About Our Contributors

Ann Beattie is the author of 11 novels and collections of stories: DISTORTIONS, CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER, SECRETS AND SURPRISES, FALLING IN PLACE, THE BURNING HOUSE, LOVE ALWAYS, WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME, PICTURING WILL, WHAT WAS MINE, ANOTHER YOU, and MY LIFE, STARRING DARA FALCON. She is a member of the Academy of American Arts and Letters. With her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry, she lives in Maine and Key West.

David Castleman is a product of the turbulent ‘60s who has worked as a truck driver and laborer for the same small lumberyard since 1972, where, he writes, "We are paid poorly and treated wretchedly but the hours are long." With Leo Yankevich, he edits Mandrake Review, which is published in the United States and Poland. He has published poems, criticism, and stories since 1967. The stories in this issue will appear in his new collection, THE WOOD & THE WILDNESS (The Mandrake Press, ul. Wielkiej Niedzwiedzicy 35/8, 44-117 Gliwice, Poland; U.S. distrib. The Mandrake Press, P.O. Box 792, Larkspur, Ca. 94977-0792).

Shi Zhecun, writer and professor, was born in Hangzhou but was brought up in Shanghai (Songjiang). He studied in Zhijiang University (in Hongzhou), Shanghai University, and Zhendan University (in Shanghai). He began writing in the universities, influenced by Guo Moruo and Mao Dun. In 1929 he was editor of Shuimo Book Store and in 1932, became editor of The Modern, a monthly published by Modern Publishing House. From 1937 to 1952, he was associate professor and full professor of Yunan University, Shamen University, Jinan University (in Shanghai), and Hujiang University (in Shanghai). Since 1952 he has taught in Eastern China Teachers University. As a writer he has written over fifty stories and a few poems and essays. His chief works include SHANGYUAN LANTERN (New China Publishing House, 1930), THE HEAD OF A GENERAL (New China Publishing House, 1932), ON THE EVE OF THE RAINY SEASON (New China Publishing House, 1933), and COLLECTED ESSAYS: UNDER THE LAMP (Kaimin Bookstore, 1937).

Viriditas Digitalis is a book editor and reviewer who ought to have better things to write about than gardening, but apparently doesn't.

Zuxin Ding, translator, was educated in the Foreign Languages department of Guanghua University, Shanghai (1947-49), and the English Department, Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (1949-53). Self-taught, having been a worker, he was assigned briefly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but was dismissed. Since 1956, he has taught at Liaoning University. During the Cultural Revolution he was removed from his position; in 1979, he was reinstated and in 1983, made professor of English. Since 1982, he has been visiting professor at the University of Denver (US) and Kassel University (Germany), and, during three visits, has lectured at various colleges and universities in the US. He has written about Yeats, Eliot, Frost, Stevens, Auden, Lowell, Larkin, Hughes; has published four books (in addition, an anthology of Chinese poetry from 1000BC to 1995, in English, is forthcoming). With Burton Raffel, he is the co-translator of GEMS OF CHINESE POETRY (Liaoning University Press, 1986). He is Professor of English at Liaoning University, Shenyang. His daughter lives in the United States.