Issue 11

Contributors

Doris Betts is one of the most critically acclaimed fiction writers in America. Her most recent novel, Souls Raised from the Dead, was published by Knopf and Fireside paperbacks. Her books Heading West and The Astronomer and Other Stories were recently reissued in paperback. Her next novel, The Sharp Teeth of Love, will be published by Knopf in 1996.

René Char, a major French poet of the twentieth century, died in 1988. He published more than twenty books of poetry, a collection of plays, and translations of poets from several nations. Char also painted, and his poetry was illustrated by major painters such as Braque and Giacometti.

Susanne Dubroff, who translated the René Char poems in this issue, has published poems and translations in such journals as Plainsong, Portland Review, and Tendril. She has published a collection of poems, You and I, and a chapbook, A Flower on a Volcano: Ten Translations of the Poems of Gustavo Adolpho Bécquer.

Gillette Elvgren has written more than twenty-five plays, which have been performed more than 9,000 times by professional theater companies. He is chairman of the Institute of Performing Arts at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and has served as a resident director of Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Shakespearean Festival. Mr. Elvgren is co-founder of and resident writer for Saltworks, a Pittsburgh theater company.

Jon Hassler has published ten novels, including Rookery Blues, published this past August, and Staggerford, chosen 1978’s novel of the year by the Friends of American Writers. Another novel, A Green Journey, was made into a movie in 1988 and shown on NBC starring Angela Lansbury and Denholm Elliot. Mr. Hassler is writer-in-residence at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Wally Lamb’s 1992 novel, She’s Come Undone, was published by Pocket Books. His writing has appeared in the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses anthology, The Best of the Missouri Review, and the New York Times magazine. A nationally honored teacher of writing, Mr. Lamb received an NEA grant to work on the novel excerpted in this issue.

Michael Mott has published seven collections of poetry (including, most recently, Corday), four novels, and a biography of Thomas Merton entitled The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton. The latter was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in biography. Mr. Mott is a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He currently lives in Virginia.

Shirley Nelson has published a novel, The Last Year of the War, and a book of narrative history, Fair, Clear and Terrible: The Story of Shiloh, Maine. She contributes to anthologies and regularly publishes articles and short fiction in journals and magazines.

Wyatt Prunty’s five books of poetry include The Run of the House and Balance as Belief. A professor of English at the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, he has published poems and essays in the leading journals and magazines of America. Mr. Prunty founded and directs the annual Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Paul J. Sampson has been a professional writer and editor for more than thirty years. His freelance work has included articles on the last brewery in Chicago, the inner life of underground comic book artists, and how to get the salt out of sea water. He has been a staff writer and editor for several medical and technical journals.

Steven Schreiner is an assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and the Sagarin Review: The St. Louis Jewish Literary Journal. He has published a chapbook, Imposing Presence.

Joel C. Sheesley, who wrote our profile of Jerome Witkin, is himself an accomplished painter, whose paintings Image profiled in our Fall 1993 issue. He is the author of the book Sandino in the Streets, a study of outdoor popular images of Nicaragua’s patriot and hero, Augusto César Sandino. Mr. Sheesley is a professor of art at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Floyd Skloot is the author of two novels, Pilgrim’s Harbor and Summer Blue, and a collection of poetry, Music Appreciation. His work has appeared in The Best American Essays of 1993 and such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Poetry, American Scholar, Hudson Review, New Criterion and American Art.

Les Standiford’s fourth novel, Deal to Die For, will be published by HarperCollins in October. He is the director of the creative writing program at Florida International University. Mr. Standiford has published in Kansas Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, and many other journals and anthologies.

Jeanne Murray Walker’s third play, Rowing into Light on Lake Adley, recently won the Virginia Duvall Mann Award at the Charlotte Repertory Theatre. A recipient of an NEA fellowship, she has published four books of poetry and teaches at the University of Delaware.