About the Contributors

Marilyn Abildskov is the author of The Men in My Country, a travel memoir set in Japan. Her literary essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in such magazines as Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, River Teeth, and Alaska Quarterly Review. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, two Pushcart Prize nominations, and a Yaddo residency. Her work has been honored by the Utah Arts Council and shortlisted for the Best American Essays series. She lives in Berkeley, California, and is an associate professor of English at Saint Mary's College, where she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Marcia Aldrich teaches creative writing at Michigan State University. The present essay is from a recently completed book titled Secretary of Death, a case study of a suicide. She is currently working on a collection of essays with the working title Of. Her memoir Girl Rearing was published in 1998.

Originally from Poulsbo, Washington, Tani Arness currently lives and writes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her M.A. in creative writing from the University of New Mexico and has had her poetry and nonfiction published in several literary magazines. Her first book, linruq: the spirit that is in all things, is forthcoming from Silver Woods Press.

Mira Bartók is a writer and cultural specialist, and has published over 30 children's books on ancient world cultures. Her nonfiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including The Kenyon Review, Tikkun, Paris/Atlantic, and Artful Dodge.

Carole S. Berk is a painter and photographer who divides her time between Lansing and Northport, Michigan. She received her BFA in painting from Michigan State University. She has exhibited her paintings, collages, and prints in solo and group shows in Michigan, Illinois, California, and Nevada. Her paintings and photographs are included in public and private collections throughout the United States. Her photos have also appeared in the Detroit Free Press and Lansing State Journal. In addition to being a full-time artist, she is presently a docent at Michigan State University's Kresge Art Museum.

Jenny Browne is the author of two collections of poems, At Once (Pecan Grove Press, 2000) and Glass (University of Tampa Press, 2002). She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and is currently a James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas.

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, a graduate of Hampshire College and Warren Wilson College's MFA Program in fiction, has had work appear in the Georgia Review, Story Quarterly, and Brain Child, among others. She lives with her husband and three sons in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Judy Copeland taught travel writing at the University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in nonfiction writing, and now teaches writing at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Her essays have won the 2003 Editor's Award from the Florida Review, the 2004 Brenda Ueland Prose Prize from Water~Stone Review, and a 2004 First Place Award from New Millennium Writings. Currently she is at work on a travel memoir.

Sarah Gorham is the author of three collections of poetry: The Cure, The Tension Zone, and Don't Go Back to Sleep. New poems and essays have been published in The Gettysburg Review, Poets & Writers, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, and American Poetry Review. Gorham is president and editor-in-chief of Sarabande Books, located in Louisville, Kentucky.

Steven Harvey is the author of Bound for Shady Grove, a collection of personal essays about his experiences learning to sing and play the traditional music of the Appalachian mountains where he lives. The University of Georgia Press published it in June 2000. He is also the author of two other collections of personal essays, A Geometry of Lilies (South Carolina) and Lost in Translation (Georgia) and is the editor of an anthology of personal essays called In a Dark Wood: Personal Essays by Men on Middle Age (Georgia).

Rachel Herzig serves as acting director of the Office of the...