CLAUDIA L. BUSHMAN holds degrees in literature and American Studies from Wellesley College, BYU, and Boston University and teaches history and American studies at Columbia University. She is the author and editor of nine books. Her most recent volume is In Old Virginia: Slavery, Farming, and Society in the Journal of John Walker, (Johns Hopkins University Press), and she is currently writing a contemporary study of the LDS Church. She is married to scholar Richard Lyman Bushman, and they have lived in New York City for fifteen years. They have six children and seventeen grandchildren. Claudia Bushman was named New York State Mother of the Year in 2000.

RICHARD LYMAN BUSHMAN (Introduction) is Gouverneur Morris Professor of History at Columbia University Emeritus where he taught from 1989 to 2001. His first book, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 won the Bancroft Prize for being one of the best books on American History published in 1967. He has also written on Joseph Smith, early American political culture, and gentility. His most recent book is The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, and Cities (Vintage Books).

RAQUEL COOK, before receiving a Master's Degree from Oxford University in Gender Studies, rode a horse across Mongolia, a motorcycle through Vietnam and a train across China; shook hands with Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama; and learned to windsurf in the Philippines. She is currently writing the biography of her great grandmother, Alice.

KENT S. LARSEN II is the founder and editor of Mormon News, an Internet-based news service covering Mormons, Mormonism and the LDS Church. Trained as an accountant, Kent has more than 10 years of publishing experience. He also owns Luso-Brazilian Books, the largest importer of Portuguese-language materials into North America.

JAMES W. LUCAS is an attorney and businessman who lives in Manhattan. His publications include Working Toward Zion: Principles of the United Order for the Modern World (with Warner P. Woodworth) (Aspen Books) and a chapter on Latter-day Saints in New York City in New York Glory: Religions in the City (edited by Tony Carnes and Anna Karpathakis) (New York University Press).

STEPHEN MOORE (Artworks) has reveled in being a New Yorker for the past 20 years. He has received a BFA from Utah State University, and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His work has been seen at various venues throughout the city including, The Bronx Museum of Art, the Sculpture Center, P. S. 122, Art Moving, and The World Trade Center. His best creation has been made in collaboration with his wife Laura Tietjen: their dynamic daughter Dylan. They will be celebrating their creative partnership with a new addition in April of 2003.

GLEN NELSON edited Silent Notes Taken and is director of Mormon Artists Group, which originally published this book as a deluxe volume. As a librettist, his collaborations with composers include the operas The Dead and The Singer's Romance; two cantatas, "Easter Cantata" and "Jesus, Lay Your Sleeping Head;" and song cycles "Pop Art Songs," "Seven Sisters," "Coney Island Hymn," "Afterwards," and "My Children," (all the above with music by Murray Boren), "Joseph Smith's Letters from Prison," (David Fletcher, composer) and "Lullaby of the Animals" (Royce Twitchell, composer).

LUISA PERKINS is the author of Legacy of Self: A Celebration of Motherhood (Grandin Books) and the young adult novel Shannon's Mirror (Grandin Books). She has co-written several songs, including "Eve and Mary" and "New Birth" with David Fletcher, and "Christmas Lullaby" and "Golden Song" with Murray Boren. She has led several writing workshops for children; she is currently at work on a new novel.

JOANNE ROWLAND, a New York attorney with a master's degree in music, has written articles for the New York LDS Historian, press releases for various musical events, and a few opinions for judges of the New York State Supreme Court appellate system. The essays in this volume are her first published personal essays.

ASTRID S. TUMINEZ is the author of Russian Nationalism Since 1856. Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy (Roman & Littlefield). She has published other scholarly articles and media commentary on Russia and has also published several pieces on private equity. She is currently a Director of Research, with primary responsibility for direct investments in biotech/life science companies, at AIG Global Investment Corp. She has a Master's degree in Soviet Studies from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT.

ADRIANA VELEZ's first magazine piece, an essay on fudge, appears in the March 2003 Saveur. Ms. Velez is a senior developmental editor at Triumph Learning, where she has held a job for two and a half years (a personal record). She now begins each day with a cup of hot cocoa—two teaspoons Dutch chocolate, just under two teaspoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, one cup hot milk. Most days she avoids writing by cooking.