KGB Bar

Joann Samaan (fiction) was raised in a very traditional household by parents who were born and raised in Egypt. She graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English in 2008.  Currently, she works in educational marketing, and is a second year fiction student at Rutgers Newark. 

Chris Caruso (poetry) received his B.A. in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is currently pursuing his MFA in Poetry at Rutgers Newark.  His free time is spent studying DADA and Avant-garde poetry and poets.  Along with several MFA students at Rutgers Newark, he is a founding member and Editor-in-Chief of the Ironbound Review, an upcoming literary journal.  He survives on student loans, tutoring college students, and substitute teaching in New Jersey.  Random thoughts on poetry and culture can be found on his blog (http://chrisinkspot.blogspot.com/).  His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Matter, Rio Grande Review, and Istanbul Literary Review. 

Hirsh Sawhney (fiction) edited and contributed a short story to Delhi Noir, a critically-acclaimed anthology of new fiction published by Akashic Books and HarperCollins India, with translations into French and Italian. His writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Financial Times, and Time Out New York. He is a Contributing Editor for the Brooklyn Rail and an Associate Editor at Wasafiri Magazine. Hirsh lives in Jersey City and is working on a novel.