Genevieve Salazar

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Genevieve Salazar is a writer, poet and artist whose work aims to render visible the shamanic spirit in modern culture and society. Her poetry has been published both in print and online. If she’s not writing (which is hardly ever), you can usually find her hunched in a corner with her nose in a thick volume of fairy tales.

Sarah Lilius

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Sarah Lilius lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and their two sons. Her poetry can most recently be found in journals such as BlazeVOX, Bluestem, and Crack the Spine. You can visit her personal website for links to her work.

Lisa Marie Cole

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Lisa M. Cole is the author of the poetry collections Heart Full of Tinders and Dreams of the Living; both from ELJ Publications; both scheduled to appear in 2015. Lisa is also a contributor to Wood Becomes Bone: A Mental Health Awareness Series, forthcoming this August from ELJ Publications. Lisa has also written six chapbooks; most recently Negotiating with Objects from Sundress Publications; The Bodyscape from Dancing Girl Press, & the forthcoming Living in a Lonely House also from Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming in December of this year. She was a recipient of the Lois Nelson Award in Creative Non-Fiction in 2005, & was a runner-up in SLAB’s Elizabeth R. Curry poetry contest earlier in 2014. When not writing, Lisa teaches writing workshops in Tucson Arizona’s prisons as well as in various places within Tucson’s vibrant literary communities, including the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and Casa Libre En La Solona.

A Note from Lisa:

Wood Becomes Bone strives to erase the negative stigma attached to mental illness and bring awareness to mental health issues. I make no secret of my own struggles with mental illness: I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, chronic depression, and anxiety. The only way I have ever known to survive these dealings with the dark is to put them inside language; to verbalize them; to frame them in an artful way.

Alyssa S. Lowen

Alyssa S. Lowen was born in New York City and lives at the Jersey Shore. She received her MFA from Goddard College in 2013. Alyssa shares her passion for language, writing, and books by working as a librarian and teaching. “What She Had” is Alyssa’s return to writing poetry after several years of focusing on prose.

Jen Stein

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Jen Stein is a writer, an advocate, a mother and a finder of lost things.  She lives in Fairfax, Virginia where she works at a family homeless shelter to help find employment for people experiencing homelessness.  Her work with the homeless is inspiring her in-progress book, Ilk.  She studied Creative Writing at George Mason University, both as an undergraduate and in the MFA in Poetry program.  Her work has recently appeared in Poetica Magazine.  
 
Jen’s work focuses on mental health, healing and recovery, vegetables and fruits, and exploring the connections between people and subjects in disparate situations.  She likes above all to tell stories, and to help others see that their lives are full of interesting tales.
When not writing and serving as an advocate, Jen enjoys hiking with her husband and two daughters, wrangling her many cats, teaching ethics to fifth graders at her synagogue, singing and drawing with her friends, and playing many sorts of board games from hither and yon.