ROBERT ALEXANDER is a former newspaper editor who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

MARCO CASTRO was born and raised in Mexico City and now lives with his wife and twin children in Brooklyn, New York.

LARRY CHAIT is a former research scientist who retired early to become a jazz drummer, only to find that he had no talent. He then took up photography, to which he is now totally devoted. He lives in Chicago.

BRIAN DOYLE’s most recent book is Bin Laden’s Bald Spot & Other Stories. He lives in Portland, Oregon. At the age of twenty-eight he learned that it’s not all about him, and twenty-seven years later he’s still reeling from the shocking discovery, which turns out to be the secret of decent writing.

JENNIFER ESPERANZA’s photographs have been published in the New York Times, and she has self-published a book, Tears of Venus: It’s All the Goddess to Me, on Blurb.com. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

LESLEE GOODMAN is a freelance writer based in Ojai, California, and Twisp, Washington.

PETER INGRASSELINO works as a nurse in a dialysis clinic and lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

MARK IRWIN is the author of six collections of poetry, the most recent titled Tall If (New Issues Poetry & Prose). He has won four Pushcart Prizes and two Colorado Book Awards and teaches in the graduate creative-writing program at the University of Southern California. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Colorado, where he designed his house by making a model out of sugar cubes because he couldn’t afford an architect.

JUDITH JOYCE is the pseudonym of a writer who has written several books of poems and a memoir. She lives in the Bay Area of California.

MARJORIE KEMPER always said that her epitaph should be “Here Lies a Woman Who Could Make Gravy from a Sailcat” (slang for roadkill that’s been flattened by passing cars). So that’s the one her family gave her at her memorial service. She died in Los Angeles on November 12, 2009, and her ashes were scattered in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. Marjorie grew up in Texas and Louisiana, and much of her fiction is set in the Deep South. In May the Texas Institute of Letters gave her the prestigious Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story. Her novel, Until That Good Day, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2003.

GILLIAN KENDALL is the editor of Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing. She recently sold her house in Australia and is traveling in the Balkans and beyond, seeking work, a life-changing haircut, and a home.

SY SAFRANSKY is editor and publisher of The Sun.

ROSIE SARAGA has been practicing Transcendental Meditation since 1972. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

CRAIG J. SATTERLEE lives in Powell, Wyo­ming, where he has taught photography at Northwest College for thirty-two years.

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.”

SPARROW lives in a double-wide trailer in Phoenicia, New York, where he can pick up French radio stations from Montreal at night. His most recent book is America: A Prophecy — The Sparrow Reader.

KARA WOOD’s photographs have appeared in San Francisco magazine and Jazz Times. She lives in Oakland, California, and says working in her garden is her best therapy.