BOB BAYLES is a photographer who lives in Van Nuys, California. He likes to incorporate quotes from movies in conversation, which leads his family to playfully accuse him of being unoriginal. “Either that,” he says, “or they actually believe ‘I’m very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say’ (Annie Hall).”

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

J.R. CARRIGAN is a photographer living in Burlington, Vermont.

WILLIAM CARTER plays the clarinet and chairs the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation. His new book of photographs, Causes and Spirits, will be published by Steidl in 2010. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

ARNIE COOPER is a freelancer based in Santa Barbara, California, who has written for Dwell, Esquire, and the Wall Street Journal. Lately he’s been spending much of his time trying to convince his Akita pup, Kenta, to stop eating rocks and wood chips.

ERIN CORBAL is a photographer and compulsive list-maker who took great satisfaction in writing up this biographical note and crossing it off her list. She lives with her husband in Altadena, California.

VIRGINIA ELIOT is a writer living in New York City.

FRANK HAMRICK’s photography career began at age ten, when he traded an old hat for a cheap 35mm camera. He is the author of i found it when i stopped looking (Nexus Press). He lives in Gray, Georgia.

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

STEVE KOWIT sent the army a letter of resignation in 1969 and was visited soon after by army intelligence officers with a tape recorder. He later received a transcript of his interview that the army wanted him to sign. A San Francisco lawyer said his testimony was excellent — and that he should get out of town fast. Kowit and his wife spent the next several years in Mexico. He now lives in Potrero, California.

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

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.

DEIRDRE PETERSON is a writer living in New York City. After years of helping businesspeople say what they want to say, she is now writing what she wants to say.

ROGER PFINGSTON taught English and photography for thirty years. One of his worst habits is thinking too much about the future, earning him the nickname “the great anticipator.” He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

MICHAEL POLLAN is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and the Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. His books include The Botany of Desire (Random House), A Place of My Own (Delta), and Second Nature (Grove Press). He lives in Berkeley, California.

MELANIE A. RAWLS lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and is a writing instructor at Florida A&M University.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

LAURIE SERMOS recently returned home to her dachshund, Hugo, after teaching photography for three months in Tuscany, Italy. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

MANDELIENE SMITH has waited tables, scooped ice cream, taught writing, weeded gardens, and translated books into Braille to support her writing habit. Her stories have appeared in the Massachusetts Review and the New England Review. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

SPARROW lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he does Sudoku and follows the Yankees. He is the author of America: A Prophecy (Soft Skull Press).

MARK TOWNSEND lives in Brooklyn, New York.

MORGAN TYREE, who lives in Powell, Wyoming, rode with and photographed a trucker for eight thousand miles through twenty states last summer. His work has appeared in Montana Quarterly and Referee. He is seeking a book publisher for his photographs of high-school football.

JANINE POMMY VEGA is the author of twenty books of poetry and prose. Her most recent book of poems is The Green Piano (Black Sparrow Books). She has performed her work — in English and Spanish, with and without music — at festivals, nightclubs, college campuses, and prisons. She lives in Bearsville, New York.

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