Contributors
April 2012
Writers
Sarah Braunstein is the author of the novel The Sweet Relief of Missing Children and was selected as one of “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation in 2010. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine and is raising a four-year-old son.
moreNancy Coleman is a writer and psychologist who lives in Topsham, Maine, where most of her nine adult lives have been spent in one very old farmhouse, sitting in one comfortable blue chair. She has hiked Maine’s Hundred-Mile Wilderness solo, been lead singer and songwriter in a rock band, and raised two adventurous children.
moreMichael Copperman’s writing has appeared in Oxford American, Creative Nonfiction, and Guernica. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Oregon Arts Council. From 2002 to 2004 he taught fourth grade in the rural public schools of the Mississippi Delta, and he is currently seeking representation for a novel about that experience.
moreRam Dass was born Richard Alpert in 1931 and was given the name Ram Dass (“servant of God”) by his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher whose seminal book Be Here Now is a kind of countercultural bible that translates Eastern philosophy into language meaningful to Westerners. He founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation and continues to teach via live webcasts and retreats in his home state of Hawaii.
moreLeslee Goodman is a freelance writer based in Ojai, California, and Twisp, Washington.
moreTony Hoagland’s latest book of poems is titled Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty. He teaches in the writing program at the University of Houston and lives in Houston, Texas.
moreStephen Levine is a poet and teacher of meditation. He is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Grist for the Mill, and the author of A Gradual Awakening.
moreJerry D. Mathes II’s most recent book is a poetry collection titled The Journal West, and he is the recipient of a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship. He once worked as a cargo specialist at the South Pole, where he taught the southernmost poetry workshop in the world. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in Boise, Idaho.
moreSigrid Nunez’s most recent book is Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. She is the author of six novels, the first of which, A Feather on the Breath of God, was a finalist for both the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Award. She is the 2012 writer-in-residence at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
moreRuth L. Schwartz’s fifth book of poems, Miraculum, will be published in July. She lives in Oakland, California, and is a Distinguished Visiting Writer in Ashland University’s low-residency MFA program.
moreMark Smith-Soto is the longtime editor of UNC Greensboro’s International Poetry Review. His poem in this issue is dedicated to the memory of Carmen Mayer.
moreBrian Jay Stanley’s essays have appeared in The Antioch Review, North American Review, and Pleiades. He lives with his wife in Asheville, North Carolina, where he rides an electric bike to work and is replacing his grass with moss and thyme to avoid having to mow.
morePhotographers
Rita Bernstein has been taking photographs for more than twenty years and recently began hand-coloring some of her pictures. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her husband and as many pets as he will tolerate.
moreElena Fava Emerson was born in Italy and taught photojournalism in Milan. She now lives in San Francisco.
moreAaron French lives in Oakland, California, where he is a chef at a cafe.
moreLupen Grainne lives outside of San Francisco. Her work has been published in Real Simple and the online magazine Literacyhead.
moreCarlos Gustavo is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and travels throughout the southeastern U.S. taking photographs.
morePatricia Lay-Dorsey’s self-published book Falling into Place chronicles her day-to-day life as a person with multiple sclerosis. She lives with her husband in Gross Pointe, Michigan.
moreEloise Merrifield is a writer and photographer cleverly disguised as a fine-dining server. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
moreRyan Rodgers is a writer and photographer working on a long, slow study of the Saint Croix River. He lives in Osceola, Wisconsin, with his wife and new daughter.
moreCraig J. Satterlee lives in Powell, Wyoming, where he has taught photography at Northwest College for thirty-two years.
moreTucker Sharon lives in San Francisco, California.
moreCole Thompson lives in Laporte, Colorado, where he raises llamas. His work has been published in Popular Photography, Focus, and Photographer’s Forum.
moreGaylon Wampler specializes in natural-resources photography and has traveled in more than seventy countries. He lives in Littleton, Colorado.
moreOn The Cover
Linda Smogor lives in Homer, Alaska, also known as the “cosmic hamlet by the sea.” She took this month’s cover photograph in Eugene, Oregon, in 2003. The couple, pictured on their front steps, are the parents of two boys.
moreEditor and Publisher
Sy Safransky
Managing Editor
Tim McKee
Senior Editor
Andrew Snee
Art Director
Robert Graham
Digital-Media Director
David Mahaffey
Manuscript Editor
Colleen Donfield
Assistant Editor
Luc Saunders
Editorial Associates
Erica Berkeley
Rachel J. Elliott
Proofreader
Seth Mirsky
Associate Publisher
Krista Bremer
Director of Finance
Becky Gee
Circulation Assistant
Molly Herboth
Administrative Assistant
Holly McKinney
With Help From
Manuscript Reading
Marianne Erhardt
Dave Hart
Paula Jolin
Gillian Kendall
Proofreading
Lauren Holder Raab
Writing Retreats
Angela Winter
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