Bios or links to information about our speakers, session leaders and readers (keynotes indicated with an asterisk)

Joe Amadon is the 2006 Sutherland Fellow in fiction at Illinois State University. His work appears in eliemae and Pequin, with his most recent story forthcoming in See You Next Tuesday. He is looking forward to moving to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah.

*Brock Clarke is the author of The Ordinary White Boy, What We Won’t Do, and Carrying the Torch. He has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award in Fiction. His work has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, OneStory, the Believer, the Georgia Review, and the Southern Review; in the Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies; and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. He teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.

Shanna Compton is the author of Down Spooky, GAMERS: Writers, Artists & Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels, Big Confetti (with Shafer Hall), Closest Major Town, and For Girls. She served as Associate Publisher and Director of Publicity at Soft Skull Press from 2002-2007, for which she also edited poetry collections and experimental fictions, designed books, and curated both the Frequency Series and the Soft Skull Sneak Peek Series.

Andrew Farnsworth is the 2007 Sutherland Fellow in fiction at Illinois State University. He currently holds a graduate assistantship at the Publications Unit where he provides design and production support for Mandorla, Spoon River Poetry Review, and FC2. He taught creative writing at the Lincoln Women's Prison in Lincoln, Illinois from 2006 through 2008 and will be teaching a creative writing course at Illinois State University during the 2008-2009 school year.

Cathy Gilbert is currently an Adjunct Faculty member of the English and Language Studies Department at Illinois Central College where she teaches Composition I and II. She holds a MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago (2006) and a BA in English from Illinois Wesleyan University (2005). As former Tributaries editor and co-creator of the Tongue & Ink Writers Conference, she is absolutely thrilled to be a part of T&I this year. Other things that thrill her: striped socks, unexpected chocolates, papers that have been turned in on time, and teapots.

Elizabeth Hatmaker teaches writing and cultural theory at Illinois State University. She also serves as faculty advisor for the arts journal Euphemism. Her work has been published in ACM, Bird Dog, Epoch, Language and Learning Across the Disciplines, Mandorla, Mipoesias, Mirage, Mississippi Review, and Social Epistemology. She has recently completed Girl in Two Pieces, a collection of poems about the 1947 Black Dahlia murder and is currently working on OST, a collection of poetry about sound technology and cult cinema.

Emily Kingery received her BA in English Writing from Illinois Wesleyan University, and is completing her MA in British and American Literature at Northern Illinois University, where she teaches First-Year Composition. Her primary interests are writing poetry and studying 20th century and contemporary poetry. Contact ekingery@niu.edu.

Jennifer L. Knox is the author of Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me.

Tim Lantz is finishing his master's thesis at Illinois State University, where he is the 2006 Sutherland Fellow in poetry. Recent work, some in collaboration, appears in Admit Two, elimae, My Name Is Mud, Pindeldyboz, and the tiny.

*Chelsey Minnis is the author of BAD BAD and Zirconia. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and the Iowa Writers Workship, and a native of Littleton, Colorado. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Danielle Pafundalives and writes this spring in Chi-town. Otherwise, Wyoming. She is co-Editor of the online journal La Petite Zine.

Andrea Riley will complete her MA degree in English and Creative Writing from ISU in May. Her thesis, tentatively titled, "When there is no more room in my vagina, the dead will walk the Earth" is a collection of collages and responses to zombie films, the social issues discussed and silenced, and the sexism and racism of many Modernist poets. She is a part of the Lincoln Women's Prison Writing Project. Her work has appeared in elimae and Temenos.

Dan Smart graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2006 with a major in English/Writing and a minor in Music, and he currently works as a writer, editor, and press secretary for the City of Country Club Hills on Chicago’s south side and as a weekly music news writer and contributor for TinyMixtapes.com. He is also an active musician who has worked with a variety of area bands and musicians. Over the past several years, he has played his music all over the country, composed original music and text for a variety of Chicago-based modern dance and film organizations, and licensed musical works to companies such as Phillip Morris and MTV.