

Evan J. Peterson lives and writes in Seattle . Recent work may be found in Weird Tales, Assaracus, SmallDoggies, and Aim for the Head. More info and links at www.evanjpeterson.com

Tim Trace Peterson is a poet, critic, and the editor/publisher of EOAGH.  Peterson is co-editing, with Gregory Laynor, the forthcoming Collected Writings of Gil Ott (Chax Press), co-editing with TC Tolbert the forthcoming Anthology of Trans & Genderqueer Poetry (EOAGH Books), and curates the TENDENCIES: Poetics & Practice talks series at CUNY Graduate Center .

Steven Riel is the author of three chapbooks of poetry: How to Dream, The Spirit Can Crest, and most recently, Postcard from P-town, which was selected as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize and published in 2009 by Seven Kitchens Press.  In 2005, Christopher Bursk named him the Robert Fraser Distinguished Visiting Poet at Bucks County (PA) Community College.  His poems have appeared in several anthologies and in numerous periodicals, including The Minnesota Review, International Poetry Review, and Evening Street Review.  He served as poetry editor of RFD between 1987 and 1995.  He received the MFA in Poetry in 2008 from New England College, where he was awarded a Joel Oppenheimer Scholarship.  In 1992 he received a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. One of his poems was selected by Denise Levertov as runner-up for the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize in 1987.  www.stevenriel.com

Jason Roush is the author of three books of poems: After Hours, Breezeway, and Crosstown, all published by Orchard House Press.  He teaches at Emerson College and New England Institute of Art, and he recently completed his fourth collection of poetry, titled Dispossession.

Gregg Shapiro: Entertainment journalist Gregg Shapiro is the author of the chapbook Gregg Shapiro: 77 (Souvenir Spoon Press, 2012) and the poetry collection Protection (Gival Press, 2008).
 
Sara Jane Stoner is a writer, performer, and teacher at Brooklyn College and The Cooper Union. She has an MFA in Fiction from Indiana University and is currently a PhD student in English at CUNY Graduate Center . Recent writing can be found or is forthcoming in Spinning Jenny, ESQUE, and the Poetry Project Newsletter, among other places.

Richard Tayson is the author of The World Underneath and The Apprentice of Fever, winner of the Wick Poetry Prize, and the co-author of Look Up for Yes.  He has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Prairie Schooner’s Edward Stanley Award, a Pushcart Prize and, most recently, 2nd place in the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s Smokin’ Words Poetry Competition. Tayson is Part Time Associate Professor at The New School and a Chancellor’s Fellow in the Ph.D. program in English at City University of New York’s Graduate Center where he is where he is completing his dissertation on William Blake’s influence on New York punk performer Patti Smith.

Ocean Vuong Born in Saigon , Vietnam , Ocean Vuong is the author of the chapbook BURNINGS (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010) and is currently an undergraduate at Brooklyn College , CUNY. He was a semi-finalist for the 2011 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and has received an Academy of American Poets award, the Connecticut Poetry Society’s Al Savard Award, as well as four Pushcart Prize nominations. Poems appear in RHINO, diode, Lantern Review, Softblow, Crate, and PANK, among others. He keeps a blog at www.oceanvuong.blogspot.com

Richard Marx Weinraub was born in New York City in 1949 and is related to the Marx Brothers through his mother. He taught at the University of Puerto Rico as a Professor of English from 1987 through 2010.  A book of his poetry entitled Wonder Bread Hill was published in 2002 by the University of Puerto Rico Press. His poetry has appeared in many journals including The Paris Review, Asheville Poetry Review, South Carolina Review, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, Measure, The Evansville Review, River Styx, and Slate.  A Spanish translation of Wonder Bread Hill was recently published by Terranova Press. A chapbook of his poetry entitled Heavenly Bodies was published in 2008 by Poets Wear Prada, and a poem from it was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize.  In 2012, Poets Wear Prada will publish his full-length book of poetry entitled Lapidary.

Bakar Wilson is a fellow of Cave Canem, the prestigious organization nourishing vital voices in African-American poetry.  He has performed his work at the Bowery Poetry Club, Poetry Project, The Studio Museum of Harlem, and The Asian-American Writer’s Workshop among others.  His poetry has appeared in several journals, including: The Vanderbilt Review, Stretching Panties, and The Brooklyn Rail.  A native of Tennessee, Bakar lives in New York City and is an Adjunct Lecturer of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

LeNair Xavier (pronounced HAH-vee-air) gained notoriety in the underground as adult entertainer, “Tré Xavier”(pronounced ZAY-vee-ur). But not for his being a sex object as much as his being an intellectual one. One that he still displays with his blog, “L’s X-Ray Vision” (TresX-RayVision.com). His displays of intellect and honesty about the massive flaws of the porn industry led to his much-needed exit from studio-based porn in September 2009. But on the even brighter side was followed by a printed opinion in The Advocate, and his creative endeavors such as poetry spawned interviews for domestic and international magazines in 2011. So LeNair is now bringing his talents above ground, and more accessible to all.

More bios to come.