Cover: Southern Light
Shirley Ann Grau pens stories of blacks and whites.

Birthday Letters: Poet recalls a strange love with Sylvia Plath.

When People Could Fly: Marcus breathes warmth into poems.

Love Invents Us: Love and obsession in the New York 'burbs.

Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy: The wild life of the first 20th-century woman.

Blood of the Poets: A new literary magazine puts Santa Cruz County writers on the same page with national men and women of letters.

News: Big Trouble in Little Bags
Outbreaks of Salmonella and Mad Cow Disease have lead people to eat more fresh greens--but even they may be tainted.

Night Howl: Juggling and grassroots organization make for a night of old-school edutainment.

Notes From the Underground: Old rockabilly never dies at Moe's, he just keeps geezin' along.

Without a Prayer: Novelist Katherine Nevi explores the chosen and the condemned in The Apostle.

Cold Comfort Future: Identity and reality get the sci-fi shuffle in bizarre Dark City.

A New Seafood Sensation: Rosa's Rosticeria with a reputation for quick, colorful fiesta foods earns new laurels for its sensational seafood.