John Bensko’s most recent book of poetry is The Iron City (University of Illinois Press). A collection of stories, Sea Dogs, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in June 2004. Bensko teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Memphis.
Mark Evans Bryan is a member of the theater faculty at Denison University. Mercury Seven with Signs Following premiered in January 2003 with actor Sue Ott Rowlands.
Alison Bundy’s most recent book is Duncecap (Burning Deck, 1998), a collection of short fiction. Other works include A Bad Business (Lost Roads) and Tale of a Good Cook (Paradigm Press). She lives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and is at work on a novel.
In 2003, Albert Goldbarth became a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, as well as a recipient of the PEN West annual award in creative nonfiction. His recent novel Pieces of Payne is from Graywolf Press, which in 2003 also published a new collection of poems, Budget Travel Through Space and Time. He lives in Wichita, Kansas.
Rachel Hadas is the Board of Governors Professor of English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University and the author of over a dozen books of poetry, essays, and translations. Forthcoming in 2004: her new collection of poems, Laws.
Laura Kasischke’s most recent collection of poems, Dance and Disappear, won the Juniper Award and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2002. She is the author of four other poetry collections and three novels.
Mabel Lee was born in 1939 of Chinese parents in northern New South Wales, Australia. She majored in Chinese studies at the University of Sydney where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1966 and accepted an academic appointment in the same year. Her research publications focused on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Chinese intellectual history until the 1990s when she began translating the works of two contemporary writers, Yang Lian and Gao Xingjian. In 2001 Lee received the NSW Premier’s Prize for Translation and the PEN Medallion, and in 2003 she received a Centenary Medal “for service to Australian society and literature.”
Dana Levin’s first book, In the Surgical Theatre, received the 1999 APR/Honickman Prize and many other awards. A 1999 NEA and 2001 Lannan Residency Fellow, Levin directs the creative writing program at College of Santa Fe. These poems are from “Wedding Day,” a new manuscript.
Lee Martin is the author of a novel, Quakertown (Dutton, 2001); a memoir, From Our House (Dutton, 2000); a story collection, The Least You Need to Know (Sarabande, 1996); and an essay collection, Turning Bones, forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. He teaches in the creative writing program at Ohio State University.
Erin McGraw is the author of, most recently, The Baby Tree (Story Line Press, 2002). Later this year Houghton-Mifflin will publish a collection of her stories, Appearance of Scandal, which will include “The Penance Practicum.” Her stories and poems have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Story, and other publications. She teaches at Ohio State University.
Winner of a Massachusetts artist’s grant, Robert McKean has published two stories from his collection in the Chicago Review. His novel-in-progress was a finalist in the Heekin Group James Fellowship competition.
Steve Orlen has published five books of poetry, most recently This Particular Eternity (Ausable Press, 2001). He teaches at the University of Arizona and in the low-residency M.F.A. program at Warren Wilson College, Swannano, North Carolina.
Rowan Ricardo Phillips is an assistant professor of English and codirector of the Poetry Center at Stony Brook University. He lives in New York City.
John Rodden is at work on a book tentatively titled Celebrations and Attacks on Irving Howe. His other works include Lionel Trilling and the Critics (1999) and a new edition of George Orwell: The Politics of Literary Reputation (Transaction, 2002).
Alan Shapiro’s most recent book of poems, Song and Dance, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2002.
Nance Van Winckel’s fourth collection of poems, Beside Ourselves, is forthcoming from Miami University Press. A recipient of two NEA poetry fellowships, she teaches in the graduate writing programs at Eastern Washington University and Vermont College.
David Wagoner’s most recent book of poems is The House of Song (University of Illinois Press, 2002). He teaches at the University of Washington and edited Poetry Northwest for thirty-six years.
Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor is professor of English and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis. She has authored or edited two books on nineteenth-century British literature. Recent essays have appeared in SEL (fall 2002) and in Utopian Studies.
Gao Xingjian was born in 1940 in Jiangxi province in eastern China. He majored in French literature at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, graduating in 1962. The publication of his Preliminary Discussions on the Art of Modern Fiction (Huacheng, 1981; banned 1982) and the staging of his controversial plays Absolute Signal (1982), Bus Stop (1983; banned 1983) and Wild Man (1985) at the Beijing People’s Theatre displeased the authorities and he was subjected to various forms of harassment. In late 1987 he relocated to Paris where he has been able to devote himself to his writing and painting. Gao’s winning the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature meant that it was the first time the prize had been awarded for a body of Chinese-language writings. Among Gao’s works, the novel Soul Mountain (HarperCollins 2000) was singled out for special acclaim by the Swedish Academy. Gao’s other English-language fiction include the novel One Man’s Bible (HarperCollins 2002) and a forthcoming collection of short stories, Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (HarperCollins 2004).
