POE BALLANTINE does not need bifocals, he says, as he slides his glasses to the tip of his nose to read. He is the author of the true-crime book Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, due out in 2012, and the subject of the documentary Poe Ballantine, A Writer in America (copies of which can be purchased for $13.99, shipping included, from Al Saperstein, P.O. Box 111, Earleton, Florida, 32631). He lives in Chadron, Nebraska.

ROB BREZSNY writes the widely syndicated column Free Will Astrology and is the author of three books. He is also the creator of “Sacred Uproar,” a pagan revival show featuring prayers, meditations, rituals, and music. He lives north of San Francisco.

GEOFF OLIVER BUGBEE has worked in more than twenty countries as a photojournalist, documenting such issues as hiv/aids and curable blindness. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

CHRIS BURSK lives in Langhorne Manor, Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books of poetry, including The Improbable Swervings of Atoms (University of Pittsburgh Press). When he’s not teaching or writing poetry, he spends much of his time chasing his grandchildren.

WILLIAM CARTER’s latest book of photographs is Causes and Spirits. More than 150 of his prints are in the permanent collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

DANE CERVINE is a therapist who directs the child and adolescent programs for Santa Cruz County, California. His poem “The Ukelele” was a finalist for the Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Competition.

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.

SUSIE FORRESTER's photographs have been published in the Photo Review and Hope magazine. She lives in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

BAYARD TAYLOR HORTON spent twenty years as a newspaper and wire-service photographer. He lives in Palm Bay, Florida, and is writing a novel.

ERIN RACHEL HUDAK is a photographer, painter, and writer who lives with the love of her life on a crooked river in Kent, Ohio. She is moving to New York City in December.

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

ROBERT McGEE recently completed Rational Managers for Irrational Times, a collection of stories set in American offices. His work has appeared in Carve Magazine and NPR’s National Story Project anthology, I Thought My Father Was God (Henry Holt and Co.). He lives in a forest near Asheville, North Carolina, where he’s at work on a novel, a screenplay, and an unruly horse.

KEVIN J. MIYAZAKI is a portrait and travel photographer who loves airports, doesn’t own a television, and secretly devours the wedding section of the Sunday New York Times. His work has appeared in Time, the Washington Post Magazine, and Reader’s Digest. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

ANNA KAUFMAN MOON is the author of a self-published book of photographs called Reflections of New York City: 1963–1972. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times, and Life. She lives in Cobleskill, New York.

KAREN MORGAN is a photographer living in Richmond, Virginia.

BRIAN PETERSON is a photographer who lives in Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania.

SYBIL SMITH is a retired nurse who lives in Vermont. Her work recently appeared in Weber—The Contemporary West.

MARK TOWNSEND lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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

KATE WEST is a photographer living in Washington, D.C. She recently completed a project titled “Disarmament Begins at Home,” which documents one family’s experience in the peace-and-justice movement.

BILL WITT provides volunteer photo services for several nonprofit organizations and drives a truck for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank once a week. He is the author of Orchids in Your Pocket: A Guide to the Native Orchids of Iowa and Enchanted by Prairie. He lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

GENIE ZEIGER was a longtime contributor to The Sun who lived in Shelburne, Massachusetts. She died on December 24, 2009.