Let G be a bipartite graph, and let e, i be two parallel convex curves; we study the question about whether G admits a planar straight-line drawing such that the vertices of one partite set of G lie on e and the vertices of the other partite set lie on i. A characterization is presented that gives rise to linear time testing algorithm. We also describe a drawing algorithm that runs in linear time if the curves are two concentric circles and the real RAM model of computation is adopted. Article Type Communicated by Submitted Revised Regular paper M. Kaufmann and D. Wagner December 2006 September 2007 Research partially supported by MIUR under Project "ALGO-NEXT": Algorithms for the Next Generation Internet and Web: Methodologies, Design and Applications.