Francis Davis ("Like Young"), a contributing editor of The Atlantic, is the author of The History of the Blues (1995) and Bebop and Nothingness (1996), a collection of essays.

Deborah Fallows ("Buffed and Polished"), has written for National Geographic, The Washington Monthly, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine.

Mary Graham ("High Resolution, Unresolved"), is a lawyer and writer who lives in Washington, D.C.

Brad Holland ("Express Yourself: It's Later Than You Think"), an artist, has received gold medals from the Art Directors Club of New York and the Society of Publication Designers. His article in this issue appears in somewhat different form in the book Illustration America, to be published this month by Rockport Press.

Wendy Kaminer ("The Latest Fashion in Irrationality"), is a contributing editor of The Atlantic and a public-policy fellow at Radcliffe College. Her essay collection True Love Waits was published last spring.

Carol Kino ("Living-Room Galleries"), is a former New York correspondent for the British quarterly Modern Painters. She has written about art for The New York Times, Artnews, and Art & Auction.

Hans Koning ("Germania Irredenta"), is at work on a novel, Night and Day, to be published next year.

Robert A. Levine ("The Economic Consequences of Mr. Clinton"), a senior economist emeritus at the Rand Corporation, was deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1975 to 1979.

Thomas Lux ("He Has Lived in Many Houses"), teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College and is the author of Split Horizon (1994).

Florence Cassen Mayers ("All-American Sestina"), is a poet whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, Epoch, and Poetry.

Thomas I. Palley ("The Forces Making for an Economic Collapse"), teaches economics at the New School for Social Research, in New York City. He is the author of Post Keynesian Macroeconomics, to be published this year.

Richard Rubin ("Welcome to Our Tomb"), has recently been published in The New Yorker, the Oxford American, and The Southern Review.

Steven Stark ("Gap Politics"), writes about politics and popular culture and is a commentator on National Public Radio.

Charles Thompson ("Robert Penn McInerney"), is the fiction and book editor of American Way magazine. He has written for Spy, Mademoiselle, and The Oregonian.

Mark Walters ("Spring"), teaches literature and creative writing at William Jewell College, in Liberty, Missouri.