Dorianne Laux was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Laux's fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year, and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions: Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, to be reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press; What We Carry (1994); and Smoke (2000). Red Dragonfly Press will release Superman: The Chapbook, later this year. Co-author of The Poet's Companion, she’s the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Orion, and Ms. Magazine. She has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Petaluma, California and Juneau, Alaska. In 1994 she moved to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, the poet Joseph Millar.

Ray Gonzalez is the author of nine books of poetry including Consideration of the Guitar (BOA Editions, 2005). His other titles from BOA include: The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande (2002), a winner of a 2003 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry; Cabato Sentora (1999); and The Heat of Arrivals (1996), a winner of a 1997 PEN/Josephine Miles Book Award.

He is the author of two books of nonfiction: Memory Fever (1999), a memoir about growing up in the Southwest; and The Underground Heart (2002), which received the 2003 Carr P. Collins/Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best Book of Nonfiction. He is also the author of two books of short stories: The Ghost of John Wayne (2001) and Circling the Tortilla Dragon (2002). His poetry has appeared in the 1999, 2000, and 2003 editions of The Best American Poetry and in The Pushcart Prize: Best of Small Presses 2000.

He is the editor of twelve anthologies, most recently No Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 Poets. He has served as Poetry Editor of The Bloomsbury Review for twenty-five years and founded LUNA, a poetry journal, in 1998. He received a Lifetime Acheivement Award in Literature from the Border Regional Library Association in 2003 and is a Full Professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

	Sean Thomas Dougherty was born in 1965. His newest book is Broken Hallelujahs (BOA Editions, 2007). He is the author of nine books including Nightshift Belonging to Lorca, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and Except by Falling, winner of the 2000 Pinyon Press Poetry Prize from Mesa State College. His awards include two Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry. Known for his electrifying performances, he has toured extensively across North America and Europe. He received an MFA in poetry from Syracuse University and lives in Erie, PA where he teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at Penn State Erie.
	Christopher Kennedy's newest book is Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death (BOA Editions, 2007). Kennedy grew up in a working-class suburb of Syracuse, New York. He received a B.A. in English from LeMoyne College and a M.A. in Creative Writing/English from Syracuse University where he is currently the Director of the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. Kennedy has published two books of prose poems, Nietzsche's Horse and Trouble with the Machine and one chapbook of prose poems, Greatest Hits. His writing has appeared in print and electronic journals including Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, Double Room, and Del Sol Review among many others. Kennedy has received fellowships and awards from the Onondaga County Cultural Resource Center, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.
	G. C. Waldrep's newest book is Disclamor (BOA Editions, 2007). Waldrep was born in the small town of South Boston, VA, in 1968. He holds degrees in American history from Harvard and Duke and a MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. His first book of poems, Goldbeater's Skin, won the 2003 Colorado Prize for Poetry as well as a Greenwall Award from The Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, among many journals. He has received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Campbell Corner Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is also the author of a nonfiction book, Southern Workers and the Search for Community (University of Illinois Press, 2000), which won the 2001 Illinois Prize for history. He is currently visiting professor of poetry and literature at Kenyon College.
	Stever Fellner's newest book is Blind Date with Cavafy (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007). Fellner was born and raised in Chicgo and currently is an Assisstant Professor of English at SUNY Brockport. His poems and essays have appeared in Doubletake, North American Review, Northwest Review, Mid-American Review, Puerto del Sol, The Sun, and elsewhere. He attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Syracuse University, University of Alabama, and he received his PhD from the University of Utah. Blind Date with Cavafy is his first book of poems and was chose by Denise Duhamel as the winnner of the 2006 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. He is also finishing a memoir entitled Where I Went Wrong.
	Mike Dockins was born in 1972 and grew up in New York. He holds a B.S. from SUNY Brockport and an MFA from UMASS Amherst. He lives in Atlanta where he is completing a Ph.D. at Georgia State University. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Crazyhorse and The Gettysburg Review, and they have been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. A Pushcart prize nominee, Mike is a co-founding editor of Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. His first book of poems, Slouching in the Path of a Comet, was published by Sage Hill Press in 2007. His poem, “Dead Critics Society,” was selected by guest editor Heather McHugh for inclusion in the 2007 edition of The Best American Poetry. Mike is also a singer-songwriter. You can find his band Clop on iTunes, Napster, and elsewhere.
	Timothy Green lives in Los Angeles, where he works as editor of the poetry journal Rattle. His poems have appeared recently in The Connecticut Review, Florida Review, Fugue, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, and other journals. His first book-length collection, American Fractal, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press (2008).
	Danielle L. Fraenkel, Ph.D., ADTR, NCC, LCAT, LMHC, a dance/movement therapist for more than 3 decades and creator of LivingDance, continues to share her work in the Mid East, Europe, Asia, and across North and Central America. Director of Kinections, Dr. Fraenkel has also published academic articles on the relationship between elements of dance and language. Of special note to the poets reading this bio, Dr. Fraenkel and Sharon Olds studied dance for years with the same teacher, Jack Wiener, a performer and instructor who inspired them both. Currently, Dr. Fraenkel also provides dance/movement therapy for adolescents and adults in Unity Hospital System’s Partial Hospitalization Program for Eating Disorders and supervises dance/movement therapy at Heritage Christian Services. Fraenkel has also studied with contemporary-American poet Sharon Olds.
	Jeffrey D. Mehr, MA, creator of LivingMusic is developing an approach to improvisational playing that grows out of the LivingDance process. It fosters exploration, discovery, and immediate feedback. He has played music since he was four, practiced LivingDance for more than nine years, and has been involved with the martial arts for over 30 years. A poet in his own right, he continues to listen to the music in poetry and to the poetry in music.
	Karla Linn Merrifield whas been widely published in journals and anthologies throughout the U.S. She is the author of Midst and the newly released Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing), and she is the editor of the environmental anthology THE DIRE ELEGIES: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America, also from FootHills. She is poetry editor for Sea Stories, the literary-artistic journal of Blue Ocean Institute, and she teaches writing at SUNY Brockport.
	Charlie Coté is a clinical social worker in Rochester, N.Y. Publication credits include The Cortland Review, Upstreet, Blueline, Free Lunch, Identity Theory, Modern Haiku, Connecticut River Review, and HazMat Review. Thom Ward, editor of BOA Edition writes: “Charlie Coté’s best poems . . . are pulsing, spiritual inquiries that are deadly serious … they maintain their levity even as they seek to locate those issues of the human heart that matter most. . . .”
	Claudia M. Stanek earned her MFA at Bennington College. She is the owner of Poetic Effect, a poetry submission service. She lives in Perinton, NY with her three rescued shih-tzu editors.
	Rafe Martin is the author of over 20 books and the recipient of three American Library Association Notable Book Awards, Four Parent's Choice Gold Awards, two Anne Izard Storyteller's Choice Awards, an American Folklore Society Aesop's Accolade Award, several American Bookseller "Pick of the Lists," an IRA Teacher's Choice Award and many other awards of Distinction. His work has been cited in Time Magazine, Newsweek, U.S News and World Report, and USA TODAY. The Women's National Book Association has honored him with their Lucille Micheels Pannell Award for his "unique creativity in bringing children and books together." For more information, visit his website, www.rafemartin.com.
	Ron Bailey was born in Syracuse, where his antiwar activist, high school English teacher, Jerome Berrigan, inspired him to begin writing. He has been published in several national journals, and has a chapbook, Greenfire. His teaching of creative writing began in "the 60's" and continues still at Writers & Books and in private educational settings. He lives in Penfield and enjoys his trips to the woods in the Southern Tier.
	Dee Hogan thinks that poetry is "the linger of a long kiss." One of the original founders of Just Poets, she served as its treasurer for two years. Her poetry has been published in most of our local anthologies, and in the last 4 years, 35 of her essays have been published in the Democrat & Chronicle and the Messenger/Post papers. She also taught English, creative writing and acting in New York State public high schools for 35 years. Currently, she teaches writing, literature, and memoir at St. John Fisher College, where for the last four years, she has hosted "Write The Night Away" – an English-Department sponsored creative writing forum for the community.
	Christine Fendley is the Artistic Director of Park Avenue Dance Company. Her choreography has been presented at Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music, Wells College, Pyramid Arts Center, MCC, the Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective Series, and Park Avenue Dance Company performances. She has received grants for her interdisciplinary collaborative choreography in video, dance, music, and theater from NYSCA, the Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Wilmot Foundation. Ms. Fendley has taught contemporary dance for Nazareth College, Wells College, The Aesthetic Education Institute, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, Canandaigua Schools, the Eastman Community Music School and Park Avenue Dance Company. She is a founding member of the Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective (RCDC).
	The Park Avenue Dance Company celebrates nearly 30 years in motion. The company's mission is to encourage and develop Modern Contemporary Dance through choreography and performance (Park Avenue Dance Company), education (Modern Contemporary Dance classes and other styles of dance), and community involvement (Workshops, Residencies, and Performances). In keeping with our mission we are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
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