paul hardacre is the editor of the papertiger: new world poetry cdrom and the ezine hutt (www.papertigermedia.com/hutt).  His poetry has recently appeared in meanjin, retort, vallum, drunken boat, and short fuse: the global anthology of new fusion poetry (rattapallax, ny).  his first collection of poetry, the year nothing, is forthcoming from headworx (new zealand) in june 2003.

hank lazer's most recent book of poems is Elegies & Vacations (Salt, 2004). The New Spirit is forthcoming from Singing Horse Press in 2005. With Charles Bernstein, Lazer edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press. The poems in 5_trope are from an ongoing series of 54 word poems called Portions.

maile chapman lives in southeastern Ireland, where she works as a web editor. Her fiction has appeared in The Boston Review, 3rd bed, HOBART, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in The Dublin Review.

robert lopez has had fiction in BOMB, The Chattahoochee Review, American Letters & Commentary, Confrontation, Post Road, New Orleans Review, Hobart, New England Review, Willow Springs, and SleepingFish, as well as online at Failbetter, Taint, Word Riot, and elimae.  He teaches an experimental-fiction workshop at the New School.

samantha peale is a writer in Los Angeles.

magdalen powers lives in Portland, Oregon, where she misses New York City at least once a day. She is the author, most recently, of The Heart Is Also a Furnace, from Future Tense Books.

john rybicki's stories and poems have appeared in Bomb, Poetry, Field, Failbetter, and elsewhere.  His first collection of poems, Traveling at High Speeds, is available from New Issues Poetry and Prose.

jane unrue lives in Boston. Her new book, Atlassed, is available at www.triplepress.com.

james wagner is the author of the false sun recordings (3rd bed, 2003) and Trilce (forthcoming from Calamari Press in 2006).  Pieces from his most recent work--Claims of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles--will appear in 6x6.  "Language Games" is from a short-story/memoir hybrid/(inbred) collection called Work Book.

christopher wells lives in Columbus, Ohio, and has had work published in DIAGRAM, Shampoo, Word Riot, and elsewhere.

derek white was born with a hole in his chest. The Carnage Between Animas and Malpaís is kind of about this hole. It is a piece from a collaboration with Carlos M. Luis entitled ma(I)ze Tassel Retrazos, published by Calamari Press <www.calamaripress.com>. Other texts of his have appeared or will appear in Denver Quarterly, Post Road, Café Irreal, Diagram, Call Review, elimae, and Tarpaulin Sky. He edits SleepingFish <www.sleepingfish.net> and lives in New York City.