Ali Alizadeh is a Dubai-based writer of poetry, fiction and criticism. He has completed a PhD at Deakin University analysing epic poetry and writing an epic of his own. He has also taught at Deakin and other tertiary institutions, and has had a good number of poems, reviews, literary research articles published, as well as four books. His favourite writers include Walter Benjamin, H.D., Farid-eddin Attar and Naomi Klein. Visit his website.

Emilie Zoey Baker was the winner of the 2006 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup and is also the Victorian coordinator for the National Australian Poetry Slam 2009. Her first collection of poetry, She wore the sky on her shoulders, was published in 2003 by Hit and Miss Press. Her poetry has been published widely in Australia and internationally in journals such as Going Down Swinging, Cordite, Schriftstelle (Germany) and Short Fuse (USA). She lives in Melbourne with her editor and her cat.

David Prater was born in Dubbo in 1972 and has been Cordite's managing editor since 2000. In 1995 he graduated with a BA (Honours in Australian Literature) from the University of Sydney and also holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. His poetry and prose has appeared in various journals and his debut poetry collection We Will Disappear was published by soi3 (papertiger media) in 2007. He currently resides in the Netherlands. Visit his home page.

Matthew Hall moved to Australia from Canada some years ago and has otherwise managed to avoid winter for almost a decade. At present he is working on a dissertation on J.H. Prynne and Violence at the University of Western Australia and a series of poetic essays that pertain to the radical pastoral. His poetry, occasional prose and criticism have been featured in journals around the world. The writers of greatest influence and intrigue to him are Prynne, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Peter Larkin, Lisa Robertson, J Kinsella, John Wilkinson, Louis Armand, CD Wright, and Keston Sutherland.

Nick Whittock is a cricket tragic and experimental poet originally hailing from Candelo, on the far south coast of New South Wales. His first book, covers, was published by Cordite On Demand (COD) in 2004. Since then Nick has written regularly for Cordite over on the Ashes/Urn weblog. Nick originally submitted the following bio: “can run catch has patience dreams of giving good lube”.