EMILY ANDERSON’s fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including McSweeney’s, Caketrain, and the Kenyon Review.
RUSSELL BANKS is the author of many novels, most recently Lost Memory of Skin, and six short-story collections, including the forthcoming A Permanent Member of the Family (both Ecco), which contains the titular story that appears here. “A Permanent Member of the Family” is © 2013 Russell Banks.
MARTINE BELLEN’s most recent collection of poetry is Wabac Machine (Furniture Press Books). Her other books include GHOSTS! (Spuyten Duyvil Press) and The Vulnerability of Order (Copper Canyon Press).
REBECCA BRIDGE is a poet, essayist, and screenwriter who lives in Seattle. Her work has previously been published in Boston Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Sixth Finch, notnostrums, and elsewhere. Her collection of writing essays and exercises, Clear Out the Static from the Attic, is forthcoming from Write Bloody Publishing.
Novelist, cut-up artist, and Beat postmodernist WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (1914–1997) is the author of such canonical works as Junky and Naked Lunch (both Grove Press). The recipient of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, he published nearly thirty books in his lifetime, as well as collaborating with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Jim Morrison, Gus Van Sant, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits.
EDWARD CAREY is a writer and illustrator. His novels Observatory Mansions (Crown) and Alva and Irva (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) have been published in fourteen countries. Hot Key published Heap House, the first volume of his young-adult Iremonger trilogy, in September.
H. G. CARRILLO is the author of the novel Loosing My Espanish (Anchor Books). His short stories have appeared in Conjunctions, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Glimmer Train, Ninth Letter, Slice, and elsewhere. He teaches at George Washington University.
GILLIAN CONOLEY’s seventh book, Peace, will be published by Omnidawn in the spring of 2014. City Lights will publish her translations of three books by Henri Michaux, Thousand Times Broken, in the fall of 2014.
SUSAN DAITCH is the author of three novels, L.C. (Dalkey Archive Press), The Colorist (Virago), and Paper Conspiracies (City Lights), as well as a collection of short fiction, Storytown (Dalkey). “Fall Out,” a novella, was published this year by Madras Press in support of Women for Afghan Women.
MONICA DATTA’s work appeared earlier this year in Web Conjunctions. She is currently writing an opera libretto and a novel, from which this piece is excerpted. This is her first appearance in print.
“The Taxidermist” is CRAIG EKLUND’s first published story.
TEMPLE GRANDIN is a designer of livestock-handling facilities for the United States and many countries around the world, as well as a noted author and speaker on the subject of autism. Named one of the one hundred most influential people by Time Magazine in 2010, she is the author of numerous books including New York Times bestsellers Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Scribner) and Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The HBO movie about her life story, Temple Grandin, won seven Emmy awards and a Golden Globe.
BENJAMIN HALE is the author of the novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore (Twelve) and the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and a Michener-Copernicus award. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Conjunctions, Harper’s, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. He teaches at Bard College.
KEVIN HOLDEN is the author of two chapbooks, Identity (Cannibal Books) and Alpine (White Queen Press). He lives in Connecticut.
NORA KHAN is a researcher and teacher interested in games, digital humanities, and the nexus between creativity and cognitive studies. Her short fiction has been published by Hunger Mountain and American Literary Review, and she writes regularly for Kill Screen.
Cover artist SIR EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802–1873) was an English artist celebrated during his lifetime for his paintings of animals, particularly those of dogs. Popular among both the middle class and the aristocracy (Queen Victoria commissioned work from him), he modeled the lions that grace the base of Nelson’s Column, and the Landseer Newfoundland dog is his namesake.
MICHAEL PARRISH LEE’s stories have appeared in Scrivener Creative Review and Web Conjunctions and his essays have appeared in Novel: A Forum on Fiction and Studies in the Novel. He teaches at Leeds Metropolitan University.
PAUL LISICKY’s books include The Burning House (Etruscan Press), Unbuilt Projects (Four Way Books), The Narrow Door (forthcoming from Graywolf Press), and others. He teaches in the MFA program at Rutgers-Camden.
ADAM McOMBER is the author of The White Forest (Touchstone) and This New & Poisonous Air (BOA Editions). He is the associate editor of the journal Hotel Amerika at Columbia College Chicago, where he also teaches creative writing and literature.
SANDRA MEEK is the author of four books of poems, most recently Road Scatter (Persea Books) and Biogeography (Tupelo Press), winner of the Dorset Prize. She is the co-founding editor of Ninebark Press, poetry editor of the Phi Kappa Phi Forum, and director of the Georgia Poetry Circuit. She teaches at Berry College.
GWYNETH MERNER is a graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. This is her first appearance in print.
The notable Belgian-born French writer and artist HENRI MICHAUX (1899–1984) was known for his forays into human perception. In addition to books such as Voyage en Grande Garbagne (Gallimard), Au pays de la magie (Athlone), and Ici, Poddema (Mermod), he produced visual work in India ink, watercolors, and oils. The excerpt from Watchtowers on Targets published here was conceived in collaboration with the abstract expressionist Roberto Matta and will appear in Gillian Conoley’s translation of Thousand Times Broken: Three Books by Henri Michaux, #61 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series (Fall 2014).
SARAH MINOR is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at the University of Arizona. Her work can be found online at Word Riot.
RICK MOODY is the author of five novels, three collections of stories, a memoir, and, most recently, the collection of essays On Celestial Music (Back Bay). He writes about music regularly online at the Rumpus, and writes songs for the Wingdale Community Singers.
KYOKO MORI has published three nonfiction books: Yarn (GemmaMedia Books), Polite Lies, and The Dream of Water (both Holt), and four novels: Barn Cat (GemmaMedia Books), Stone Field True Arrow (Metropolitan), One Bird, and Shizuko’s Daughter (both Holt). She lives in Washington, DC, with her two cats and teaches at George Mason University and Lesley University.
BRADFORD MORROW is the editor of Conjunctions and the recipient of the PEN/ Nora Magid Award for excellence in literary editing. He is the author of six novels and his most recent books include The Diviner’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and the fiction collection The Uninnocent (Pegasus Books). He is currently at work on A Bestiary, a collaboration with virtuoso guitarist Alex Skolnick. A Bard Center fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he lives in New York City.
JAMES MORROW is the author of nine novels, including The Last Witchfinder, The Philosopher’s Apprentice (both William Morrow), and the Godhead Trilogy (Harcourt). He has received the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and the Prix Utopia. His recent novella, Shambling towards Hiroshima (Tachyon), won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
ANDREW MOSSIN teaches in the intellectual heritage program at Temple University in Philadelphia. His writing has appeared in New Ohio Review, Hambone, Talisman, Jacket, Callaloo, and other publications.
JOYCE CAROL OATES is the author, most recently, of Black Dahlia & White Rose, which received the 2013 Bram Stoker Award from the World Horror Association, and the novel The Accursed (both Ecco). Her new collection, Evil Eye (Mysterious Press), contains a novella, “The Flatbed,” originally published in Conjunctions:58, Riveted: The Obsession Issue (Spring 2012).
DALE PETERSON is the author, co-author, or editor of seventeen books, the most recent of which is Giraffe Reflections (University of California Press).
JANIS E. RODGERS is a poet and anthropologist currently based in Southern California. More information on the Fongoli Chimpanzee Project and Faleme Chimpanzee Conservation Project addressed in her essay can be found at savannachimp. blogspot.com and facebook.com/falemechimpanzeeconservation, respectively.
DAN ROSENBERG’s first book, The Crushing Organ (Dream Horse Press), won the 2011 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. He co-edits Transom.
BENNETT SIMS is the author of the novel A Questionable Shape (Two Dollar Radio). His fiction has appeared in A Public Space, Electric Literature, Orion, Subtropics, Tin House, and Zoetrope: All-Story. He lives in Iowa City.
TERESE SVOBODA’s most recent novel is Bohemian Girl (University of Nebraska Press), named one of the ten best Westerns of the year by Booklist.
COLE SWENSEN is the author of fourteen books of poetry and a collection of critical essays. She is the recipient of the 2004 PEN USA Award in Translation and the editor of La Presse, a nano-press dedicated to contemporary French writing.
LYNNE TILLMAN’s most recent collection of stories is Someday This Will Be Funny; her second essay collection, What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, is forthcoming in January (both Red Lemonade Press).
SALLIE TISDALE’s most recent book is Women of the Way (Harper San Francisco).
FREDERIC TUTEN’s books include Tintin in the New World (William Morrow), The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (Citadel Press), and Self Portraits: Fictions (Norton).
DR. VINT VIRGA is a veterinary behaviorist and the author of The Soul of All Living Creatures (Crown/Random House). Renowned for his expertise on human-animal relationships, he works as a consultant to zoos and wild-animal parks on animal behavior and well-being and has appeared as a featured guest on ABC World News, PBS Nature, and National Geographic Explorer.
WIL WEITZEL is currently at work on a novel set in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush range. His fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Southwest Review, New Orleans Review, White Whale Review, Chautauqua, and elsewhere. He teaches at Harvard University.