Greg Clasby is a professional blacksmith who has appeared on the Discovery Channel’s American Chopper. His work has been used by the Plimoth Plantation Living History Museum, as well as by fellow artists in demonstrations at the Smithsonian Institution.

Bill Freedman is a retired English literature professor (University of Haifa, Israel). He has published books on Laurence Sterne, Edgar Allan Poe and Joseph Conrad; and an oral history of baseball fans. He has poetry in APR, The Antioch Review, The Iowa Review, The Literary Review, The Quarterly, Rattle, and elsewhere. His fourth book of poems is forthcoming from Future Cycle Press. Freedman has lived in Israel since 1969, but owns a small country home in the woods of Vermont, where he and his wife summer. During the last four summers, Freedman has conducted a poetry writing workshop at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield Vermont.

Richard Gagnon says writing has been a haven throughout his life. Though prose was his first love, poetry later grabbed him by the iambs. He credits Bill Freedman with clarifying and guiding his first attempts at poetry. Sixty-five, he says, is a good age to begin a new adventure.    

Victor G. Hall, a New Mexico native, was Editor-in-Chief of Abecedarian Chrysalis, his high school’s poetry anthology; a columnist and features editor of Round Up, his university’s newspaper; and Managing Editor of Echo, his university’s monthly magazine. His poetry, jokes, and academic articles have appeared in various publications. He says he was pleased to discover he can turn anything into a poem just by hitting ‘enter’ a lot.

JR Layne, of part Dominican, part Jamaican/Barbadian lineage, was raised in a privileged community, where his rigorous education included poetry. Later, his poetry was smothered by the less pleasant responsibilities of adulthood. A “rock bottom” chapter in his life reintroduced the power of poetry and the beautifully positive effect it can have on his emotional health.

Robert Pierce is an accomplished regional artist and writer and Vermont native. After completing a business course through the University of Vermont in 1993, he started and ran a successful business for sixteen years. He also served as a Vermont-certified Firefighter for six years and was a nationally-certified emergency medical technician for five years. In 2018, he graduated from the Community High School of Vermont.

Bob Sawyer died last summer, after 26 weeks of incarceration and weeks before his scheduled release. In “Why I Write,” a piece he wrote to accompany his poem "I Stole a Day" in Rattle, he said there was a joy in choosing the right word or phrase and that the poetic universe invited him to express himself with freedom, diversity, and imagination.

John Sughrue was originally published in One Imagined Word at a Time (Writers for Recovery, 2016) and again in One Imagined Word at a Time, Vol. II. He currently has a poem on display in an art installation at the Museum of Everyday Life in Glover, Vermont. He wants people to know he isn’t nearly as interesting as the thinks he is, but believes he has a perfect face for radio.