Contributors

Mark Brazaitis’s most recent book of fiction is An American Affair: Stories (Texas Review Press). He lives with his wife and two daughters in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Ralph Earle’s poems have appeared in the Carolina Quarterly and Main Street Rag. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and has recently started raising tropical fish.

Gary Harwood’s photographs have appeared in the Communication Arts Photography Annual and the Graphis Photo Annual. He received two grants this year from the Ohio Arts Council and teaches visual storytelling at Kent State University, where he has worked for more than twenty years. He lives with his wife in Kent, Ohio.

David Hassler has published two books of poems and is the program and outreach director for the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. He also conducts writing workshops in schools and senior centers. He lives in Kent, Ohio, with his wife and daughter.

Stephanie Koven’s writing has appeared in the Antioch Review, Epoch, and the Green Mountains Review. One of her short stories was listed in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 (Anchor) as a “recommended story.” She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Frances Lefkowitz is a writer, editor, and reviewer who loves to surf. She lives in Petaluma, California, and her essay in this issue is from her book-in-progress How to Have Not.

Stephen J. Lyons’s latest book is A View from the Inland Northwest: Everyday Life in America (Globe Pequot). He lives in Monticello, Illinois, and teaches in the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois. To help overcome his recently discovered fear of bridges, he has been driving over short spans that cross the Mississippi River. His goal is to drive across the I-57 bridge over the Ohio River — more than three-quarters of a mile long — with his eyes open.

Sy Safransky is editor of The Sun.

Michael Shapiro is the author of A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk about Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers’ Tales). He lives in Sebastopol, California, and volunteers for a group that takes disabled people on sea-kayaking and river-rafting adventures.

Maureen Beitler is a photographer and nurse who lives in New York City.

Rita Bernstein is a photographer and former civil-rights lawyer who sometimes fantasizes about becoming a neuroscientist. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

James Carroll is now partly retired after working as a photographer for more than thirty years. A recovering perfectionist, he is using his extra time to practice his mantra: “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to get done!” He lives in New York City.

Jed Devine teaches photography at Purchase College, State University of New York, in Westchester County.

Martin Fishman is a photographer who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Jeffrey Hersch is a photographer who lives in Denver, Colorado.

Merritt Michael Margolis grew up in New Jersey and worked as a news photographer for the Newark Star Ledger. In his later years he lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and focused on nature photography. His work can be found in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He died in 2003.

Robert Meyer is a photographer and one of nine children, eight of whom are boys. (Yes, he says, his mother is still alive.) He lives in Red Wing, Minnesota, home of the narrowest navigable turn on the Mississippi River.

Gerald Parker is a photographer who lives in Manomet, Massachusetts. In the 1970s he extensively documented the dilapidated postindustrial state of his hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts, which was once home to a thriving shoe industry.

Carol Sternkopf is a photographer who lives in Bend, Oregon, with her loving husband, precocious ten-year-old, and irreverent dog.

Mark Townsend is a photographer who lives in Brooklyn, New York.