AUTHOR OF THE STARTLED LAND

Canadian born, Rochelle Mass grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to Israel in 1973 with her husband and two young daughters. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of two previous collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in US, Canadian, and Israeli publications. She is a translator and the editor of Kibbutz Trends, a biannual journal of contemporary issues.

AUTHOR OF PAYBACK

Elisha Porat was the 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature and has published 18 volumes of fiction and poetry in Hebrew since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada, and England. Mr. Porat was born in 1938 to a "pioneer" family in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael (pre-Israel); his parents were among the founders of Ein Hahoresh, a kibbutz on the Sharon plain, near the city of Hadera. Today, Porat, devoted to the community ideal, still makes his home near the original tent erected by his parents in the early 1930s.

AUTHOR OF ONCE IN BERLIN, TO BE A STRANGER and ICY CURRENT, COMPULSIVE COURSE

Gaither Stewart grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. After studies at the University of California at Berkeley and other American universities, he settled first in Germany, then in Italy. Following a career in journalism as Italian correspondent for the Rotterdam daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad and contributor to the press in several European countries, he began writing fiction full-time. He has authored three novels and two short story collections. He has resided in Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Russia and Mexico. Today he lives with his wife, Milena, in the hills of north Rome.

AUTHOR OF THE INSATIABLE PSALM
Coming in 2003

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is an English and Yiddish language poet, a Yiddish translator, and a Judaica librarian. His poems, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, have appeared in numerous publications, including Five Fingers Review, The Forward, Pif Magazine, and Prairie Schooner. He recently translated eight Yiddish plays, including The Jewish King Lear by Jacob Gordin, for the Foksbiene Yiddish Theater. He appears in, served as Yiddish subtitles editor, and received an "additional writing" credit for Divan, a documentary film by Pearl Gluck.

AUTHOR OF CAROLINA

Denis Underwood was born in Houston, Texas and raised in the United States and France. Denis wrote, produced and acted in Grave Matters, a full-length feature film currently in post-production. He lives in Chicago.

AUTHOR OF THE GOLDEN WEB

Poet, lawyer, and social activist James R. Whitley was born in Mount Verson, New York and holds degrees from Cornell University, Boston University, and Harvard University. His poetry has appeared in journals including Coal City Review, Icon, Peregrine, Poetry Forum, and Xavier Review. His first poetry book, Immersion (Lotus Press, 2002), was selected by Lucille Clifton as the winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. He is also the author of the chapbook Pietà (Pudding House Publications, 2001), which was selected as a finalist in both the Summer 2000 National Looking Glass Poetry Chapbook Competition and the Maryland State Poetry & Literary Society’s 2000 Chapbook Contest.

AUTHOR OF THE SPY NOVEL
Coming in 2004

Brett F. Woods received his Ph.D. in literature at the University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, England, where his principal research involved geopolitics and the evolution of British espionage fiction. He is a senior executive fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the author of numerous essays, monographs and books, both fiction and nonfiction. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.