Contributors

Melody Ermachild Chavis is a longtime private eye who works for defendants in capital cases. She is the author of two books, Altars in the Street (Three Rivers Press) and Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan (St. Martin’s Press), and is at work on a third, a memoir about her career. She lives in Berkeley, California, and practices Buddhism at the Berkeley Zen Center.

Alison Clement grew up in a military family and works in an elementary-school library in western Oregon. Her novel Pretty Is as Pretty Does was published in 2001 by MacAdam/Cage. Her new book, Twenty Questions, is forthcoming from Washington Square Press.

Robert P. Cooke lives in Highland, Indiana, and previously taught writing at Western Illinois University and Prairie State College. He currently works as a health-and-safety trainer at a refinery.

Doug Crandell lives in Smyrna, Georgia, and will be on the faculty of this year’s Midwest Writers Workshop. His first book, Pig Boy’s Wicked Bird (Chicago Review Press), is a Quality Paperback Book Club pick. His memoir The All-American Industrial Motel is due out in spring 2006 from Chicago Review Press.

Charles Derry lives in Ohio, but his heart is in the California desert. He is working on a book-length memoir and a novel about Sicilian immigrants in Cleveland during World War II.

Cheryl Gatling is a nurse by night, poet by day. Her poems have appeared in Wisconsin Review, Cimarron Review, Comstock Review, and the online journal Born. She lives in Syracuse, New York.

Pat MacEnulty is the author of Sweet Fire, a novel, and The Language of Sharks, a short-story collection, and has a third book forthcoming, titled Time to Say Goodbye, all from Serpent’s Tail Press. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has taught creative writing at all levels, from prisons to the university.

Sy Safransky is editor of The Sun.

John Tait’s stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Bellingham Review, and the New Orleans Review. He is a native of Ontario, Canada, and an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas.

Jennifer Bisbing lives in Chicago and has been taking photographs for more than ten years.

Sarah Blodgett is a landscape and portrait photographer living in Pine Plains, New York.

Lauren Goodsmith is a photographer who works as a trainer and consultant on women’s health and development projects in Africa. She has published one book of photographs, The Children of Mauritania: Days in the Desert and by the River Shore (Carolrhoda Books). A native New Yorker, she now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her cat and her horse.

Daniel J. Hoffman was educated at a monastic university but later became a scientist. He is now a freelance photographer and a professor of nutrition living in New Jersey.

Erik Hoffner lives and takes photographs in Ashfield, Massachusetts. He is outreach coordinator for Orion magazine and previously worked in the field of environmental education, where he held many low-paying jobs in beautiful places.

Matt Kollasch lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He has traveled to Slovakia thirty-five times in the last ten years to photograph that country’s Roma (Gypsy) culture.

Igor Malijevský is a photographer, poet, and short-story writer who lives in the Czech Republic.

Gary Matson’s photographs have appeared in American Photo, Rolling Stone, and Wildlife Conservation magazine. He lives in Syracuse, New York.

Vincent Perez lives in Randle, Washington, and is a challenge-course manager in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Every Thursday night he plays guitar with the boys, but his first artistic love is the pinhole camera.

Fawn Potash is a photographer, educator, and curator working in the Hudson Valley, New York City, and elsewhere. Her images have appeared in Harper’s, Mirabella, and Art News.

David Riecks is a communications specialist in photography at the University of Illinois. His love of travel has taken him all over the world.

Richard Robinson lives near Charlottesville, Virginia, and is an adjunct professor of photography at Randolph-Macon Women’s College. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, and Time.

Joseph Sorrentino is a playwright and photographer living in Rochester, New York. Much of his work documents homelessness and poverty. A selection of his photographs appears in Images from the Center, published by the Rochester Zen Center.

Ellen Wallenstein is a photographer, teacher, and tarot-card reader living in New York City. She is also on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts.

Lisa Wiltse is a freelance photojournalist who lives in Brooklyn, New York.