The Art of War (cover)
MANDEM is the art name for Maize Arendsee, an art instructor and Studio Art MFA student at Florida State University, and her life-partner, Moco Steinman-Arendsee. MANDEM’s artwork is described as an exercise in categorical violations, simulation, and narrative. With an academic background in classical mythology, gender studies, and critical theory, MANDEM works across media and materials (painting, assemblage/collage, film, sculpture, and book-making), intentionally destabilizing genre in terms of content and media. MANDEM’s artwork has been widely exhibited in art galleries and museums, and it has been featured in over 100 publications.

Sun-Tzu, Lao-Tse
Brian has been published in various short story anthologies, including Queer Sci Fi’s Discovery, NonBinary Review No. 3: The Wizard of Oz, Dark Chapter Press’s Kill for a Copy, and various short story collections. Brian collaborates with another writer, Chuck Amadori, on the supernatural dark fantasy noir comic book series Empress, along with Pencil Blue Studios’ Marcelo Salaza for the art. His first novel, Carolina Daemonic, was published by J. Ellington Ashton Press in 2015.

shed no drop of blood
Amy writes poetry, stories, picture books and non-fiction. Her work appears in publications including The Gorge Literary Journal, Mothers Always Write, Sein und Werden, and McGraw-Hill Big Books. She’s had the pleasure of working on the revision process with Oregon’s former poet laureate Paulann Petersen.

A Study of War and Its Consequences
Mary is the author of Aerialist (Gold Wake, 2015) and Roomful of Sparrows, (Finishing Line, 2008). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Nimrod, Salamander, The Cortland Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She is Associate Professor of English and Communication Studies at MCPHS University in Boston, Massachusetts.

House Rules
Natalie is a Bronx-born poet and Pushcart Prize Nominee. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy from Lehman College/CUNY where she teachs composition, and an MFA in Poetry from City College/CUNY where she was selected as one of the first recipients of the Creative Writing Fellowship.

I never know where I stand
Adrian is an L.A. Poet who is a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. His poetry has been featured in The Yellow Chair Review, Thick With Conviction, Silver Birch Press and one of his poems was named Cultured Vultures’ Top 3 Poems of the Week.

Burning Pages in Gaza
Anne is the author of Reluctant Mistress (Gold Wake Press, 2013) and The Dark Length Home (Noctuary Press, forthcoming). Her work appears in Verse Daily, The Pinch, New South, Redivider, PANK Magazine, The Comstock Review, Thrush Poetry Journal and elsewhere.

Self-Portrait as Femme Fatale
Emily is a writer, folksinger, tea-lover, and MFA candidate in poetry at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her debut folk album, I Wanna Know, was released in May of 2012 and is available on iTunes and Amazon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Jabberwock Review, Passages North, and Nimrod, among others.

The Phone Call
Michael is a novelist and essayist whose novels Anything But Ordinary and The Patriot Joe Morton were finalists for the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Medal in Novel. When he is not writing, Michael teaches at Volunteer State Community College and Tennessee State University. He is currently working on his next novel.

Tip of His Tongue
Colin is the author of Another Broken Wizard, WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job. Colin’s book-length poem That Happy Captive was a finalist for the Trio House Press Louise Bogan Award as well as the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award in 2015. And his screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest.

The Cubism of War
Brian is currently breathing the fiction and poetry of Washington, DC. His work has appeared in LETTERS Journal, Litro, The Learned Pig, The Quotable, Rose Red Review, Banango Street, and The Moth.

Feet
Landon is the author of Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown (Cider Press Review, 2011), selected by David St. John for the Cider Press Book Award, In the Stone (RAPG-funded, 2013) and Spaceship (Somnambulist Tango Press, 2014).

Her Only Friends
Victoria is an East Tennessee native, currently studying English and playing Softball at Campbell University. Her short fiction has appeared recently in Synaethesia Magazine and FLARE: The Flagler Review, among others.

The State of The Art of War Against Entropy
David is a practicing physician who writes prescriptions for his own sanity: in verse, prose, and combos of those.

Shades
Jamal is a film and theatre actor/director/producer/writer, standup comic, poet, author and performing artist living in Dubai. His poetry, fiction, essays and recently art, have been published in Nowhere Near A Damn Rainbow, Sukoon, Rip/Torn Magazine, Uncommon:Dubai, Five2One Magazine #thesideshow, The Syzygy Poetry Journal, Pear Drop Journal, Cease, Cows, Literary Orphans and previous issues of Alphanumeric/NonBinary Review.

The Art of a Covenant
Michele’s fiction has been published in Necessary Fiction, The Conium Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in Puerto del Sol and the anthology Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America, and won an AWP Introduction to Journals award.

Getting Ahead: A Quest
Sierra is a graduate of University of Florida, as well as a writer and poet whose fiction has appeared in Robot and Raygun and T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, and SpeckLit, among many other places, and is forthcoming in Belladonna Publishing’s anthology Strange Little Girls.

City of Clouds
David’s fiction has appeared in Silver Blade, Fiction on the Web, and Nebula Rift. The Sorceress of Time, which is about the main character of this story, is in production at Eternal Press.

From Gaza
Fabiyas is the author of Moonlight and Solitude. His fiction and poems have appeared in Westerly, Forward Poetry, Literary The Hatchet, Rathalla Review, Off the Coast, Structo, and in several anthologies. He won many international accolades including the Poetry Soup International Award, USA , the RSPCA Pet Poetry Prize, UK, and Merseyside at War Poetry Award from Liverpool John Moores University, UK. His poems have been broadcast on the All India Radio.

Boys Will Be Boys Will Be Boys
Kelsey’s work has recently appeared in The Maine Review, Mouse Tales Press, and Paste Magazine and is forthcoming in Barking Sycamores.

The Arrest
Mark is a novelist who supports his family by working as an attorney. His short fiction has recently appeared in Thuglit, Crimespree, and Over My Dead Body!. A horror novel, Roman Hell is currently in print. A novella, Escape From Byzantium, won the 2010 Independent Publisher Silver Medal for fantasy/science fiction.

Stones
Julia has lived and written in France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and on the Appalachian Trail (Appalachian Odyssey, forthcoming from Open Road). The latest of her thirty titles is the bilingual reader, Boris Vian Invents Boris Vian (BlackWidowBooks.com). New essays-stories-poems appear in Uproooted, Poet Showcase and Zoomorphic.

From the Yong Le Emperor’s Notebook
Douglas wrote libretti for King Gesar (Sony CD) and Ashoka’s Dream (Santa Fe Opera). His published works include Dreamers and Their Shadows (2015), The Wanderer (2015) and The Empire of Fragments (2015). His and Charles Ré’s translation of Pascal Quignard’s A Terrace In Rome is due out in 2016.

The Pig
Christopher holds an MFA from Antioch University and his fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in the Northridge Review. He is the winner of the 2013 Rachel Sherwood Award.

Interview With Juan Weider
Alex is author of novella Short Lean Cuts. He is also author of Gears, a collection of stories from Independent Talent Group also available. He has published fiction in Guernica, [PANK], Specter Literary Magazine, The Prague Revue, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and others.

The Art of War
Rie has written five chapbooks of poetry. Her poems have appeared in Penumbra, Illumen, Abandoned Towers, and Wolf Willow magazines as well as the 2016 Texas Poetry Calendar and Speculative Poets of Texas Vol. 1. She’s also a lyricist, having written words for many songs by Marc Gunn.

The Riddle
Miles has authored two books recently, para.docx and Making Sense Of Myself In Public. Para.docx is a documentation of activity related to a fictional profile called Elle Bee. Making Sense Of Myself In Public is a collection of prose poems originally posted to Facebook.

Power
Samantha has poetry in Dissident Voice; DoveTales by Writing for Peace; Knot Magazine, and others.

The Nightclub Conversation
Amanda has published in Hot Metal Bridge, Squawk Back, Digital Papercut, Oddball Magazine and Freshwater, among others. She has also been nominated for a Best of the Net award in 2015 for her poem “Scenes at Puget Sound.”

AlterMist
Sean is a writer living in Bakersfield, CA, where he works as an English teacher. He’s a former staff writer at The Runner (Cal State University Bakersfield’s student newspaper) and has been published in The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle. This is his first publication since his time as an undergrad.

The American Art of War: If the Campaign is Protracted
Allyson is pursuing her MFA with the University of Texas at El Paso. She is co-editor of the Texas Poetry Calendar and author of the chapbook We’re Smaller Than We Think We Are. Allyson’s second chapbook is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. She teaches at Austin Community College.