Bruce Ballenger teaches creative nonfiction at Boise State University. His most recent book is Crafting Truth: Short Studies in Creative Nonfiction.
Bob Cowser, Jr. is the author of three nonfiction books, Dream Season, (a New York Times Editor’s Choice), Scorekeeping: Essays From Home, and most recently Green Fields: Crime, Punishment and a Boyhood Between. He is also editor of the 2010 anthology Why We’re Here: New York Essayists on Living Upstate. His work has appeared widely in American literary magazines and other publications, including Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, and The Huffington Post. He is a Professor of English at St. Lawrence University and on the faculty of the Low-Residency MFA Program at Ashland University.
Lori Jakiela is the author of a memoir, Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette/Grand Central). Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, River Styx, Brevity, KGB BarLit and elsewhere. She teaches in the undergraduate writing program at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and in the low-residency MFA program at Chatham University. Her website is www.lorijakiela.com.
Tom Lassiter lives in South Florida. His work has appeared in Tropic, the late, great Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald, and online at www.tuesdayshorts.com, www.verbsap.com, www.storyglossia.com, www.willowsweptreview.com, and www.bewilderingstories.com. A former reporter, his journalism has appeared in many newspapers and in New Times.
Mel Livatino is a retired professor of English from the City Colleges of Chicago. He has published three essays in The Sewanee Review, two of which were named Notable Essays of the Year by Robert Atwan in Best American Essays (2005, 2010). In recent years he has also published essays and interviews in Under the Sun, Writing on the Edge, and Academic Questions.
Maggie Messitt splits her time between middle America and southern Africa. She worked as an international reporter for more than six years, during which time she founded a journalism school for rural African women, edited a community newspaper, and completed a book-length immersion project (from which MaSociatie has been excerpted). A graduate of Goucher College’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction program, Maggie is currently working on a memoir and teaching creative nonfiction at Shake Rag Alley: Midwest Center for the Arts. For more information, please visit maggiemessitt.com.
Angela Morales, a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the Univeristy of Iowa, now lives in Pasadena, California where she teaches English at Glendale Community College. Currently, she is hard at work on a memoir/essay collection about her childhood which includes haunted houses, difficult grandmothers, and kidnappers.
Sam Pickering teaches English at the University of Connecticut. He has been in school for 65 years, starting when he was four and entered kindergarten. In greener days he fancied himself kin to the Wayward Wind. Clearly he was mistaken.
Jason Tucker received an MFA in nonfiction from The Ohio State University. Aside from his work with small newspapers and magazines, his writing has appeared in Sweet. He currently teaches writing at Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland, and lives in Ithaca, NY.
Gabriel Urza is a fourth-generation Nevadan. He is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing at The Ohio State University.
