August 18, 2011

Christopher Herold began writing haiku in 1968. A former president of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, he was a member of the first Haiku North America organizing committee and co-organizer of HNA in Port Townsend 2005. He cofounded The Herons Nest haiku journal and was managing editor from 1999 to 2007. He has five collections of haiku: In Other Words (1981), Coincidence (1987), A Path in the Garden (2000; a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award winner), In the Margins of the Sea (2000; a Snapshot Press Manuscript Award winner), Inside Out (2010; just published by Red Moon Press), and one haibun chapbook, Voices of Stone (1995). Christopher lives in Port Townsend, Washington.

Mike O’Connor is a poet, writer, and translator of Chinese literature. He farmed and worked in the woods for twelve years before pursuing Chinese studies and a journalism career in Asia for fifteen years. He is the author of nine books of poetry, translation, and memoir. His most recent publications include Immortality (2010) and Unnecessary Talking: The Montesano Stories (2009) both from Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press (New York). O’Connor is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2003–4); an International Writers’ Workshop Fellowship, Hong Kong, (2006); and a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship (2009). He currently serves as publisher of Empty Bowl Press in Port Townsend, a writers’ cooperative, and caretakes forest land on the Big Quilcene River.