Hiag Akmakjian is a photographer, a New Yorker, and author of a novel, 30,000 Mornings, and a book of translations from the Japanese: Snow Falling from a Bamboo Leaf: The Art of Haiku. He lives in Wales.
Christopher Coake is the author of the story collection We’re in Trouble (Harcourt, 2005). He lives in Reno with his wife and two dogs, and teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada.
Fictioneer and journalist Katherine Dunn is probably most familiar for her third novel, Geek Love.
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novels Two Girls, Fat and Thin and Veronica, as well as the story collections Bad Behavior and Because They Wanted To. Her story ‘Secretary’ was the basis for the feature film of the same name.
Rebecca Godfrey is the author of the novel The Torn Skirt and the true crime book Under the Bridge. She lives in New York.
Laird Hunt is the author of three novels, The Impossibly; Indiana, Indiana and The Exquisite.
Shelley Jackson is the author of Half Life, The Melancholy of Anatomy, hypertexts including the classic Patchwork Girl, two children’s books, and Skin, a story published in tattoos on 2,095 volunteers, one word at a time. She is co-founder of the Interstitial Library and headmistress of the Shelley Jackson Vocational School for Ghost Speakers and Hearing-Mouth Children. She lives in Brooklyn and at www.ineradicablestain.com.
J. Robert Lennon is the author of six novels, including Happyland, serialised in 2006 in Harper’s magazine and the forthcoming Castle. He lives in central New York State.
Samuel Ligon is the author of the novel Safe in Heaven Dead (HarperCollins), and the editor of Willow Springs. His stories have appeared in Post Road, StoryQuarterly, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at Eastern Washington University in Spokane.
Emily Maguire is the author of two novels: Taming the Beast and The Gospel According to Luke. Her essays on sex, religion and literature have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Observer.
Tom McCarthy is the author of two novels, Remainder and Men in Space, and a non-fiction book, Tintin and the Secret of Literature. He is also General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS).
Scott Mebus is author of The Big Happy and The Booty Nomad, a musician, screenwriter, scorer and TV producer.
Eileen Myles’ latest collection of poems, Sorry, Tree, will be out from wave books this spring. She’s been living both in southern CA and NY since 2002, teaching at UCSD. Each week this year she’ll be blogging on art at http://openfordesign.msn.com.
Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham, England in 1970. She has variously been a child detective, a mystery customer, a victim of squirrels and a music enthusiast. Her first novel, What Was Lost, was published in 2007.
Lee Ranaldo is a visual artist, writer and member of Sonic Youth, who continues to record new music and tour the world on a regular basis. His visual art and sound works have been shown at galleries and museums around the world. His latest collection of poems is Hello from The American Desert, in which Internet spam is enlisted as a springboard for poetry. Maelstrom from Drift, a new solo CD, is forthcoming in summer 2008.
Emily Carter Roiphe is the award-winning author of Glory Goes and Gets Some available in the UK from Serpent’s Tail. She is attempting another book and, in the meantime, enjoys her work as a freelance cultural critic (who doesn’t?). She lives in Minneapolis with her life partner and two dogs, all three of them strays.
Kevin Sampsell lives in Portland, Oregon, and runs the micro-press Future Tense Books. His fiction and essays have appeared in a wide variety of journals and newspapers throughout the US. His books include Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets.
Steven Sherrill paints, writes, parents, teaches and struggles with his banjo in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Matt Thorne is the author of six novels: Tourist (1998), Eight Minutes Idle (1999, winner of an Encore Prize), Dreaming of Strangers (2000), Pictures of You (2001), Child Star (2003) and Cherry (2005, long-listed for the Booker Prize.) He also co-edited the anthologies All Hail the New Puritans (2000) and Croatian Nights (2005), and has written three books for children.
Rachel Trezise was born in South Wales in 1978. Her first novel, In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl, was an Orange Futures Prize winner. Her collection of short stories, Fresh Apples, won the EDS Dylan Thomas Prize. She is also author of the memoir/rockumentary Dial M for Merthyr: On Tour with Midasuno. She is currently working on her second novel.
Jess Walter’s four novels include The Zero, which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, and Citizen Vince, 2005 Edgar Award winner for best novel.
Peter Wild is the co-author of Before the Rain and the editor of Perverted by Language: Fiction inspired by The Fall and The Flash. Read more at www.peterwild.com.