Al Franken ("Tearaway Burkas and Tinplate Menorahs") was part of the writing staff that created Saturday Night Live, where he won five Emmys. His book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them spent six weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list.

Verlyn Klinkenborg ("The Damage Done") is a regular contributor to this magazine whose series of occasional essays, The Conscience of Place, examines forgotten places that have stirred the American con-science. His latest book is The Rural Life.

Julia Whitty ("Smuggling Hope") makes nature documentaries and writes short stories, novels, and nonfiction. For her previous Mother Jones article, "All the Disappearing Islands" (July/August 2003), she reported from the low-lying Pacific nation of Tuvalu, whose existence is threatened by global warming.

Tim Golden ("The Longest Arm of the Law") is an investigative reporter for the New York Times and also writes for the New York Times Magazine. He spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent for the Times and the Miami Herald, and has twice shared the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.

Andrea Rock ("Toxic Tipping Point") received the National Magazine Award for journalism in the public interest for her article documenting the failure of both the blood-bank industry and public-health officials to cope with the spread of HIV via blood transfusions and products. Her new book, The Mind at Night, explores recent scientific research about how and why we dream and what that reveals about the brain in waking consciousness.

Debra J. Dickerson ("Locked Out") is a former military-intelligence officer and a writer. She is the author of An American Story and the recently published account of the evolution of black identity in America, The End of Blackness.