Anne Benson writes fiction, essays, and poetry. She is an associate editor and writing mentor for a children's magazine and lives in Providence, Rhode Island, teaching part-time at various local colleges and working at a library. She has worked in restaurants, learned to fly, crewed on boats, traveled and lived abroad, and has two grown daughters.

Catherine Brady's short story collection, The End of the Class War, was a finalist for the 1999 Western States Book Award in Fiction.  Her stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, Redbook, and American Fiction, and she recently won the Brenda Ueland Prose Prize.

Lizabeth Carpenter received the MFA from the University of Iowa and has published work in a number of journals, among them Grain, Cutbank, The Iowa Review, Negative 
Capability, and Georgetown Review.  She is a library clerk in Iowa City and a 
volunteer for the local Agape Cafe.

Chang Chi was a contemporary of Li Po, Wang Wei and Tu Fu during the eighth century T'ang Dynasty. Like other scholar-poets in Chinese literature, he held a government office. Tradition has it that he was from a town now located in the province of Hubei.  His poetry is recognized today mainly because of the success of "Maple Bridge."

Todd Davis is associate professor of English at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, where he teaches nature writing, film, and American literature.  His poems have appeared in The Worcester Review, The Red Cedar Review, Yankee, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Image, and others. 

Jerome Edwards' stories have appeared in several small press publications. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is working on a novel.

Gaynell Gavin practiced law for several years and is now completing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she also teaches and is an editorial assistant at Prairie Schooner.  "What I Did Not Say" is from her work in progress, Attorney-at-Large. Her work has appeared in Kansas Quarterly, Heart Quarterly, Texas Journal of Women and the Law, Tulane Review, and elsewhere.

Kathryn H. Gessner teaches writing at Shasta College in Redding, California. She has published poetry recently in The Bridge, CQ (California Quarterly), and Porter Gulch Review.  Her essay Draw Back Blood, published in New England Review, won the AWP Intro Award Series.

John Griswold received his MFA from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida and has published stories in Mediphors, Mind in Motion, Palo Alto Review, and Mostly Maine.  Currently he is writing a novel, set in Little Egypt, Illinois.

Robert E. Haynes has published poems in Poetry Northwest, New Letters, Poet Lore, and Kentucky Poetry Review, as well as in two anthologies, Kansas City Out Loud and Approaching Critical Mass. He is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Arizona State University

Bette Lynch Husted has been published most recently in Northern Lights, Northwest Review, and Icarus.  She was a 1994 Fishtrap Fellow and now teaches American literatures in the foothills of Oregon's Blue Mountains.

Mark Kahrhoff lives in Fullerton, California with his wife and twin daughters. “Monkey Drum” is his first published story.

Sandy Longhorn lives in Fayetteville, AR, where she attends the University of Arkansas.  She is working on an MFA and also teaches composition.

Ian MacMillan is the author of five novels and three short story collections. His work has appeared in Yankee, Paris Review, Iowa Review, and in The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and O. Henry Award volumes.  Winner of the 1992 Hawai'i Award for Literature, he teaches fiction writing at the University of Hawai'i and is fiction editor of Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.  His most recent novel is A Village of a Million Spirits, from Steerforth Press.

Hawk Madrone's work has appeared in journals and anthologies including Our Lives: Lesbian Personal Writings, The Poetry of Sex, The Wild Good, and An Intricate Weave. Her Weeding At Dawn: A Lesbian Country Life, will be published this fall by The Haworth Press. She lives in Oregon.

Ed Miller attended California State University, Fresno.  He is an officer with the Immigration & Naturalization Service and has been a contributor to Sunk Island Review, Pacific Review, Orbis, Global Tapestry, Sands, and other journals.

Richard Newman’s poems and essays have recently appeared in Boulevard, Southern Humanities Review, Southern Indiana Review, and Sundog: The Southeast Review.  He lives in St. Louis, where he edits River Styx.

B.Z. Niditch's work appears in The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, International Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Jejune (Czech Republic), and elsewhere.  A new collection of poetry, Crucifixion Times, has recently been published by University Editions.

John Nielsen holds a degree from Washington University's Creative Writing program. He works in a rehabilitation center with individuals trying to live with and overcome chemical dependency. He has published poetry in Medicinal Purposes.

Candice Rowe has published short stories, poetry, and essays. Her work has appeared in The Greensboro Review, Permafrost, and Red Rock Review.  A one-act ply was named a finalist in the Actors Theatre of Louisville New Play Program and was eventually produced Off-Off-Broadway. She was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant for fiction and is finishing a novel set on Cape Cod and a collection of short-shorts.

CarolAnn Russell has published three books of poetry: The Red Envelope, Feast, Silver Dollar, and two chapbooks. In 1997 she was visiting poet at the University of Melbourne in Australia and the American Academy in Rome, Italy.  She lives on Lake Bemidji in northern Minnesota. 

Mimi Seydel's fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Portland Review, Alembic, and others.  She lives in Atlanta with her family and teaches French at an urban elementary school.

Andy Shupala majored in philosophy and Chinese languages and literature at the Ohio State University.  Currently, he is writing articles about Classical Chinese poetry translation as well as translating 100 "new" poems from the T'ang Dynasty.  He lives in the Coastal Bend of South Texas, where he is an ESL teacher and clinical social worker.

Mark Spencer’s new novel is The Weary Motel (winner of the 1999 Omaha Prize for the Novel).  He has also won the Faulkner Society’s Faulkner Award for fiction and the Patrick T. T. Bradshaw Book Award.  He is the author of Love And Reruns In Adams County, Wedlock, and Spying On Lovers.

Sheri Steininger lives in St. Louis with her husband and daughter.  She is a teacher as well as a fiction writer and poet.

Kristin Stitz is an information technology consultant in the Philadelphia area, where she is a member of the Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio.  This is her first published story.

Ryan Stone hails from Licking, Missouri and now resides in Warrensburg, Missouri where he attended Central Missouri State University. 

Jeffrey Thomson’s first collection of poetry, The Halo Brace, was brought out by Birch Brook Press.  He is the Director of the Master of Arts in Writing at Chatham College in Pittsburgh.

Donna D. Vitucci has published fiction in Beloit Fiction Journal, Mid-American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and Faultline.  Her story, “Trick or Treat,” is one in an eight-story collection dealing with the characters Lindy, Vivian, Marielle, and Father Benedict.

Tom Whalen's latest books are the novel Roithamer's Universe, a collection of poetry entitled Winter Coat, and, with Daniel Quinn, the comic fiction A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife.  His fiction has appeared recently in The Iowa Review, Sonora Review, Nebraska Review, and Red Rock Review.

Charles Wyatt was principal flutist of the Nashville Symphony for 25 years.  His collection of short fictions, Listening to Mozart, won the 1995 John Simmons Award and was published by University of Iowa Press.  Since retiring from the Nashville Symphony, he has taught creative writing at Binghamton University and presently teaches at Denison University.  He has recently finished a novel, Falling Stones, the Spirit Autobiography of S.M. Jones.