(le) poisson rouge

Andrew Porter grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children. He received his B.A. in English from Vassar College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of the short story collection, The Theory of Light and Matter, which won the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, was published in hardcover in Fall 2008, and will be republished in paperback by Vintage/Knopf in Spring 2010. Foreign editions of The Theory of Light and Matter will also be published in both the UK and Australia, and in translation in France and The Netherlands. In addition to winning the Flannery O’Connor Award, The Theory of Light and Matter also received Foreword Magazine’s 2008 “Book of the Year” Award for Short Fiction, was a finalist for both The Steven Turner Award and The Paterson Prize, was longlisted for The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was selected by both The Kansas City Star and The San Antonio Express-News as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” Porter has also received numerous fellowships and awards for his work, including the 2004 W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts from Vassar College, a James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener/Copernicus Foundation, an Iowa Teaching/Writing Fellowship from the University of Iowa, a Tennesee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee’ Writers’ Conference, a Residency Fellowship from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, an Artist Foundation of San Antonio Award, the Glenna Luschei Award and a Pushcart Prize. His fiction has appeared in One Story, Epoch, The Ontario Review, Prairie Schooner, The Antioch Review, StoryQuarterly, The Threepenny Review, Others Voices, Story and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, among others. He has also had his work read on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and selected as one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 by Best American Short Stories. Currently, Porter lives in San Antonio, where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Trinity University.

Robyn Sarah, born in New York City to Canadian parents, grew up in Montreal. A graduate of the Conservatoire de Musique du Quèbec and of McGill University (philosophy and English), she began publishing poems in Canadian periodicals in the early 1970s, while pursuing graduate studies at McGill. In 1976, with Fred Louder, she co-founded a small press, Villeneuve Publications, and co-edited its poetry chapbook series which included first titles by August Kleinzahler, A.F. Moritz, Bruce Taylor, and others. The press folded in 1987. During the same years and until 1996, she taught English at Champlain Regional College in St. Lambert, Quebec. Since 1996 she has been a frequent contributor to Canadian newspapers, writing book reviews and op ed pieces on education, literacy, language, and a variety of other subjects. Her column on poetry, Poetic Licence, was a Montreal Gazette monthly feature in 2000-2001.

The author of several poetry collections, Robyn Sarah has also published two collections of short stories and a book of essays on poetry. Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared widely in Canada and the United States, in publications that include The Threepenny Review, The Hudson Review, Poetry (Chicago), The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (5th edition), and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times. She lives in Montreal's Mile End with her husband, photographer D. R. Cowles.

Rachel Zucker is the author of four books of poetry, most recently, Museum of Accidents. She is co-editor (with Arielle Greenberg) of two anthologies including, Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days. She lives in New York where she mothers, writers, teaches and is a certified labor doula.