Contributors
June 2011
Writers
Keith Althaus is the author of two books of poetry, Rival Heavens and Ladder of Hours. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where they run an art gallery.
moreKrista Bremer works at The Sun and is writing a memoir. This summer her work will appear in MORE and O: The Oprah Magazine. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, and is currently in the market for a house that is cozy yet spacious, sunny yet private, and luxurious yet affordable. She plans to live there with her husband (stubborn yet forgiving), her kids (maddening yet irresistible), and her cat (aloof yet needy).
moreJaed Muncharoen Coffin is the author of A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants, which chronicles the time he spent as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s native village in Thailand. His forthcoming book, Roughhouse Friday, is about the year he fought as the middleweight champion of a barroom boxing show in Juneau, Alaska. Since becoming a father, he has stopped having dangerous adventures in remote places. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Maine.
moreDavid Kupfer is an environmental activist, biker, artist, Frisbee tosser, and culinary risk taker whose writing has appeared in Bay Nature, The Progressive, and Adbusters. He lives in Northern California, where he is working on three books, two screenplays, and one big garden.
moreSy Safransky is editor and publisher of The Sun.
moreJon Sealy’s family worked in the cotton mills of Chester County, South Carolina, and he grew up listening to stories about life there during the Depression. He has an MFA from Purdue University and works as a copywriter in Richmond, Virginia. His novel-in-progress is about a mill-town whiskey baron in the 1930s.
moreMark Smith-Soto is the director of the Center for Creative Writing in the Arts at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the longtime editor of International Poetry Review. His most recent book of poetry is Any Second Now, and he translated Fever Season: Selected Poetry of Ana Istarú.
moreCheryl Strayed is the author of the memoir Wild. Her essays have appeared in the Best American Essays series as well as the New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, Tin House, and elsewhere. She is the co-host of the podcast Dear Sugars, which originated with her popular Dear Sugar advice column on The Rumpus. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
moreAlan Watts was born in Great Britain in 1915 and he moved to the U.S. as a young man. He is best known for helping to popularize Eastern philosophy in the West through his writing. Watts said true Zen is not the life of the “solemn and sexless ascetic,” but rather the liberation of the mind from traditional thought forms. Watts was popular with members of the Beat movement of the 1950s and the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. He died in 1973.
morePhotographers
Amanda Allen’s work has been published in Seattle Sound Magazine, and she regularly photographs musical performances for the radio station KEXP in Seattle, Washington, where she lives.
moreJames Carroll lives in New York City.
moreClemens Kalischer was born in Bavaria, Germany, and has been taking photographs for more than sixty-five years. He lives in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he runs the Image Gallery.
moreJulia McHugh is the single mother of two daughters and lives in Port Townsend, Washington.
moreRoger Pfingston is a poet and a retired teacher of English and photography. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and is hooked on dry-roasted, unsalted peanuts, which he enjoys with his one beer a day, often while watching Oprah or Ellen.
moreLinda Smogor lives in Homer, Alaska, which is often referred to as “the end of the road,” or “as far as you can go without a passport.”
moreJennifer Spelman began her photography career at a district attorney’s office, taking pictures of crime scenes. Now she teaches photography in the U.S., Mexico, and India. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
moreMindy Véissid lived in Luxembourg and Switzerland for six years and now lives in New York City, where she teaches photography workshops.
moreTim White recently profiled the photography of Osama Esid for B&W magazine and has had his own work published in Shots. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
moreBill Witt is the author of Orchids in Your Pocket: A Guide to the Native Orchids of Iowa and Enchanted by Prairie. He is researching a book based on some pioneer homesteader diaries that were given to him more than thirty years ago. He lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
moreOn The Cover
Brian Jolley’s photographs have been published in The Boston Globe Magazine, Adbusters, and Oxford American. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and teaches photography at Rhode Island College. He took this month’s cover photograph in 2009. He was traveling with his wife in Marrakech, Morocco, and wandering the alleys of the Marrakech souk, the largest market district in the country.
moreEditor and Publisher
Sy Safransky
Managing Editor
Tim McKee
Senior Editor
Andrew Snee
Art Director
Robert Graham
Digital-Media Director
David Mahaffey
Manuscript Editor
Colleen Donfield
Editorial Associates
Erica Berkeley
Rachel J. Elliott
Luc Saunders
Proofreader
Seth Mirsky
Associate Publisher
Krista Bremer
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
Lauren Holder Raab
Writing Retreats
Angela Winter
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