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  At the city limits the streetlights stopped, and there were only the lights from the heavens. She looked up through the windshield to see the stars in their firmament, stilled there like fireflies in ice. She saw them as a halo around the rim of the earth. She extended an arm through the open window and curved it into the night air. For a fleeting moment she felt as though she could soar into the constellation of stars and nestle there in their glowing. She shut her eyes momentarily. It was as though she were dancing with the dark.

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  Contributors

  ALL THE CONTRIBUTORS to this volume have been members of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama.

  MICHAEL ALLEY is from Asheville, North Carolina. He has degrees in engineering physics and electrical engineering. A 1987 graduate of the program, Alley is the author of a textbook, The Craft of Scientific Writing, published by Prentice Hall. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

  YESIM ATIL was born in Ankara, Turkey, and moved to the United States when she was eleven. She was graduated from the program in 1985. Atil's novel, On Freedom Street, won the Outstanding Thesis Award for the University of Alabama and was published by Lynx House Press in 1991. She teaches writing and women's studies at The Behrend College of Penn State University, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

  DAVID BOROFKA is from Portland, Oregon. A 1982 graduate of the program, he has published in several literary magazines, including Southern Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Witness, South Dakota Review, Manoa, Greensboro Review, and Black Warrior Review. Borofka won Carolina Quarterly's Charles Wood Award for Distinguished Writing and Missouri Review's Editor's Prize for 1992. He teaches at Kings River Community College in Reedley, California.

  WILL BLYTHE is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A 1986 graduate of the program, he is the literary editor for Esquire magazine in which he edits "The Esquire Reader" and writes a regular book column. Blythe's reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, and his fiction has been published in several literary magazines. "The Taming Power of the Small" was published in Epoch and reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 1988.

  MATHEW CHACKO, who is from India, has published stories in India Currents, Chicago Review, and Stories. He won third place in Playboy magazine's annual college fiction contest. "Héma, My Héma" first appeared in Missouri Review and was reprinted in Stories. Chacko's novella, The Season of Carcasses, won the University of Alabama's Outstanding Thesis Award for 1992 and was published in Stories. He is completing a Ph.D. at the University of Missouri.

  TOM CHIARELLA is from Rochester, New York. He has published fiction in The New Yorker, Florida Review, and Story, among others. Chiarella's collection of stories, Foley's

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  Luck, was published in 1991 by Alfred A. Knopf. A 1987 graduate of the program, he teaches at Depauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

  CATHY DAY is from Peru, Indiana. She was nominated for the 1994 AWP Intro Journals project and she won second place in the Playboy magazine college fiction contest. She is a 1995 graduate of the program.

  MATT DEVENS, a Chicagoan, lives on the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. He has published nonfiction in Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. "Prance Williams Rides Again" first appeared in Story. A 1989 graduate of the program, Devens has taught at Livingston University and several Chicago area schools.

  TONY EARLEY is from Rutherfordton, North Carolina. He was graduated from the program in 1992. He has had fiction published in several magazines, including Texas Review, Witness, and Harper's, where "Charlotte" was first published. Earley's collection of stories, Here We Are in Paradise, won the Outstanding Thesis Award for the University of Alabama and was published in 1994 by Little, Brown.

  JENNIFER FREMLIN is from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. She was graduated from the program in 1990, having twice won the Alumni Fiction Award. Fremlin's fiction has appeared in A Room of One's Own. She is completing her doctorate in English and film studies at Brown University.

  ASHLEY L. GIBSON is from Austin, Texas. She has studied writing with R. H. W. Dillard at Hollins College. A 1995 graduate of the program, she held two Graduate Council Research Awards and was fiction editor of Black Warrior Review.

  RICHARD GILES was graduated from the program in 1988. His fiction has appeared in Chariton Review, Florida Review, Untitled, and Story. "Crawford and Luster's Story" was first published in Ploughshares and is listed as one of the "100 Distinguished Short Stories" in The Best American Short Stories, 1993.

  DEV HATHAWAY, a 1983 graduate of the program, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and grew up in Virginia and New Jersey. His fiction has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Greensboro Review, Missouri Review, and others. Hathaway's collection of stories, The Widow's Boy, was published by Lynx House Press in 1992. He has been director of creative writing at Northeast Louisiana University and director of freshman English at Emporia State University, and currently he teaches fiction writing at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

  LAURA HENORIE left Tuscaloosa for Ojo Sarco, New Mexico, in 1987. Her fiction has appeared in Missouri Review, Taos Review, Writer's Forum, and Best of the West. Hendrie's novel, Stygo, was published in 1994 by MacMurray and Beck and will be reprinted in paperback in 1995 by Scribners.

  J. R. JONES grew up in Chicago and was graduated from the program in 1991. A former fiction editor of Black Warrior Review, he has returned to Chicago. Jones has

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  published fiction in New Virginia Review and The Kenyon Review, where "The Twin" first appeared.

  NANCI KINCAID grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. A 1991 graduate of the program, she teaches at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. Her stories have appeared in many magazines, including Carolina Quarterly, Missouri Review, New Letters, St. Andrew's Review, Southern Exposure, Crescent Review, and Ontario Review, and have been anthologized in, among others, New Stories from the South. Kincaid was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship grant for 1992. Her novel, Crossing Blood, was published in 1991 by G. P. Putnam. She is presently a Bunting Fellow at Radcliff College and is completing a second novel.

  CELIA MALONE KINGSBURY was born in Pulaski, Tennessee. She was graduated from the program in 1989 and held a lectureship at the University of Alabama from 1989 to 1992. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she is working on a doctorate at Florida State University. "Stairsteps" is her first publication.

  TIM PARRISH is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His stories have appeared in Texas Review, Shenandoah, Southern Exposure, Washington Review, and Black Warrior Review. A 1991 graduate of the program, Parrish teaches at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.

  JOHNNY PAYNE was graduated from the program in 1986. He teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. His novel, Kentuckiana, is forthcoming from White Fields Press. Other books include Conquest of the New Word: Experimental Fiction and Translation in the Americas (Texas, 1993); a novella, The Ambassador's Son (TriQuarterly, 1995); Voice and Style (Writer's Digest Books, 1995), and The She-Calf and Other Folk Tales (New Mexico, 1995). Payne has cowritten a musical, The Devil in Disputanta, and has been guest editor of TriQuarterly and Review of Contemporary Fiction.

  NICOLA SCHMIDT was born in England and grew up outside of Boston. Her story, "In the MacAdams' Swimming Pool," originally appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review. A 1992 graduate of the program, she now lives in LaSalle, Illinois.

  RONALD SIELINSKI was graduated from the program in 1994. He grew up in Michigan, where he now works as an electrical engineer for the General Motors Corporation. "Sipsey's Woods" is his first publication.

  KIM TREVATHAN is from Kentucky. Before graduating from the program in 1994, he completed an M.A. in English at the University of Illinois and an M.A. in Journalism at the University of Wyoming. He edited Foresight, a quarterly engineering journal, and has published nonfiction in Transitions Abroad. While at Alabama, T
revathan won an Alumni Fiction Award and a Hackney Literary Award. "Walking on Water" is his first published fiction.

  BRAD WATSON is from Meridian, Mississippi. He was graduated from the program in 1985. He has been a newspaper reporter in the Gulf Shores, Alabama, area for the Independent and the Islander and for the Montgomery Advertiser, where he was also