CHARLES FORAN was born in Toronto in 1960, and now lives in Montreal. He is a regular contributor to Saturday Night, the Montreal Gazette, and the Globe and Mail, and has written many short stories, several of which have been anthologized. He is also an enthusiastic performer and collector of Irish music. His account of his experiences in China, Sketches in Winter, was published in 1992, and The Last House of Ulster, a non-fiction book on Northern Ireland, has just appeared. In i(itchen Music, a Canadian couple's extended holiday in a remote Irish village confronts them with the demands of both old and new worlds.

DIANE SCHOEMPERLEN was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1954, lived in Canmore, Alberta, for 10 years, and moved to Kingston, Ontario, in 1986. She is the author of four short-story collections: Double Exposure, Frogs and Other Stories, Hockey Night in Canada, and The Man of My Dreams, which was short-listed for both the Governor General's Award and the Trillium Award. In the Language of Love follows the course of a woman's life in a narrative framework based on the 100 stimulus words in a standard psychological test.

SHYAM SELVADURAI was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1965. After attending the Royal College and completing his university entrance requirements in drama, English literature, and classics, he emigrated to Canada with his family following the 1983 riots in Colombo. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University in 1988. He has also studied creative writing and magazine writing, written for television, and worked at a bookstore. Funny Boy recounts a Sri Lankan boy's coming of age during the turbulent 1975-1983 period.

RUSSELL SMITH was born in Johannesburg in 1963, and grew up in Halifax. He studied French literature at the universities of Poitiers, Paris (111), and Queen's, and wrote his master's thesis on the poetry of Paul Eluard. He is currently a freelance journalist in Toronto. How Insensitive is a satiric portrayal of the Toronto cultural scene as experienced by a wide-eyed young innocent.