Marcia Adams' poems have appeared in The Montserrat Review, Porter Gulch Review, Caesura, Bristlecone and several chapbook anthologies. A third generation Californian, with roots in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada, she is happily transplanted in Santa Cruz. She is a member of the Poetry Santa Cruz Steering Committee and an Advisory Board member of Poetry Center San Jose.

Frances Payne Adler is the Director of the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at California State University, Monterey Bay. Adler is the author of five books: Raising The Tents, a collection of poems (Calyx Books), and three collaborative books with photographer Kira Carrillo Corser, When The Bough Breaks: Pregnancy and The Legacy of Addiction (New Sage Press), Struggle To Be Borne (San Diego State University Press), and Home Street Home, (Red Cross). Her new book of poems, The Making of a Matriot, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Adler's poems have appeared in Poetry International, Fiction International, Prism International, The Progressive, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Women's Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, Exquisite Corpse, Bridges, Centennial Review, Women and Politics, and Blood To Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, among others.Adler's awards include a California State Senate Award for Artistic and Social Collaboration, a Margaret Sanger Award, a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. She was also a Western States Book Award finalist for Raising The Tents.

Julia Alter delights in sculpting language into music. She's a co-founder of Poetry Santa Cruz and has won several awards for her poetry. In February of 2004, Hummingbird Press published her first collection of poems, Walking the Hot Coal of the Heart.

Len Anderson is the author of Affection for the Unknowable (Hummingbird Press, 2003). He is also a physicist and has done research in elementary particle physics and developed sensors for the automation of paper manufacturing. He is a co-founder of Poetry Santa Cruz and lives in Live Oak.

Charles Atkinson teaches writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His first collection, The Only Cure I Know (San Diego Poets Press), received the American Book Series award for poetry; a chapbook, The Best of Us on Fire, won the Wayland Press competition. He has been awarded several national prizes for individual poems, including the Stanford Prize, the Comstock Review Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award (SUNY Farmingdale), the Emily Dickinson Award (Universities West Press) and, most recently, The Ledge Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in half a dozen anthologies and many literary magazines, including Poetry, The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Nimrod and The Amicus Journal.

Ellen Bass' most recent book of poetry Mules of Love was published by BOA Editions. With Florence Howe, she co-edited the groundbreaking book, No More Masks!: An Anthology of Poems by Women and has published four previous volumes of poetry. Among her awards for poetry are the Elliston Book Award from the University of Cincinnati, The Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, The New Letters Poetry Prize, The Greensboro Poetry Prize, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council. For more information, visit www.ellenbass.com.

Barbara Bloom teaches English and Creative Writing at Cabrillo College. She lives in Corralitos with husband and a small, pampered group of animals. Her work has been published in various small magazines. "September 12, 2001" first appeared in The Sow's Ear.

Michael Bradburn-Ruster, a native of Carmel, California, has published poetry, translations, and scholarly works in the U.S., Britain, and Canada, in journals such as Berkeley Poetry Review, Rain City Review, Antigonish Review, Crab Creek Review, Romantics Quarterly, and Full Circle Journal. He received a doctorate from UC Berkeley, and has taught literature, philosophy, comparative religions and world mythology in California, Oregon, and Arizona. His book The Angel or the Beast explores the interplay of philosophy, mysticism, theology and literature in Renaissance and Baroque Spain in relation to recent cultural crises.

Carol Brendsel makes her home in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern New Mexico after living in Santa Cruz, California for more thirty years.

Debra Busman is a poet, fiction writer and activist from the Salinas/Monterey area. Having worked as a ranch hand, editor, press operator, gardener, newspaper carrier, typesetter, prisoner advocate, and owner of a local print shop, she returned to college at age 38 and received her AA degree from Monterey Peninsula College, her BA from UC Santa Cruz, and her MFA from Mills College, Oakland. Currently teaching in the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at California State University, Monterey Bay, she also teaches literature and composition and is the Coordinator of Service Learning for the Institute of Human Communication. Recently the winner of the Astraea Foundation 2002 $1,500 Fiction Award, her poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in 580 Split; Chinquapin; Social Justice, Vol. 29:4: New Pedagogies for Social Change; and Women’s Studies Quarterly 26: Working Class Lives and Cultures.

Francis Cartier holds a Ph.D. (1951) from the University of Southern California and has taught speech arts and speech science courses there and at several other universities. A third-generation Californian, he has lived in Pacific Grove since 1971. He has published four textbooks, some science fiction short stories, and several poems and verses in a variety of publications ranging from Analog: Science Fact and Fiction to Modern Maturity. His website, not quite finished, is www.TASCommunicating.com.

Dane Cervine lives in Santa Cruz, California along the Monterey Bay coast with his wife and two children, where he serves as Chief of Children's Mental Health for the county. A member of the Emerald Street Writers group, Dane's work has appeared in a wide variety of journals & magazines, ranging from college presses, independent journals and on-line sites, newspaper and art museum publications, to Buddhist, Quaker, and Pagan magazines. In addition, Dane's work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including: Quarry West: Poets & Writers of the Monterey Bay; To Love One Another: Poems Celebrating Marriage, from Grayson Books; Working Hard For The Money: America's Working Poor in Poem & Story from Bottom Dog Press; Pagan's Muse by Citadel Press; My Heart's First Steps by Adams Media; is forthcoming in Sacred Fire from Adams Media, and Familiar from People's Press. Finally, some of Dane's recent titles from his annual chapbook series include: Speaking In Tongues, Blue In The Face, Fiercely, Everything, One Small Life Breaks Open, Human Poems.

Judith Cody has lived most of her adult life in several counties of central California. The people, the ecology and nature's singular traits in California have been a critical theme in much of her poetry. Wet Drive is her latest poetry manuscript; it deals with the theme of the ocean's meaning in our lives, and was inspired by living in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas where she learned to love the special sea surrounding that unique coast. Cody's poetry has won awards from Atlantic Monthly and Amelia magazines, was short-listed for the Lyric Recovery Award, 2004, and received honorable mention from The Emily Dickinson Poetry Award 2002. A poem group was inducted into the Smithsonian Institution's permanent American History Collection. Poems have appeared in journals such as: The New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Phoebe, The South Carolina Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Cumberland Poetry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Soundings East, Bathyspheric Review, Central California Poetry Journal, and Phoebe. Cody, is a classic guitarist and also composes award-winning chamber music, wrote the composer biography, Vivian Fine: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, 2002; also, Eight Frames Eight, poems, 2002. "Everything becomes poetry." www.judithcodybooks.com

Jessie Conklyn recently moved to the lush greenery of the Monterey Peninsula from the high-desert of southern California. Her migration took place in the year of 2000, in prospect of a new teaching career, after receiving her bachelor's degree and teaching credential from the University of California, Riverside. She has written and studied poetry independently, in tandem with academic studies, from the age of sixteen, for ten years. Her distinct technique is achieved through form usage of margin manipulation; used, in tandem with a grammatical and linguistic play of the subtleties available in the English language. In the act of writing poetry, she hopes to convey her perspective and understanding of universal beauty and relationships between nature, humans, and the spiritual and physical heavens.

Lauren Crux: Her poetry, prose, and photography have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. For the last five years she has taken her writing on the road in a form of performance that blurs the boundaries between monologue, storytelling, poetry, and performance art. She's almost a Buddhist, but not quite.

J.P. Dancing Bear's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Shenandoah, Poetry International, New Orleans Review, National Poetry Review, Poetry East and many others. He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal and the host of "Out of Our Minds" a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP. His latest book of poems is Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004).

Sarah J. Diehl is the Website Coordinator and Publications Adviser at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her poems have recently been published in Quarry West, Red Wheelbarrow, Dancing on the Brink of the World: Selected Poems of Point Lobos, Porter Gulch Review, and The Peralta Press, and she is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation (ABC-CLIO, 2002). She received a B.A. in creative writing and a J.D. from Stanford University.

Born in 1957, George Donald is the second son of a Baptist minister and grew up in rectories in the south. A former child actor, clam farmer, student pilot, and law clerk, George was a certified interpreter at Natividad in Salinas for many years before moving back east.

Susan Samuels Drake's recent publishing credits include her poetic memoir Fields of Courage: Remembering Cesar Chavez & the People Whose Labor Feeds Us as well as essays, nostalgia, features, poetry and interviews for seniorwomen.com, The Progressive, El Andar, and Porter Gulch Review. Her 11 years with what became United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO included nearly 3 years as César Chávez' secretary. Having traveled around the world, this third-generation native Californian settled in Soquel. She is mother of two sons and grandmother of two.

Born of the California valley, Aja Couchois Duncan has lived up and down the California cost with her partner and their two redheaded dogs. New work is forthcoming from nocturnes (review of the literary arts) and North American Review. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

Kate Evans' poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared, or are forthcoming, in North American Review, Seattle Review, Santa Monica Review, The National Poetry Review, Rhino, Divide, and others. Her book, Negotiating the Self, was published by Routledge in 2002. A recipient of a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Washington, she has almost completed her M.F.A. in poetry and fiction at San Jose State University. She teaches at U.C. Santa Cruz and lives in Santa Cruz with artist and poet Annie Tobin.

Dion Farquhar is a poet, prose fiction writer, and cultural critic who loves language. An inveterate Manhattanite, twelve years ago, she fell in love with a Santa Cruzan and began the slow and complex process of relocating. Together, they are raising world-gobbling 11-year-old twin boys, so there is never a dull moment. Dion works part-time at the Homeless Garden Project in SC with a great group of people. In her "spare" time, she writes, reads, and sends her work out. Her work is published in Sulfur, boundary 2, Juxta, Cream City Review, alea, Painted Bride Review, Fiction International, etc., and she has a book on reproductive technologies (The Other Machine, Routledge, 1996), AND a poetry manuscript (Jam Today) that she is circulating. She is grateful for email, and loves the Web.

Kathleen Flowers is an educator who is passionate about bilingual education. She has lived in Santa Cruz for more than 20 years. Her poems have been published in The Porter Gulch Review and other local periodicals. She was the co-recipient of Cabrillo College's Mary Lonnberg Smith Award for Poetry in 2003.

P.J. Freiermuth

Born in 1981 in the Tortilla Flats area of Monterey California, USA, Gabriel Gandzjuk feels he writes like a man on his death bed still holding out hope. His work has a wounded tone to it. His work has appeared in Homestead Review.

Born in a migrant labor camp in the heart of California's San Joaquin Valley, poet Diana Garcia is the author of When Living Was a Labor Camp, which won a 2001 American Book Award. Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies including El Coro, Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, and Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today's Latino Renaissance.

David Gitin's books include: Guitar against the Wall (Panjandrum, San Francisco, 1972); City Air (Ithaca House, Ithaca, 1974); Ideal Space Relations (Morgan Press, Milwaukee, 1976); Legwork (Oyez Press, Berkeley, 1977); This Once: New & Selected Poems 1965-1978 (Blue Wind Press, Berkeley, 1979); Vacuum Tapestries: Poems from Haight-Ashbury Journals (BB Books, England, 1981); The Call (Coffee House, Minneapolis, 1984); Fire Dance (Blue Wind, Berkeley, 1989); Passing Through (Two Spirits Dancing, Pacific Grove, 1994) and two private editions, Woke Up One Morning (1996) and Journey (1997). In addition to co-founding Poets Theatre in San Francisco, he has produced radio programs on KPFA in Berkeley. He teaches Creative Writing at Monterey Peninsula College.

Bert Glick, poet, playwright and actor, author of Cookie Aura and I Used To Be Me, has been featured in many venues across California and the country, including The Green Mill in Chicago, The Marsh in San Francisco, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Pacifica Poetry Festival, etc., etc., as well as radio readings on KPFA, Pacifica Radio in Mendocino, UCSF Radio, KKUP, Sunnyvale and KPIG in Santa Cruz.

Patricia Grube is a playwright and poet from Santa Cruz. The Green Door, a book of poetry, was published in 2003. Her plays, Grandpa's Breakfast, Falling Apples, Found Wanting and Relative Shades have been produced and many others have had staged readings. What Is The Question? will be performed this year. She is an Artist In Residence at Actors' Theatre, Santa Cruz, a member of Poetry, Santa Cruz, and the Santa Cruz chapter of Chaparral Poets. She is most proud of her talented family, including nine grandchildren.

Ellen Hart has taught Language Arts and Drama in both middle and high schools. She currently teaches a writing workshop for PEP (Personal Enrichment Program), at Dominican Hospital. She has directed and written for local teen theater. She published a chapbook and has been featured in Perceptions (a women's anthology based in London), the Santa Cruz Sentinel's Poetry Space and the World Tribune, an international Buddhist publication.

Frances Hatfield ardently and imperfectly practices the arts of poetry, gardening, music, and psychotherapy in Santa Cruz.

Victor Henry is a Vietnam veteran, having served with the 9th Infantry Division, 2nd of the 47th Mechanized Infantry, Camp Bearcat, III Corp, 1967-68. He is past president of Veterans for Peace, John Steinbeck IV, Chapter 46, Monterey, California. He has an earned master's degree in English from California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock and an earned master's degree in Library Science from San Jose State University. He is a member of the National Writers Union, Local 7, Santa Cruz/Monterey and is a reference librarian at Monterey Public Library in Monterey, California. He has also published under the name of Victor H. Bausch. His work has appeared in numerous small press magazines, anthologies, and E-zines.

Karen Wood Hepner is a technical writer and former high school English teacher. She has been writing poetry since age 13, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Writing at Vermont College. She lives in Aptos, CA.

Thomas Hickenbottom

Susan Hoffman followed her writing dreams from Monterey to San Luis Obispo a year ago, after she attended several Cuesta College writing conferences and found inspiration in the watercolor landscapes and small town college life. She has published her poetry at Red River Review, Travois: Anthology of Texas Poetry, La Gazette, The Monterey Herald, and San Luis Obispo Tribune. Co-creator and host of five Women And Food poetry readings in Monterey and Santa Cruz, she is currently writing a novel, and applying to graduate school.

Akasha Gloria Hull's poetry first appeared in Women: A Journal of Liberation in the 1970s, and her volume, Healing Heart, was published by Kitchen Table Press in 1989. Her poems are featured in many anthologies and journals, including Flatfooted Truths, Life Prayers, Sisterfire, In Search of Color Everywhere, Daughters of Africa, Erotique Noire, and Callaloo as well as her own latest book, Soul Talk: The New Spirituality of African American Women (Inner Traditions, 2001). An independent writer, professor, lecturer, and consultant, she is currently completing a novel.

Christina Hutchins is a native Californian, poet and philosopher of religion and culture. A graduate of UC Davis and Harvard Divinity School, she has worked as a biochemist and as a Congregational (UCC) minister. Currently a PhD candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, she teaches at the Pacific School of Religion. In addition to her chapbook Collecting Light (Berkeley: Acacia Books, 1999), she has published over 80 poems in literary journals and anthologies. She has won the Villa Montalvo Poetry Prize, received a Money for Women/Barbara Deming Award for Poetry, and several poems have been set by contemporary composers, including a major vocal work by Dan Welcher nominated for the 2003-4 Lincoln Center Prize. "The Unfolding" was written in honor of friend and artist, Katharine Kunst.

Allston James (Shoe Chaser at Point Lobos) is the author of the novel Attic Light and two poetry chapbooks. His writing has appeared in many regional and national publications. A combat veteran of the Vietnam War, one of his poems was selected for exhibition at the National Vietnam Veterans Museum of Art in Chicago. He teaches English at Monterey Peninsula College.

Tamara Jane

Jonell Esme Jel'enedra has been a field hand, soda jerk, book reviewer, waitress, ditch digger, schoolteacher, sales clerk, and used clothing pricer. Currently she is a mother of four, occasional poet, and library employee. She has been published in Ally, Quarry West, Writing for Our Lives, Porter Gulch Review, and several anthologies. She is a winner of a Mary Lonnberg Smith Award and was awarded first place in Quarry West's Best of Monterey Bay Poets 2000. Her first volume of poetry, Stilt Walking at Midnight, is forthcoming from Hummingbird Press. She is a long-time resident of Santa Cruz, California.

A native of Saginaw, Michigan, Rosie King has lived in California since 1966. She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.A. from San Francisco State University & a Ph.D. from UCSC where she taught literature & beginning workshops in poetry while writing a dissertation on the poetry of H.D. Her poems have appeared in various journals & anthologies. She recently returned to Santa Cruz after living for six years as a monk at Green Gulch & Tassajara. Zazen, yoga, gardening, & seeing clients for Rosen Method body work are among her sustaining joys.

Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, Ph.D., is an instructor at Hartnell College and California State University, Monterey Bay. Her work has been published in anthologies, journals and e-zines throughout the U.S. and Italy. Her books include Coyote Dream Cantos (Iota Press, 1992), Where We Grew Up (Small Poetry Press, 1999), Second-Class Citizen (Bordighera, Inc., 2000). Jennifer's newest book, The Mangia Syndrome, was published this year by Pudding House Publications.

Megan Lee writes from her experiences living for 27 years in China, the Middle East, and Russia. While raising a family overseas, she worked as a volunteer with youth-at-risk, a book editor, and a teacher. Megan completed an M.A. degree in creative writing at Wesleyan University in 2003.

Barbara Leon, a resident of Aptos, works as a writer and editor in the natural health field. Her poetry has been published in americas review, Porter Gulch Review, ConversationPeace Santa Cruz and In Our Own Words e-zine.

Raised on Long Island, Dan Linehan earned his M.S. at Purdue and moved to Monterey in 1995. He is a freelance writer and editor. He has forty publications, ranging from poems to scientific journal articles. "Sardine Fisherman" is from his chapbook Spindrifting Through Ocean Archways: Poetry of Monterey.

George Lober was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and educated in the public schools of San Jose, California. He is a winner of the Ruth Cable Memorial Prize for Poetry (1996) sponsored by Eclectic Literary Forum and his poems have appeared in Spectrum, Sage, The MPC Journal, Eclectic Literary Forum, Quarry West, The Homestead Review, and The Central California Poetry Journal. His first book of poems, Shift of Light, was published by Hummingbird Press (Santa Cruz, CA, 2002).

Donald Marlowe Lobner, a self-proclaimed "simple farm boy" began his serious obsession with writing poetry in July 2000 when he wrote his first poem to his sweetheart, Miss P, entitled "A Summer Love". He continues to write and to be obsessed.

Nathaniel Mackey is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent of which is Whatsaid Serif (City Lights Books, 1998), a book of critical essays, Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and an ongoing prose work, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, the third and most recent volume of which is Atet A.D. (City Lights Books, 2001). He edits the literary magazine Hambone and teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Morton Marcus was the l999 Santa Cruz County Artist of The Year. He has published nine volumes of poetry and one novel, including The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems, Pages From A Scrapbook of Immigrants, When People Could Fly, and most recently Moments Without Names: New & Selected Prose Poems and Shouting Down The Silence: Verse Poems 1988-2001. Morton has published more than 400 poems in literary journals, and his work has been selected to appear in over 80 anthologies in the United States, Europe and Australia, including The Geography of Home: CaliforniaÕs Poetry of Place and No Boundaries: Prose Poems By 24 American Poets. He is the longtime co-host of KUSP radio's The Poetry Show, the longest running poetry program on American radio.

Ric Masten has fourteen books to his credit and his work has been included in scores of interpersonal communication, psychology and public speaking textbooks. However, a Ric Masten piece is primarily composed to be spoken rather than printed - performed rather than perused. He wants his material to be completely accessible to the ear of the casual listener and, in fact, says his favorite audience is made up of people who would normally regard thirty minutes with a poet as cruel and unusual punishment.

Hermie Medley, an octogenarian great grandmother, was born in the state of Washington. She has lived her entire life on the Pacific coast, the last 10 years in Santa Cruz, where she knits scarves, does Feldenkrais, and is involved up to her eyebrows in the local poetry scene.

Maude Meehan, poet, editor, teacher and lecturer, began writing at the age of 55. Her fourth book of poetry, As If the World Made Sense, has just been published. A transplant from New York City, she has lived happily in California for 35 years.

Cindy Meyers is a lover of color---consensual creation---the contours of culture. A lover of unlanguid language and lingering light. She's a mother--a wife--a forest dweller; always in awe of/ inspired by: our central coastline's magical alchemy.

William Minor (www.bminor.org) has published six books of poetry: the most recent, Some Grand Dust (Chatoyant). His latest non-fiction work is Jazz Journeys to Japan: The Heart Within (University of Michigan Press). He set poems from his book For Women Missing or Dead to music and has recorded a CD -- Bill Minor & Friends -- on which he plays piano, guitar, and sings.

Raised in Salinas, Lori Anderson Moseman has worked as a brush-cutter, a timber cruiser, a fish skinner, a hog reporter, a fry cook, a canoe guide, a maid, a landscaper, a bookseller, an editor and an educator. Persona is Lori Anderson Moseman's second collection of poetry. Her first book, Cultivating Excess, won the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize back in 1991, and her chapbook, Walking the Dead, won the 1990 Heaven Bone International Chapbook contest.

Martin Ott first fell in love with the Monterey Bay Area where he was stationed as a Russian linguist at the Presidio during the end of the Cold War, and has called California home most of the past 20 years. His poetry and fiction have been published widely, including: Connecticut Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, New Letters, Nimrod, Phoebe, Poetry East, Tampa Review and Third Coast. A member of PEN USA West, Martin is a former editor at Pif Magazine and The Southern California Anthology, as well as a finalist for the Bluestem Poetry Award and the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry. His chapbook Misery Loves was published by Red Dancefloor Press.

Paresh (Charles Kasler) is a certified yoga teacher who began teaching in 1990. He is a former resident of Esalen Institute and Kripalu Yoga Ashram, and a founding member of the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association. He also studied at White Lotus Foundation and with Kali Ray. He has recorded several guided audio tapes that were featured in Yoga Journal. Paresh has served as a hospice volunteer since 1992. Paresh is a musician and songwriter, a graduate of Musician's Institute of Technology in Hollywood. He formerly played with City Celebration in San Francisco. He now lives in Carmel, California.

Sylvia Bortin Patience is a mother and grandmother who lives and works in Santa Cruz County. She practices as a home birth midwife with Labor of Love Midwifery and is the school nurse at Watsonville High School. Her poems have been published in Calyx, Porter Gulch Review, and La Gazette. She writes about birth, death, and what comes in between. Much of her work is inspired by the mountains and waters of the Monterey Bay area.

Kathryn Petruccelli holds an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She teaches ESL to adults and leads poetry and creative writing workshops with California Poets in the Schools and other organizations. As a volunteer for KUSP radio in Santa Cruz, Kathryn conducts interviews with touring authors and local literary personalities. She is co-host of the twice-monthly Rubber Chicken Poetry Slam in Monterey. Her work has appeared in the Homestead Review and the Throwback, and is forthcoming in an anthology of women's political poetry. The poem included in this volume was also published in Throwback.

Dan Phillips holds an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and has taught English and creative writing for many years in Northern and Central California public schools and junior colleges. His poetry has appeared in small press publications which include The Montserrat Review and a cooperatively produced anthology, Coast Lines, with seven other Santa Cruz poets.

Reda Rackley received her M.A. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in cultural mythology and depth psychology. She is a writer, poet, storyteller, diviner and shamanic counselor. She has been engaged in intensive shamanic work with the Dagara tribe in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Ziggy Rendler-Bregman is a 1972 graduate of UC Santa Cruz (B.A. in Aesthetic Studies). As primarily a conceptual and visual artist, Ziggy has exhibited prints and drawings widely. Her first book of poetry, Standing by the River, was published in 1998. A long time advocate for arts education and community leader, Ziggy has recently returned to her studio and garden where writing, painting and planting are daily bread. With two children into and through college, she lives in Santa Cruz with her husband and youngest son.

Bernice Rendrick is a senior writer who has lived in Scotts Valley for 35 years. She moved from a small rural town in Kansas to Los Angeles in 1942. She started taking classes at Cabrillo in 1980 and published in Quarry West, Porter Gulch Review, Montserrat Review, Passages North and many others. She belongs to the Front Street Poets in Santa Cruz and the Tor House Foundation in Carmel.

Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1929. She is the author of nearly twenty volumes of poetry, including Fox: Poems 1998-2000 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998 (1999); Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (1995); Collected Early Poems: 1950-1970 (1993); An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 (1991); Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989); The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New 1950-1984 (1984); The Dream of a Common Language (1978); and Diving into the Wreck (1973). Rich has received the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship; she is also a former Academy Chancellor. In 1997 Adrienne Rich was awarded the Academy's Wallace Stevens Award for outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.

Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts is co-author of Bowing to Receive the Mountain: Essays by Lin Jensen and Poems by Elliot Roberts (Sunflower Ink: Carmel, CA, 1997); co-editor/co-translator of two works of poetry from the Telugu: Chalam's "Sudha (Nectar)" (Motilal Banarsidass/ UNESCO: Delhi, 1990) and Selected Verses of Vemana (Sahitya Akademi: New Delhi, 1995); and co-editor of the college anthology Bridges (Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972). He has published two chapbooks of poetry and is a regular contributor to caesura, the journal of the San Jose Poetry Center. His poems have appeared in various anthologies and journals, most recently Dancing on the Brink of the World: Selected Poems of Point Lobos.

Marilyn Robertson lives and writes in Felton, California. She is also a gardener, a traveler and a teacher of traditional folk songs to children in elementary schools.

Dee Roe has been writing for three years, a lovely mid-life surprise. She has published poems in Porter Gulch Review, La Gazette, Peralta Press, and was a finalist in the 2003 Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. She has enjoyed reading locally at The Muse, a Santa Cruz fundraiser event.

Joan Safajek is a psychotherapist in private practice in Felton. She lives on the river in a 1920's summer cottage with her cat and dog (a big sweet coon hound mix) and enjoys frequent excursions with her grandchildren.

CJ Sage is the editor of The National Poetry Review and teaches at Hartnell College. C.J.'s poems have appeared most recently and are forthcoming in Shenandoah, The Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Verse Daily, The Threepenny Review, 32 Poems, and The American Poetry Journal, and numerous other national and international magazines and anthologies. She is also the editor of And We The Creatures and author of Let's Not Sleep.

Charles Schubert is a high school teacher who lives in Salinas and who has lived in either Monterey or Salinas for the past six years. On the weekends he works in a Monterey Dive Shop, and give guided SCUBA tours.

Elaine G. Schwartz resides in Santa Cruz, California with her husband Daniel and Purr'l the Postmodern Pussycat. Her poetry, best described as a tapestry of place and political imagination, has appeared in the Porter Gulch Review, Among Teachers: Experience & Inquiry, Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry, and the Blue Moon Review.

By birthright a New Englander, Tilly Washburn Shaw moved west to Santa Cruz for the opening of UCSC in the late 60's and finally, many years later, retired from teaching to the enjoyments of age. In fall 2002, she came out with a collection of poems. Swimming Closer to Shore, with Hummingbird Press.

Patti Sirens was kidnapped by gypsies and raised by a family of sword swallowers and fire eaters. She followed the North Star to Santa Cruz where she writes poetry and surfs. Her first book of poetry, Antarctica, was published by Burning Bush Publications in 2000.

Robin Somers is a writer and teacher living in Santa Cruz. Her poetry has been published in Convergence, Nevada City Poetry Anthology 2002, Dry Ground, and Reed Magazine. She was a featured poet for Berkeley's Watershed Poetry Festival and won an Alice Longon award for women writing about the Southwest. She is working toward her MFA in creative writing at San Jose State University.

A.M. Stickel has been published on the Internet in Deep Magic, Night Lands and in both of Colin Harvey's Showcases. "The Seer" (from Night Lands) is a nominee for the first annual Speculative Fiction Award. She has also been a featured artist (4 St. Anthony Murals in issue #16) in the literary e-zine, The Pedestal. A member of Pajaro Valley Arts, with a focus on writing, acrylic painting and sculpting, she has executed many private murals as well as a public mural for the Watsonville Senior Center. She illustrates fiction for editor Colin Harvey.

Sue Ellen Stringer started writing poetry as a healing process when she re-entered college and moved to the Monterey Peninsula twenty three years ago. She has earned an AS degree in Child Development from MPC, a BA in Women's Studies from UCSC and a Masters in Social Work from SJSU. Poetry has been a way to transform emotional pain and abundant joy into language that communicates her experience. Poems are also ways to envision her life dreams. She has read at the two Poetry Festivals of the Monterey Bay. Her first published poem is in this anthology.

David Sullivan is a professor of English and Film at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Literary Review with his students each spring. His poems have appeared in Quarry West (which chose his prose poems as prize winners), The Chicago Review, The Grey City Journal, and the Beloit Poetry Journal. He lives in the ÒBanana BeltÓ of Santa Cruz with his partner, Cherie Barkey, and his son Jules. JulesÕ stint at Cabrillo CollegeÕs childrenÕs center inspired the poem that appears in this anthology.

Amber Coverdale Sumrall has edited or co-edited twelve anthologies including Storming Heavens Gate: Spiritual Writings by Women and Women of the 14th Moon: Writings on Menopause. Locally, her poems have appeared in Quarry West, Red Wheelbarrow, the Sentinel and Porter Gulch Review. She leads ongoing writing workshops in Santa Cruz and weekend retreats at The Hermitage in Big Sur. For eighteen years she has co-produced "In Celebration of the Muse," an annual literary event featuring Santa Cruz women writers. Her collection of poems, Litany of Wings, was published in 1998.

Most recently, David Swanger's poetry appears in The Georgia Review. Previous relevant anthology publication includes poems in Quarry West: Poets and Writers of the Monterey Bay and The Geography of Home: California's Poetry of Place. David Swanger has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the California Council on the Arts.

Robert Sward has taught at Cornell University, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and UC Santa Cruz. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, he was chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award. His twenty books include Four Incarnations (Coffee House Press), now in its second printing; Rosicrucian in the Basement; Heavenly Sex and The Collected Poems, 1957-2004 (Black Moss Press), which has just been nominated for Canada's highest literary honor, the Governor General's Award. Born and raised in Chicago, Sward served in the combat zone in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.

Maria Garcia Tabor is a poet and writer of short fiction. She serves as editor of the Homestead Review literary journal and teaches poetry and creative writing at Hartnell College in Salinas, California. Recent and forthcoming publications can be found in the Southern Poetry Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Cold Mountain Review and Santa Clara Review.

Garland Lee Thompson Jr. is a Poet, Actor, Playwright, Producer, and Director, who's made Monterey his home since the mid-nineties. Locally he's known for his numerous performances with the Carmel Shakespeare Festival, as well as with the Pacific Repertory Theatre, the Unicorn Theatre, Magic Circle Center, First Night Monterey, California Performing Arts Festival, and the Forest Theatre Guild. In addition, in January of 2002 he began producing and hosting, with his producing partners Poet Kathryn Pettrucelli and Mike Godin, The Rubber Chicken Poetry Slam & Open Mic at Morgan's Coffee & Teas in Monterey. Outside the Central Coast, he's toured the US, as well as the United Kingdom, with his poetry, and chapbook, Hey, Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Suit!. He is also Producer, and Tour Manager for The Beat Museum on Wheels, and works regularly with schools across the nation to bring students exciting, poetic programs.

Molly B. Tierney lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and three children. Her writing has appeared locally, regionally, on the web, and been broadcast on public radio.

Patrice Vecchione is a widely published poet, author and editor. Her books include Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within (McGraw-Hill), Territory of Wind (Many Names Press), a collection of poems, and several anthologies, most recently, Revenge and Forgiveness (Henry Holt). Her poems have appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Quarry West, Puerto Del Sol, Calyx, The Homestead Review, and the Montserrat Review. Patrice is also a collage artist. Her picture, The Poet's Pencil appears on the cover of this anthology. For more info: www.patricevecchione.com

Denis Wagner grew up in Southern California among the orange groves, is a recovering Catholic, went to parochial schools, played sports, developed a taste for making handcrafts, earned a football scholarship to Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, graduating in Architectural Engineering in 964. He's worked in the building trades establishing his own business more that 35 years ago.

Philip Wagner ran the SC National Writer's Union weekly poetry reading series for 5 years and is founding member of Poetry Santa Cruz. Currently translating a French poet, compiling a poetry collection 1992-2004, and writing articles on politics and psychology.

Ken Weisner is a poet, editor, teacher, father, and french horn player living in Santa Cruz. Read his 2002 first book, The Sacred Geometry of Pedestrians, from Hummingbird Press.

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, has published in numerous anthologies, journals, and Internet magazines. Her latest chapbooks are Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer (PWJ Publishing), Apple Blossoms at Eye Level (Poet's Corner Press) and A Gathering Glance (Lummox Press Little Red Book series).

Suki Wessling is a writer and publisher of Chatoyant, a small poetry press. Her work has been published in a variety of literary journals, and she has a great stash of unpublished novels on her hard drive. She is the mother of two small children, who do all they can to make sure she can't write. She would like to note that her poem was accepted for publication by editor Ryan Masters before Chatoyant was chosen to publish the anthology. Her personal website is here.

George Wilson is a retired clergyman, WWII pilot, graduate of Princeton University, Union Theological Seminary, NYC, with two graduate degrees. He has served as pastor of churches in Thailand, Greece, Palo Alto (for 20 years), Louisville, KY, and on the Campus of the University of Southern California. His most recent writing, a collection of poems, is titled HERE AND THERE, NOW AND THEN, published by Thunderbird Press.

Don Wobber, former editor of Number, a magazine of modern poetry, and author of the book Jade Beneath the Sea, is mentioned in National Geographic (Sept. 1987) as "among the best of the world's contemporary jade sculptors." He dives for and sculpts sea-worn nephrite jade that he harvests from beneath the frigid waters off the Big Sur Coast. He has been diving for jade for over fifty years. As a former marine photographer he was published widely, and is in the Cousteau Ocean World series. In 2002 he appeared in the National Geographic/Sea Studios Shape of Life video series. He is currently writing a second book: Floating Stones, Stories of Big Sur Jade.

Donna Wobber, poet and collage artist, has co-hosted Women and Food and Writing to the Pain: Transforming Our Wounds With Poetry. Her collage art and poems have appeared in the Monterey Museum of Art in conjunction with the Artists' Studio Tour, in the Seaside City Hall Gallery, and in Gallery on the Rim in San Francisco. Donna has read in Monterey and Santa Cruz poetry readings, including presentations on KAZU and KUSP radio. She has also co-exhibited her works with her husband, Don Wobber, sculptor of Big Sur jade.

Tiffany Lynn Wong was born and raised in the Pajaro Valley of California. She has previously been published in the Asian Pacific American Journal, Porter Gulch Review, and Dark Phrases Literary Review. The 21-year-old writer is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

Husband, father of two boys, master letterpress printer, longtime teacher, much-collected visual artist, and award-winning poet, Gary Young has been the editor and publisher of the Greenhouse Review Press since 1975. Among his honors are the James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation and fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The author of five books including Hands and The Dream of a Moral Life, his trilogy of recent works--Days, Braver Deeds, and If He Had--has been published in a collection called No Other Life by Creative Arts Books.

• To revisit the Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets webpage and order the book, press here.