CONTRIBUTORS

Contributing editor DAVID MARGOLICK spent more than 15 years reporting on legal affairs, largely for The New York Times, before coming to V.F, where he has written on subjects ranging from Billie Holiday to Tony Blair. This month, he returns to his old beat as he investigates George W. Bush's efforts to overhaul the U.S. judiciary with far-rightwing appointees. "The effect of the Bush judiciary appointments will take years to determine," says Margolick. "You're left to reflect, really, on who these people are and what they're like, rather than what they've done." Margolick is currently working on a book, due out next fall from Knopf, about the 1938 heavyweight championship bout between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling.

In 1989, INGRID SISCHY wrote an article for The New Yorker about the cancellation of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery. Recently, she felt a renewed need to speak out for freedom after learning that Subhankar Baneijee's photographs of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge had become the center of a raging political debate over oil drilling. "The fact that photographs of foliage, birds, and pregnant Porcupine caribou are considered 'too hot to handle' got me on alert regarding the state of our country,' says Sischy, the editor in chief of Interview and a V.F. contributing editor. "As Americans, we must respect the audience and give them an uncensored chance to make their own decision."

DR. HOWARD DEAN, governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002, spent a busy fall campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his season on the trail opened his eyes to the special needs of the American poor. "Traveling the country in my run for president, I've become well acquainted with the struggle of many of the millions of Americans who deal with poverty or near poverty," says Dean, whose book Winning Back America is due out this month from Simon & Schuster. "It's been a real honor to contribute to Vanity Fair, particularly on a subject of such national importance." His article on poverty in the U.S., accompanied by photographs by Larry Fink, begins on page 196.

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Contributing photographer HARRY BENSON landed in America with the Beatles, stood beside Robert Kennedy the night he was shot, and watched from a few feet away as Nixon resigned. Still, the former Life photographer is always eager for his next assignment. This month he journeyed to Florida, where a suspected lynching took place, and to Colorado, where a rape scandal has rocked the U.S. Air Force Academy. "These two stories need to be told," Benson says. "They are the types of stories that, unless you keep on them, the media and ultimately the public will forget." Benson's new book, Once There Was a Way ... Photographs of the Beatles, was published this month by Harry N. Abrams.

This month's story about the scandal surrounding the fate of Sir Harold Acton's 57-acre Italian estate, La Pietra, took JUDY BACHRACH to Florence, where the gossip flows as freely as the wine. "Every night, I would go out with people I had just met and who were now my new friends," says Bachrach. "You don't spend five minutes there without learning about their ancestors and every scandal their family has ever had." This proved invaluable to Bachrach as she investigated a hotly disputed inheritance claim. Bachrach also found time to enjoy the country she once lived in for four and a half years. "Italy is paradise, and every time I go there I weep with joy."

As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq unfolded, CLARA BINGHAM thought about writing a book with a happy ending, describing how women in the military had overcome prejudice and become a significant part of America's armed forces. But then the news broke of an epidemic of rape and sexual-assault reports at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. "I was surprised," says Bingham, who interviewed nine alleged victims for her article. "I didn't expect the military to still be in the Dark Ages, but there's a very prevalent resentment among male cadets toward female cadets." Bingham is the co-author of Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law, which has been optioned for a movie by Warner Bros.

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Upon arriving in Belle Glade, Florida, to investigate the lynching rumors surrounding the death of Ray Golden, contributing editor NANCY JO SALES felt as if she had stepped into a Sidney Poitier movie. "A time warp happens on State Road 80 between West Palm Beach and Belle Glade," says Sales, whose article starts on page 334. "You go back to 1957." Having grown up in Florida in the late 60s and 70s, Sales remembers the "dreadful, miserable feeling of racial tension" that existed then. "It's tragic that we're talking about the same issues now," she says. "People would like to think that we've dealt with racism in America, but Belle Glade is proof that, as Faulkner said, 'The past is never past.'"

According to contributing editor EVGENIA PERETZ (here with her nine-monthold son, Elias), a visit with photographer Slim Aarons can last no less than six hours. "He has met everyone you've ever heard of, and chances are he has a great tidbit about them that he needs to share," she says. "One story leads to another, until you are swimming in a sea of anecdotes." Though she admits that sorting through the facts during these sessions was often exhausting—particularly since she was eight months pregnant at the time—it was well worth it. "Mr. Aarons can be impossible, but also impossibly endearing. Events from 50 years ago will make his face light right up—and he wants you to be just as excited as he is."

When assistant art director LEE RUELLE moved to New yrk City to attend Pratt Institute, he didn't think he would stay. Within a month, however; he was hooked, captivated by the city's art scene and general creative buzz. Ruelle, who has worked at V.F. for more than five years, now designs the magazine's Fanfair section. "I see myself as a visual playwright," he says, "casting photos and headlines to create drama and romance. When designing, it is crucial to keep the various elements from upstaging each other, to get them to harmonize. And when they do, it's a beautiful thing." The Wisconsin native's other passion is painting, and he will be exhibiting next month in Williamsburg.