Matthew Brzezinski ("Red Alert") has spent the past two years investigating the Bush administration's track record on homeland security for his book Fortress America—An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State, which will be published by Bantam Dell in September. He is a former Moscow-based reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

David Hajdu ("Pete Seeger’s Last War") is the author of two award-winning books about musicians, Lush Life and Positively 4th Street. His previous story for Mother Jones, "Who's Got the Blues?" (September/October 2003), explored the commercialization of the blues.

Eleanor Cooney ("The Way It Was") is the author of Death in Slow Motion, an account of her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, and coauthor of four historical novels, three of them set in T’ang dynasty China. She lives in Northern California and is at work on a novel and on a memoir about being a boomer brat in the 1950s.

Asim Rafiqui ("Frontier Justice") is a Pakistani photojournalist and one of the few photographers who has managed to get into Waziristan. For the past three years he has been working on documentary stories in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Gaza.

J. Malcolm Garcia ("Frontier Justice") has reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past three years for Knight Ridder Newspapers.  

Gail Sheehy ("The Kean Mutiny") is the author of 14 books, the most recent being Middletown, America, about the families of 9/11 victims. She covered the 9/11 commission hearings for Pacifica Radio.

Samantha M. Shapiro ("The New Ward Heelers") is a freelance writer. Her previous story for Mother Jones, "Jails for Jesus" (November/December 2003), focused on evangelical prison programs.