My name is Kailen Forsythe-Elder. I like blue. Dark blue is my favorite color. I go to the Dome School. I’m in Fourth Grade. I write because it’s fun.

Jared Smith is the author of thirteen volumes of poetry, two CDs, and multi-media stage presentations in New York and Chicago. He is Poetry Editor of Turtle Island Quarterly, and has served on the Editorial Boards of leading literary magazines, including The New York Quarterly, Home Planet News, and The Pedestal Magazine. He has also served on the Board of Directors of literary and arts non-profits in New York, Illinois, and Colorado. He is a former Director of Education and Research for an international research institute, as well as former advisor to several White House Commissions under President Bill Clinton, and Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory. He has served on the faculty of New York University, LaGuardia Community College, and Illinois Institute of Technology. Jared currently lives outside Boulder, Colorado and spends much of his time at an unimproved log cabin deep in Roosevelt National Forest where the nearest neighbors are bears, elk, and moose.

Elena Botts has lived in the Hudson Valley, Johannesburg, Berlin, NYC, DC, and many other places. In the past few years, her poems have been published in dozens of literary magazines. She is the winner of four poetry contests and has had six books published. Her visual artwork has won numerous awards and has been exhibited in various galleries. She has also collaborated on, released and exhibited sound and moving image art.

Carter McKenzie’s work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems, Canary, Sisyphus, Turtle Island Quarterly, The Berkeley Poets Cooperative: A History of the Times, and the poetry anthology Of Course, I’m a Feminist! She lives in a small community in Western Oregon’s Middle Fork Willamette watershed region. Carter is an active member of the Springfield-Eugene Chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice). Stem of Us is her second full length book of poetry.

Jane Blue has been published widely both in print and online, including anthologies, books, and chapbooks. She authored four previous books of poetry and one memoir. Her publications include Avatar, Panoplyzine, Poetry Breakfast, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Turtle Island Quarterly, and the anthology Unrequited Love. Her poems have also appeared in, among others, Antigonish, The Chattahoochee Review, The Montserrat Review, Poetry International, The Louisville Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Salt Hill. She was born and raised in Berkeley, CA and lived in Sacramento, CA, before passing in October 2019.

Coreen Davis Hampson has lived in Southern Oregon since 1972. That was a year in which many idealistic urbanites moved here to live off the land, frequently communally. After graduating from Los Angeles State University with a B.A. in Anthropology, she decided to be a farmer. She and three friends started a farm in Selma. She has maintained a passion for growing things from the earth to this day, at age 73.

Christopher Luna is a poet, publisher, visual artist, writing coach, teacher, and editor with an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He served as Clark County, WA’s first Poet Laureate from 2013-2017, and is the editor of “The Work,” a monthly email newsletter featuring poetry events in Portland, Vancouver, and the Pacific Northwest. He is the co-founder, with Toni Lumbrazo Luna, of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press for Northwest writers. He and Lumbrazo Luna co-host Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, the popular reading series he founded in 2004.

Ruth Rhodes has lived in Del Norte County since 2003 and teaches English at the College of the Redwoods. She began writing about local culture through two long-running columns in The Triplicate. “The Localvore” focused on Del Norte foodways and “The Accidental Family,” written by her and other family members, chronicled their family’s expansion to include two teen-aged daughters coming out of the foster care system. Ruth is the author and co-composer of the musical This is Crescent City, produced by Lighthouse Repertory Theatre in 2014, and is the writer of a forthcoming graphic novel: How Did We Get Here? which tells the fictional story of four young friends struggling to find their place in their community. In 1998, BBC Radio’s show Short Story featured “Weaver Bird,” a tale Ruth penned while living and working in Kenya as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Her Alaska memoir about living and working in Denali National Park, included in Bona Fide Book’s 2015 anthology Permanent Vacation, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.