JENNIFER BISBING lives in Chicago. Her current project, wicker women, is a celebration of the women who work and live in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. She is donating all of the proceeds to Connections for Abused Women and Their Children.

SARAH BLODGETT is a commercial and fine-art photographer who lives in Ancram, New York. Her work has appeared in Fine Gardening, Martha Stewart Living, and the Knot.

MELODY ERMACHILD CHAVIS is a long-time private eye who works for defendants in capital cases. She is the author of two books, Altars in the Street (Three Rivers Press) and Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan (St. Martin’s Press), and is at work on a third, a memoir about her career. She lives in Berkeley, California, and practices Buddhism at the Berkeley Zen Center.

ALISON CLEMENT is the author of the novels Pretty Is as Pretty Does (MacAdam/Cage) and Twenty Questions (Atria). She lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her partner, an old cat, and a faithful pit bull.

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.

DOUG CRANDELL was born in Wabash, Indiana, the first electrically lighted city in the world and the hometown of singer Crystal Gayle. He wishes he had even a fraction of her hair. He lives with his family in Douglasville, Georgia.

CHARLES DERRY lives in Ohio, but his heart is in the California desert. He is working on a book-length memoir and a novel about Sicilian immigrants in Cleveland during World War II.

CHERYL GATLING lives in Syracuse, New York, and has worked the night shift at a hospital as a registered nurse for eighteen years. She is also a wife, mother, and graduate student.

LAUREN GOODSMITH is a photographer who works as a trainer and consultant on women’s health and development projects in Africa. She has published one book of photographs, The Children of Mauritania: Days in the Desert and by the River Shore (Carolrhoda Books). A native New Yorker, she now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her cat and her horse.

DANIEL J. HOFFMAN ongoing photography project In Protest is a study of marches and demonstrations. He lives in Roosevelt, New Jersey.

ERIK HOFFNER is a renewable-energy activist who works for Orion magazine. He lives in Ashfield, Massachusetts.

MATT KOLLASCH has been working for years on a photography project about the Roma people of Slovakia. When not traveling, he lives in McGregor, Iowa.

PAT MACENULTY is the author of four books, all published by Serpent’s Tail Press. Her latest novel, From May to December, is based on her experiences running a drama workshop at a women’s prison. She is currently collecting essays for an anthology on parental caretaking.

IGOR MALIJEVSKÝ is a photographer, poet, and short-story writer living in the Czech Republic.

GARY MATSON lives in Sunnyside, New York. He has lived in every borough of New York City except Staten Island, though he was woken up there a number of mornings.

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

VINCENT PEREZ lives in Randle, Washington, and is a challenge-course manager in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Every Thursday night he plays guitar with the boys, but his first artistic love is the pinhole camera.

FAWN POTASH is a photographer, educator, curator, and volunteer firefighter living in Catskill, New York.

DAVID RIECKS is a communications specialist in photography at the University of Illinois. His love of travel has taken him all over the world.

RICHARD ROBINSON’s work has appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, and the Washington Post. He lives in Orange, Virginia.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

JOSEPH SORRENTINO is a photographer and playwright who lives in Rochester, New York. 

JOHN TAIT is an assistant professor of fiction writing at the University of North Texas and editor of American Literary Review. A Canadian transplant living in Denton, Texas, he has come to enjoy barbecue and Shiner Bock beer as much as he does back bacon and Molson.

ELLEN WALLENSTEIN teaches photography at the School of Visual Arts and Pratt Institute. She divides her time between New York City and Sherman, Connecticut.

LISA WILTSE’s photography projects have focused on humanitarian issues in Australia, Uganda, Bangladesh, Romania, and the Philippines. She lives in Weston, Connecticut.