Coral Hull was born in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia, in 1965. She is the author of IN THE DOG BOX OF SUMMER IN HOT COLLATION (1995), WILLIAM’S MONGRELS IN THE WILD LIFE, (1996), and HOW DO DETECTIVES MAKE LOVE? (1998, all Penguin Books Australia), and BROKEN LAND (Five Islands Press, 1997), and editor of THE BOOK OF MODERN AUSTRALIAN ANIMAL POEMS. A member of the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the Poets Union Inc, the NT Field Naturalists Club and the Australian Society of Authors, she is an animal rights advocate and the and the Publisher of Thylazine.

Eva Hung was born and educated in Hong Kong, where English was used in school and Cantonese at home. After receiving her Ph.D. from London University, she joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1986. She is editor of Renditions, a journal specializing in the translation of Chinese literature into English. She also writes short fiction and essays in Chinese.

Errol Miller has been writing and publishing since 1972.  His work has appeared in Verse, William & Mary Review, Hollins Critic, American Poetry Review, Four Quarters, Atlanta Review, The Pannus Index, The Bitter Oleander, Fence, First Intensity, River City, Wisconsin Review.  He is the featured writer in the current issue of American Jones Magazine; with the poet Don Hoyt, he won Spillway Magazine's 1998 Call And Response Poetry Contest.

Simon Perchik was born in 1923 in Paterson, N.J. He served in the armed forces as a pilot, and was educated at New York University (B.A. English, LL.B. Law). His poems have appeared in Partisan Reveiew, Poetry, The Nation, North American Review, APR, Harvard Magazine, New Letters, Massachusetts Review, Beloit, Southern Humanities Review, Denver Quarterly, The New Yorker, among others. His books of poems include: THE GANDOLPH POEMS (White Pine Press, 1987); BIRTHMARK (Flockophobic Press, 1992); REDEEMING THE WINGS and THE EMPTINESS BETWEEN MY HANDS (Dusty Dog Press, 1991, 1993); LETTERS TO THE DEAD (St. Andrews College Press, 1993). His newest book is THESE HANDS FILLED WITH NUMBNESS (Dusty Dog Press, 1996). He is married, has three children, and lives on Long Island, where he practices law. He last appeared in Archipelago in Vol. 2, No. 3.

Ralph J. Pray works in a private research laboratory in Los Angeles County, and resolves problems in the mineral industry in the United States and abroad. He writes: “My year in Japan occurred during the Occupation. I was a draftee private in the Japan Logistical Command assigned to the Yokahoma Radar Laboratory, where I was in charge of the repair of one of Truman's ‘secret weapons’ used in the Korean War. When I was not buried in the electronics I took leave to scour Japan far and wide in search of the perfect Japanese girl. The ascent of Fuji-san was part of that ego-driven, unforgettable quest.”

Zuxin Ding was educated in the Foreign Languages department of Guanghua University, Shanghai (1947-49), and the English Department, Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (1949-53). Self-taught, having been a worker, he was assigned, briefly, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but was dismissed. Dr. Ding taught at Liaoning University, Shenyang, from 1956 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cultural Revolution he was removed from his position; in 1979, he was reinstated, and in 1983, made professor of English. Since 1982, he has been visiting professor at the University of Denver (US) and Kassel University (Germany), and, during three visits, has lectured at various colleges and universities in the US. He has written about Yeats, Eliot, Frost, Stevens, Auden, Lowell, Larkin, Hughes; he has published four books. In addition, AN ANTHOLOGY OF CHINESE POETRY From 1000BC to 1995, composed of his English translations, is forthcoming from Liaoning University Press. With Burton Raffel, he is the co-translator of GEMS OF CHINESE POETRY (Liaoning University Press, 1986). His daughter lives in the United States. Zuxin Ding wrote “The Story of Young Mrs. Wei” in English.

Joel Agee’s beautiful translation of PENTHESILEA, by Heinrich von Kleist, won this year’s Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize “for an outstanding translation from German into English.” This astonishing poem in the form of a play was the subject of the Editor’s Endnotes, “Passion,” Vol. 3, No. 1.