Patty Paine is the author of Oracle Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010) and Elegy& Collapse (Finishing Line Press, 2005). She is the founding editor of diode poetry journal. She is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar where she teaches writing and literature. Jeff Lodge is the author of the novel Where This Lake Is (White Pine Press, 1997). He is the founding and contributing editor of Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts and co-editor of diode poetry journal. He is an assistant professor of core education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Dr Samia Touati is author of Literacy, Access to Information and Development in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century Moroccan Society (University Press of America, 2010). She is an adjunct instructor in the English department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.