ELLEN BASS’s poetry books include The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press) and Mules of Love (BOA Editions). She teaches in the mfa writing program at Pacific University.

DOUG BEASLEY lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a small wooden house surrounded by trees, where he tends his Japanese gardens. He is a lover of late-night discussions and strong morning coffee.

TOM BECKER’s latest project is photographing the county fairs of northwest Iowa. He lives in Orange City, Iowa.

BRIAN BUCKBEE divides his time between Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Missoula, Montana. His short story in this issue is from a book he is completing titled Dear Dipshit: Letters to My Dumb, Future Self. His work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Mid-American Review, and Shenandoah.

MICHELLE CACHO-NEGRETE lives in Wells, Maine, and her essays appear in The Sun’s new book The Mysterious Life of the Heart and in Thoreau’s Legacy, an anthology from the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. She teaches writing both in person and online and is recovering well from surgery, thanks to Dr. Jeff Thurlow.

WILLIAM CARTER’s latest book of photographs, Causes and Spirits, is due out this year from Steidl, and more than 150 of his pictures have been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

ALAN CRAIG is the pseudonym of a writer who lives in Massachusetts. He writes: “On my last birthday, I decided to work my way up to fifty-six push-ups, one for every year I’ve been alive. After a few weeks I got up to thirty; then my shoulder gave out. I couldn’t lift my arm over my head for months. Next time I get the urge to do push-ups, I’m going to watch television until it safely passes.”

DIANNE DUENZL loves to photograph foggy, dreamlike landscapes, which are rare where she lives, in the bright glare and drought of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

DUNCAN GREEN began taking photographs at ymca camp in Ohio when he was eleven. He is a staff photographer for the Washington State House of Representatives and lives in Olympia, Washington.

JEFFREY HERSCH is a photographer who has unloaded cod from fishing boats and mucked out horse stalls. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

TRICIA HILL lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and dabbles in photography. She admits her first-grade teacher was correct that she’s a “worry-wart,” but she no longer believes that she will develop warts all over as a result.

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

ALISON LUTERMAN’s second book of poems, See How We Almost Fly, was just published by Pearl Editions. She lives, teaches, and throws parties with her husband in Oakland, California.

ALAN MASS is a photographer who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

JULIE McCARTHY is a freelance photographer living in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She says that she fully intends to die with camera in hand — just not anytime soon.

JULIE REICHERT writes, teaches, and makes movies in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

DAVID ROMTVEDT lives in Buffalo, Wyoming, where he has spent much of the past year building his house — digging the foundation, framing, insulating, hanging drywall, and now, finally, painting. His most recent book of poems is titled Some Church (Milkweed Editions).

JOHN ROSENTHAL lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His book of photographs is called Regarding Manhattan (Safe Harbor Books).

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

CARLA SHAPIRO lives in Chichester, New York. Her photograph in the December 2004 issue is of her grandmother.

CHIP THOMAS is a photographer and family physician on the Navajo nation reservation in Shonto, Arizona.

HARRY WILSON lives in Bakersfield, California.

ANGELA WINTER  has been dreaming about feathers, nests, and owls. She lives in a small house with a robin’s-egg blue kitchen in Carrboro, North Carolina, and works at The Sun.

BILL WITT is a photographer who has also been a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan, an assembler of tractor transmissions, and an Iowa state legislator. He lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.