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.

Robert Olen Butler's "Woman Uses Glass Eye to Spy on Philandering Husband" and "Woman Struck By Car Turns Into Nymphomaniac" are both part of a new book of short stories, Tabloid Dreams, which will be published by Henry Holt this fall and is scheduled to premiere as an HBO series early next year. His last collection of short stories, A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He is also the author of seven novels, including the recent best seller, They Whisper. He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with his wife, the novelist Elizabeth Dewberry.

William Cobb teaches at Penn State. His work has been published in The New Yorker and other magazines, and he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in Literature in 1992.

Kim A. Herzinger has written fiction, non-fiction, plays, and poetry. A few years ago he won a Pushcart Prize for his Buddy Holly story. He teaches at The University of Southern Mississippi.

Cynthia Kadohata's first novel, The Floating World, was published by Viking in 1989. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere.

Paul Lisicky may still live in Iowa and is probably working on a novel. His stories have been published in Black Warrior Review, The Quarterly, The Greensboro Review and Kansas Quarterly.

Steve Watkins used to teach at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA, where he lived with his wife Laurie and daughters Maggie and Eva. Where he is now is anybody's guess.