~CONTRIBUTORS' NOTES~

MAXIANNE BERGER lives in Montreal and is the author of three collections of poetry, including How We Negotiate (Empyreal Press, 1999) from which "Childless at the Shoestore" and "Exposure" are reprinted.  Her poetry also has appeared in various anthologies, including The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press, 1997) and Moosehead Anthology (Livres DC Books, 1997).  She was a faculty lecturer at McGill's University School of Communication Sciences and Disorders for fifteen years and maintains her association with the school as a practicum supervisor.

CHRIS ELLIS is a graduate student in creative writing at Valparaiso University and a veterinarian.

JONATHAN HOLDEN is University Distinguished Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Kansas State University.  He is the author of seventeen books, including poetry, criticism, a memoir, and a novel.  He has won the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, the Juniper Prize, the AWP Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, and several other awards and prizes.  The poems reprinted here are from his most recent collection, Knowing: New and Selected Poems (University of Arkansas Press, 2000).  "William Stafford: Genius in Camouflage" is reprinted from The Old Formalism: Character in Contemporary Poetry (University of Arkansas Press, 1999).

JOHN KNOX is a professor of Geography and Meteorology at Valparaiso University.  "Pentecost: 30 June 1993" first appeared in the Wisconsin Academy Review.

THOMAS DAVID LISK's fiction, poems, and essays have appeared in many literary journals, including Asheville Poetry Review, Boston Review, Boulevard, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Oakland Review.  A collection of his poems, A Short History of Pens Since the French Revolution, was published by Apalachee Press.  He is Head of the Department of English at North Carolina State University.

JANET MCCANN is a professor in the English Department at Texas A & M University.  Her most recent book of poetry is Looking for Buddha in the Barbed Wire Garden (Avisson Press, 1996).  She has also edited two anthologies of poetry.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including Kansas Quarterly, McCall's, New York Quarterly, Nimrod, and Parnassus.

MARGARET PERRY's poetry and short stories have appeared in many journals, including Arts Alive, Forum, Obsidian II, Panache, Phylon, Short Story International, and Willow Review.  She has taught Afro-American Literature at the University of Rochester and worked as a librarian in the New York Public Library and the U.S. Army at West Point.  She retired as director of Valparaiso University's Moellering Library in 1993.

BETH SIMON received her Ph.D. in South Asian languages and linguistics from the University of Wisconsin.  She lived in India, doing language research and editing books on Tibetan Buddhism.  She has been an assistant editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English.  Currently, she teaches linguistics and creative writing at Indiana University - Purdue University at Fort Wayne.  Her poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction have appeared in various anthologies and literary journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, American Literary Review, Antioch Review, Carolina Quarterly, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, and TriQuarterly.  Her first collection of poetry, Out of Nowhere, The Body's Shape, is published by Pecan Grove Press.  "Rock, Bird" first appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review and "This Girl of Sixteen Who Dislikes" first appeared in Ascent.