Else Jerusalem (1876 – 1943) was an Austrian writer and feminist intellectual. Considered a “thought leader” of the period, she is known for her best-selling 1909 novel Der heilige Skarabäus (The Sacred Scarab), which was based on her research into prostitution in Vienna.

Alfred Schwaid (1937 – 2014) lived in New York. His work appeared in numerous publications notably Central Park, Another Chicago Magazine, Asylum, Black Ice, New Orleans Review, and Confrontation. The book Everything Else Is Everything Else was his first collection of stories, originally published by Experimental Chapbook Press in 1993.

Stephanie D. Ortega has a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages from the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation was based on a reading of one of Christa Wolf’s books Kindheitsmuster. She headed the German program at SUNY for many years. Her new translation The Sacred Scarab will make Else Jerusalem’s feminist novel accessible to English readers for the first time in decades.

Skip Rhudy’s short stories have appeared in Asylum Annual, Central Park and other small press magazines. His translations from German have appeared in Dimension. Skip translated Wolfgang Hilbig’s Die Weiber into English in 1990 and wrote One Punk Summer while living in Berlin 1991. He is writing a book about surf culture on the Texas coast and a travel memoir about building and flying his own airplane.