How to use multiple subscribers as authors?

Hi everyone! I am working on a big WordPress CMS site using the Bangkok Press theme. Our site is a sort of magazine site and we will have 100s of contributing writers. I want to be able to do an author page on them and choose them as author when we post an article by them.

HOWEVER, we don’t want them to be able to login to the site as anything more than a subscriber.

I saw one tutorial that has a hack that lets subscribers show up in the author window – but it kept the other people out (e.g., admin and contributor). And also as we add more authors, the dropdown window for author is going to get insane!

Anyone know of a plugin or have a suggestion on how to do what I want? I wouuld be so appreciative! My initial thoughts are that I will have to build specific pages or templates for these authors, but I have no idea how to be able to select them as author to a post.

Thank you for any help or suggestions you can give! And of course if anyone wants to design a plugin, we could donate to your efforts ??