Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers. As an undergraduate at Reed College, Fitch had decided to become an historian, attracted to its powerful narratives, the scope of events, the colossal personalities, and the potency and breadth of its themes. But when she won a student exchange to Keele University in England, where her passion for Russian history led her, she awoke in the middle of the night on her twenty-first birthday with the revelation she wanted to write fiction. "I wanted to Live, not spend my life in a library. Of course, my conception of being a writer was to wear a cape and have Adventures."

Book: White Oleander

In 1993, Elizabeth McCracken quietly published Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, a collection of short stories she'd worked on at the Iowa Writers Workshop whose characters were all the unlikely targets of love's stray arrows. This summer The Giant's House, her debut novel about a lonely librarian who takes her heart off the shelf for the "overtall" eleven-year-old boy she meets at the circulation desk, brought Elizabeth's peculiar notion of romance to the attention of the literary community. Granta named her one of the Best Young American Novelists, the National Book Award judges included her in their select list of finalists, and the critics raved.

Among the first generation born and raised in Mao's China, Anchee Min began her life a staunch party supporter. She recounts her early life in a celebrated memoir, Red Azalea, which includes a harrowing account of her life's lowest point: forced to choose between the will of the party and her own integrity, she publicly renounces a beloved teacher. Now fully committed, Min's party involvement eventually inspired her to audition for one of the many films made by Mao's wife, Jiang Ching, during her decade-long reign as orchestrator of the disastrous Cultural Revolution. When Min was awarded the lead part, she couldn't know that Mao's death, and therefore the end of Madame Mao's power base, was just a few short weeks away. Without Mao's support, Jiang Ching quickly fell from power, as did all associated with her. Min was demoted to a menial position and for several years lived a quiet life. In 1984, with the help of her friend, actress Joan Chen, she emigrated to the United States.

Books:

Red Azalea
Becoming Madame Mao
Kathrine

Love at first sight: you've heard the stories, maybe you've even experienced the rush and excitement of it. It is one of those rare, life-altering experiences that is difficult to express adequately. That Susan Minot can capture it so flawlessly in Evening is clear evidence of her ability to strike at powerful emotional truths. That she can do so through the lens of a woman on her deathbed looking back forty years to the lost love of her life is proof of Minot's incredible talent.

Books:

Folly
Lust Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)
Monkeys (Vintage Contemporaries)
Stealing Beauty
Evening

Ruth L. Ozeki graduated summa laude from Smith College, Massachusettes, with degrees in English Literature and Asian Stuides. She then received a Japanese Ministry of Education Fellowship and emigrated to Japan to do graduate work in classical Japanese literature. On her return to the United States, she began her film career as an art director for low-budget horror movies, before moving on to Japanese production work.

After several years of co-ordinating and directing documentary-style television programmes, she started making her own films which have received awards, festival recognition and international distribution. Body of Correspondence was produced in 1994. Her second independent film in 1995, Halving The Bones, was about her mother and was a way of commemorating her.

My Year Of Meat is Ruth's first novel. She is currently working on her second and divides her time between New York City and British Columbia.