Contributors

Sarah Braunstein is the author of the novel The Sweet Relief of Missing Children and was selected as one of “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation in 2010. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine and is raising a four-year-old son.

Nancy Coleman is a writer and psychologist who lives in Topsham, Maine, where most of her nine adult lives have been spent in one very old farmhouse, sitting in one comfortable blue chair. She has hiked Maine’s Hundred-Mile Wilderness solo, been lead singer and songwriter in a rock band, and raised two adventurous children.

Michael Copperman’s writing has appeared in Oxford American, Creative Nonfiction, and Guernica. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Oregon Arts Council. From 2002 to 2004 he taught fourth grade in the rural public schools of the Mississippi Delta, and he is currently seeking representation for a novel about that experience.

Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert in 1931 and was given the name Ram Dass (“servant of God”) by his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher whose seminal book Be Here Now is a kind of countercultural bible that translates Eastern philosophy into language meaningful to Westerners. He founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation and continues to teach via live webcasts and retreats in his home state of Hawaii.

Leslee Goodman is a freelance writer based in Ojai, California, and Twisp, Washington.

Tony Hoagland’s latest book of poems is titled Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty. He teaches in the writing program at the University of Houston and lives in Houston, Texas.

Stephen Levine is a poet and teacher of meditation. He is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Grist for the Mill, and the author of A Gradual Awakening.

Jerry D. Mathes II’s most recent book is a poetry collection titled The Journal West, and he is the recipient of a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship. He once worked as a cargo specialist at the South Pole, where he taught the southernmost poetry workshop in the world. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in Boise, Idaho.

Sigrid Nunez’s most recent book is Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. She is the author of six novels, the first of which, A Feather on the Breath of God, was a finalist for both the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Award. She is the 2012 writer-in-residence at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Ruth L. Schwartz’s fifth book of poems, Miraculum, will be published in July. She lives in Oakland, California, and is a Distinguished Visiting Writer in Ashland University’s low-residency MFA program.

Mark Smith-Soto is the longtime editor of UNC Greensboro’s International Poetry Review. His poem in this issue is dedicated to the memory of Carmen Mayer.

Brian Jay Stanley’s essays have appeared in The Antioch Review, North American Review, and Pleiades. He lives with his wife in Asheville, North Carolina, where he rides an electric bike to work and is replacing his grass with moss and thyme to avoid having to mow.

Rita Bernstein has been taking photographs for more than twenty years and recently began hand-coloring some of her pictures. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her husband and as many pets as he will tolerate.

Elena Fava Emerson was born in Italy and taught photojournalism in Milan. She now lives in San Francisco.

Aaron French lives in Oakland, California, where he is a chef at a cafe.

Lupen Grainne lives outside of San Francisco. Her work has been published in Real Simple and the online magazine Literacyhead.

Carlos Gustavo is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and travels throughout the southeastern U.S. taking photographs.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey’s self-published book Falling into Place chronicles her day-to-day life as a person with multiple sclerosis. She lives with her husband in Gross Pointe, Michigan.

Eloise Merrifield is a writer and photographer cleverly disguised as a fine-dining server. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Ryan Rodgers is a writer and photographer working on a long, slow study of the Saint Croix River. He lives in Osceola, Wisconsin, with his wife and new daughter.

Craig J. Satterlee lives in Powell, Wyoming, where he has taught photography at Northwest College for thirty-two years.

Tucker Sharon lives in San Francisco, California.

Cole Thompson lives in Laporte, Colorado, where he raises llamas. His work has been published in Popular Photography, Focus, and Photographer’s Forum.

Gaylon Wampler specializes in natural-resources photography and has traveled in more than seventy countries. He lives in Littleton, Colorado.