Poetry
Suzanne U. Clark is a poet, writer, and teacher living in Bristol, Tennessee. She has published two books of poetry, What a Light Thing, This Stone, 1999, and Weather of the House, 1994; a collection of literary essays, Sketches of Home, 1998; a textbook on writing poetry, The Roar on the Other Side, 2000; and a non-fiction book, Blackboard Blackmail, 1986. She also writes a weekly column for the Kingsport Times-News and teaches writing at King College and to home-schooled students. Clark was a resident fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and has won several prizes for her poetry. She received her Masters degree from the Writing Seminars of the Johns Hopkins University. She is married to Al Clark and has three children.

Photography
Morris Burchette, owner of Burchette Photography in Norton, Virginia, became interested in photography when he was 9 years old, and has been in business in Norton for more than 54 years. He is a long-standing member of the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), and has won many awards in national and international competitions for his wedding, portrait and commercial work. In recognition of his "superior photographic competence", he was awarded the prestigious Master of Photography Degree from that organization. Burchette has also served as president of the Virginia Chapter of the Professional Photographers of America (VPPA).

Drawing
Suzanne Adams Ramsey is an Associate Professor of Art and Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. She has a Bachelor in Performing Arts degree from Clinch Valley College, 1980; a Master of Science degree in Art Education from Radford University, 1989; and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from Norwich University, 1999. Ramsey has a background in commercial illustration and landscape painting. Currently she is working in collage and bookarts.

Essay
Joyce Dyer is Director of Writing and Professor of English at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. She is the author of two books, The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings,1993, and In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer's Journey, 1996, and the editor of Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers, 1998 . Her essays have appeared in magazines such as High Plains Literary Review and North American Review. Dyer has won numerous awards for her teaching and writing, including the Michael Starr Award for Teaching Excellence, 1996; a 1997 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council in creative nonfiction; the 1999 Book of the Year Award from the Appalachian Writers Association; and a 2001 Pushcart Prize nomination. Dyer has been a resident writer at the Hindman Appalachian Writers Workshop and the Highland Summer Conference at Radford University, among others. She is currently completing a memoir about growing up in a company town in Akron, Ohio (the former Rubber Capital of the World), as well as a collection of essays about American beauty.

Short Story
Don Johnson is currently the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at East Tennessee State University. He is the long-time editor of Aethlon: the Journal of Sport Literature, and the author of two books of poems, The Importance of Visible Scars, 1984, and Watauga Drawdown, 1992. He has also edited an anthology of contemporary baseball poems entitled Hummers, Knucklers, and Slow Curves. Johnson is currently finishing a critical book on sports poetry, tentatively entitled The Sporting Muse, and awaiting publication of an article in The Southern Review on Seamus Heaney, called "Heaney at Play."