Alan Cheuse is a fiction writer, a long-time critic, and the book commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.He is the author of eight books including The Grandmothers'Club, The Light Possessed, The Tennessee Waltz and Other Stories,and the memoir Fall Out of Heaven.He has written for many national publications and has taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan, among other places. He currently serves as a member of the writing program at George Mason University.Joseph A Palermo lectures at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has written for Peace & Changeand other journals.Alain Corbin is a professor at University of Paris I… Panth�on Sorbonne. He is the leading figure among French historians who have concentrated on "ordinary people." Known for his originality and iconoclastic work, Corbin is the author of The Foul and the Fragrant, The Lure of the Sea,and, most recently, Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in Nineteenth-Century French Countryside.He lives in Paris, France.