Michael Tisserand is the author of Sugarcane Academy, published by Harcourt in 2007. Previously, he published The Kingdom of Zydeco, available from Arcade Publishing. Michael edited Gambit Weekly in New Orleans for seven years; he and his family left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and currently live in Evanston, Illinois.

Praise for Sugarcane Academy:

Kirkus Reviews

"Writing with the same warmth and humanity that distinguished his ASCAP Deems Taylor Award-winning The Kingdom of Zydeco (1998), Tisserand offers tender, revealing profiles of Reynaud, his fellow volunteer teachers and others affected by the evacuation...Inspirational and heartwarming." (Starred Review)

Richard Lange is a fiction writer living in Los Angeles. Dead Boys, published by Little, Brown in 2007, is his first book. He is currently working on a novel, which will also be published by Little, Brown.

Praise for Dead Boys:

Bookforum

"To paraphrase the compliment Joan Didion paid Fat City, Leonard Gardner’s classic 1969 novel set in Stockton, California, Richard Lange has got it right about Los Angeles. Dead Boys, his debut story collection, depicts average Southland life with unfaltering exactitude— the doughnut shop–cum-hangout, the sun’s merciless routine, Spanglish, and the disconsolateness of the carless. Such meticulously drawn commonplace scenery is remarkable in itself. But what’s most impressive about Lange’s tales is how his LA bypasses the usual accounts of nihilism and dystopia to signify instead the hard-luck optimism of the losers who are drawn to it."

Demaree Inglese and Diana Gallagher are the authors of No Ordinary Heroes, published by Kensington Citadel in 2007. Formerly the Medical Director at the Orleans Parish Prison, Dem gives a gripping account of the week during which he was trapped in the jail complex after Hurricane Katrina. Dem and his medical staff braved horrible, terrifying conditions--rising, poisonous flood waters; rioting inmates; very little food and drinking water--to care for the staff and prisoners who suffered illness and injury during and after the storm.

Praise for No Ordinary Heroes:

Kirkus Reviews

"An eye-opening, provocative journey into human frailty and heroism. Dr. Inglese recounts the story with a dispassionate reserve that heightens our sense of shock. The reader will wonder how, faced with the same desperate circumstances, he or she might react under such hellish conditions."

Silja J.A. Talvi is a freelance investigative journalist who has published extensively in In These Times, The Nation, and many other magazines and journals. In Women Behind Bars, published by Seal Press in 2007, Silja digs into what is behind the recent sharp rise in incarceration rates of women and girls in the US.

Praise for Women Behind Bars:

Ms. Magazine

"Like mirrors in a house of horrors, the women in Talvi's book reflect the distorted collective flaws of our society: violence, addiction, poverty, pervasive low self-esteem and families trapped in chronic financial and emotional crises."

Bruce E. Levine is a practicing Clinical Psychologist who lives and works in Cincinnati. He is the author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic, published by Chelsea Green in 2007. Previously, he published Commonsense Rebellion with Continuum. In his latest book, Levine takes on and takes down the tag team of Big Pharma and the insurance industry, who together have taken control of mental healthcare in the US. He provides a commonsense, sustainable approach to the treatment of depression.

Praise for Surviving America's Depression Epidemic:

Publishers Weekly

"Levine's holistic approach, bolstered by plenty of scholarship and popular literary references, will give depression patients a useful big-picture perspective."