MARK BELAIR is a drummer and percussionist living in New York City. He has recorded with jazz greats Bill Evans and Joe Lovano and has performed with the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Fulcrum, Harvard Review, Mudfish, and the South Carolina Review.

LISA BELLAMY’s writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, The Massachusetts Review, and Cimarron Review. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at the Writers Studio. When not writing or hiking in the Adirondacks, she dreams up names for the English springer spaniel puppy she will one day bring home.

ANNA BLACKSHAW is a writer and documentary photographer who lives in North Carolina.

KRISTIN CAPP was trained as a classical violinist at a young age but discovered photography in college. She is coauthor of the book Keeping the Embers Alive: Musicians of Zimbabwe (Africa World Press) and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

TENAYA DARLINGTON is the author of Madame Deluxe (Coffee House Press), a collection of poetry inspired by drag queens, and the novel Maybe Baby (Back Bay). She also writes a blog about cheese: www.madamefromage.blogspot.com. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she teaches at St. Joseph’s University and serves as a contributing editor to the online arts journal Born Magazine (www.bornmagazine.org).

BRIAN DOYLE is not the Canadian novelist Brian Doyle, nor the Brian Doyle who played for the New York Yankees in the 1978 World Series, nor the astrophysicist Brian Doyle, nor the Australian comedian Brian Doyle. His most recent book is Bin Laden’s Bald Spot & Other Stories, and he is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon.

TERI HAVENS has been photographing American culture for twenty years, including recent projects about the Mississippi Delta and women’s professional rodeo. She lives in Marble, Colorado.

IRA J. HAWKINS is a student at California College of the Arts and a preschool teacher. He lives in Oakland, California.

THERON HOPKINS is a high-school English teacher in Wheatland, California, and the author of The 80-Yard Run: A Twenty-Week, Coast-to-Coast Quest for the Heart of High School Football (Skyhorse Publishing). His story in this issue is his first published fiction.

CAROLINE KRAUS is the author of Borderlines: A Memoir (Broadway) and a contributing writer for PBS.org. She lives in Mill Valley, California.

MATTHEW LAPISKA lives in Astoria, New York. He and his wife recently welcomed a new baby girl, who has already grown accustomed to having a camera track her every move.

FRANCES LEFKOWITZ was born poor in San Francisco, then attended an Ivy League college on scholarship and discovered the downside of upward mobility. Her journey is recounted in her memoir To Have Not  from MacAdam/Cage.

GARY MATSON once appeared on television in New Orleans, Louisiana, dancing under the stars, wearing one orange and one yellow sneaker. He lives in Sunnyside, New York.

CHRISTINE SAARI lives in Marquette, Michigan, and spends springs on her family farm in Austria, where she was born.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

CRAIG J. SATTERLEE teaches photography at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming.

LINDA SMOGOR lives in Homer, Alaska, which is often referred to as the “End of the Road” but is also lovingly called the “Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea.”

SARAH ANNE WHARTON has a passion for photography, cooking, and whistling. (“I come from a long line of whistlers,” she says.) She lives in Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.

LISA WILTSE lives in New South Wales, Australia.