David Alexander has authored some thirty-two mass market paperback novels. About two years ago he decided it was time to return to writing noncommercial short fiction, something he had put off for more than a decade. Since then he has been searching for new metaphors and narrative modes suited to the age of the sound bite, the blur and the Zen koan as rock lyric.

Ron Carlson is the author of four books of fiction, most recently Plan B for the Middle Class. A new story collection, Hotel Eden, is forthcoming next spring from WW Norton. He teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

David A. Harvey studied writing at the University of Houston and elsewhere. He publishes fiction in literary journals, and non-fiction, largely on computers and the Internet, in the Wall Street Journal Online, Computer Shopper, PC Magazine, Windows Magazine, Byte, PC World, and elsewhere.

John Holman, a graduate of USM's Center for Writers, teaches in the creative writing program at Georgia State University. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and in numerous anthologies, and his collection of stories, Squabble, was published by Ticknor & Fields.

David Michael Kaplan has published widely, in Redbook, The Atlantic and elsewhere, and his collection of stories, Comfort, was issued in the Penguin Contemporary American Fiction series some years ago.

Elizabeth Lee studies at Brown University concentrating in English literature with honors in creative writing, and visual arts with honors in painting. She writes fiction, poetry and hypertext. "I am neither from New England nor from the Midwest, having lived in both regions (I say 'pop' nearly as often as I say 'soda'), neither white nor Asian, neither atheistic nor spiritual. At the same time, I dislike bemoaning my causes for an identity crisis. I know what I want to do with my life, which is more than most people can say." A poem entitled "A Short History" will be published in the e-zine The River, in an issue coming up soon. Her hypertext "Virtuous Toothpaste" can be accessed on the Brown University Web.

David Lipsky's work has appeared in The New Yorker and in Best American Short Stories. His story collection, Relativity was very warmly received.

Donald Mangum's has taught creative writing in Florida and Alabama, and his stories have appeared in The New Yorker and a number of literary magazines.

James Whorton Jr. teaches at a community college in northeast Tennessee. He studied writing at the University of Southern Mississippi and Johns Hopkins, and has published in Sun Dog, California Quarterly, Blip Magazine Archive, and Product. He is completing his first novel.