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.

ELLEN BASS’s poetry books include The Human Line and Mules of Love. She teaches in Pacific University’s low-residency mfa program and lives in Santa Cruz, California.

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

MAUREEN BEITLER is a photographer and nurse living in New York City. She received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for her photographs of Harlem.

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

ANDY CHARNAS lives and takes photographs in San Francisco.

LESLIE CLOSE is a photographer who lives in Eugene, Oregon. She is currently working on a master’s thesis about women who are getting out of prison.

ERIC DILLENBERGER has been taking photographs for forty years. He lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

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.

JENNIFER ESPERANZA’s photographs have been published in the New York Times, and she has self-published a book, Tears of Venus: It’s All the Goddess to Me, on Blurb.com. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

STEVE FELLNER is an assistant professor of English at SUNY Brockport. His essays have appeared in Northwest Review, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Quarterly West, among others. He lives in Brockport, New York.

SARA GOLDENTHAL is a photographer who currently makes her living as an artist’s model in Portland, Maine. She also sings with a jazz trio and is working on a book of cat drawings.

CARLOS GUSTAVO is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and is currently traveling the southeastern U.S. His photographs have been published in B&W and Oxford American.

KAUI HART HEMMINGS is the author of House of Thieves (Penguin Press), a collection of stories. Her fiction has appeared in Story Quarterly and Zoetrope: All-Story. She lives in San Francisco.

MICHELE A. HUBBS’s photographs have been published in Shots. She lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she consumes chocolate in criminal quantities.

JON HUGHES is a photojournalist who has been on assignment around the world, but his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, is his ongoing documentary project.

STUART KESTENBAUM is the author of two books of poems, Pilgrimage (Coyote Love Press) and House of Thanksgiving (Deerbrook Editions). He lives in Deer Isle, Maine.

STEVE KOWIT likes to point out that, although people don’t think writers earn much money, he and the nation’s leading romance novelist earn a combined income of approximately $60 million a year. He lives in California with his beloved wife, six cats, and two dogs.

TIM McKEE is the author of No More Strangers Now: Young Voices from a New South Africa (DK Publishing). He lives in Bynum, North Carolina, with his wife and their son, Rio. He is happy if he makes his son laugh at least once a day.

MATT NIGHSWANDER is a photographer who spent six years as an international photo editor at the Associated Press and ten years playing in a band you’ve never heard of. He lives in Chicago.

JULIE PHILIPS is working toward a BA in photography and doing her thesis on the history of the pinata. She also collects doorknobs from around the world. She lives in Studio City, California.

MICHAEL ROCHE’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Colorado, Texas, Montana, and New York. He lives in Fredericksburg, Texas.

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.

ARTHUR SAWYERS’s photographs have been published in Aperture and Contemporary Photographer. Early in his career he was chosen by LIFE as one of the ten best photographers in America. He lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and died in April 2003.

SPARROW has moved back to Phoenicia, New York, where he lives with his wife, Violet Snow. He is still a Yankees fan, despite certain political misgivings, and is addicted to Sudoku, YouTube, and pretzels.

CHERYL STRAYED is the author of the novel Torch (Houghton Mifflin). Her work appeared in Best New American Voices 2003 (Harvest Books) and Best American Essays 2003 (Houghton Mifflin). She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

JENNIFER ZAHIGIAN is a photographer, massage therapist, and holistic health practitioner. She lives in Oakland, California.