Contributors

Ellen Bass’s poetry books include The Human Line and Mules of Love. She teaches in Pacific University’s low-residency MFA program and lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Andrew Boyd is the author of Daily Afflictions and Life’s Little Deconstruction Book and is finishing work on Pilgrimage to Nowhere, his travelogue of a skeptic’s spiritual journey around the world. When he’s not writing, he’s failing to save the Republic from itself: he cofounded Agit-Pop Communications, an award-winning “subvertising” agency, and for a decade led the satirical media campaign Billionaires for Bush. He lives in New York City.

Nona Caspers is the author of the short-story collection Heavier Than Air, which received the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University and lives in the city with her little dog, Edgar. Her first memory is of sitting on a Holstein cow while her father inseminated it with the most popular semen of the day: Apollo Rocket.

Jim Daniels’s fourth collection of short stories, Trigger Man, is due out this fall, and he is the writer and producer of the independent film Mr. Pleasant (www.mrpleasantmovie.com). His poems have won the Pushcart Prize and appeared in Best American Poetry. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife and their two children.

Jaquira Díaz is coproducer of Life Out Loud, a quarterly reading series in central Florida. She lives in Winter Haven, Florida, with her husband and two troublemaking dogs. When she’s not writing, she’s blogging about her obsessions at www.jaquiradiaz.com.

Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland in Oregon. His most recent book is a “sprawling elephantine serpentine chaotic sinuous epic” novel, Mink River, and his collection of short stories, titled Bin Laden’s Bald Spot, will be published this fall.

John Malkin is the author of Sounds of Freedom: Musicians on Spirituality and Social Change and The Only Alternative: Christian Nonviolent Peacemakers in America. He is a musician, journalist, activist, and radio-show host who lives with his wife and four-year-old son in Santa Cruz, California.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher. He is regarded as one of the first existentialists. At the age of thirty-four, he retired from his post as professor of classical philology and for the next ten years led a nomadic existence. He wrote his best-known works during this period, including Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morals. He died in 1900.

Laura Pritchett is the author or editor of five books, her favorite being her first, Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, which she wrote when she was young and didn’t know anything about agents or the publishing world. Her newest book, about Colorado’s bears, is due out this month. She lives in northern Colorado and teaches at workshops around the country.

Kristen Wares lives with her husband on an organic farm in rural Oregon. They have a milk goat named Hillary who models in her spare time.

Rachel Abbott lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, and works as a photographer for a local pottery producer. Her work has appeared in Photographer’s Forum.

Robert Alexander is a former newspaper editor who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

James Carroll lives in New York City.

Poppy de Garmo has been a chef for eighteen years. She lives on a hilltop in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where her house is her main art project.

Gary Guinigundo is a physician-turned-photographer who also composes music. He lives in Monroe, Louisiana.

Michael Limbert has self-published two books of photographs, American Tour and state fair, both available from Blurb.com. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Tara C. Patty has a portrait studio in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she specializes in photographing pregnancy, newborns, families, and high-school seniors.

Grant M. Ryan studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art and enjoys taking photographs with a Holga camera. He lives in Marquette, Michigan.

Carol Samour’s photographs have been published in Potomac Review, Kalliope, and Shots. She lives with her husband and two cats in Germantown, Maryland.

Linda Smogor is a photographer and mother living in Homer, Alaska. Her close friends say she has a green thumb and good yard-sale karma.

Suzi Q. Varin is a punk-rock tomboy who photographs weddings for a living. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Lisa Wiltse lives in New South Wales, Australia.