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Managing & Poetry Editor

Erin Elizabeth Smith is the founder and editor-in-chief of Stirring and author of The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles Press). Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary magazines including The Florida Review, Cimarron Review, Third Coast, Crab Orchard, Willow Springs, Salamander, Natural Bridge, RHINO, Bellingham Review, and The Pinch. Erin is graduate of the MFA program at the University of Illinois and is currently finishing her PhD at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Fiction Editor

Ryan Saxon Davidson is a long time writer of unreadable fiction. Originally from Austin, TX, he completed a MA in English Literature from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Currently, Ryan is a PhD candidate at the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Associate Poetry Editor

John Turner is an Instructor of English at Scott Community College in Davenport, Iowa. His work has appeared in Short Stuff, Samsara Quarterly, Astronomy, Lyrical Iowa, Haiku Hut, Squashblossom, Black&White, The Poet, and Stirring, among others. He is a James Hearst Poetry Award winner and the first on-line Slammaster for Simon&Shuster and Warner Brothers. He has judged the Third Fusion Poetry Competiton as well as the 2004 Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest. John has also written and starred in 30 plays in last 20 years, won poetry slams in the Quad Cities, had poems and plays commissioned in Illinois and Iowa, and has never beaten Erin Elizabeth at Insomniac's Society Poetry Slams.

Associate Poetry Editor

M is an Administrator for an online poetry site and labor of love called Wild Poetry Forum. You can find her there daily, tending to Wild's membership, giving out probably unwanted advice, and trying her best to steward the ship through sometimes stormy seas. Her work has appeared in a variety of Internet e-zines -- Pedestal, Gumball Poetry Journal, three candles, 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, Poems Niederngasse, Eclectica Magazine, and others - and has received a Pushcart nomination. Her work is currently featured in the Poets Gone Wild anthology, produced by Wild Poetry Press and available at Lulu. She has also served as an Associate Editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection for the past seven years. In the few seconds a month when she is not working on these projects, she reads mostly novels, walks hand-in-hand along bustling city streets with her man, and is grateful for the enormous amount of love in her life.

Associate Poetry Editor

Eric Flynt holds a Masters in Fiction from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Associate Poetry Editor

Allison Riddles has a doctorate in Poetry from the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers.

Associate Poetry Editor

Rhonda Lott is a doctoral candidate in Poetry at Texas Tech. Her poems have appeared in Kennesaw Review, Journal of Truth and Consequence, and The Southern Quarterly. Rhonda likes to keep things brief.

Associate Poetry Editor

Kevin Matz was born in Champaign, Illinois, on May 12, 1977. He received a Bachelors degree in Rhetoric in 2000. He then worked a number of glamorous jobs, such as fork lift operator and deli grunt, to support his writing before returning to the University of Illinois to pursue graduate study. In 2004, he won the Carol Kyle Memorial Award for Poetry. He graduated with his MFA from the University of Illinois in May of 2005. He lives with his wife and daughter.