Contributors

Jaimes Alsop lives in Novato, California.

Coleman Barks lives in Athens, Georgia and is an associate professor of English at the University of Georgia. He has been translating Rumi for fourteen years.

Stephen T. Butterfield is a Buddhist meditation instructor, English professor, and poet.

Richard Chess has had poems in The American Poetry Review, Tikkun, and The American Voice. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where he teaches at the University of North Carolina.

Robin Green is a Canadian living in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where he writes short stories, grows tomatoes, and struggles with the sixth draft of a novel set in prehistoric France. A collection of his short stories, Mushroom Salad, was published in Toronto in 1985.

Mark O’Brien is a poet and journalist who lives in Berkeley, California. His work has appeared in Whole Earth Review, Margin, The San Francisco Chronicle, St. Andrews Review, and The Fessenden Review.

Candace Perry is a writer and psychotherapist — which means, she says, that she’s a professional voyeur. The year one of her sons needed help with his reading, she logged countless hours in the waiting room of a speech and reading therapy clinic. She watched how another boy, with Down’s syndrome, rushed out of his sessions to greet his waiting mother, who thrilled at each new accomplishment. Her story, “Most Likely To Succeed,” was inspired by that year of watching.

Jelaluddin Rumi lived seven hundred years ago. Regarded by many as a saint, and as one of the greatest poets who ever lived, Rumi composed many of his verses in a state of ecstasy.

Sy Safransky is the editor of The Sun.

Susie Forrester lives in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.