Contributors

Edward Abbey was an American author and essayist known for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public-land policies. Born in Pennsylvania, he made the American West his home from the time he was seventeen. He wrote more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction before he died in 1989.

Alexis Adams lives with her husband and children on a small farm in Red Lodge, Montana, where they keep chickens, ducks, geese, and bees. Her writing has appeared in Natural Home and Yoga Journal, and on Slowfood.com, website of the international movement to defend agricultural and culinary biodiversity.

Poe Ballantine says, “I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was ten, didn’t stop wetting the bed until I was eleven, didn’t start writing until I was twenty-nine, didn’t marry until I was forty-four, didn’t have my first child until I was forty-six, didn’t publish my first novel until I was forty-seven. At this rate I won’t die till I’m a hundred and twenty-two.” His most recent novel is Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire (Hawthorne Books). He lives in Chadron, Nebraska.

Maraya Cornell recently hiked the John Muir Trail, which is 211 miles long and runs from Yosemite National Park to Mount Whitney in California. She lives in Los Angeles.

Laura Didyk’s work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Fence, and New Orleans Review. She lives in Hudson, New York.

Dawn Paul’s stories and essays have appeared in 14 Hills, Talking River, and the Redwood Coast Review. Her new novel is Still River (Corvid Press). She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.

John Purugganan is serving a life sentence in a California prison. He is the author of the play Let’s Keep Dancing, which won the first annual Arts in Correction Playwriting Contest in 1992, sponsored by UCLA’s extension program. He is currently seeking a production company for his screenplays Blood Parable and Hush. Correspondence can be sent to: John Purugganan E-71364, CSC-LAC/A2-108, P.O. Box 4430, Lancaster, CA 93539.

Sy Safransky is editor of The Sun.

Margot Singer gave up a career in management consulting to become a writer and a mom. Her work has appeared in Shenandoah and the North American Review, and she recently received a 2006 NEA fellowship for prose. She lives in Granville, Ohio.

Ryan Fox photographs weddings using top-of-the-line equipment, but is most proud of the pictures he takes with a plastic camera he bought for twenty-three dollars. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Duncan Green first discovered his love of photography at YMCA camp when he was eleven. He lives in Olympia, Washington, and is staff photographer for the Washington State House of Representatives.

Robert E. Hannan is a photographer who lives in Concord, Massachusetts.

Jeffrey Hersch supports himself mostly by taking photographs for newspapers, although he wouldn’t mind other work, even mucking out horse stalls, if it pays good money. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

R.A. McBride’s photographs have been published in Bitch, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Release Print. She is working on a project documenting single-screen movie theaters in San Francisco, where she lives.

Anna Kaufman Moon has been taking photographs since 1963, and her work has been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Life. She lives in Cobleskill, New York.

Gary Oliveira’s photographs have been published in the Green Mountains Review, Culturefront, and Public Culture. His latest project is to check into shabby motel rooms, take pictures, then check out. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Gerald Parker took more than one thousand photographs of his hometown, Brockton, Massachusetts, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. His work has appeared in Shutterbug, Shots, and Aperture. He lives in Manomet, Massachusetts.

Gretchen Seifert-Gram is a photographer who lives in Merrionette Park, Illinois.

Tucker Sharon is a self-taught photographer who lives in Richmond, California.

Eva Silverman is an amateur photographer employed at Workplace Fairness, a nonprofit organization helping to preserve and promote employee rights. She lives in Oakland, California.

Karen Stein is a photographer, writer, singer, meditation teacher, and mother of two wonderful young men. She lives in Pomfret Center, Connecticut.

Cole Thompson has returned to photography after thirty years of earning a living and raising a family. He lives on a small ranch in Laporte, Colorado.

Richard Whittaker is a photographer who lives in Berkeley, California. He publishes an art magazine called works + conversations.