Rachael Scandarion has been writing poetry, short stories, fiction and nonfiction since she was seventeen years old. She has a BS in Business and Entrepreneurship from Nova Southeastern University and is working on her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at NSU. Rachael's MFA CAPSTONE project will be based on her memoir, "Into The Light: A Life Imprismed," an anthology of her life's adventures, works, loves, challenges, and passions.

Over the past 1.5 years, Rachael has been researching a project involving the history of African slavery, 1st Nation Peoples, the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and the common bonds shared by all Next Generations.

Rachael lives in Florida, has a passion for: singing, her extraordinary 23-year old son, her awesome mother — who is also her best friend — and her sweet, young Japanese Chin named Tutu, a rescue, who recently came into her life following the passing of her 20-year old forever doggie companion, Purdita. (www.digitalartstech.com)

Sheila Romano. After twenty-plus years of working on corporate pieces and customer communications for the telecommunications industry, where she is still employed, Romano began to develop her talents as a writer of fiction in 2003. She has received prior recognition for her competitive efforts in fiction and poetry, including regional competitions and most recently, a fifth place in the genre category for the 2009 Writer's Digest Annual Competition. Romano's third novel, a fantasy she has just completed, is the first she will try to market, and which she also hopes will lead to a successful series of novels. Romano intends to write more Front Porch stories, in memory of her father, who spent most of each day in his declining years sitting on his front porch and sharing his life history with anyone who would listen. Romano has a degree in literature from the University of Nevada and maintains a vacation trailer in rural northeastern Nevada. Most of her fiction pays homage in some way to the rural west and the Western Folklife tradition. While she has some non-fiction credits in her resume, Stories From the Front Porch: Laura will be her first published fiction.

Candace Leigh Coulombe is the author of Second Grace: Stories of Fresh Starts, Second Chances, and Running Away. She won the 2009 Environmental Futures Writing Prize for "ScentEasy," which is included in the collection. Candace works in Northern California full-time as a marketing communications specialist and part-time as a writer of short fiction, essays, and poetry. Her work has been recognized by the Sacramento and Elk Grove Public Libraries, NYC Midnight, and PEN Women. Read more online at www.oncewritten.net.

Dennis Finocchiaro is new to the world of published writing, and he doesn't plan to stop anytime soon. He finds inspiration in the everyday and the mundane, as well as in the beautiful and the tragic, especially if one rubs elbows with the other. In addition to flash fiction he has just finished his first novel, The Illiterates, and is searching for an agent and publisher. His online blog can be found at www.denwrites.com.