Recipient of the Theodore Hoepfner Fiction Award and past writer-in-residence at the Mishkenot Sha'ananim Artists' Colony in Jerusalem, Pushcart Prize-nominee Perle Besserman was praised by Isaac Bashevis Singer for the "clarity and feeling for mystic lore" of her writing and by Publisher's Weekly for its "wisdom [that] points to a universal practice of the heart." Her autobiographical novel, Pilgrimage, was published by Houghton Mifflin, and her short fiction has appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, AGNI, Transatlantic Review, Nebraska Review, Southerly, North American Review, and Bamboo Ridge, among others. Her books have been recorded and released in both audio and e-book versions and translated into over ten languages. Her most recent book of creative non-fiction, combining memoir, storytelling, and women's spiritual history, is A New Zen for Women (Palgrave Macmillan) and her story collection, Marriage and Other Travesties of Love, is currently available online from Cantarabooks. Her latest book, Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers, published by Wisdom Books, was co-authored with Manfred Steger. Two new novels, Kabuki Boy, and Widow Zion, are forthcoming from Aqueous Books and Pinyon Publishing, respectively.
Perle has lectured, toured, taught, and appeared on television, radio, and in two documentary films about her work in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, and the Middle East. She currently divides her time between Honolulu, Hawai'i and Melbourne, Australia. Visit Perle on the Web at www.perlebesserman.net.
Margaret Mendel lives and writes in New York City, but she loves to gallivant around the world taking photographs. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a Masters of Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her photos have appeared in websites around the world, various travel journals, have been published as book covers and many of her photos can be viewed on www.flickr.com/photos/margaretmendel. She is a staff writer with the online magazine kingsriverlife.com and Margaret is an award-winning author with short stories appearing in online and print publications. Please visit Margaret's website: www.pushingtime.com.