Charles Baxter is the author of the novel The Feast of Love (Vintage), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.  He has published two other novels, First Light and Shadow Play, and four books of stories, most recently Believers, published by Vintage.  He has also published essays on fiction, collected in Burning Down the House, and has edited or co-edited two books of essays, The Business of Memory (published by Graywolf) and Bringing the Devil to His Knees (The University of Michigan Press).  He also edited Best New American Voices 2001 (Harcourt).  He has received the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  His work has been widely anthologized, and has been translated into ten languages.

He was born in Minneapolis in 1947, graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. degree in 1969, and the State University of New York at Buffalo with a Ph.D. in 1974.  Dr. Baxter now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan,  and is Adjunct Professor of English at the University of Michigan. 

For more information about Charles Baxter, please go to http://www.charlesbaxter.com/

Alison Swan’s poems have appeared in many publications, including The Bellingham Review, the Red Cedar Review, and the Detroit MetroTimes. Her poem “Porch Swing,” published as a limited edition hand-made book, is included in rare book collections throughout the country, including the New York Public Library, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University.

Swan’s creative nonfiction, “Tracing the Winter Dunes,” set in the Lake Michigan sand dunes in deep winter, was included in MSU Press’s 2000 anthology, Peninsula: Essays and Memoirs from Michigan. The year before, a longer version of that essay was a finalist for a Heekin Prize. Swan has another essay about Michigan’s wild places forthcoming in an anthology celebrating the State of Michigan’s legally designated Natural Areas (MSU Press/Michigan Department of Natural Resources).  Last year, her essay about the demolition necessary for the construction of Detroit’s new Tiger Stadium was published in The Dunes Review.

In 1991, Swan received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and in 1984 she graduated from MSU with a B.A. in English Literature. She taught literature and writing at both the secondary and higher levels for more than six years. Swan has written a book column for Ann Arbor’s Current magazine since 1996, and her book reviews have appeared in Fourth Genre and the Paper. From 1993 to 1997, she managed publicity and advertising at Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor.

Presently, Swan is editing an anthology of women’s creative nonfiction about the Great Lakes and writing a collection of essays about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She also co-owns a bookstore in Saugatuck called Blue Rhino Books and Other Necessities and co-chairs Concerned Citizens for Saugatuck Dunes State Park, an organization dedicated to the preservation and expansion of Lower Michigan’s only rustic freshwater sand dunes state park.

Alison Swan’s family has lived in Michigan, both Upper and Lower, since the mid-19th century. She has settled with her husband and their daughter in the small town of Saugatuck on Lake Michigan after living in Fort Lauderdale, Seattle, Boston, and Ann Arbor. She grew up in Metro Detroit.

Catherine Haluska Shaffer writes both fantasy and science fiction.  She attended the Clarion workshop in 1997 (accompanied by her ferret, Sebastian), and has been writing seriously ever since.  Her first publication, "Improving Slay Times in the Common Dragon," was published in Odyssey #2, 1998.  Other published works include "The World Opened Up for Me,"  an essay on the Clarion experience, published in Speculations in October 2001, and "To Be or Not to Be," also published in Speculations, in December 2001.

Awards include: the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Society's Clarion Scholarship, 1997; L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, Honorable Mention, First Quarter 2000; and L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, Semifinalist, First Quarter 2001.

Setting ambitious goals, Ms. Shaffer's goal for 2002 is to write a story of at least 5000 words every three weeks.  (This follows her 2001 resolution to write a story a month for 12 months.)  In addition, she has established a Story a Month group to challenge writers.  For information on the group, see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cshaffer/storyquest.html.

An owner of ferrets (if one can be said to own a ferret), Ms. Shaffer has also written several hilarious items about ferrets, both fiction and non-fiction, notably "A Thousand Naps and a Nap" and "The Furry Plague," available on her website at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cshaffer/wildlife.html.

For more information on Catherine Shaffer, please visit her website, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cshaffer/index.html.

Joe Matuzak’s poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Kansas Quarterly, Passages North, Controlled Burn, Contemporary Michigan Poets, and other magazines and anthologies.  His book of poems, Eating Fire, is forthcoming from Ridgeway Press. He has worked in the Creative Writers in the Schools Program, and was the Director of Arts Wire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts.  He has taught in the Master of Arts Administration Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Other endeavors he has undertaken include: directing a multidisciplinary artist cooperative organization; managing a computer software store for five years; co-directing the Genesee Literary Center; helping to organize community-based literary activities for more than a decade; and organizing and moderating programs with poets on poetry for public access television.  He was a writer and art reviewer for the Flint Journal for four years. 

His writing has received a Creative Artist’s Award and Hopwood Awards from the University of Michigan.  He serves as a technology consultant specializing in non-profit concerns, and is frequently featured at conferences both in the United States and abroad. This summer, Joe has been working on a community knowledge project as an artist-in-residence at the Clinton Township Library in Lenawee County.  He lives in Lenawee County with his wife, the poet Josie Kearns. 

For more information about Joe Matuzak, please go to http://www.sunwheel.com/jmatuzak/ .

Konett, a 1997 graduate of Lyman Briggs College at MSU, is the author of science fiction and fantasy stories, including an honored story at Strange Horizons. Her work has also appeared in the Chronic Enabler, is it a cat? and, most recently, the anthology Best of the Rest 3 – Unknown Science Fiction of 2001. Konett is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop and is a member of the Claret Writing Group. In August 2001, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine included Konett in a list of “some of the most exciting new voices in the genre.” For more information on ML Konett, please visit her website at: http://userdata.acd.net/sheep.

Jack Ridl's collection Against Elegies was selected by Sharon Dolin and Billy Collins for the 2001 Chapbook Award from The Center for Book Arts in New York City.  Ridl, who has taught poetry at Hope College for more than 30 years and who founded the college's Visiting Writers Series, is the author of three other collections, is co-author with Peter Schakel of Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses (St. Martin's Press) and co-editor, also with Peter Schakel, of the soon-to-be-released 250 Poems, also from St. Martin's. His poem  "The Dry Wallers Listen to Sinatra While They Work" was chosen by David St. John for the 2002 Say-the-Word Poetry Award from The Ellipse Art Center in Arlington, Virginia. Ridl's poems have been published in such literary magazines as LIT, The Georgia Review, FIELD, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, The Denver Quarterly, Chelsea, Free Lunch, The Journal, Passages North, and Poetry East. In 1996, The Carnegie Foundation named him Michigan Professor of the Year.

Ridl grew up in the world of big time basketball, where his father was a coach, and the world of the circus, inherited from his mother's family.  These have enabled Jack to avoid most adjustments to the real world.

Of his poems, U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote: "Against Elegies arises from a sense of curiosity about life in both its plain and puzzling aspects. These poems feel their way forward and are attentive enough to the reader to make us feel included--happy accomplices to his search." And Naomi Shihab Nye has written, "Jack Ridl gracefully renders all realms of experience in a voice that is brave, compelling, and true; anyone who still has a glimmer of thought that poetry is two steps removed from life would do well to read his poems."

Ridl lives along Lake Michigan with his wife, Julie; their two Clumber Spaniels, Stafford and Bobbie Jean; and their two cats, Emmett and Maybe.

To learn more about Jack Ridl, please go to:
http://hope.edu/academic/english/ridl/