POE BALLANTINE is the subject of a second documentary in as many years, this one concerning his “messed-up life,” his quirky little town, and the mystery described in his forthcoming book Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere. He is the author of 501 Minutes to Christ and lives in Chadron, Nebraska.

RITA BERNSTEIN lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her husband and as many pets as he will tolerate.

ANDREW BOYD is the author of Daily Afflictions and Life’s Little Deconstruction Book and is finishing work on Pilgrimage to Nowhere, a travelogue of his skeptic’s journey around the world. He cofounded Agit-Pop Communications, an award-winning “subvertising” agency, and for a decade led the satirical media campaign Billionaires for Bush. He lives in New York City.

GEORGE COLLIER learned photography from a Japanese man in the fifties and sixties. He lives with his wife and two cats in Richmond, Virginia.

DOUG CRANDELL lives on a small farm outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and works at the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia. He sometimes writes in his chicken coop, where his flock whispers opening lines to him.

KELLY DeLONG lives in Duluth, Georgia, and teaches English at Clark Atlanta University. His work has been published in The Evansville Review, Palo Alto Review, and Roanoke Review. Lately he’s been breaking up cat fights under his bed and barking with his dog at the people walking by his house.

MONICA DENEVAN has been traveling to Burma since 2000 to take photographs there. She lives in San Francisco with her cat, Moxie.

PERRY DILBECK lives in Locust Grove, Georgia, and teaches photography at the Art Institute of Atlanta. He is author of The Last Harvest: Truck Farmers in the Deep South (University of Georgia Press).

CHRIS ELLINGER is an engineer who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

ANDERS GOLDFARB’s work has been published in The New York Times and Art Forum and is in public and private photography collections. He lives in New York City.

DUNCAN GREEN recently got married for the first time at the age of fifty-three. He works as a bicycle advocate for the transit agency in Olympia, Washington.

TONY HOAGLAND lives and teaches poetry in Houston, Texas; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and elsewhere. He leads a workshop for teachers called the Five Powers of Poetry (www.fivepowerspoetry.com), and his book of essays is titled Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft.

JON HUGHES is a photojournalist who has been on assignment around the world, but his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, is his ongoing documentary project.

EDIS JURCYS’s latest book of photographs is The Hill of Crosses. Gardens of Life. He was born in Lithuania and now lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon, where he recently fell in love with tango dancing.

LAUREL LEIGH is currently squatting in Washington’s Whatcom County with a dog who eats a lot. Her story in this issue is part of a collection inspired by her father and his banged-up cars.

ALISON LUTERMAN lives in Oakland, California, and is the author of the poetry collections See How We Almost Fly and The Largest Possible Life. The title of her poem in this issue comes from a poem by Lucille Clifton.

R.A. McBRIDE is the author of Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres, for which she received a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. She is a founding member of Point Blank, an experimental photography group in San Francisco.

SANDRA NYDEGGER grew up in Switzerland and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Lately she’s been photographing auto-racing events along the East Coast.

KATHERINE O’BRIEN and her husband work together as wedding and portrait photographers. They live with their two children in Buda, Texas.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

ALAN SIRULNIKOFF was born in the middle of the Canadian winter and remains traumatized by it to this day. He now resides on the Sunshine Coast, a short ferry ride from Vancouver, British Columbia. His photographs have been published in Américas and Travel and Leisure.

THEA SULLIVAN likes to play her 1965 Epiphone acoustic guitar and dreams about singing in a bluegrass band. She teaches writing in San Francisco.