JOSEPH BATHANTI's collection of short stories, The High Heart, won the 2006 Spokane Prize and will be published this fall by Eastern Washington University Press. He is a professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University and lives in Boone, North Carolina.

TOM BECKER’s latest photography project centers on the county fairs of northwest Iowa. He lives in Orange City, Iowa.

JEFF W. BENS teaches in the film department at the North Carolina School of the Arts. His first novel, Albert, Himself, was published by Delphinium Books in August.

JAMES CARROLL lives in New York City.

ROBERT P. COOKE retired from his job as a pipe fitter and welder, then returned to work, and now he thinks almost every day about retiring again. He lives in Highland, Indiana.

MAGGIE DEVORE-JELIC is a photographer living in Mendocino, California.

IRVING GOLDWORM started taking pictures in 1962. Before that he was "an English major and left-of-center snob who thought that pictures were for people who moved their lips when they read." He lives in Sherman Oaks, California.

DERRICK JENSEN’s most recent book is titled As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial (Seven Stories Press). He lives in Crescent City, California.

MICHAEL KANE lives in San Francisco.

KAREN KEATING is the director of Photoworks, Inc., a nonprofit photo-education program in Glen Echo, Maryland. She has traveled to Cuba four times and is working on a book of photographs of Cuban women.

HEATHER KING’s latest book, PULSE: Heart of Jesus, A Conversion, is forthcoming from Viking. She is a commentator for NPR's All Things Considered and lives in Los Angeles.

JASON LANGER’s book of photographs is titled Secret City (Nazraeli Press). He lives in Los Angeles.

Photographer JEAN-CLAUDE LEJEUNE lives in Bernardston, Massachusetts.

G. ALAN MYERS lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

KAY MARIE PORTERFIELD lives in Englewood, Colorado. She is the author of several nonfiction books, including The Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions, to be released this month by Facts on File, Inc.

DOUG RHINEHART is a retired college administrator who lives in Woody Creek, Colorado.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

JENNY L. SCHWEITZER recently graduated from NYU with a degree in film and television. She is currently working on an independent feature film and lives in Brooklyn.

SPARROW lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he does Sudoku and follows the Yankees. He is the author of America: A Prophecy (Soft Skull Press).

PARSLEY STEINWEISS writes: “In case you were wondering, yes, my parents were hippies.” She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and recently graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied photography and painting and worked at the student radio station.

MICHAEL VENTURA is a writer who teaches high school in the San Fernando Valley.

JENNY WARBURG’s photographs have been published in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and Time. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.