Many thanks to the s[r] staff who created this issue.
Born in northern Illinois, Daniel Elson has made props and animatronics for spook houses and theme parks, co-starred on a reality television series about torture for the History Channel, and sold the rights to his likeness to Cartoon Network.
Franz Wright, born in Austria and educated at Oberlin College, received the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his book of poetry Walking to Martha's Vineyard. Critics have praised Wright for his poetry, stating that, Wright oscillates between direct and evasive dictions, between the barroom floor and the arts club podium, from aphoristic aside to icily poetic abstraction.
Anthony Varallo's short story collection, Out Loud, won the 2008 Drue Heinz Literature Prize (University of Pittsburgh Press).
Marie Mockett was born in Carmel, California to a Japanese mother and American father. Her Japanese family owns a Zen Buddhist temple where she often played as a child, and which, among other things, performs exorcisms.
