Contributors

Poe Ballantine’s novel Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire will be published in July by Hawthorne Books. His piece in this issue is nonfiction. “I hate to fictionalize true material,” he writes. “I’m arrogant about having taken risks in life and working with my hands instead of sitting in some teachers’ lounge contemplating the snack machines.” He lives in Chadron, Nebraska.

Jamy Bond received a Fulbright grant in 2004 to travel to Mozambique to research and write a book about the death of her younger sister. She is now seeking a publisher for the resulting memoir, Mouths Full of Love, from which her essay in this issue is excerpted. She has decided to stay in Mozambique, where she is currently working on a novel.

Tess Gallagher is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, screenplay writer, and translator who lives in Port Angeles, Washington. Her previous poetry collections include Moon Crossing Bridge and Amplitude: New and Selected Poems (both Graywolf Press). In 1979 she began living with the short-story writer Raymond Carver, whom she married shortly before his death in 1988.

Steve Kowit’s teaching guide, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop (Tilbury House Publishers), is in its twelfth printing. He lives in Potrero, California.

John Malkin is a journalist and musician whose book The Only Alternative: Christian Nonviolent Peacemakers in America will be published in the spring by New City Press. He lives in Santa Cruz, California, and hosts a weekly radio program on Free Radio Santa Cruz.

Kirk Nesset is the author of Mr. Agreeable (Mammoth Press), a book of short stories, and a nonfiction book, The Stories of Raymond Carver (Ohio University Press). He is associate professor of English and creative writing at Allegheny College and also hosts a weekly gothic-rock radio show on WARC-FM called Black Planet — music for the depressed, dispossessed, undernourished, and unforgiven. He lives in Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Richard Newman’s most recent poetry collection is Borrowed Towns (Word Press). He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he divides his time among editing River Styx magazine, playing basketball, and drinking Rolling Rock at his neighborhood pub, the Cat’s Meow.

Sparrow lives with his wife, Violet, and daughter, Sylvia, in Phoenicia, New York. His new book is titled America: A Prophecy (Soft Skull Press). He was a TV star for fifty-six seconds in 1996, and was interviewed in TV Guide.