Jill Dopf ("Witches' Fingers Grab My Legs") took a detour from a planned career in writing when she chose biology as a major in college. "I had so many unanswered questions after so many years of going to doctors, I decided that I needed to understand things in order to get on with my life," says Dopf, who has suffered from a rare form of muscular dystrophy since childhood. The decision, as her essay attests, turned out to have an important impact on her health and her family's. She briefly considered medical school afterward but was concerned such studies would prove too physically taxing. Today Dopf is happily back at writing, in the graduate program at Iowa State.

"Painting is like polishing a stone," says cover artist Bill Cigliano. "You just keep working on it until it seems right." Cigliano--whose art has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times Book Review, and U.S. News & World Report, among other venues--has recently been experimenting with aging and cracking varnishes. He's pleased with the effect the technique creates, but admits it's a little scary to see how the cracking process unfolds. "It's an unknown variable," he says. "You're at the mercy of what it does."

RETURN TO NOVEMBER 2000 TABLE OF CONTENTS.