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Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American author and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the United States. She has contributed to the feminist movement with such works as her memoir The Woman Warrior, which discusses gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives of women. Kingston has received several awards for her contributions to Chinese American Literature including the National Book Award in 1981 for her novel China Men. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine\_Hong\_Kingston]

Robert Stone (born 1937) is a critically well regarded American novelist, whose work is typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor. In 1967 Stone published his first novel, *A Hall of Mirrors*, which won a William Faulkner Foundation award for best first novel. Set in New Orleans in 1962 and based partly on actual events, the novel depicted a political scene dominated by right-wing racism, but its style was more reminiscent of Beat writers than of earlier social realists: alternating between naturalism and stream of consciousness, with a large cast of often psychologically unstable characters, it set the template for much of Stone's later writing. It was adapted into the 1970 film, *WUSA*. The novel's success led to a Guggenheim Fellowship and began Stone's career as a professional writer and teacher. Stone currently lives in New York with his wife. He has two children.

Dana Sachs is a journalist specializing in topics related to Vietnam. Her work has appeared in *The Far East Economic Review*, *Mother Jones*, *Sierra*, and the *San Francisco Examiner*. In collaboration with her sister, Lynne Sachs, she made the award-winning documentary film about Viet Nam, *Which Way is East*, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She was a translator for* The Other Side of Heaven*.

Wayne Karlin has been called by Tim O'Brien "one of the most gifted writers to emerge from the Vietnam War." He has written four previous novels in addition to his books with curbstone: *Crossover*, *Lost Armies*, *The Extras* and *US*. Karlin co-edited the first anthology of Viet Nam war veteran fiction, *Free Fire Zone*, and in 1995, he co-edited *The Other Side of Heaven: Post War Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers*. He is the series editor for Curbstone's *Voices from Viet Nam* series of contemporary fiction. Karlin's novel, *Prisoners*, received the Paterson Prize for Fiction. He lives in Maryland, where he teaches at the College of Southern Maryland.

Steve McCurry, recognized universally as one of today's finest image-makers, is best known for his evocative color photography. In the finest documentary tradition, McCurry captures the essence of human struggle and joy. Born in Philadelphia, Steve McCurry graduated cum laude from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left for India to freelance. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association. This was the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo contest. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Award twice. McCurry's work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in *National Geographic*, with recent articles on Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Moying Li grew up in Beijing, China during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). During that period, Moying was primarily self-taught, following the reading lists her father, who had been a prominent screenwriter, sent to her from a "hard labor camp." In 1977, when the China National Entrance Examination system was finally reinstated for the first time in ten years, Moying was among the first post-Cultural Revolution students to be accepted by Beijing Foreign Studies University. Two years later, she was selected to graduate ahead of schedule to join the faculty of her school. In 1980, thanks to a generous scholarship and a plane ticket from Swarthmore College, Moying left Beijing and traveled to the United States to pursue graduate studies. For the next ten years she immersed herself in what she had always craved, the unrestricted pursuit of knowledge.

Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina's first book, Carrington, is the only biography of the Bloomsbury Group figure Dora Carrington. Her second book, Black London, published in the UK as Black England, tells the story of black people in 18th century Britain, and was a New York Times best seller. Gerzina was born to a white mother and African-American father, whose marriage was illegal in 17 US states when they married.