e-mail: adalvarez@aol.com

TISA BRYANT spent 27 years in the Metro Boston area, and is now happily living in San Francisco. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in BEYOND THE FRONTIER (Black Classics Press, 2001), CHILDREN OF THE DREAM (Pocket Books, 1999), Chain, Clamour, How2, kenning, Mungo vs. Ranger and STEP INTO A WORLD (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Her chapbook, TZIMMES, was published by A+Bend Press. She is currently working on two prose projects, Letters to Regret, and About Her, a work of creative non-fiction, very tentatively titled household acts, and a novel, ZOO KID.

A child of young artists, JARRETT WALKER rode his stepfather's shoulders through Vietnam war protests carrying his own handwritten signs, which always had too many words to be read from a distance. Throughout his youth, he helped sell jewelry and batik in craft fairs across the Pacific Northwest, which led logically to a B.A. in Mathematics (Pomona College), a Ph.D. in Drama and Humanities (Stanford), and a career as a city planning consultant. His work on Shakespeare's Coriolanus appeared in the Summer 1992 Shakespeare Quarterly, while his current book project, HUMAN TRANSIT: Public Transportation for a Civilized World, emerges with difficulty through a stream of ruminative travel writing. Eligible but not desperate, he spends his spare time scouring cafes for literati, hiking the Cascades, and maximizing the oxygen output of Portland's smallest Japanese garden, also known as his front yard. He guest-edited the Cascadian Issue of Blithe House Quarterly.

e-mail: walkerjar@aol.com

LESLEY BOWNE says: I am 24 years old; I graduated from William and Mary in 2000 with B.A.s in English and Women's Studies; and I currently live in Vermont where I am doing horticultural work in order to save up money to go to graduate school

e-mail: lesleybowne@hotmail.com

ELIZABETH BURNETT grew up in Michigan, graduated from Williams College, and received her MFA from the University of Montana. Her stories have appeared in Fourteen Hills and Other Voices. She recently moved to Portland, Oregon, to coordinate and teach in a writers-in-the-schools program, and reap the literary benefits of a long, rainy winter.

SHANNON KENNEY is a graduate student in Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a poet.

e-mail: skenne3@uic.edu

MICHAEL A. KIGGINS is pursing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, where he is also a reader for the Creative Writing department's biannual journal River City. As a resident of the buckle of the Bible Belt for the past eight years, Michael asks for all of your prayers as he will be teaching two sections of freshmen comp starting this fall semester, and is notorious for his dual lack of patience and tact (financial donations to help him pay off his student loans can be sent in lieu of prayers if the spirit so moves you). "Cute as a Frog Hair" is an excerpt from an as-of-yet unpublished novel of the same name. As a rather busy young man Michael has, as-of-yet, not gotten off his ass and sent the whole manuscript to either editors or agents, so if any of you reading this are either/or then feel free to contact him. Hell, Michael says, if anybody wants to contact me feel free. An actual short story of Michael's entitled "Too-Cut" has been published on spoonfedamerika.com -- click on the featured fiction, it's the second story listed. Other than dodging traffic on his bike ride to school, teaching freshmen comp, accumulating massive amounts of debt and spending time with his partner of four years, Michael is currently revising the Frog Hair novel, has started a second unrelated novel, and works part-time at the nation's oldest continuously operating independent bookstore, where he enjoys his employee discount.

e-mail: bouillablase@hotmail.com

FELICE PICANO is a best-selling author of fiction, poetry, memoirs and other non-fiction. Considered a founder of modern gay literature along with the six other members of the Violet Quill Club, Picano also founded and ran the SeaHorse Press and Gay Presses of New York. He's been a regular writer for the San Francisco Examiner, The Lesbian & Gay Review, Lambda Book Report and Barnes & Noble.Com. He is also a playwright, with productions across the U.S. Picano is best known for co-authoring THE NEW JOY OF GAY SEX, writing the award-wining LIKE PEOPLE IN HISTORY and THE BOOK OF LIES. His novel, ONYX, was published to acclaim in May 2001. "Perfection of Frank Diaz" is part of an upcoming, second, collection of short fiction, FRED IN LOVE AND OTHER TRUE STORIES.

e-mail: felicepic@aol.com

JON ROEMER is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. He is currently writing a novel about a pop star activist and a struggling young acolyte. Jon has a B.A. in Writing from Northwestern and spent two years at Arizona's M.F.A. program before fleeing for his life.

e-mail: roemer@well.com

Pop culture maven GREGG SHAPIRO is the music editor for Next Magazine and Windy City Times. He is a contributing writer (on music, film, literature) to several publications including Bay Area Reporter, Bay Windows, Between The Lines, Blacklines, BGP & Mid-Atlantic Gay Life, En La Vida, Express, Gay & Lesbian Times, Hero, Lambda Book Report, Lavender, Outlook News, Philadelphia Gay News and Xtra!, among others.

e-mail: gregg1959@aol.com

MARY SHARRATT's novel SUMMIT AVENUE (Coffee House Press, 2000) was selected by Amazon.com as one of the top ten lesbian books of the year. Her fiction appears in a diverse range of journals and anthologies including Puerto Del Sol, American Writing, Evergreen Chronicles, Iris: A Journal For Women, THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR (St. Martin's Press, 2000), and in the forthcoming anthology, LOVE SHOOK MY HEART II, to be published by Alyson Publications this fall. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sharratt recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area after thirteen years in Germany. The story "Bleach" is based on an excerpt from her new novel, DISAPPEARING WOMEN.

e-mail: marysharratt@aol.com