Ali Alizadeh was born in 1976 in Tehran and at 14 migrated with his family to Brisbane where he finished high school. He read for his PhD in Professional Writing at Deakin University. He won Verandah magazine’s 2000 poetry prize for his long poem Princess and his first book, a ‘confessional’ narrative poem called eliXir: a story in poetry, was published in 2002. Since completing his PhD in 2004, Alizadeh has taught at universities in Australia and China. He has also published two more books: Eyes in Times of War (Salt Publishing, Cambridge: 2007) and, with Kenneth Avery, Fifty Poems of Attar (re.press, Melbourne: 2007), the latter includes translations of the selected ghazals of a seminal Sufi mystic. Alizadeh’s first novel, The New Angel, will be published by Melbourne’s Transit Lounge in 2008. He is currently living in Turkey, where he teaches composition at Bilkent University. His writing interests include history, mysticism and dissent.

María Baranda is the author of Dylan and the Whales, Tale of the Lost, Sky Fiction, Impossible Dwellings, and many other books. She has received the Efraín Huerta National Poetry Prize, the Ibero-American Poetry Prize, and the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in English translation in Boston Review, the anthologies Reversible Monuments (Copper Canyon Press) and Connecting Lines (Sarabande Books), and elsewhere.

Candace Black teaches creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Her nonfiction has been published in Blueroad: Stardust and Fate, War, Literature and the Arts, and poemmemoirstory. The Volunteer, a book of poems, was published by New Rivers Press in 2003. She will visit Caron's boutique in NYC this January.

Garry Crystal is a freelance writer from Scotland who was struggling to make a life in London when he was given a copy of The Fuck-Up from a well meaning friend to whom he is eternally grateful. The Fuck-Up reminded him that where there is disillusionment, there will always be hope and humor. His short stories and articles have been published in print and on the Internet.

A story by Matthew Dulany appears in the current Kelsey Review, and another is forthcoming in the Ontario Review. He has written a novel, called The Neighborhood Is Changing, that is about white flight and gentrification in Brooklyn, his hometown.

Scott Esposito's work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chattahoochee Review, Rain Taxi, Small Spiral Notebook, and Boldtype, among others. Scott blogs on literature at conversational reading (http://www.conversationalreading.com/) and edits The Quarterly Conversation.

Karen Gernant, Professor Emerita of Chinese history, Southern Oregon University, earned her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon, and studied Chinese at the Stanford Center in Taipei. Since 1987, she has lived in Fuzhou, China, fourteen times. There, she directed an Oregon study program, worked as language consultant for Fujian TV, and has carried out research, translated fiction, and taught English. Interlink published her Imagining Women: Fujian Folk Tales in 1995. In 1999 she received the Fujian Province friendship Medal. She now divides her time between homes in Fuzhou, China, and Talent, Oregon. New Directions will issue a volume of Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping’s translations of fiction by postmodernist writer Can Xue in the fall of 2005 or spring of 2006. Their translations of contemporary Chinese fiction have appeared in Chinese Literature, Conjunctions, and Black Warrior Review.

Larry Gilman started growing up in West Orange, New Jersey in 1962(?). Since fifth grade he’s lived in other parts of New Jersey, in Chicago, and in Vermont, where he and his wife now hunker in the hills. He was trained as an electrical engineer and spent a brief, ennui-saturated time working for the phone company in the late 1980s, but has since opted for a life of freelance writing and editing. His writing has appeared in Orion, Red Rock Review, Hair Trigger, and (naturally) the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control. His outbursts against technology-worship appear irregularly on his blog, www.nolongerbythinking.blogspot.com.

Felisberto Hernández (1902-1964): Uruguayan short-story writer and self-taught pianist who earned a living playing in movie houses during the silent era. He is generally considered to be a precursor of writers, such as Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes.

Eric Gabriel Lehman is the author of the novels Waterboys, Quaspeck, and Summer’s House, as well as short stories and essays that have been published both in the United States and abroad. His fourth novel, Fear of Trains, will be published next year. He lives in Manhattan and teaches at Queens College.

William Martin died in 1988 of congestive heart failure. He published numerous short stories in the 1970's in literary journals including Carolina Quarterly and Valley View.

Anesa Miller is a native of Wichita, Kansas, and holds a Ph.D. in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Kansas. After 12 years of teaching, she is now enrolled in the MFA-creative writing program at the University of Idaho. Her stories have been published in the Kenyon Review, Cimarron Review, the Cream City Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and others. The title, "The Fireborn, They Go Far," is derived from a poem by Carl Sandburg.

Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel, and emigrated to Australia in 1958. His family settled in Sydney, where he grew up and completed his studies. Since the early 1970s he has worked as a book editor for publishers in Sydney and Melbourne, and was general editor of The Concise Encyclopaedia of Australia (1977–79); he now lives in Melbourne, is married with two children, and works as a freelance book editor. Skovron’s poetry has been published widely and four collections have appeared to date: The Rearrangement (1988), which won the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards, and was shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Awards; Sleeve Notes (1992), shortlisted for the Barbara Ramsden Award; Infinite City (1999), shortlisted in the Age Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier’s Awards; and The Man and the Map (2003). He has twice been a recipient of an Australia Council writer’s grant (1994 and 2004), and other awards have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry (1983 and 2005), the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (1995 and 2001), the Manuel Gelman Memorial Prize for Literature (1997), the Kyneton Literature Festival Poetry Prize (2002), and the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2007). Skovron’s most recent book is a prose novella, The Poet (2005), joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for a work of fiction. A number of his short stories have appeared in print, and a book-length collection of prose-poems is in preparation.

Shi Tiesheng, born in 1951 in Beijing, was left paralyzed from an illness at the age of 21. A recurrence of a viral infection in 1998 damaged his kidneys, necessitating dialysis three times a week and daily physical therapy. His first story was published in 1979, and since that time, despite his poor health, he has continued writing. His “Temple of Earth and I” is considered by many to be the best essay published in China in fifty years and is now included in a high school Chinese language textbook. Shi has won numerous awards for his writing, and has also written screenplays. In addition, director Chen Kaige based a film on one of his stories. Shi is known primarily for his essays.

Ouyang Yu has had 37 Chinese and English books published in the field of fiction, poetry, literary translation and literary criticism since his arrival in Australia in 1991. His first English novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002, Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney), was short-listed for the 2003 NSW Premier’s Awards and won the Festival Award for Innovation in Writing in the 2004 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts. His first book of creative nonfiction, On the Smell of an Oily Rag: Speaking English, Thinking Chinese and Living Australian, is forthcoming with Wakefield Press in 2007. His fifth book of English poetry, Foreign Matter (2003, Otherland Publishing, Melbourne), won the 2003 Fast Books Prize for Best Poetry in the self-published category in NSW, Australia. His seventh book of English poetry, Listening To, was published by Vagabond Press in early 2006. His eighth book of English poetry, The Kingsbury Tales: a novel, is forthcoming with Brandl & Schlesigner. His fourteenth book of translation, in Chinese, of Robert McCrum et al’s The Story of English was published in 2005 by Baihua Publishing House in China and his sixth book of English poetry, New and Selected Poems was published by Salt Publishing in London in 2004. His fourth book of Chinese poetry, xiandu (the limit), was published in 2004 in Beijing. His fifth book of Chinese poetry, er du piao liu (Second Drifting), was published in Beijing in late 2005. His other published translations (seventeen of them) in Chinese include The Female Eunuch (1991, Lijiang Publishing House, and 2001, Baihua Publishing House, China), The Whole Woman (2002, Baihua Publishing House, China) by Germaine Greer, The Shock of the New (2003, Baihua Publishing House, China) by Robert Hughes, Capricornia by Xavier Herbert (2004, Chongqing Publishing House, China) and Corpsing by Toby Litt (2006, Shanghai Literature and Arts Publishing House). His second full-length novel, Loose: a wild history, is forthcoming in 2008 in the UK with Bluechrome Publishing. He is professor of Australian literature and director of Australian Studies Centre in the English department, School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Wuhan University, China, as well as visiting professor at Institute of Comparative Literature and Comparative Culture, Nanjing University, China.

Yahia al-Samawy graduated from Al-Mostansyriah University in Baghdad and has worked as a teacher and journalist. He has published fourteen books of poetry including AynakiDonya, Kasa`d fi Zaman Al-Saby wal Boka`a, A Pain as Big as My Country, and This Is My Tent . . . So Where Is My Home? He has published widely in both the Arabic and Australian media. A selection of his poems was translated to English by Eva Sallis, and published by Picaro Press under the title Two Banks With No Bridge. He has won a number of prizes for his work, among them Jaezat Al Multaka Al-thakafy Al Araby in Abha and Jaezat Ebn in Turkey for recognition of poetic achievements, sponsored by the Union of Arabic Nations. He currently lives in Australia.

Tomaž Šalamun was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia, and raised in Koper, Slovenia. He has published more than 30 books of poetry in Slovenia and is recognized as one of the leading poets in Central Europe. Among his honors include the Preseren Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a visiting Fulbright to Columbia University, and a fellowship to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He also has served as Cultural Attaché to the Slovenian Consulate in New York. Besides having his work appear in numerous journals internationally, he has had nine collections of poetry published in English: The Selected Poems of Tomaž Šalamun (Ecco Press, 1988), edited by Charles Simic; The Shepherd, the Hunter (Pedernal, 1992); The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine, 1997); Feast (Harcourt Brace, 2000), edited by Charles Simic; A Ballad for Metka Krasovec (Twisted Spoon, 2001); Poker (Ugly Duckling, 2003); Blackboards (Saturnalia Books, 2004); Row! (Arc, 2005); and The Book for My Brother (Harcourt, 2005). His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages around the world. Woods and Chalices, translated with Brian Henry, is forthcoming from Harcourt in 2008.