Contributors
Issue 7: Fight or Flight
Daniel Alarcón (The Visitor) is Associate Editor of the Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra, and author of two works of fiction, including the novel Lost City Radio.
Amelia (The Great Escape) is Jesse Emerson, Teisha Helgerson, Scott Weddle and Richard Cuellar. Teisha and Scott met in 2002 and began playing duo gigs and recording songs on a 4-track. When they had enough material together they got Scott's former Flatirons' bandmates, Jesse (upright bass) and Richard (drums), to play shows and record their first record.
Karen Bjorneby’s (Panther in the Woods) fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications, including The Threepenny Review, The North American Review, Puerto del Sol, and StoryQuarterly, and in her short story collection Hurricane Season (Sourcebooks, 2001.) She has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention citation, three other Pushcart nominations, and a National Magazine Award nomination. She lives and teaches in San Francisco, and she is at work on a novel.
Chris Colin (When We’re Going to Be There) is the author of What Really Happened to the Class of '93, and is working on a new book about freedom. His essay, "When We're Going to Be There," initially appeared in Salon.Com's Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventures and Romance. He's about to become a real, and not a make-believe, dad.
Wendy Drexler's (The Sanatorium at St. Paul de-Mausole) poems have appeared in the Aurorean, Barrow Street, Brooklyn Review, The Comstock Review (Honorable Mention, 2006 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award), Concho River Review, HeartLodge, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Nimrod (semi-finalist, 2006 Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize), Passager, POIESIS, RHINO 2007, Sahara, and the anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust. Her chapbook, "Drive-Ins, Gas Stations, the Bright Motels" (Pudding House, 2007), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Giving the Table a Name (Spongy) is based in Brooklyn, New York.
David Hopkins (Running with Knives) is from Dublin, Ireland. He is what he is and he writes songs. Some people will love those songs; it's all about fractions. See if you like him. His forthcoming album is called Good Cake, Bad Cake.
John Jodzio's (Make-a-Wish) work has recently appeared in Rake Magazine, The Florida Review and Opium. He’s won a Minnesota Magazine fiction prize and the Opium 500 Word Memoir competition and was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to finish a collection of short stories titled If You Lived Here, You’d Already Be Home. He lives in Minneapolis.
Kristin Kearns (Work in Progress) is the managing editor of ZYZZYVA. Her recent publications include stories in Confrontation, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Fiction.
Wendy Mnookin (Coyotes) is a poet living in Newton, Massachusetts. Her new book, The Moon Makes Its Own Plea, will be published in October by BOA Editions. You can learn more about her work at wendymnookin.com.
Ron Najor (Iraq) has received numerous awards and accolades for his accomplishments in filmmaking. He was selected two years in a row as an emerging filmmaker by Kodak’s "Emerging Filmmaker Program" and was taken to the Cannes Film Festival to have his worked showcased. Ron is also the only college student in the Television Academy's history to win three National Student Emmys for his work. He has spent the last several years honing his craft in music videos and is currently in post-production on directing and producing his next project with San Diego based hip-hop artist TIMZ. Their last video collaboration, Iraq, engineered nationwide controversy and was awarded "Best Music Video" at the Hollywood Film Festival in 2007.
Caroline Paul (Laika in Flight) is the author of the novel East Wind, Rain and the memoir Fighting Fire, about her years as a San Francisco firefighter.
Joe Quirk (For the Love of Flight) is the author of the novel The Ultimate Rush, a bestseller, and the non-fiction book It's Not You. It's Biology: The Science of Love, Sex & Relationships, which has been translated into 16 languages. He is also a copywriter for advertisers and public relations companies. For The Love of Flight is an excerpt from his second novel, Exult.
Emily Raabe (The House in the Meadow) lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of a monograph on the work of the sculptor Lawrence LaBianca, and her poetry has been published in periodicals including Indiana Review, Diner, Chelsea, Alaska Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast, Crab Orchard Review, Antioch Review, AGNI Online, Eleven Eleven, and The Brooklyn Review. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, Rotary International, and the Breadloaf Writers Conference.
Jonathan Rice’s (Shadow Weight) poems have been published in Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, New Delta Review, and Sycamore Review, among others, and are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Georgetown Review, pacificREVIEW, and Notre Dame Review. His work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and was selected for the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, the Milton-Kessler Memorial Prize from Harpur Palate, the Yellowwood Poetry Prize from Yalobusha Review, and the AWP Intro to Journals Project. He received an MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches writing.
Julia Scheeres (New Girl) is the author of the bestselling memoir Jesus Land. She is currently at work on a book about the 1978 mass murder/suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, in which over 900 Americans died after ingesting a cyanide-laced punch.
Eric Schniewind (The Mishearing Game) has, for the most part, phased cold cereal out of his life. He now eats a lot of steel cut oats for breakfast. Despite the change, he still only writes, acts, and works with wood on occasion.
Nina Schuyler's (Black Holes) first novel, The Painting, was nominated for the Northern California Book Award. She teaches creative writing at University of San Francisco.
Sick of Sarah (Breakdown) began in Minneapolis, MN in April 2005 as an all-female band with catchy hooks, unique lyrics and thoughtful, well-crafted music. The band displays talent, passion, and an ever-present sense of humor that shapes many of their songs. Sick of Sarah is Abisha Uhl, Katie Murphy, Jessie Farmer, Brooke Svanes, and Jamie Holm.
April Sinclair (Straight Outta Marin) is the author of three novels, Coffee Will Make You Black, a critically acclaimed bestseller; Ain’t Gonna Be The Same Fool Twice; and I Left My Back Door Open. Sinclair received the Carl Sandburg Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library for Coffee Will Make You Black, which the American Library Association named a Book of the Year in 1994 (Young Adult Fiction). Sinclair has been a fellow at the Ragdale, MacDowell, Yaddo and Djerassi artist colonies. She currently lives in Berkeley and is working on her fourth novel. “Straight Outta Marin” is excerpted with permission from Single Woman of a Certain Age: 29 Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife - Romantic Escapades, Heavy Petting, Empty Nests, Shifting Shapes and Serene Independence, edited by Jane Ganahl (Inner Ocean Publishing).
Bayeté Ross Smith (Lady Like) graduated from Florida A&M University, where he studied photography and graphic arts technology. He began his career as a photojournalist, working with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Charlotte Observer and Newsday. His work has been exhibited through out the U.S. and internationally. In 2007, as part of the Cause Collective, he completed a public art piece for Oakland International Airport, entitled “Along The Way,” a 15-minute video mosaic, which was also an official selection for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Bayeté was awarded a Kala Arts Fellowship in 2008 and a residency at Can Serrat International Art Center in Spain for 2007-2008. He was also awarded a residency at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. Bayeté is a faculty member at the California College of the Arts and works as a teacher and mentor for youth on community-based art projects in Oakland, San Francisco, the Bronx, and Harlem.
Dave Young (Henley Regatta) has been a photographer since the early nineties, working for magazines, design and advertising. Recently he has also made some short films using the same style and methodologies. In all his work he tries to show how he feels about his subject: to cast his shadow over the work, as someone once said. He’s a single shooter, operating camera and sound much like when he is shooting personal photo projects. View more films at www.podfilms.tv and photography at www.daveyoung.co.uk.
NYC singer/songwriter Emily Zuzik (Fly) is best known for her roots-rock vocal sensibilities and sharp pop tunesmith. With "Fly," she slips on the veneer of a dance diva and invites you to smile and dance along.
Adam Zwig (Who Killed Michael Vaughn?), Ph.D. is a nationally recognized singer songwriter, psychotherapist, and author. You can find out more at AdamZwig.com.