Patrick Ragland lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter. His poems have appeared on receipts and napkins, but they mainly appear in his notebooks.
Valerie A. Smith is a poet and essayist. Her first book of poems, Back to Alabama, is forthcoming by Sundress Publications. She earned the PhD in English from Georgia State University and the MA in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University where she is currently a Lecturer of English. Her poems appear in Aunt Chloe, Weber, Spectrum, Obsidian, Crosswinds, Dogwood, Solstice, Oyster River Pages, and Wayne Literary Review. Above all, she values spending quality time with her family.
Dr. Alan Altany is a partially retired, septuagenarian college professor of religious studies and theology who is still teaching. He has been a factory worker, swineherd on a farm, hotel clerk, lawn maintenance worker, high school teacher, small magazine of poetry editor, director of religious education for churches, truck driver, among other things. In 2022 he has published a book of Christian poetry entitled A Beautiful Absurdity: Christian Poetry of the Sacred. His website is at https://www.alanaltany.com/.
James Cacos earned a B.A. In French from Yale University and an M.A. in English from The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. He taught at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont for twenty-five years, retiring in 2011. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Ted Lewis is a restorative justice practitioner and trainer living in Duluth, Minnesota. He founded the Restorative Church website and is executive director of the International Jacques Ellul Society.
Kim Hayes is a poet residing in the mountains of western North Carolina. Most recently, her work appears in the book Winged with Longing for Better Things, a collection of Lenten meditations. She is an active lay leader in her church, and the questions, struggles and little epiphanies of belief are frequent themes in her writing.