Craig Beaven is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. A Kentucky native, he holds a BA in English from the University of Kentucky. His poems and reviews have appeared in ACE Magazine, Limestone, and the Lexington Herald-Leader, and he has work forthcoming in DIAGRAM. His interviews and reviews have appeared in several issues of Blackbird.  

Jon Pineda is the author of the poetry collection Birthmark (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry Open Competition. A recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, he has new work forthcoming in Prairie Schooner and in the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (University of Illinois, 2004). His short story "Animal Control" appears in Blackbird, Vol.3 No. 1.