Ashley Ann Albrecht is a junior at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, double-majoring in English and psychology, and minoring in philosophy.  On campus, she is a music writer for Illini Media's BUZZ entertainment magazine.  Ms. Albrecht aspires to become a college professor and make substantive contributions in the realm of academia. Literature's ability to tackle the "big questions" of human existence continues to daily inspire her.

Gabriela Araujo is a sophomore at Pine Manor College and her major is Visual Arts.

Taylor Bratches is a Senior BFA Creative Writing major and Dance minor at Emerson College. Her work has also appeared in the literary magazines Gangsters In Concrete and The Emerson Review. She owes everything to the quirks of the universe, and to the light within and beyond her.

Amanda Coffin is a sophomore at Emerson College double majoring in writing and in theatre.   Her interest in theatre has led to many different roles from performance to Dramaturgy, which she is currently studying at Emerson. Last summer she was seen in the world premiere of the new play, The Argument, and she continues to explore new ways to combine her writing with theatre.  Amanda is a member of Emerson College's Honors Program and was recently selected for their Board of Overseers Mentoring Program. Love to her twin sister Rachel, her mother and father, Jackie, and the many friends and family who are so important to her.

Meghan Coyne grew up in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, graduating the town’s high school in 2005. She now lives in Boston as a student of Emerson College, where she is pursuing a BA in Media Production: Film, and a BA in Writing, Literature and Publishing. Meghan is set to graduate in Spring 2009, with plans to eventually publish several novels already in conception and various stages of writing. She is traditionally a fiction writer.

Sam Cunningham is a Junior at Pine Manor College with a major in Visual Arts and a concentration in Photography and a minor in History. She mainly works in black and white, but occasionally likes to work in color if the subject calls for it. Her favorite things to shoot in color are flowers because, "to me you should see the changes in color that makes the flower special."

Jesseca Dapper is originally from Pittsfield, MA and currently is a freshman at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. She is in the Roy H. Park School of Communications, as her major is in Cinema and Photography. Though she focuses mainly on the cinema aspect of the major, she enjoys photography as a hobby. She likes to film and photograph in black and white and she works with both digital and film cameras. In her spare time, she enjoys watching movies, working with HTML and writing stories and screenplays.

Erin Diskin once dreamed of being a fly-girl on In Living Color, but since the cancelation of that show she finally settled on becoming a college student.  At the ripe, young age of twenty-six she has no plans to ever move on from PMC, and instead intends to live out her years as a sophmore and keep contributing to Conifers.  Erin is from Massachusetts and spends the majority of her free time engaged in in road rage, playing pool, or watching Ghost Hunters.

Dan Herman is double majoring in history and English at Washington State University. He's harbored an unhealthy obsession with cutlery for many years, and only recently has he begun to jot down the various tales he hears from the voices inside his head. He currently wiles away his days working in various editorial capacities for The Daily Evergreen (WSU's student newspaper), and his blogging exploits can be found at http://megal.ophono.us. His fondest wish is to one day grow up to be an adult.

Naimah Ismail is currently a first-year at Pine Manor College and is majoring in Biology Education.  She was born and raised in the city of Boston and that is where she currently resides.  Naimah has been writing creatively (stories and poems) since the age of twelve.  She is hoping to publish her own novel and book of poems soon.

Abby Lavigne is a senior at Pine Manor College from Franklin, NH. In her spare time, she enjoys eating truffles, watching old episodes of Northern Exposure and running.

Standing tall at six foot, three inches, Justin Mcleod is a surprisingly mediocre basketball player. He is, however, very clever with a mandolin, and he enjoys exploring the big and small things in his hometown of Saint Charles, Illinois.  He currently attends University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.   His favorite poets and influences include Charles Simic and E.E. Cummings.

Benjamin Nardolilli is twenty two years old and currently attending New York University, where he studies creative writing, history, and philosophy. He is originally from Arlington, VA. His work has appeared in Perigee, Thieves’ Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, The Houston Literary Review and Perspectives Magazine. He maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

Mabel Rodriguez is a sophomore at Pine Manor College who is a biology and nursing major.  She spends most of her days solving the New York Times and Metro sudoku puzzles.  Other than solving sudoku puzzles, she also spends time writing essays.  She seems to write more essays than the English majors.  If she is not writing and not solving puzzles, she is most likely visiting the perezhilton.com website to catch up on Hollywood news.  She also takes great pride in her collection of Hello Kitty memorabilia.

Bikram Sharma was born and raised in Bangalore, India. At present he is completing his B.A. in English and Creative Writing at The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He intends to return to Bangalore and continue writing.

With an international upbringing, Lindsey Yuriko Warriner was born in Japan, raised in England, and attended high school in California. Now a sophomore at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, she is pursuing a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing with an emphasis in Poetry. She hopes to continue with her transatlantic lifestyle and pursue a career in publishing.

Erin Thorp is a twenty-one-year-old English major in her Junior year at Pine Manor College. In her spare time, she likes to write novels and short stories and watch horror movies.

Sarah A. Wilt, a native of Lake Pleasant, New York, is a senior majoring in History.  She transferred into Pine Manor College last fall.  Sarah enjoys Pine Manor, but she is looking foward to graduating in December.  Unsure about her future plans, Sarah is considering looking into Graduate schools in California.  In her spare time, she loves drawing, listening to music, and traveling.

Bethany Zaiatz is an English major in her junior year at Pine Manor College. She is the last remaining staffer of the original, paper-bound Conifers from the Spring 2006 semester, and is very proud and excited to see the journal reincarnated in its brand new, national, online format. She has also spent the last three years working as an editing intern for Éire/Ireland, an internationally recognized interdisciplinary journal of Irish studies, under the guidance of co-editor Vera Kreilkamp. She hopes to one day work in the publishing industry as an editor of fiction. Should this not work out, however, her fall back plans include the fields of community theater and world domination.