POE BALLANTINE’s latest book is 501 Minutes to Christ (Hawthorne Books). He lives in Chadron, Nebraska, where he is a school custodian. He says, “It feels good to be back in education.” 

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.

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.

DANE CERVINE lives in Santa Cruz, California, where he is chief of children’s mental health for his county. He found his calling when he quit his job at a tomato cannery and started working at a psychiatric hospital. His latest book of poetry is The Jeweled Net of Indra (Plain View Press).

PEMA CHODRON is a fully ordained Buddhist nun and the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery for Westerners. She is the author of several books, including No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva (Shambhala).

MIKE CONNEALY put photography aside for thirty years to make a living and raise a family. Now retired, he is taking pictures again, mostly with old cameras. He lives with his wife in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

J’AIMEE CRONIN is a photographer who lives in New York City.

REINHARD GORN is a commercial photographer, but he prefers to take pictures of strangers on city streets. He lives in Berlin, Germany.

CARLOS GUSTAVO lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His photographs have been published in Harper's, Elle, and Vogue.

DAVID BRENDAN HOPES is the author of A Childhood in the Milky Way (Akron University Press), which was nominated for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. His latest volume of poetry, A Dream of Adonis, is forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

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.

MICHAEL V. LIMBERT is a photographer who plays with the band Fortune & Maltese. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

ROBERT LLEWELLYN is a photographer who lives in Earlysville, Virginia.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

BETHANY SALTMAN is a writer and editor who lives in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. She writes about religion, spirituality, and parenting for such magazines as Buddhadharma, Mothering, and Geez.

MARK SMITH-SOTO lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he serves as director of the Center for Creative Writing in the Arts at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has published two books of poetry, Our Lives Are Rivers (University Press of Florida) and Any Second Now (Main Street Rag Press).

MARY SPALDING is an English instructor and PhD student at Potomac State College of West Virginia University. She lives in Frostburg, Maryland.

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).

JAN STURMANN grew up in South Africa. Before becoming a photographer, he made his living as a left-handed tree planter, a vegetarian ranch hand, and a numerically challenged carpenter. He lives in Oakland, California.

DEBRA SUGERMAN is a photographer and filmmaker from Austin, Texas.

COLE THOMPSON lives in Laporte, Colorado, where he raises llamas. His photographs have been published in B&W, Focus, and Photo Life.

MARK TOWNSEND lives in Brooklyn, New York.

THOMAS TULIS is a photographer living in Atlanta, Georgia.

JERRY N. UELSMANN lives in Gainesville, Florida. His most recent book of photographs is Other Realities (Bulfinch Press).