Contributors

Poe Ballantine is the author of the true-crime book Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, to be published in 2012, and the subject of the forthcoming documentary Poe Ballantine, A Writer in America. Because the rural school in Dawes County, Nebraska, where he worked as a custodian has been closed, he is now considering a job in the uranium fields twenty miles west, both for the money and because he’s always liked yellow cake.

Doug Crandell lives on a small farm outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and works at the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia. He sometimes writes in his chicken coop, where his flock whispers opening lines to him.

Brian Doyle lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is the editor of the University of Portland’s Portland Magazine. He is the author of the novel Mink River, and his collection of short stories, Bin Laden’s Bald Spot, will be published in October.

Tracy Frisch lives in Washington County, New York, where she is a freelance journalist, homesteader, and grassroots organizer leading a “zero-waste” campaign. She derives much of her bodily and spiritual sustenance from her almost-year-round vegetable garden.

Heather King is an ex-lawyer, an ex-drunk, a Catholic convert, and the author of three memoirs: Parched (the dark years), Redeemed (crawling toward the light), and Shirt of Flame. She blogs at www.shirtofflame.blogspot.com.

D.H. Lawrence was an English writer, critic, and painter. Lawrence became famous for his frank handling of sexuality in novels such as The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence died in 1930 at the age of forty-four.

Richard Lehnert loves writing poems but often thinks he’d rather spend the rest of his life listening to the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. He prays that, within his lifetime, the missing pages of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 will turn up. He and his wife recently moved to Ashland, Oregon.

Andrew Roe lives in Oceanside, California, with his wife and three children. His writing has appeared in Tin House, Glimmer Train, The New York Times, and Salon.com. His story in this issue is from his novel-in-progress Believers. He’d one day like to learn to play the pedal steel guitar.

Sy Safransky is editor and publisher of The Sun.

Dwight Yates’s first collection of stories, Haywire Hearts and Slide Trombones, received the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award from Snake Nation Press, and his second, Bring Everybody, was the inaugural winner of the Juniper Prize. Twice a recipient of NEA fiction fellowships, he taught for many years in the writing program at the University of California, Riverside. He lives in Redlands, California, where he and his dog air their differences regarding garden management.

Rita Bernstein was always considered the least artistic member of her family because she couldn’t draw. Her photography is represented by galleries in San Francisco, Houston, New York, and Philadelphia, where she lives.

Meghan Campbell is a fiction writer and photographer who lives in Geneva, Illinois.

James Carroll lives in New York City.

Terry Carroll is a writer, editor, and teacher who published his first book of photographs, Relationships, in 2008. He is working on a memoir titled Among the Fourth-Graders, about his time as an elementary-school volunteer. He lives with his wife and their two cats in Oakland, California.

Michelle Feileacan, when she doesn’t have a camera in her hands, can be found chasing after her kids, playing with the chickens, and trying to master Japanese card games. She lives in Sebastopol, California.

Anders Goldfarb’s work has been published in Art Forum and The New York Times and is represented in public and private collections. He lives in New York City.

Rachel McDonald is a studio-art student at Louisiana Tech University and lives in Ruston, Louisiana.

Sandro Michahelles takes photographs for both love and money and lives in Florence, Italy.

Jenn Reidel is a writer, photographer, and website designer who lives in Vashon, Washington.

Jerry N. Uelsmann’s most recent book of photographs is The Mind’s Eye, and his work is in the permanent collections of art museums worldwide. He lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Dan Westfall travels to Europe several times a year to photograph forgotten or little-known works of art. He is the author of the self-published book Obscure Destinations and lives in Abingdon, Maryland.

Elias Zagha has lived in France, China, and Belize and now makes his home in Santa Clarita, California.