(clockwise): Tom Grimes, Carol Dawson, Sarah Bird, Tom Zigal, Carolyn Osborn, Jesse Sublett, Dagoberto Gilb, Anne Dingus, and Tom Doyal (not pictured: Robert Draper) (Photo By Clay Smith)
Sarah Bird I am currently working on a movie for TNT inspired by the work that folklorist John Lomax did in the Thirties at the state penitentiary in Mississippi. While that goes through the sausage factory in L.A., I work on a novel that centers on my brief tour with a fifth-rate Borscht Belt comedian as a go-go dancer in Tokyo. My novel, Virgin of the Rodeo, is to be reprinted this fall by University of Nebraska Press. My other books are Mommy Club, Boyfriend School, Alamo House, and Do Evil Cheerfully.
Carol Dawson
Carol Dawson is the author of four novels,
The Waking Spell,
Body of Knowledge,
Meeting the Minotaur, and the
The Mother-in-Law Diaries, all from Algonquin Books, as well as a collection of poetry,
Job. She has also taught creative writing at the College of Santa Fe.
Anne Dingus
Anne Dingus was born and raised in Pampa and graduated from Rice University in Houston. After working as a technical writer for NASA and for the oil and gas industry, she was hired in 1978 by
Texas Monthly, where today she is a senior editor. She is the author of four books of Texana, most recently
All Hat and No Cattle.
Tom Doyal My abbreviated biography cannot convey the full splendor of my being. I am a Romanian princeling who was left by gypsies on a white-trash doorstep in South Texas. I am in my late, late forties, 55 to be precise. I teach sexual mysteries to the exceptionally gullible. I am a writer of short stories and I want Sarah Bird to be my girlfriend. I sit before you revealed in my full humanity.
Robert Draper
Robert Draper's first novel,
Hadrian's Walls, was published by Knopf this spring. He was a staff writer for
Texas Monthly for six years and is currently a writer at large for
GQ Magazine.
Dagoberto Gilb
Dagoberto Gilb is the author of
The Magic of Blood and
The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña. Recent work has appeared in
The Nation,
The New Yorker,
The Washington Post Magazine, and
Best American Essays.
Tom Grimes
Tom Grimes is the author of three novels, and a new anthology of fiction from Iowa Writer's Workshop graduates,
The Workshop. He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at SWT.
Carolyn Osborn
Carolyn Osborn graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.J. degree in 1955, and an M.A. in 1959.
Warriors and Maidens (TCU Press), is the latest of her three short story collections. She has won awards from P.E.N., Texas Institute of Letters, and publication in
Prize Stories 1990: The O. Henry Awards.
Jesse Sublett
Jesse Sublett is the author of the critically acclaimed novels
Rock Critic Murders,
Tough Baby, and
Boiled in Concrete. His extensive television writing and production credits include History Channel programs such as
The Killer Storm and the popular long-running series,
The Great Ships. Currently completing a rock & roll and cancer survival memoir (excerpted in the December issue of
Texas Monthly), Jesse is the only one of this year's judges who has jammed with members of the Go-Go's, Blondie, the Clash, and the Rolling Stones.
Tom Zigal
Thomas Zigal was born in Galveston in 1948 and grew up in Texas City. He received a B.A. in English from UT Austin and an M.A. in creative writing from the Stanford Writing Program. For 25 years his short stories have appeared in literary magazines and story anthologies. He is the author of four published novels, including three Kurt Muller mysteries set in Aspen, Colorado:
Into Thin Air (Delacorte, 1995),
Hardrock Stiff (Delacorte, 1996), and
Pariah (Delacorte, 1999). Zigal lives in Austin with his wife and son. He is a council member of the Texas Institute of Letters.
