Born in Los Angeles in 1950, Dana Gioia attended Stanford University and did graduate work at Harvard, where he studied with Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Fitzgerald. He left Harvard to attend Stanford Business School. For fifteen years he worked in New York for general Foods (eventually becoming a Vice President) while writing nights and weekends, In 1992 he became a full-time writer. Currently he lives in California. Gioia has published three books of poems, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), and Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award. He is also the author of Can Poetry Matter? (1992; reprinted 2002). He has edited a dozen anthologies of poetry and fiction. A prolific critic and reviewer, he is also a frequent commentator on American culture for BBC Radio. He recently completed Nosferatu (2001), an opera libretto for composer Alva Henderson.
Chryss Yost is a poet, writer and designer. She is co-editor, with Dana Gioia and Jack Hicks, of California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday, 2004) and, with Diane Boller and Don Selby, of Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website. A native of San Diego, she currently lives in Santa Barbara with her daughter.
Jack Hicks teaches California literature and directs the Graduate Creative Program at the University of California, Davis. James D. Houston's seven books of fiction/nonfiction include "Continental Drift "(California, 1996) and "The Last Paradise" (1998), which won the American Book Award. Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of "The Woman Warrior" (1976), "China Men" (1980), and "Tripmaster Monkey" (1989). An early draft of her fourth novel, "The Fifth Book of Peace, " was destroyed in a fire; the restored version will be published in 2000-2001. Al Young's twenty books include African American literary anthologies, memoirs, collections of poetry, and the novels "Sitting Pretty " (1976) and "Who Is Angelina?" (California, 1996).
