Paul Christensen is the author of eighteen books of prose and poetry.  His latest collection of poems, The Human Condition (Wings Press 2011) includes poems about Osama bin Ladin, the Iraq war, Islamic culture and the nations of Lebanon and Morocco, elegies for the the Texas poets Lorenzo Thomas and Jack Myers, as well as personal lyrics on his life and times in Texas. BOOKLIST called the The Human Condition "startling, with a heart-thumping nail-on-the-head lyricism throughout."  Christensen's other poetry books, Blue Alleys: Prose Poems and Hard Country both won "Violet Crown" awards from the Writers' League. He has received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the "Distinguished Prose" award from Antioch Review, and numerous other honors.  For many years he was coordinator of creative writing at Texas A&M University, and was the publisher of Cedarshouse Press. Christensen now lives and writes in central Vermont.

 

Lyman Grant is the author of three volumes and one chapbook of poems.  The most recent book is  As Long as We Need (Black Buzzard Press), about which Paul Christensen has written, "Finally someone has written a book of poems that sounds like the beginnine of a new century.  Grant's poems are all about atonement, making amends, loving what we have, forgiving ex-wives and pesky neighbors, putting the worst of the past behind him to allow hime to live in this era."  In addition, Grant has published two textbooks and two volumes concerned with Texas literature.  He was one of the founding editors of MAN! magazine, a national quarterly concerned with men's issues and recovery.  Currently, he is the Dean of Arts and Humanities at Austin Community College.