Gods and Monsters

From the crucifixes hanging above our beds to the Bogeymen hiding under them, gods and monsters have always occupied considerable real estate in the human psyche. But sometimes a mattress and box spring are all that separate the two. Gods of all faiths have dispatched locusts, hail and frogs, induced famines and instituted curses. And who was really the monster in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"--the poor, misunderstood creature whose hideous exterior masked a very human heart, or the man who usurped God's role by creating him? Today the line dividing the godly from the grotesque is blurrier than ever as technology hands us godlike powers--cloning! Bio-engineering! Artificial Intelligence!--opening possibilities that Mary Shelley couldn't have imagined. But just because we can do something doesn't mean we should--what happens when, as Joseph Conrad described it, our "inner evil" equals our "outer good"?

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Linda Bierds is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including "First Hand," "The Profile Makers" and "The Ghost Trio." Among her many honors are two National Endowment for the Arts grants; and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim, Wolfers-O'Neill, Ingram Merrill, Rockefeller and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations. Additionally, she has won the PEN/West Poetry Award, the Poetry Society of America's Consuelo Ford Award and four Pushcart Prizes. Her work has been included in major anthologies and appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry, Parnassus, The Hudson Review, The Kenyon Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Field, The Journal, The Massachusetts Review and The Threepenny Review, among other publications.

Terrance Hayes' most recent poetry collection, "Wind in a Box," was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the best 100 books of 2006. His other books of poetry are "Muscular Music," which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and "Hip Logic," winner of the National Poetry Series Open Competition. Poems in "Lighthead," his forthcoming collection, have appeared in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Poetry and The New Yorker. His honors include three Best American Poetry selections, a Whiting Writers Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
 
 

Garth Stein is the author of three novels; The New York Times' bestselling "The Art of Racing in the Rain;" "How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets," which won a 2006 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award and was a Book Sense Pick; and "Raven Stole the Moon." He has also written a full-length play, "Brother Jones," which received its first production in Los Angeles in February, 2005, and was described as "brimming with intensity," by the L.A. Weekly. After receiving his M.F.A. in film from Columbia University, Stein worked as a documentary filmmaker for several years and directed, produced or co-produced several award-winning films. 

BloodHag is a literary-themed, death metal band from Seattle whose songs are about seminal science fiction, fantasy and horror authors. They have toured libraries and music venues across the country and were the subject of the documentary "BloodHag: The Faster You Go Deaf...The More Time You Have to Read," which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Short at the San Francisco Independent Documentary Film Festival. Their albums include "Necrotic Bibliophilia" and "Hell Bent for Letters."