Ghalya Al-Said is a freelance prose and poetry writer, with a doctorate from the University of Warwick in Politics and International Relations. Has a keen interest in sociology, the media, politics and issues of the dispossessed. Current publication on propagating third world issues in the West. Novel on theme of humiliation.

Jonathan Asser was born in 1964 and is currently working as a teacher in a London prison. He has published in The Reater, Stand and Orbis magazines, amongst others. He won the Positive Steps National Poetry Competition 1998, Jerwood Arvon Poetry Award 1999, and Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2000. e-mail - jonathan.asser@talk21.com

Charlotte Beck, aged 21. Petite brunette, GSOH, enjoys art, lively discussion, walking, and spending time with her children. Also into S&M.

Helen Clare's poems have appeared in various publications including: First Pressings (Faber and Faber), The Rialto, Smoke, Smiths Knoll, Envoi, Brando's Hat and Magma, and she has won prizes in the Lancaster Litfest and Yorkshire Open Poetry Competitions. Most recently her poem 'Reception' was runner up in the Daily Telegraph Arvon Competition 2000. Helen graduated from Lancaster University's Creative Writing Programme with distinction in 1999, and now teaches Creative Writing via the Internet for the University's department of Continuing Education, and after many years teaching and temping now works part-time in the Education Department of the Arts Council.

Robert Cole has been published widely in magazines and anthologies, the Observer, New Statesman, Beyond Bedlam (Anvil), Klaonica (Bloodaxe), Poetry Book Society Anthology 2, Ambit, Oxford Poetry, London Magazine, Gargoyle (USA), Interim (USA), etc. On-line at SERUM a Swedish magazine, where he was poet of the month December 2000. He has two collections, Inheritance (Mandeville Press) 1995, and Cafard (Community of Poets) 1999. Some poems have been translated into French (published in Translations Magazine, Paris) and Russian. He has a book coming out in Russia.

David R. Jones lived and worked, as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, in Spain, Turkey and Portugal for five years. For the past four years he has been teaching in an FE college in London. He has been writing all this time and sending stuff off for the last two years. This is his first piece to be accepted.

Helen Kitson is 35 years old and lives in Worcester, England with her husband and young son. A pamphlet of Helen's poems was published in 1992 and shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection Prize. A full collection of poems, Love Among the Guilty, was published by Bloodaxe in 1995. She is now beginning to publish her fiction and her work has appeared in QWF, Ambit, Front & Centre and Urban Graffiti (both Canada).

Jonathan Jones is a twenty-six year old writer who recently graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University College. He has had one book of poetry published (Minerva Press) entitled Scarecrows. He has written a novel, Calling Camelot and is presently working on a sitcom entitled 'Live from the Casbah.' His poetry has been accepted in Iota, Splizz, Skald, Poetry Monthly, Poetic Hours, The Affectionate Punch, The Black Rose, Obsessed with Pipework, Fire and Eclipse, and prose in Writer's Cauldron, Psychotrope, Gentle Reader and Sepia, Poetry and Prose Magazine.

E. A. Markham was born on the West Indian island of Montserrat in 1939. 'Archie' grew up in London in the 1950s and read English and Philosophy at university. He has worked in theatre, directing the Caribbean Theatre Workshop in the West Indies (1970-71). For two years in the 1970s he was a member of the Co operative Ouvriere du Batiment restoring houses in the South of France, and (1983-85) worked as a Media Co-ordinator in Papua New Guinea.
His recent work includes Misapprehensions (poetry, Anvil 1995), The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories (1996), A Papua New Guinea Sojourn: More Pleasures of Exile (travel, Carcanet 1998), Between a Rock and a Hard Place (a play) and Marking Time (a 'campus' novel, Peepal Tree Press, 1999).
In 1997 Archie was awarded a Certificate of Honour by the Government of Montserrat and is Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.

Edwin Morgan was born in Glasgow in 1920. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Middle East from 1940 to 1946. He is a poet (Collected Poems, 1990), translator (Collected Translations, 1996), and critic (Crossing the Border, 1990). He has written poetry for radio (A Voyage, commisioned by BBC for two voices, broadcast on Radio 4, 1996) and poetry for jazz (Beasts of Scotland, commisioned by Glasgow International Jazz festival, music by Tommy Smith, performed 1996).

Rosemary Norman This is Rosemary Norman's first experiment with hypertext. She has published two books of poetry, Threats & Promises (1991) and Life on Mars (1999).

Mitzi Szereto is author of Erotic Fairy Tales, A Romp Through the Classics (Cleis Press, San Francisco) and the editor of the forthcoming anthology Erotic Travel Tales (Cleis Press). Her work has appeared in Wicked Words 4 (Black Lace, Virgin Publishing, London), Joyful Desires (Masquerade Books, New York), and The Erotic Review. Writing under the name M.S. Valentine, she is author of The Captivity of Celia, Elysian Days and Nights, The Governess, and The Possession of Celia (all published by Masquerade Books, New York and Top Shelf, London). She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, but plans to relocate to the UK.

Tim Turnbull is from Yorkshire. He was in forestry for nearly twenty years and now earns a living from performing poetry, library work and character modelling (hence 'Shoot'). He is married with a dog and lives in Tottenham. Anyone who wants to buy a copy of Tim's pamphlet 'Death of a Naturist' should contact him on timturnbull@hotmail.com

Joel E. Turner lives near Philadelphia and designs analytic software for banks. His novella 'The Fisheye Incident' recently appeared in Ambit (159-161), and is part of a novel-in-process on the securitization of human potential. email: jturner@dvol.com

Linda Lee Welch was born and raised in the USA. She came to England to do a short course at RADA, joined a band, and has lived in Europe ever since. She got an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University in July, 2000. Linda has won the Bridport and York poetry prizes, and her poetry has been published in Mslexia, The New Writer, Sheffield Thursday, and Sheaf Magazine, among others. She works as a Writer in Residence in schools and colleges, as a musician, and she keeps on writing.
E-mail: fishbowl@lindalee.plus.com.