A Community Writing Itself features internationally respected writers Michael Palmer, Nathaniel Mackey, Leslie Scalapino, Brenda Hillman, Kathleen Fraser, Stephen Ratcliffe, Robert Glück, and Barbara Guest, and important younger writers Truong Tran, Camille Roy, Juliana Spahr, and Elizabeth Robinson. The book fills a major gap in contemporary poetics, focusing on one of the most vibrant experimental writing communities in the nation. The writers discuss vision and craft, war and peace, race and gender, individuality and collectivity, and the impact of the Bay Area on their work.

Sarah Rosenthal grew up in Chicago and lives in San Francisco. She is the author of three chapbooks: How I Wrote This Story (Margin to Margin, 2001), SITINGS (a+bend, 2000) and not-chicago (Melodeon Poetry Systems, 1998). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals and have been anthologized in BAY POETICS (Faux Press, 2006) and hinge (Crack Press, 2002). She has taught creative writing at Santa Clara University and San Francisco State University. She has edited a collection of interviews entitled A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area. She is the recipient of the Leo Litwak Award for Fiction and grant-supported writing residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Ragdale Foundation.