CONTRIBUTORS

JAMES S. KUNEN, the author of this week's disquieting cover story on resegregation, has been writing vividly about social issues since, at 19, he penned The Strawberry Statement, a best-selling account of Columbia University's 1968 student strike against the Vietnam War. A TIME contributor since last October, Kunen spent many hours visiting classrooms in Kansas City, Missouri, and Norfolk, Virginia, observing students and teachers wrestling with the problems posed by separate but unequal education. But whomever he talked to, from black nationalists to advocates of magnet schools to staunch integrationists, he discovered a common goal that transcended race. "I found," he says, "that all parents, black and white, wanted the same thing for their children: the best education possible."

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY was tuned into Hootie & the Blowfish long before they became the South's answer to Pearl Jam. "I remember seeing Hootie play when only about 40 fans showed up," he recalls. Farley, who frequently reviews music for TIME, journeyed to Columbia, South Carolina, to investigate the roots of Hootie's sound--an assignment that entailed some bar hopping with the band. "It's regional music with a national appeal," says Farley. Music was an inspiration to Farley in his first novel, My Favorite War, to be published this summer by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "It's not about music," he says, "but the words move to the rhythms I write about: alternative rock, hip-hop and postmodern jazz."

LARA MARLOWE was riding in a United Nations truck in southern Lebanon last week when, amid the sound of artillery fire, she heard on the vehicle's walkie-talkie that a refugee camp in nearby Qana had been hit by Israeli shells. As the truck made its way to the scene, several bombs exploded within 275 yds. of her convoy. This was nothing new for TIME's Beirut bureau chief. Marlowe has been perilously close to the action since she joined TIME in 1989. Her datelines include some of the world's most dangerous places: Kuwait, Iraq, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Somalia, Algeria. Fluent in French and Arabic, Marlowe has one inflexible rule for covering civil wars: "I've learned how crucial it is to show that I don't take sides."

JANICE C. SIMPSON, TIME's deputy chief of correspondents, hasn't had a dull moment--or even a quiet one--for weeks. From the death of Ron Brown to the capture of the Unabomber suspect to the plane crash of seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff, breaking news has required Simpson to cue the efforts of correspondents in TIME's 11 U.S. bureaus like a master conductor. Adding to her workload, she has lately been coordinating the reporting for a TIME paperback book based on the magazine's Unabomber cover. The book, Mad Genius, will be in bookstores in mid-May. "It's a perfect project for us," she says. "It fits naturally with the way we report big news events, sending out a team of correspondents to cover every angle of the story."