RITA BERNSTEIN is a former civil-rights lawyer who fantasizes about being a veterinarian or a neuroscientist. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

ANNA BLACKSHAW is a writer and documentary photographer who coauthored the award-winning book No More Strangers Now: Young Voices from a New South Africa. She lives in the old mill town of Bynum, North Carolina, and dreams of turning her overgrown garden into an oasis. 

ANDREW BOYD is an author, humorist, and twenty-year veteran of creative campaigns for social change. He’s written two books of “serious humor” — Daily Afflictions and Life’s Little Deconstruction Book (both W.W. Norton) — and is at work on two more: one about the irony of travel when there’s no “elsewhere” anymore, and another about the “odd challenges men face in a post-feminist world.” He lives in New York City with his wee laptop.

BRIGITTE CARNOCHAN is the author of Bella Figura (Modernbook Editions). She lives in Portola Valley, California, where she loves to photograph her dog, Muggs, doing just about anything for a dog biscuit.

JAMES CARROLL lives in New York City.

LARRY CHAIT retired at an early age from being a research scientist to become a jazz drummer. When he discovered he had no talent for the drums, he took up photography. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

JAMES CHARBONNEAU is a writer and screenwriter whose most recent screenplay is Being Michael Madsen. Since his divorce he’s had a series of failed relationships lasting from eleven hours to six years. He lives in Middletown, Connecticut, with his cat, Chance.

DAVID GROSSMAN was born in Jerusalem and is the author of six novels, two essay collections, several children’s books, and a play. He lives with his wife and children in a suburb of Jerusalem.

ROBERTO GUERRA lives in La Paz, Bolivia, where he is working on a project about coca farmers.

MARISA HANDLER is a writer, activist, and singer-songwriter living in San Francisco. Her memoir is titled Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist (Berrett-Koehler). She spent this past June on a meditation retreat where she practiced total silence, except for the times she’d go far into the woods and sing to the trees and salamanders.

WAYNE HARRISON has worked as an auto mechanic, a house framer, and a corrections officer in a medium-security prison. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s and Ploughshares and is forthcoming in the Atlantic. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

JON HUGHES is a self-taught photojournalist who began taking pictures more than twenty years ago at the age of forty. Although he has been on assignment around the world, he considers Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lives, to be his main documentary project.

PETER INGRASSELINO lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and works as a registered nurse in a dialysis clinic, where he makes gifts of his photographs to his patients.

ADRIE KUSSEROW is a cultural anthropologist who lives in Underhill Center, Vermont, with her husband and two children. She is the author of a book of poems, Hunting Down the Monk (BOA Editions), and is working on a second collection, about her time in Sudan.

GREGORY MARTIN is the author of Mountain City (North Point Press), which is about the Nevada town where his mother grew up. He writes: “My book is sold in the local-history museum, run by my aunt Lou. It’s the only book they sell. People in Mountain City call it ‘the book.’ ” He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife and two children.

JULIA McHUGH is a transcriber, a part-time nanny, and a single mother to two daughters. She lives in Port Townsend, Washington. 

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE’s most recent books of poems include Honeybee (Greenwillow) and You & Yours (BOA Editions). A Tom Waits fan for more than thirty years, she recently attended a concert of his in Dallas and has been able to levitate ever since. She lives with her husband, a gray cat, and two large turtles in San Antonio, Texas.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

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

KAREN TWEEDY-HOLMES works as an editor so that she doesn’t have to photograph lipstick or salad to pay the rent. She lives in New York City and devotes one day each weekend to a palomino quarter horse named Lucky, though she insists that she’s the lucky one.