Mia Leonin is the author of two books of poetry Braid and Unraveling the Bed (Anhinga Press), and the recently released memoir Havana and Other Missing Fathers (University of Arizona Press). She has been awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, and her poetry and creative nonfiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Leonin writes extensively about dance, performance and Spanish-language theater for the Miami Herald. In 2007, she was selected to be a Fellow in the National Endowment for the Arts/Annenberg Institute on Theater and Musical Theater. She teaches creative writing at the University of Miami. http://www.mialeonin.com/

Michael Cleary grew up in Glens Falls, NY, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. A resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida since 1978, his poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including four college literature texts. His Hometown, USA, was published as 1992 winner of The American Book Series Award by San Diego Poets Press.

His second collection, Halfway Decent Sinners, appeared in 2005 from Word Tech Communications. He is a two-time recipient of a $5,000 Florida Arts Grant in Poetry (1986 and 1999), a Featured Lecturer for the National Endowment for the Humanities; as winner of the 2005 Paumanok Poetry Award, he was visiting writer at SUNY at Farmingdale. He is a recipient of an Endowed Teaching Chair at Broward College where he teaches Creative Writing and Film. http://michaelcleary.com/

Kristin Berkey-Abbott earned a Ph.D. in British Literature from the University of South Carolina. She has published in many journals and Pudding House Publications published her chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard, in 2004.

In 2008, she was invited to read as part of the noon reading series at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Currently, she teaches English and Creative Writing at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale and serves as assistant chair of the General Education department. Her website, which has connections to the blogs that she keeps, is
http://www.kristinberkey-abbott.com