Andreana Binder
Andreana Binder has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is also co-founder and editor of The Sylvan Echo online literary journal. Andreana writes, paints and works in her hometown of Houston, Texas.

While an undergraduate student at University of Houston, I waited tables at a popular Mexican Restaurant in an attempt to make ends meet. I soon learned the valuable lesson: although money can buy the perfect pair of shoes, it can't buy you a good personality.

Adam Frank Boretz
Adam Frank Boretz is not known for playing the role of Jesse Katsopolis on the ABC comedy series “Full House” and cannot be seen as Dr. Tony Gates on NBC’s “ER.” Additionally, he never played drums on the Beach Boys” classic hit “Kokomo” nor did he appear in the music video. He lives in Brooklyn.

In the opinion of various mental health professionals, family members, friends and neighbors, I am a “maladaptive perfectionist.” However that seems a little vague and fails to take into account my narcissistic rage and wonderful singing voice.

Mira Coleman
Mira Coleman writes from the rural foothills of western Maine. Her work has recently appeared in the Daily Bulldog LLC; Ginosko; Ranfurly Review; The Externalist; flashquake; Ink, Sweat and Tears; Red Fez; Ghoti; and has appeared or is forthcoming in Tattoo Highway; Glassfire; Word Riot; and Centrifugal Eye. Her work was first published in “Flowering After Frost, An Anthology of Contemporary New England Poets” (Branden, 1975, Boston). She worked for 27 years in the Massachusetts Trial Court before retiring as a probation officer in 2002.

Mira Coleman remembers when childhood’s perfection began to fade into awareness of a larger world. Eels were electric, storms were gales and the dock dangerous with splinters.

Alex Dumont
Alex Dumont lives, and was raised, in Brooklyn, NY. She is co-editor of the forthcoming journal The Wild, and her work can be found in The Bard Papers and online at Chapter and Verse (www.chapterandversereadings.blogspot.com). She can be located infrequently at A Vernacular Architecture (www.avernaculararchitecture.blogspot.com).

Perfectionism, much maligned, can be a very useful attitude when used sparingly. When I myself am trying to harden and narrow my mind, and coax myself into what I think we’d call “perfectionism” I imagine a little machine with good, clean lines and silvery, well-made parts. Other times I imagine a person cannon-balling into a body of very cold water. Both of these images can have a salutary effect, though I sometimes unintentionally combine the two, which leads to confusion and to not perfection.

Nathan Edmunds
Nathan Edmunds is an artist based in London, England.

I’ve always have a hands on approach to what I do. I tend to feel uncomfortable putting my work in the hands of other people as I probably feel I’m more precise than most people when I make something or decide if something is up to scratch. I almost always do it myself. If something looks even the tiniest bit wrong to me it's always at the back of my mind. It doesn’t matter how much someone else says that “you can’t really notice it“ or “it’ll do”, I’ve probably already decided it needs correcting or starting again. The problem is, the closer you look, nothing is perfect.

Taryn Gilbert
Taryn Gilbert is a graduate of Kenyon College, and now lives and works in New York City.

Maxwell James
Maxwell James was born and raised in Alaska, but has lived many places in a quest to find the perfect home. He has had stories published in the Diamond Sky Online Zine, Diet Soap, and has a story forthcoming in Bewildering Stories.

Nathan Leslie
Nathan Leslie’s six books of fiction include Madre, Reverse Negative, and Drivers. Nathan’s stories, essays, and poems have appeared in many literary magazines including Boulevard, Shenandoah, North American Review, and Cimarron Review. He is fiction editor for The Pedestal Magazine and series editor for the The Best of the Web 2008 anthology (Dzanc Books). His website is www.nathanleslie.com.

I’ve always been a perfectionist—especially as a kid. I grew up collecting stamps, coins, baseball cards. Hunting down the obscure bits of paper or metal likely drove my parents insane. In retrospect this kind of obsessive behavior likely made me a better writer. Now I hunt down words, images, story ideas.

E. Rosenblatt
Emilie Ana Rosenblatt is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where her writing appeared in Black Columbian, The Proxy, Surgam, and Quarto. She lives in Harlem where she works as a community organizer.

Ain’t no such thing as perfect. But fresh nectarines sometimes come close.
P.S. “Father Carlo” was a found poem.

Paul Silverman
Paul Silverman has worked as a newspaper reporter, olive packer, sandwich man and advertising creative director. One of his commercials won a Silver Lion at Cannes. His short fiction has appeared in The South Dakota Review, Tampa Review, Minnetonka Review, Hobart, Pindeldyboz and many other literary magazines, both print and online. His story, “Getaway,” published by Verbsap, is on the 2006 Million Writers Award shortlist of Notable Online Stories. He”s been a Spotlight Author in Eclectica, which has nominated his story, “The Home Front,” for Best of the Net, 2008 and The Million Writers Award, 2008. He has three Pushcart nominations for stories in Byline, Lily and The Worcester Review.

In my line of work, you think things up and then you present them, which means there’s a certain amount of client contact. Consider those two words: client contact. Once, I was seated right next to an important client. As usual, I tried to say and do everything perfectly. Initiate no action that would offend. It was a hot, humid day and we were almost shoulder to shoulder. When the client was gone I checked my shirt and noticed that I had sweated. But under one arm only, the one farthest from the client.

Laurie White
Laurie E. White received an MFA from the University of Montana. She can now be found in the kitchen of her Chicago apartment adding coffee beans to the grinder one at a time. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Phoebe, Harpur Palate and Quarter After Eight.

Like Freud, I value dream imagery. If, for instance, I am to dream about oranges on a table there must be no more or less than nine oranges. Sure, in a pinch I’ll settle for any odd number of oranges on this table, but nine is my preference. These nine oranges must be arranged in a horizontal line on this table. That way, the middle orange is surrounded by four oranges on either side. On this table. A coffee table.