Hilda Allmendrat ("Leaving Berlin From Leperstrasse Station"/ "A Pigeon Fouls the Reichstag"): Hilda Allmendrat's poetry has appeared in the The New Yorker and The Paris Review. She has tossed some splintery bones to this whacked-out quarterly as a favor to the editor, whom she allows to spank her with impunity during her infrequent visits to this cultural vacuum of a town. She is currently living in Vienna. Vienna, Austria.

Karin Chapstein ("If My Name Were Kirsten"): Karin Chapstein's short-short stories have been included in the San Diego Community College Anthology of Short-Shorts, and Who Reads Short-Shorts: A Subway Anthology. She prefers the short-short form because anything that really needs to be said can be said in 1,500 words or less, and because she's lazy.

Sheila Edwards ("You're Soaking In It"): Sheila Edwards lives in Detroit, where she has three children: Madison, who's eight, Sophie, who's five, and adorable Tyler, who's just turned two. Her husband, Roy, that sweetie-pie, has been so supportive of her 'little hobby,' as he calls it. Pretty soon, she probably won't even need to take the medication. This is her first published story. See? Published. Story. Make your own Goddamn dinner, Roy.

Richard Manhart ("Waiting in Chairs"/"GSW to the Chest"/ "Loving Noah Wyle"): Richard Manhart's poetry is based on his reactions to the television show, "ER." He lives in a fantasy world near Kansas City.

Tasha Rutberg ("Matzah Balls Heavy, Matzah Balls Light"): Tasha Rutberg's essays have appeared in Have Some More Chicken Soup From the South, Darling, You're Looking Thin: A Post-Bellum Anthology of Jewish Writing, and Bad for the Jews: True Jewish Crime Stories. She lives in St. Louis. Alone. And she never calls her mother.

Corey Shute ("Kick the Can"): This is an excerpt from Corey Shute's first novel, Bed and the Barn. His story collection, Cowlick (University of Georgia), was nominated for the Billy Carter Authenticity Award. He lives on a working farm in Carthage, TN, with his parents and a duck named Thom.

Brian Smith ("Madeline in Bed"/ "Wilma in the Shower"/ "Cassie in the Grass"): Brian Smith's poetry has appeared in Mr. McFeeley's and Whiffle Ball, and his first book of stories, Spank You Very Much, is forthcoming from Scribner. He lives in New York where he is working on a novel, like every other shmo who thinks he has a story to tell.

Lori Tangle ("Conversions"): Lori Tangle's fiction has appeared in The Paris Review. Nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah.

Serena Yao ("Watching My Grandmother Eat Duck Feet"/ "Year of the Perm" ): Serena Yao's poetry has appeared in the anthology, Voices of Resentment: First Generation Americans and the Parents Who Embarrass Them. She is a student in the Iowa Writers Workshop. Do NOT ask her what it means to be born in the year of the monkey.

Cassie Zokowski ("Stick Shift"): Cassie Zokowski's memoir, Leaving Dundalk, was nominated for the Everybody Loves a Hometown Girl prize. She lives in Baltimore with Ernie the rat, who will never marry her. And she swears she's never met Brian Smith, except for that one time at Breadloaf, when there were plenty of people around. Who the hell is Wilma?

From the archives of
THE POTOMAC, Issue 1