About Lana Hechtman Ayers:

Lana Hechtman Ayers, originally from New York, lives in the Pacific Northwest where she works as a manuscript consultant and writing workshop facilitator.  She is also the poetry editor of Crab Creek Review and runs Concrete Wolf Poetry Chapbook Press.  Lana earned Bachelors degrees in Mathematics and Psychology and holds a Masters in Counseling Therapy as well as an MFA in Poetry.  A Hedgebrook and Jack Straw alumna, Pushcart Prize and National Book Award nominee, she is the author of several collections of poems, A New Red (Pecan Grove Press, forthcoming 2010), Dance From Inside My Bones (Snake Nation Press, 2007), Chicken Farmer I Still Love You (D-N Publishing, 2007), and Love is a Weed (Finishing Line Press, 2006).  Cats, tekka maki, Earl Grey ice cream, jazz and independent film are among Lana’s favorite things.

About Paul Fisher:

Paul Fisher was born and grew up in Seattle, earned a master’s degree in Art & Education from Washington University in St. Louis, an MFA in poetry from New England College, and has studied writing in a variety of academic and workshop settings, including the University of Washington, Centrum at Port Townsend, and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the recipient of an Individual Artist’s Fellowship in Poetry from the Oregon Arts Commission, and was Featured Poet in the Spring 2008 issue of the Centrifugal Eye. His poems have appeared in dozens of periodicals, several anthologies, and have been honored with awards from literary journals such as Defined Providence, Explorations, and Nimrod. His poem, “Dream Water” is the current Dirty Napkin Magazine Cover Prize winner, and his first book, Rumors of Shore, is the winner of the 2009 Blue Light Book Award. Paul recently returned to the Northwest after several years on the east coast, and lives in Bellingham with his wife, Linda.