ROB AMBERG is a freelance documentary photographer who lives in the mountains of western North Carolina. His book of photographs and writing Sodom Laurel Album (University of North Carolina Press) won the 2002 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award.

ANN BAUER’s first novel, A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards (Scribner), was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post. She teaches creative nonfiction at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has become an avid long-distance motorcycle rider. She lives in Minneapolis.

WALTER O. BEATON spent twenty-two years in banking before walking away to become an artist. He lives in New York City.

TIMOTHY BYARS is a photographer who lives in Lafayette, California.

ARNIE COOPER wonders if teaching English as a second language is affecting his speaking ability: he often lapses into foreign accents without realizing it. Luckily his writing remains unscathed — or, at least, his editors are being polite. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

PEG DÍAZ is a photographer who lives in Barstow, California.

DUNCAN GREEN recently got married for the first time at the age of fifty-three. He works as a bicycle advocate for the transit agency in Olympia, Washington.

ETHAN HUBBARD is the author of Salt Pork & Apple Pie (RavenMark), a collection of essays and photographs celebrating a disappearing generation of farmers, loggers, and others who live close to the land. He lives in Chelsea, Vermont.

TOM IRELAND lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and edits books for the Museum of New Mexico and the Smithsonian Institution. His last book was Birds of Sorrow (Zephyr Press), and he’s working on an essay collection called Head Noise.

LYN LIFSHIN’s books of poetry include Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness, The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian (both Texas Review Press), and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me (Black Sparrow Press). She lives in Vienna, Virginia.

R.A. McBRIDE is the author of Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres, for which she received a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. She is a founding member of Point Blank, an experimental photography group in San Francisco.

DION OGUST lives in Woodstock, New York, and is a staff photographer for the Woodstock Times. Her portraits of writers and musicians have appeared on book and CD covers.

KIMBERLEY PITTMAN-SCHULZ’s first poetry book is Mosslight. She lives in Fieldbrook, California, with her wildlife-biologist husband and two cats and is the director of planned giving for Humboldt State University. She once hang glided off a cliff near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but remains leery of high curbs.

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is trying to simultaneously learn Finnish, Hungarian, and Japanese.

EMILY ROGERS is the pseudonym of a writer who was raised in the Assemblies of God Church and presently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, with her husband and son. She juggles family life with writing, getting her PhD, teaching English literature at a community college, and working as a television closed-captioner.

LEE ROSSI is the perfect company man. He has no hobbies or interests outside his job. He barely remembers his wife’s name, and indeed has forgotten the names of his two children. He believes that if no one notices him, maybe Death will overlook him too.  He is the author of two books of poetry: Ghost Diary (Terrapin Press) and Beyond Rescue (Bombshelter Press). He lives in Culver City, California.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS is a freelance photographer living in New York City. He works with Unseen America, an organization that teaches photography to groups that are socially and politically underrepresented.

WENDY STONE lives in Putnam, Connecticut.

MARK TOWNSEND lives in Brooklyn, New York.

HIROSHI WATANABE made commercials for Japanese television for twenty years before he quit to devote himself full time to fine-art photography. He lives in West Hollywood, California.

SHARON WHARTON lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she takes portraits and wedding photographs.

THERESA WILLIAMS’s novel The Secret of Hurricanes (MacAdam/Cage) was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. She is addicted to bubbly drinks, watermelon, and cowboy boots and lives in northwest Ohio with her husband, two Boston terriers, and an assortment of cats.