Kristin Walrod graduated from the M.F.A. program at Antioch University in Los Angeles in December of 2001. Selections from her collection, Secondhand and Other Stories, have appeared in Stringtown and Nervy Girl.

Irene French Harvey, Antioch MFA 2002, was raised in Bavaria and Brooklyn, New York and has written for the movies and the theatre in Los Angeles. She now lives in Mill Valley, California where she is completing her novel, The Empty Light.

G. L. Griffith lives with his wife and two cats in Northern Arizona, where he teaches writing at a small college and high school. "The desert and its far-flung places drive many of my stories. I have always been intrigued by the idea of withdrawal, as opposed to withdrawing, from society. In 2002, I went on a writing binge, completing two novels and one novella. "Peace Offering" is a spinoff from the second novel of that effort, Before I Formed You in the Womb (I Knew You). I am currently seeking an agent for the other novel, Dryness."

Vanja Thompson's fiction has appeared in Bridge Magazine and Box of Rocks and in the online journals The Twisted Quill and Troika. It has not appeared in The New Yorker or Salon. Many versions of her work can also be found on her desktop and in her overburdened wastebasket.

Kay Harris has an MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She recently completed her first novel about an abused and abandoned thirteen-year old girl in rural Scandinavian Minnesota beginning 1940. "I was a volunteer, wheeling an elderly lady through the zoo one sunny September day in 1998. A particularly lucid old fellow in our group caught my attention. From my observations and projections "Sticking Together" developed."

Curt Duffy lives in Los Angeles and teaches at Los Angeles Pierce College.

Kelly Jaquiss spent the last nine years in Los Angeles, where she taught elementary school, acted in numerous plays and independent films, and received an MFA from Antioch University. Currently living in Newport Beach, California, she is a professor of English and Creative Writing at National University. "Stain" is from a linked collection of stories she is writing about young adults.