Nathan Blake

Nathan has lived on the coastal back roads of Virginia all his life and holds a BA in Philosophy from Christopher Newport University. He has been gainfully employed as a septic service technician, painter of modular homes, camp counselor, elementary school paraprofessional, and freelance janitor. His life and, coincidentally, his stories are generally populated with the down-and-out and the defeated. The first story he ever wrote found immediate publication. It's been an uphill battle ever since.

Jeff earned his B.A. in English from Southern Illinois University in May 2012.  He is from the very small town of Eldorado, Illinois.  Besides poetry, Jeff enjoys fiction, movies (his Netflix account shows that he has rated over 1200), occasional doodling, and his favorite pastime of daydreaming about winning the Lottery, only to blow it all on purchasing islands that do not exist (Jeff knows nothing of Geography).  His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Midwest Literary Magazine, Glassworks, and Jenny.  He loves all people, except for the ones that he dislikes.

This is, of course, an abridged autobiography. It is scaled down and some things have been omitted for the sake of being radical. Not radical like fundamentalism, but rather like Ninja Turtles. I’m a child of the 80’s who, perhaps like you dear reader, ate big bowls of cereal with even bigger spoons on Saturday mornings, rode a bike and wore no helmet, told time by the streetlights, had a metal lunchbox adorned with Transformers, had a phone with a cord, rocked tapes, mixed tapes, measured height in fists after school by a flagpole, measured the scrapes by the strength of hugs after, and galloped terribly against the hills of a valley that baptizes its youth in dirt, sagebrush, and the spaces in-between. I have spent my entire life volleying between the desert and mountains of Reno, Nevada. I will soon graduate from the University of Nevada, Reno, where I will have earned my B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, after which I will wish the abstaining western clouds a choked farewell and cast.

Amy Marengo

Amy Marengo grew up in Central Massachusetts near a yak farm and a chasm called Purgatory. She enjoys reading out loud from the passenger seat during long car rides while her boyfriend Justin drives. When not reading, she writes poetry or searches for wild animals.

She won the New England Poetry Club’s John Holmes Award, the Marcia Keach Poetry Prize, and the Peter Brooks Butler Memorial Scholarship to Oxford University. Her poetry has appeared in a few publications, including Pressed Wafer and Inman Review. No matter how many poetry readings she takes part in, her voice will always shake.

Amy earned a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UMass Boston, and she looks forward to becoming a better reader and writer while attending Virginia Tech.

I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and I graduated from Barnard College, where I earned my B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. I have since lived in New York, Delaware and Boston, where I have waited tables, coached cross-country and worked as a high school tutor. I write fiction. I’m most interested in how setting and natural landscape shape my writing and characters. In addition to writing, I run, bike and swim. I’m looking forward to writing, teaching and training in the hills of Blacksburg.

Born in Venezuela, a country known for its camaraderie and beautiful, flamboyant landscapes, but moved to the sunny-weathered, alligator-populated ponds of Florida at the age of twelve. From Venezuelan/Spaniard/Lebanese/German ancestry, comes an unorganized amalgam of a mind that aches if left unresolved, unshared, unarticulated.

Believes in ...

the raw power of the name; creating characters that probe and elucidate cultural mindsets; utilizing language as a uniting force; rendering the voiceless, even if just a reminiscence of their lives is portrayed, their stories will not be entirely lost; the necessity of shattering all boundaries of comfort; producing unapologetic writing that is about an immediate moment, and of an undeniable sincerity; tongues not being sanctioned for their authenticity; providing the Latino community with evidence of our pan-Hispanic sensibility; the classroom as a site where exciting discussions can cover not just technical aspects of writing but the broad, important themes of what it is to be human.