Contributors
October 2009
Writers
Cara Blue Adams’s writing has appeared in Willow Springs and won the Kenyon Review 2008 Short Fiction Prize. She says, “My father wanted my first name to be Blue, but cooler heads prevailed.” She lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she is the managing editor of the Southern Review.
moreRichard Chiappone worked in the trades for forty years before he damaged his neck vertebrae, forcing him to retire. He says, “Now my wife works all day, and I stay home and write, cook elaborate meals, bake bread, and wish I could put my hard hat back on and work construction again.” He is the author of the story collections Water of an Undetermined Depth (Stackpole Books) and Opening Day, which will be published in 2010 by Barclay Creek Press. He lives near Homer, Alaska, and teaches at Kenai Peninsula College and in the University of Alaska’s creative-writing MFA program.
moreDoug Crandell was born in Wabash, Indiana, the first electrically lighted city in the world and the hometown of singer Crystal Gayle. He wishes he had even a fraction of her hair. He lives with his family in Douglasville, Georgia.
moreLeslee Goodman lives in Santa Barbara, California, and is working with her husband to establish a sustainable farm on forty acres in northcentral Washington, an endeavor she says the locals find highly entertaining.
moreMeg Kearney is author of a novel in verse, The Secret of Me (Persea Books), as well as two poetry collections: An Unkindness of Ravens (BOA Editions) and the forthcoming Home by Now (Four Way Books). She is the director of the Solstice MFA program at Pine Manor College and lives in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, with her three-legged black Lab, Trooper.
moreSherman Pearl traded a career in journalism for one in poetry, and his awards include the 2002 National Writers Union Prize, the 2008 Anderbo Award, and the 2009 Margie Review Editor’s Prize. He is cofounder of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, and his most recent book is Profanities (Conflux Press). He lives in Santa Monica, California.
moreJim Ralston was raised on a farm in upstate Michigan, when there was still a taste of wilderness in the north. He now lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and teaches at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. He recently returned from six weeks in Brazil, where he visited the healer John of God in Abadiania and was healed of his resentments. He says, “I arrived a skeptic and left a skeptic but was healed anyway.”
moreSy Safransky is editor and publisher of The Sun.
moreE.F. Schumacher was a British economist best known for his critique of unfettered capitalism in the West. An early hero of the environmental movement, Schumacher urged the development of local, self-reliant economies and a more restrained, conservative use of nonrenewable resources. Buddhism, which he encountered while working as an economic advisor in Burma, played a central role in the evolution of his vision.
moreSparrow lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he does Sudoku and follows the Yankees. He is the author of America: A Prophecy (Soft Skull Press).
morePhotographers
Amanda Allen regularly photographs music performances for Seattle radio station KEXP. She can also be found bartending and watering her abundance of houseplants.
moreTom Becker’s latest photography project centers on the county fairs of northwest Iowa. He lives in Orange City, Iowa.
moreJames Carroll lives in New York City.
morePeter J. Crowley lives in Norwich, Connecticut.
moreKatie DelaVaughn was a Peace Corps volunteer with her husband for three years in Nicaragua, where she learned how to make guava jelly, dance the palo de mayo, and swim like a mermaid. She lives in the Bronx, New York.
moreJohn Free teaches documentary photojournalism with his son at Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College, and he has been commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to design a street-photography course for high-school students. He lives in Tujunga, California.
moreLauren Futrell has trouble throwing things away, a problem that leads to “colorful clutter.” She is working toward an art-teaching license and lives with her two German shepherds, Roxy and Rudee, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
moreCaroline Kraus is a writer, photographer, and multimedia artist. She is the author of Borderlines: A Memoir (Broadway) and a contributing writer for PBS.org. She lives in Mill Valley, California.
moreTom Sundro Lewis used to make furniture but now makes photographs. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
moreDoug Rhinehart is a retired college administrator who lives in Woody Creek, Colorado.
moreCraig J. Satterlee travels the world in search of the best images and also the best pizza. He lives in Powell, Wyoming, with his wife and their two fox terriers, Pokey and Picasso.
moreOn The Cover
Robert Alexander lives in Ormond Beach, Florida. He took this month’s cover photograph last year in Daytona Beach, Florida, where the message was painted on a concrete highway abutment that had once provided a refuge for homeless people. The area has since become part of a public park. The graffiti was painted over by city workers soon after the photo was taken.
moreEditor and Publisher
Sy Safransky
Managing Editor
Tim McKee
Senior Editor
Andrew Snee
Art Director
Robert Graham
Manuscript Editor
Colleen Donfield
Editorial Associates
Erica Berkeley
Rachel J. Elliott
Luc Saunders
Proofreader
Seth Mirsky
Associate Publishers
Circulation & Marketing
Krista Bremer
Digital Media & Operations
Angela Winter
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
Brent Winter