Lee K. Abbott is Humanities Distinguished Professor in English at Ohio State University. His latest collection, All Things, All at Once: New and Selected Stories, was published in 2006.
Dan Beachy-Quick teaches poetry workshops and literature at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. He is the author of three books of poetry, North True South Bright (Alice James Books, 2003), Spell (Ahsahta Press, 2004), and Mulberry (Tupelo Press, 2006).
Duff Brenna is Professor Emeritus at Cal State University San Marcos. He is a former AWP Best Novel winner [for The Book of Mamie], and the recipient of an NEA Fellowship. His third novel, Too Cool, was a New York Times Noteworthy Book. His fourth novel, The Altar of the Body, was Book Editor’s Favorite Book of the Year at South Florida Sun-Sentinel. His sixth novel, The Law of Falling Bodies (Hopewell Publications) was released in 2007.
Anthony Bukoski is the author of five other story collections, including Children of Strangers (SMU, 1993), Polonaise (SMU, 1999), and Time Between Trains (SMU, 2003), which was a Booklist Editors' Choice. His stories have been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio, National Public Radio, and in live performance in the "Selected Shorts" series at Symphony Space in New York City. He teaches at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin in his hometown of Superior, where his Polish émigré grandparents settled early in the last century.
Fred Chappell was the NC Poet Laureate from 1997-2002. His novel Dagon won the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers. Chappell has also received the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He is the author of over thirty books, including novels, story collections, poetry, and essays.
Kelly Cherry's most recent books are We Can Still Be Friends, a novel, and History, Passion, Freedom, Death, and Hope: Prose about Poetry. Her collection The Society of Friends, from which "As It Is in Heaven" is taken, received the Dictionary of Literary Biography Award for a Distinguished Volume of Short Stories in 2000. Her fiction has been represented in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the South. She also holds the Hanes Prize in poetry. She is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and sometimes serves as the Visiting Eminent Scholar at the Humanities Center of the University of Alabama–Huntsville.
Kathy Fagan’s newest collection is Lip (Eastern Washington UP, 2009). She is also the author of the National Poetry Series selection The Raft (Dutton, 1985), the Vassar Miller Prize winner MOVING & ST RAGE (Univ of North Texas, 1999), and The Charm (Zoo, 2002). Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Slate, Field, Ploughshares, The New Republic, and The Missouri Review, among other literary magazines, and is anthologized in Under 35 (Doubleday, 1989), Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia, 2001), American Diaspora (Iowa, 2001), The Breath of Parted Lips: Poems from the Robert Frost Place (CavanKerry, 2001), and Poet’s Choice by Edward Hirsch (Harcourt, 2006). Fagan is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohioana, and the Ohio Arts Council. Formerly the Director of Creative Writing and the MFA Program at The Ohio State University, she is currently Professor of English and Editor of The Journal.
Allison Joseph lives, teaches and writes in Carbondale, Illinois, where she's on the faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She is the editor of Crab Orchard Review, and her books include Imitation of Life and What Keeps Us Here.
David R. Slavitt is the author of over eighty books—non-fiction, novels, poetry, short fiction, and translations. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry, Boulevard, Poetry, Texas Review, and the Yale Review. His most recent books include Change of Address: Poems New and Selected (LSU Press), Re Verse: Essays on Poetry and Poets (Northwestern University Press), and a new translation of Sophocles' Theban Plays (Yale University Press).
