Diane Ackerman is the author of twenty works of poetry and nonfiction, including most recently Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire (HarperCollins, October 2002) and Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden (HarperCollins, 2001). She has the unusual distinction of having a molecule named after her (dianeackerone).
S. A. Afolabi was born in Nigeria and grew up in various countries, including Canada,
the Congo, and Indonesia. His stories have been published in London
magazine, Edinburgh Review, New Welsh Review, Tampa
Review, and Salamander. He lives in London, where he is
completing a novel.
Karen Alkalay-Gut has published twelve volumes of poems in English and four in Hebrew translation, in addition to a biography of Adelaide Crapsey and numerous
critical articles. Her translations of Israeli authors have appeared
in journals around the world. She appeared with Yehuda Amichai at
the Library of Congress in Washington, the Nassau County Art Museum,
and the American Cultural Council in Tel Aviv.
Anna Allott is a senior research associate in Burmese studies at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is a frequent
visitor to Burma, and has been a Ph.D. supervisor to Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi.
Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany in 1924 and moved to Israel at age eleven.
He fought with the Jewish Brigade of the British army in World War
II and then with the Palmach in the War of Independence. He later
studied biblical texts and Hebrew literature at Hebrew University.
He died September 22, 2000, in Jerusalem. Amichai’s publications include
eleven volumes of poetry in Hebrew, two novels, and a book of short
stories, much of which has been translated into thirty-three languages,
especially English.
Sacvan Bercovitch is Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. He is the author of many books and essays on American literature,
general editor of the multi-volume Cambridge History of American Literature, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
David Bottoms‘s most recent book is Vagrant Grace, from Copper Canyon Press.
Deborah Digges‘s The Stardust Lounge: stories from a boy’s adolescence, was
recently published by Nan Talese Books, Random House. A new book of
poems, Trapeze, is forthcoming from Knopf.
Carol Frost‘s recent book, Love and Scorn: New and Selected Poems, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2000. Her work has appeared in Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Northwest Review, and Agni Review. Recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants and winner of two Pushcart awards, she is writer-in-residence at Hartwick College.
Albert Goldbarth‘s Saving Lives (poems, Ohio State University Press) received this year’s National Book Critics Circle Award. “The Splinter Groups of Breakfast” will be included in Combinations of the Universe (Ohio State University Press, fall 2003).
Marilyn Hacker is the author of nine books of poems, the most recent being Squares and Courtyards (Norton, 2001). A Long-Gone Sun, her translation of a poem-narrative by Claire Malroux, was published in 2000 by Sheep Meadow Press. Here There Was Once a Country, translations of poems by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, was published
by Oberlin College Press in 2001. She directs the M.A. program in creative writing at the City College of New York. Photo by Eleanor Hamilton.
Khin Thant Han advised translator Anna Allott on obscure words and idioms for Nyi
Pu Lay’s “Country Boy.” She was born in the 1940s and was
a teacher of English in Mandalay until 1988. She now lives in Manchester,
England, with her husband, Gerry Abbott.
Brooks Haxton‘s recent books are original poems in Nakedness, Death, and the Number
Zero, and three books of translations: ancient Greek poetry, sayings of Heraclitus, and Selected Poems by Victor Hugo.
Brian Henry‘s first book of poetry, Astronaut, has appeared in the United
States, England, and Slovenia, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Forward
Prize. He co-edits Verse, is senior editor of Verse Press,
and teaches at the University of Georgia, where he directs the creative
writing program.
Nicholas Howe has published essays on place and travel in the Yale Review, Southwest Review, and Dissent. He teaches at Ohio State University. His Crossing an Inland Sea, in which “Fast-Food America” appears, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers won an award from the Rona Jaffee Foundation,
and her work recently has appeared in the Massachusetts Review
and Callaloo. She is the author of The Gospel of Barbecue
(Kent State University Press, 2000).
Hédi Kaddour was born in Tunisia in 1945, but has lived in France since
childhood. He has published three books of poems with Gallimard: La
Fin des vendanges (1989), Jamais une ombre simple (1994),
and Passage au Luxembourg (2000), as well as three books with
smaller publishers, and a collection of essays on poetry, L’Emotion
impossible, with Le Temps qu’il fait in 1994. He teaches
literature, drama, and creative writing in Lyon, and writes a theater
column. Other poems of his, in Marilyn Hacker’s translation, have
appeared in APR, Paris Review, Poetry International, and Verse,
among others.
Amitava Kumar is the author of Passport Photos (University of California
Press, 2000). His essay, “Paper,” was written for a reading at the Brecht Forum in New York City and Bombay-London-New York (Routledge, 2002, forthcoming).
Nyi Pu Lay is the pen name of U Nyein Gyan, born in 1952, the youngest of
five children of Ludu U Hla and Ludu Daw Amar, two famous left-wing
writers and intellectuals from Mandalay. He began writing in 1985,
after his father’s death. He rapidly became popular for his satirical
short stories, two collections of which have been published (in March,
1989, and September, 1990). On December 25, 1990, he was arrested
and charged with being in contact with illegal organizations. More
likely, perhaps, his arrest was because of his family’s political
pedigree and his satirical writings. He was released in February 1999.
His story in this issue, “Country Boy,” which has not been
passed for publication in Burma, was written soon after his release
and sent personally to Anna Allott, the translator. He is now writing
regularly, but only what is passed by the censors is being published
in Burma.
Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais‘s interview with Richard Ford appeared in the Summer/Fall 2001 issue of The Kenyon Review. Their interviews have also been published in Missouri Review, Glimmer Train Stories, and Mississippi Review. Photos by Mary Allen Johnson.
Sarah Lindsay‘s 1997 book, Primate Behavior (Gross Press Poetry Series), was
a finalist for the National Book Award. Mount Clutter (Grove Press), including a series of island poems, is forthcoming. She works as copy editor in Greensboro, North Carolina.
William Logan‘s most recent book of poems is Night Battle (Penguin, 1999).
His book of essays and reviews, Reputations of the Tongue: On Poets & Poetry (University Press of Florida, 1999), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. He teaches at the University of Florida.
Bia Lowe‘s first book, Wild Ride (Harper Collins, 1995), was the winner of Quality Paper Back’s 1996 New Visions Award for nonfiction. Most recently, her work appeared in the Seneca Review lyric essay issue. “Falling” is included in her new collection of essays, Splendored Thing, to be published by Seal Press.
Sandra Meek is an associate professor of English at Berry College, where she teaches
creative writing and contemporary literature. Her poems have appeared
in the Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, and other
journals. Her book of poems, Nomadic Foundations, was published
in 2002, and her chapbook, The Circumference of Arrival, was
published in 2001, both by Elixir Press.
Mông-Lan is a visual artist and writer. Her first book of poems, Songs of the Cicadas, won the Juniper Prize and was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2001. Recent poems have appeared in New American Writing, CutBank, The Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry of 2002. Her web site is www.monglan.com.
D. Nurkse‘s new work includes The Rules of Paradise (Four Way Books, 2001) and The Fall, due from Knopf.
Kathleen Ossip‘s book, The Search Engine, won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize and will be published in October 2002. She teaches at the New School in New York.
Joe Ashby Porter is the author of the novels Resident Aliens (Ivan R. Dee, 2000) and Eelgrass (New Directions, 1977), and the collections Lithuania: Short Stories and The Kentucky Stories (John Hopkins, 1990, 1983). His new collection, Touch Wood (Turtle Point, 2002), will contain “Scrupulous Amédée.” He is completing a new novel, The Near Future.
V. Penelope Pelizzon teaches literature and film at Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. Her poetry collection, Nostos, won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award for 2000.
Carl Phillips is the author of five books of poems, including The Tether
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001). A sixth book, Rock Harbor,
will be published in the fall of 2002 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
He teaches at Washington University, St. Louis.
Stanley Plumly‘s book Now That My Father Lies Down Beside Me: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000 (Ecco/HarperCollins) appeared in 2000. He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland.
Elizabeth Poliner has published stories in Ascent, Crab Orchard Review, Pleiades,
Laurel Review, and others. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she has received several grants in fiction from D.C.’s Art Commission, and has recently completed a novel.
Eva Salzman‘s book, Bargain with the Watchman, was published by Oxford University
Press in 1997. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Ruskin
College, Oxford, and is working on a novel and a book of poems to
be published in the United States. Her opera One Two was showcased
at Greenwich Theatre, London, in May 2001.
Elizabeth Smither is the current New Zealand poet laureate. Her most recent collection
of poems, The Lark Quartet (Auckland University Press, 1999), won the Montana Book Award for Poetry in 2000.
Lisa Russ Spaar is the author of Glass Town: Poems (Red Hen Press), for which she won the Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Women Writers. She is also the editor of Acquainted with the Night: Insomnia Poems (Columbia University Press, 1999). She directs the creative writing program at the University of Virginia, where she teaches poetry writing.
Alison Stine‘s poems appeared in the New Voices section of The Kenyon Review in Summer/Fall 1999. Her work is forthcoming in the Paris Review and Black Warrior Review. Her chapbook, Lot of My Sister, winner of the Wick Prize, was published by the Kent State University Press in 2001.
Michael Thurston teaches in the English department at Smith College.
David Wright teaches at the University of Illinois. He has won a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award, and his first book, Fire on the Beach: Recovering
the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, was published by Lisa Drew Books/Scribner in July 2001.
C. Dale Young is the author of The Day Underneath the Day (TriQuarterly Books,
2001). His poems have appeared in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco.
Dean Young has published five books of poems, most recently Skid (University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2002).
