JEAN BRAITHWAITE lives in Edinburgh, Texas, where she teaches English, directs the MFA program, and struggles to improve her Spanish, all at the University of Texas-Pan American. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and Bayou.

JOHN CAMARA is a photographer living in Mill Valley, California. He spends his free time exploring the ruins of industrial-age America.

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.

POLLY CHANDLER works as a photographer for the Texas House of Representatives, and her work has appeared in American Photo and Shots. She lives in Austin, Texas.

THOMAS CLARK is a part-time photographer, writer, tennis player, and recluse. He lives in St. Albans, New York.

REBECCA DROBIS loves to wear red shoes and walk around strange places with her camera. She lives in Venice, California.

NOËLLE GABERMAN lives in Occidental, California. When she was young, she thought her father was in Kool & the Gang because his band covered their song “Celebration.”

ROBERT GRAHAM is a frustrated amateur photographer living in Chatham County, North Carolina. He is also art director at The Sun. He recently parted with a beloved electric guitar, after age and propriety overtook him.

KARI HAGA is a graphic designer by day and an artist by night. She lives in Billings, Montana.

KAREN KARVONEN does freelance writing for national magazines from her home in Englewood, Colorado, and edits the Rocky Mountain Quarter Horse. She has belonged to the same dream-work group for eighteen years.

JASON LANGER’s photos have appeared in American Photo, Life, and Vanity Fair, and his work is represented in the Sir Elton John permanent collection, the Sir Mick Jagger permanent collection, and Yale University Art Gallery. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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

SEBASTIAN MATTHEWS’s book of poems, We Generous, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. He lives with his wife and son in Asheville, North Carolina, where he teaches part time at Warren Wilson College and edits Rivendell, a literary journal. He trespasses daily on the local public golf course with his chocolate lab, Ursula.

SUZANNE MURRAY lives in Sonoma County, California, where she teaches writing workshops and occasionally hears a mountain lion in the redwood forest that surrounds her home. She is known for her ability to imitate a wide range of birdcalls, including those of the bald eagle and the common loon.

SUSAN PERABO lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and is writer-in-residence and associate professor of English at Dickinson College. Her short-story collection, Who I Was Supposed to Be (Simon & Schuster), was named a “Book of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times. She once shoved then-New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman out of the way to get the last doughnut at a breakfast buffet.

ERIC PUCHNER’s short stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Zoetrope: All Story, the Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, and the anthology Best New American Voices 2005 (Harvest Books). His new short-story collection is titled Music through the Floor (Scribner). He teaches at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco with his wife, novelist Katharine Noel.

ERIC RAWSON lives and works in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Commonweal, and the online magazine Slate.

MIRIAM ROMAIS is the executive director and editor for En Foco, a nonprofit that supports photographers of Latino, African, Asian, and Native American heritage. She is also an avid motorcyclist and lives in New York City.

JERRY N. UELSMANN’s most recent book of photographs is The Mind’s Eye, and his work is in the permanent collections of art museums worldwide. He lives in Gainesville, Florida.

BUCKY WILCOX is a photographer living in Grass Valley, California.

SAINT JAMES HARRIS WOOD’s essay in this issue is from his memoir, Something Is Wrong with Me, for which a publishing deal is in the works. In prison for robbing banks with a toy gun, he welcomes mail to break up the steady flow of irs complaints and magazine rejection letters. (Saint James Harris Wood T30027, P.O. Box  CMC-6273, San Luis Obispo, CA 93409) 

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