Who Is Dirt City?

Rebecca Aronson

Rebecca Aronson teaches writing and coordinates a visiting writers series at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque. Her first book of poems, Creature, Creature, won the Main Traveled Roads Press poetry contest. Her poetry has been published in Quarterly West, Cimarron Review, Tattoo Highway, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, Ecotone, Cutbank, and others. She has been the recipient of a Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, The Loft Literary Center’s Speakeasy Award, and several Pushcart nominations. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington and a MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico.

Ty Bannerman

Ty Bannerman is the food and features editor at the Weekly Alibi, a recent graduate of UNM's Creative Writing MFA program, and the author of Forgotten Albuquerque from Arcadia Press (2009). His essay "The Exhibition" was published in the Midway Journal and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Nick DePascal

Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Nick DePascal currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, son, three dogs, and three chickens. He teaches English at the University of New Mexico and serves as coeditor of “This Morning” at Coldfront. His first collection of poetry, Before You Become Improbable, will be published by West End Press in summer 2014.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Narrative, New Haven Review, Broke Journal, interrupture, Emerson Review, Superstition Review, the Los Angeles Review, Laurel Review, RHINO, and more.

Christina Marie Glessner

Christina Marie Glessner grew up in Carbondale, PA, home of the first underground coal mines in the nation, and much of her fiction still resides in that region.  She received her BA in Creative Writing at Susquehanna University and her MFA in Fiction at the University of New Mexico. She has a short story in the Spring 2014 Issue of the Summerset Review, and her poetry appears in Prick of the Spindle Vol. 7.4 and in Crack the Spine's Fall 2013 Anthology. She lives with her husband, her kitty Tuxedo, and a group of schooling fish in Albuquerque and San Diego.

Jennifer Lynn Krohn

Jennifer Lynn Krohn always knew that she was destined to be a zoologist, until one day, while dissecting a cat, she realized that her heart wasn’t in it anymore.  After a brief foray into aviation science—where she discovered that no one’s life should depend on her math skills—she decided to take her poetry a bit more seriously.  Since then, Jennifer has earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico and has published work in RED OCHRE LiT, Prick of the Spindle, In the Garden of the Crow, The Rose Red Review, Versus Literary Journal, and Gingerbread Literary Magazine.

Marie Landau

Marie Landau received her MA in literature from the University of New Mexico, where she wrote her thesis on the place-making poetry of Larry Eigner. She is a production editor at the University of New Mexico Press and does freelance editing for other small presses. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in ditch, Eunoia Review, SOFTBLOW, Rust+Moth, Bird's Thumb, and other publications.

Mark Lopez

Born in a city by the sea (otherwise known as Corpus Christi, Texas), Mark Lopez currently resides in Albuquerque, NM, where he's a copy editor and contributing writer at the Weekly Alibi. He mainly writes poetry that touches on minority issues as well as autobiographical points of reference, from death to skin color to the art of a good cheeseburger. He maintains a sometimes-weekly column about music news called the Rooster Roundabout, and his work has appeared in the Weekly Alibi, the Daily Texan, the Corpus Christi Caller Times, CHAOS Magazine, UT Law magazine, and Jupiter Index.

Carrie Murphy

Carrie Murphy is the author of the poetry collection Pretty Tilt (Keyhole Press, 2012) and the chapbook, Meet the Lavenders (Birds of Lace, 2011). Her second full-length book, Fat Daisies, is forthcoming in 2015 from Big Lucks Books. She received an MFA from New Mexico State University. Originally from Baltimore, MD, Carrie works as a teacher, freelance writer, and doula in Albuquerque, NM.

Carrie's poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Everyday Genius, H_NGM_N, PANK, Hobart, and other journals and magazines. Her freelance writing appears regularly in various outlets. 

Karen O'Reilly

Karen O'Reilly is a writer and human rights and humanitarian worker. She has worked as a human rights educator for Amnesty International, and in refugee protection for the UN refugee agency in Uganda, the Central African Republic, Kenya, and Jordan. Her writing looks in particular at the human cost of war, and is based on her experiences working with refugees from Africa and the Middle East, as well as travel in these regions. She is a regular contributor to The Dublin Review and has written articles on globalization and conflict and human rights education for a variety of other journals. She has also developed human rights education materials including a textbook and drama and film resources for Amnesty International. She has undertaken writing residencies at Blue Mountain Center, New York, and Mesa Refuge, California.

Jennifer Simpson

Jennifer Simpson is the executive director of DimeStories.org, where writers of prose read their three-minute stories at open mic events in California and New Mexico and online. Jennifer also hosts a drop-in writing group on Mondays and is the editor/publisher of the iWriteBecause.com project.  Her creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have been published in a variety of online journals and anthologies.  As a freelance writer, she has created content on everything from welding, consumer protection law, and logistics to feminine hygiene, health and wellness, yoga, and sleep.  She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Mexico.  You can find her online at JenniferSimpsonWriter.com