Zinta Aistars, founder and editor-in-chief of The Smoking Poet, is the published author of three books and currently at work on a novel. She is a publications editor and writer for a health care organization in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was an editor and writer for LuxEsto, the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine for seven years prior to that. She is a regularly contributing writer to Southwest Michigan's Second Wave. Her work also appears on many ezines — including Xelas Magazine, Gently Read Literature, Amsterdam Scriptum, Boston Literary Magazine, Cezanne's Carrot, Outsider Ink, Ghoti Fish, Menda City Review, Megaera Magazine, T-Zero, Fiction Attic, Saucy Vox, Ash Canyon Review, ThothWeb, Flash Me Magazine, Spoiled Ink, Her Circle Ezine, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, The Redbridge Review, River Walk Journal, Flashquake, milk magazine, Word Riot, Burning Word, insolent rudder, Bobbing Around, coilMagazine, Poems Niederngasse, The Paper, Poetry Life & Times, QuietPoly Writer’s Magazine, and many others. 

Read more of Zinta's work on her website. Or, tweet Zinta on Twitter.

Andris Silis, our music editor (and occasional photo essayist), is a graduate of the Jazeps Vitols Academy of Music in Latvia with degrees in double bass and music composition. He has played the double bass in the orchestra, “Riga,” in Latvia, and was principle double bassist in the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra in Houghton, Michigan (Keweenaw Peninsula). He has played in countless jazz ensembles in Latvia and the United States. In 1980, he was the guitarist in the Latvian rock group, Zodiak, whose recording, Disco Alliance, sold more than 20,000,000 copies in the Soviet Union, and is still being sold today. Among Andris’ many compositions are “Symphony for Orchestra,” “Variations and Sonata for Piano,” “Duet for Double Bass and Cello,” “Miniatures for Piano,” and many others. Andris lives in Ventspils, Latvia.