Edward Albee is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, author of The Zoo Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Three Tall Women, among many others. He lives in New York City and in Montauk.

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Kevin Andersen is a financial officer for an international health care corporation. His hobbies are martini swilling and cursing at prime time television programs.

Steve Berman looks forward to the day when he can once more can have a dog. Perhaps an English bulldog named Hemlock. Or a mastiff. More likely, he'll end up content with a mutt from the pound. He just needs to move to the right place. Oh, and ask the permission of Daulton, his cranky orange tabby. In the meanwhile, he writes queer speculative fiction. He has sold nearly 70 short stories and articles, and his young adult novel, Vintage: a Ghost Story, releases from Haworth Press in the Spring of 2007. His online residence is steveberman.com

Prior to his retirement, Randy Allgaier was a national leader in the arena of AIDS community organizing. He has worked with LGBT groups in his home state of California, as well as serving on the Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

From 2001 - 2004 Randy served as the President of the Board of Directors of Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS). PAWS, founded in 1987, provides support for people with AIDS and other disabling illnesses so it is possible to keep their companion animals-- an important, often crucial component of emotional support. PAWS also provides education on safe pet ownership for people with AIDS and is a leader in the arena of education on the benefits of the human-animal bond for people with chronic physical illness and depression.

Hal Campbell is a writer living with AIDS in Petaluma, California. He is the book critic for We The People, the LGBT paper for the North Bay.

J.R.G. De Marco lives in Philadelphia and is the editor of Mysterical-E (www.mystericale.com) for which he won Best Magazine Editor in the Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll. His work has appeared in the gay press including the Gay & Lesbian Review, The Advocate, In Touch, New York Native and Philadelphia Gay News. His award winning article, “Gay Racism” has been anthologized in Black Men, White Men, (1984) Men’s Lives, (1990) and We Are Everywhere (1997).

Donald L. Hardy is a cube wrangler in Silicon Valley by day, actor, writer and rogue editor by night, this is Don's first publication with Alyson. He is an editor with Immanion Press in Stafford, England, where he edited Talor Ellwood's "Space/Time Magic", and is editing two more manuscripts for release this year. He is also writing his first novel, which is currently in the editing phase. Yes. All of his publishing karma has circled around, and the pen is now in the other hand. He is determined to be bloodied, but unbowed. He lives on his sailboat in Alameda, on San Francisco Bay.

Alistair McCartney was born in 1971 in Australia. His writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Fence, The James White Review, FreshMen: New Gay Fiction, Aroused, and Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing. "On the Impossibility of Existing Without Dogs" is excerpted from his first book, The End of The World Book, which is forthcoming from The University of Wisconsin Press. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner Tim Miller. Holding an MFA in creative writing, he teaches creative writing and literature in the BA Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Brian McCormick is a dance writer and member of the NY Dance & Performance Awards (Bessies) Committee, Dance Critics Association and Dance/NYC Advisory Board. He has been a panelist for New York Foundation for the Arts, Joyce Theater Foundation, Dance Theater Workshop, and Brooklyn Arts Council. He is Managing Director of nicholasleichterdance, a six member professional touring company under the Artistic Direction of Nicholas Leichter.

Randall McCormick is a senior systems manager for a printing company. Here he is with his boxer, Samson

Jack Morton is a four-time Emmy Award winning stylist. He served as the official stylist for ABC during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and is the owner of Indulgence Salon, in Atlanta, and Wrapsody in Blue in Blue Ridge, Georgia.

David Mizejewski has been fascinated with wild creatures for as long as he can remember. He spent his youth romping in suburban woods, fields and marshes, observing and learning about the surprising diversity of wildlife that inhabit those areas. As a high school student studying ecology, Mizejewski began to see firsthand the clear connection between native plant communities and wildlife populations, and his passion for wildlife-friendly gardening was born. In addition to hosting Animal Planet's upcoming BACKYARD HABITAT, Mizejewski manages the National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Wildlife Habitat™ program, which for more than 30 years has inspired people to make a home for wildlife right outside their back door. David is the author of Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife. Mizejewski holds a degree in human and natural ecology from Emory University. Originally from New Jersey, he now lives in Arlington, Va.

G. Russell Overton is an historical researcher for a consulting firm in Lansing, Michigan. He has produced a number of works both fiction and non-fiction and has two novels planned for publication in 2006-07. His fields of study in history include pre-Revolutionary Russia and Native Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His fictional style is to create romantic adventure, unbounded by the dictates of political and cultural agendas, for readers of Gay and Lesbian literature. He is a member of the Albany Institute of Art and History, the Historical Society of Michigan, the California Historical Society, Friends of the Bancroft Library, the Publishing Triangle, and Michigan Writers.

Neil Plakcy is the author of Mahu, a mystery novel set in Honolulu, and Invasion of the Blatnicks, a comic novel about Jewish family relationships and shopping mall construction. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Broward Community College and a freelance writer and web developer. He has published a wide range of fiction and nonfiction in mainstream and gay and lesbian publications, both in print and online. His fiction has appeared in many publications, including Blithe House Quarterly and In The Family, and he won first prize for the best South Florida story in a contest for South Florida magazine. His work has been anthologized in My First Time 2, Men Seeking Men, Cowboys, and the forthcoming anthologies Ultimate Undies and Hot Cops.

Jay Quinn is the author of the novel The Good Neighbor (Alyson Books, June 2006) as well as the bestselling novels, Metes and Bounds and Back Where He Started, in addition to other works of non-fiction and anthology. He lives and works in suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his partner and their dogs Patsy (a Doberman-Lab mix) and Hailey (a Weimaraner). Quinn is currently working on his next novel scheduled for publication in 2007. As always, the book will include a dog along with its human characters.

After teaching at the university level for thirteen years, Lev Raphael escaped academia in 1988 to write full-time and has never looked back. Since then, he's published seventeen books in a variety of genres, and many hundreds of essays, articles and reviews in a wide range of publications from the Washington Post to Lambda Book Report. He's also had his work appear in several dozen anthologies in the U.S. and Britain including the now-classic Hometowns: Gay Men Write about Where They Belong and Edmund White's Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction. Winner of a Lambda Book Award among other prizes, he grew up in New York City but got over it and has made Michigan home for half his life. His comic Nick Hoffman mystery series is set in the fictional town of Michiganapolis and features an untenured gay Jewish composition teacher at the "State University of Michigan."

Jeffrey Ricker is a graphic designer for the Vital Voice newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and a contributing writer to Playback:stl magazine. He lives with his partner, Mike Wallerstein, their three cats, and two dogs. (Dakota has learned to adjust.)

Justin Rudd is the founder of Community Action Team and Haute Dog, which organizes a Bulldog Beauty Contest, Howl’oween Parade, Blessing of the Animals, Easter Parade, and other dog-related community events in Long Beach, California, where he lives with his Bulldog, Rosie. He advises beauty pageant contestants and has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as well as on several reality TV programs. He has signed his name with an exclamation point (Justin!) since middle school. He loves chocolate chip cookie dough and can make it from memory and from scratch. Usually, he has some frozen dough in the freezer.

Michael Wallerstein is a senior sales analyst for the Tyco Healthcare, Int'l in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned his B.S. in business at Indiana University-Bloomington and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. He lives with his partner, Jeffrey Ricker, their three cats, and two dogs. (Bonnie adores that Dakota.)