Please visit often to see our ever-expanding list of 2009 festival participants. To apply for involvement in Pilcrow Lit Fest, please email with links and a brief bio, or proposal for event inclusion.
Participants
Sally Alatalo is an artist and writer based in Chicago. Alatalo's written, printed and performative work intersects with popular-cultural forms and activities such as genre fiction, hairdressing and household tasks, to examine themes of gender, identity, and cultural privilege and production. A recent project, a back-to-back book, "Love Takes Two/The Other Side," is a study, in poem and essay, of grammatical conventions utilized in popular romance fiction. Ongoing research includes an examination of habits of repair and re-use of language and material. Alatalo has performed in Chicago, New York, Cincinnati, London and Rotterdam. She is sole proprietor of Sara Ranchouse Publishing.
Alverne DeJesus Ball is the creator and writer of the Virgin Wolf graphic novel series as well as the graphic novel, Zulu. He is also the creator and writer of the R-Squared and Geddeon comic books self-published under the banner of Quality Quill. Mr. Ball earned his BA in Fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago and is currently working on his Masters in Fiction writing. He taught graphic storytelling at Noble Street high school in Chicago for over a year. His writing has been published in the literary magazine Annalemma, in the Columbia College newspaper The Chronicle on line at Brokenfrontier.com and online for the Museum of contemporary Photography. His latest short stories have appeared in the anthologies Sin and Sex by Avendia Press. Mr. Ball is currently in Los Angeles, CA working on teleplays, screenplays, and a new fantasy based graphic novel entitled Guilds as well as an online comic series entitled "Dime".
David Barringer is an author, graphic designer, and ex-attorney. He has written American Home Life (So New, 2007), a novel about parenthood; co-written Unbound, a 2009 book on the future of the legal industry; and published two books on design culture: There�s Nothing Funny about Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009) and American Mutt Barks in the Yard (Emigre, 2005). He is the recipient of the 2008 Winterhouse Award for Design Writing & Criticism. He has written for I.D. Magazine, Eye Magazine, Emigre, AIGA's Voice, the New York Times Book Review, and many other periodicals and anthologies. He is senior editor and designer of Opium Magazine and the creator of the Dead Bug Funeral Kit. He grew up in Michigan and now lives in North Carolina.
Kyle Beachy's first novel, The Slide, recently won the Chicago Reader's "Readers' Choice" for Best Book in the Last Year By a Chicago Author. Critics from the Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Arkansas Post-Gazette, and more have praised the novel as "funny", "complex", and "unusually good". His short fiction has also appeared in decomP, The2ndHand and as a Featherproof MiniBook, and he teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jason Behrends is the creator of the independent arts and culture blog, What to Wear During an Orange Alert, and also runs the corresponding Orange Alert Reading Series at The Whistler. In addition he runs the Orange Alert Press which released its first title last fall and has two more releases planned for 2009. If that wasn't enough he launched the only Chicago-centric music blog, The Deli Chicago, in November 2008. The Deli is a nationwide publication and he was proud to launch the Chicago edition. If you needed more he is the art editor of the on-line literary journals Thieves Jargon and decomP, the music editor for This Zine Will Change Your Life and is an occasional contributor to the Chicago webzine Gapers Block. He is a father of four and a caffeine junkie who rarely sleeps more than five hours.
Kathie Bergquist is co-author (with Robert McDonald) of A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago (Lake Claremont Press), author of four biographies of pop stars for teenagers (all published by Billboard Books and Virgin U.K.) and the City Editor of the Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago. Her writing has appeared in Best Lesbian Romance 2009 (Cleis Press), Best Date Ever (Alyson Press) Out in All Directions (Warner Books) and in Girlfriends Magazine, Diva, the Advocate, Out, Publishers Weekly and The Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly. She is the publicist for Women & Children First Bookstore, an adjunct faculty in the Fiction Department of Columbia College Chicago, a frequent contributor to The Chicago Reader, and currently finishing her first novel.
Bobby Biedrzycki is a writer and performer who came to Chicago from St. Paul, Minnesota via The Bronx, New York. Bobby's writing has appeared in The Black Bear Review, Hair Trigger 28 & 29, The Banana King, Ghost Factory and Ante:thesis Volumes I & II. He has worked as a book reviewer for both Time Out Chicago and Punk Planet Magazine and his stories have been produced Off Broadway. Bobby is an adjunct faculty member of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago and he also teaches creative writing for teens through the After School Matters program. Along with being a company member of The Serendipity Collective and performing monthly with 2nd Story, Bobby is currently at work on his first novel, Driving Back to Normal.
Charles Blackstone lives in Chicago and is the co-editor of The Art of Friction: Where (Non) Fictions Come Together, a collection of short fiction and creative nonfiction (and hybrids of the two), published in October 2008 by University of Texas Press. Blackstone's short fiction has appeared in Esquire, The Toronto Review, The2ndHand, and elsewhere. He is a regular contributor to Chicago Public Radio.
June Blazek is a writer from Chicago and recently graduated with a degree in Professional Writing from DePaul University. She participates in the local chapter of Drinking Liberally, volunteers at the Albany Park Community Center and with Chicago's Organic School Project, and frequents local music happenings. June designs and edits the newsletter for local children’s charity, USTORM.
Hank Boland's most recent works include Fitting In, commissioned by 2nd Story in 2008, Strawdog Radio Theatre VI: A Many-Splendored Thing and the epic musical, The True Ballad Of Fall's Blessings, also with Strawdog. Hank is the co-author (with Todd Mueller and Gregg Opelka) of four musical comedies: Monky Business, Monky Business II: Back In The Sandals, Soup Du Jour, and The Singin' Cowboy which have collectively had over one hundred and fifty productions around the world. Hank spends much of his non-writing time shepherding new works. Hank oversees Strawdog Theatre Company�s writing program modestly known as The Hit Factory! where he has designed and taught seminars on audio theatre, personal essay & monologues, and 10-minute plays. In addition to theater work, Hank has a B.A. in Film from Columbia College Chicago where he has been an adjunct faculty member in the Film and Video Department since 2004 and also teaches Screenwriting at Chicago FilmMakers. Hank is a proud ensemble member of Strawdog Theatre Company.
Mark Brand is a Manual Therapy specialist who lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with his wife/editor Beth and his son/copilot John. He has been writing sci-fi and speculative sociological fiction for approximately fifteen years, and is a native of northern NY. While attending St. Lawrence University for Biology and Sociology, he co-founded Dyingdays.com, the predecessor of Silverthought.com, with Paul Hughes in 1999. He is currently an associate editor for Silverthought, and assists with fiction contests and reviewing short story submissions. Highlights of his work include the critically well-received Red Ivy Afternoon, his second novel, which received the Bronze medal in the 2007 Independent Publishing Awards. Also, he has written a number of short stories that have appeared in print in Silverthought: Ignition and Alien Light: A Science Fiction Anthology, as well as being featured regularly on Silverthought.com. Additionally, he is known widely for having published one of the first comprehensive academic studies of the backyard wrestling phenomenon. "Backyard Wrestling: The Sincerest Form of Flattery" has been reprinted in over a dozen online and print publications, and cited in numerous follow-up studies and television documentaries.
Theresa Carter is the founder and publisher of The Local Tourist: Chicago’s Neighborhood Website, speaks at the monthly Chic To Be Geek series and is on the advisory board of Social Media Club Chicago. She’s an Emmy award winning member of the NBC5 Street Team and a Peter Lisagor Award finalist for Best Community and Neighborhood News. When she’s not telling people what to do and where to go, she’s training to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro this summer to raise money for pediatric cancer research.
Cinnamon Cooper has been writing since before she knew how to spell and her mother would pretend to read it. Thankfully her writing improved as a journalism major at The Ohio State University. She went on to become Editor-in-Chief of The Lantern which was the fifth largest daily newspaper in the state of Ohio. Her dreams of becoming a feminist columnist who also wrote about crafting and cooking didn't come true in a professional sense. But she started blogging in 2001 where she has continued to write about these things in equal measure. She's a columnist and frequent contributor to Gapers Block and has written for Time Out Chicago and Venus Magazine. She's spent most of her writing energy focused on craft writing for her site Poise.cc and a dozen or so others over the years. Her food writing has appeared mostly on Gapers Block but she just got a book deal to write a cookbook about cast iron cooking. She hopes to begin writing a book about the current craft resurgence next year.
Jill Craig is the editor of the queer literary webzine Swell. She is the current president of Chicago's oldest organization for GLBT writers, NewTown Writers. When she is not editing she spends time on her own writing and performances. Her current work includes creative non-fiction which uses her personal experiences as a framework for examining issues of class, mental health, and relationships. She lives in Chicago.
Ezra Claytan Daniels was born in Sioux City, IA in 1979. At 19, Ezra moved to Portland, OR to pursue a career as an illustrator. It was there that Ezra became a staple of the independent comics community with his self-published graphic novel series, The Changers as well as his game show-inspired live art spectacle, The Comic Art Battle. In 2006, Ezra founded Loaded Blanks Greetings, a greeting card line featuring both established as well as up and coming comics artists. Ezra currently resides in Chicago where he is hard at work on his second graphic novel, Upgrade Soul.
Larry O. Dean was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, during which time he won three Hopwood Awards in Creative Writing, an honor shared with fellow poets Robert Hayden, Jane Kenyon, and Frank O'Hara, among others. He is author of numerous chapbooks, including I Am Spam (2004), a series poems by junk email; his poetry has also been internationally anthologized. In addition to writing, he is a singer-songwriter, performing solo as well as with his current band, The Injured Parties; he has released many critically-acclaimed CDs including Fables in Slang (2001) with Post Office, and Gentrification is Theft (2002) with The Me Decade. Dean was a 2004 recipient of the Hands on Stanzas Gwendolyn Brooks Award, presented by the Poetry Center of Chicago.
Amanda Delheimer feels extraordinarily blessed to work as a freelance director, choreographer, writer, and educator all over the fine city of Chicago. After completing her Master's in Theater and Spanish at the University of Chicago in 1999, Amanda worked for a couple of years in Los Angeles and Mexico before returning home to the Windy City. She is the Artistic Director of the Serendipity Theatre Collective and is also an Artistic Associate with Collaboraction Theater Company and Adventure Stage Chicago. When she's not running Serendipity, Amanda spends her time working in the local public schools as a teaching artist, teaching storytelling, playwrighting, and personal narrative in classrooms throughout the city. She has had the pleasure of working with the Steppenwolf, the Goodman, the Court, the Next, Pegasus Players, Red Moon, Collaboraction, Strawdog, Teatro Vista, and Adventure Stage Chicago, among others.
Sarah Dodson is the director of MAKE Literary Productions, NFP and the managing editor of the organization's publication MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine.
Zach Dodson's hybrid typo/graphic novel, boring boring boring boring boring boring boring, came out last year under the nom de plume Zach Plague. He has launched such experiments as Featherproof Books, Bleached Whale Design, and The Show N' Tell Show. His writing has appeared in The2ndHand, ACM, Take the Handle, and Proximity Magazine. His design has appeared in MAKE Magazine, Punk Planet, Resonance, Mule, and Bagazine. He used to have a really great mustache.
Robert Duffer writes for TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Public Radio's 848, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Artists Resource and other sources regular and not. Recent publications include Flashquake, Annalemma, Word Riot, Pindledyboz, and The 2nd Hand. His novel excepts can be read on his website, robbertduffer.com.
Mary Duncan is a Masters student in the social sciences at the University of Chicago and works with the Teaching Artist Research Project.
Eric Elshtain is currently finishing his PhD in the University of Chicago's Committee on the History of Culture. Eric is Poet-in-Residence at Stroger Hospital of Cook County through Snow City Arts. He is the editor of Chicago's on-line Beard of Bees Press, http://www.beardofbees.com, and is also a poet-in-residence at Galileo Scholastic Academy where he teaches poetry to fourth grade students. His own poetry, reviews and interviews have been published in a variety of literary journals.
Drew Ferguson received his MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago. He is author of the acclaimed first novel, The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second (Kensington Publishing, September 2008). His work has appeared in Blithe House Quarterly, the James White Review, Hair Trigger, The Great Lawn, and other publications. His short stories have been nominated for the AWP Intro Award, Scribner's Best of the Writing Workshops, and the Best Gay Fiction series.
Mary Fons-Misetic is a full-time freelance writer, nationally ranked slam poet, and Neo-Futurist who has performed original work professionally on stages from from New York to L.A. and all kinds of places in between. Mary's popular blog, "PaperGirl," the "Insty-Poem Delivery Service" and her chapbooks can be found at her website.
Khanisha Foster is an actor/writer. She is a proud company member of Serendipity Theater Collective, where she is also performance director, and Teatro Vista. She has worked with the Goodman Theater, Steep, Marry Arrchie and many others. You can see her in the film Chicago Boricua; and she teaches acting and arts integration at Columbia College Chicago.
Terry Gant is the owner and operator of Third Coast Comics in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. Started in 2005 as an online comic book store, specializing in graphic novels, Third Coast Comics is now a brick and mortar as well, catering to a market largely ignored by the traditional comic book retail industry. Terry earned his BA in Marketing (focusing on geeks) from DePaul University and would consider a MA in Marketing (again to geeks) if he ever planned to get another day job but he keeps his fingers crossed that that never happens again. Terry maintains (when time allows) the blog, Words, Lines and Pictures (www.3rdcoastcomics.blogspot.com) where he spouts on about everything from the state of the comics industry to his opinion of the coolest superheroes ever to wear hats. Terry once thought he was the only African American Comic Book Retailer in the United States but has received a phone call from Atlanta, GA from a guy who may have been here first. He will settle for being the only Black Comic Book Retailer in the Midwest, which he prefers over the East Coast any day of the week. Terry currently lives in Evanston, IL with his very patient and understanding wife and their 3 birds, Harthorne, and 2 finches so identical that names would be pointless.
Gwendolyn Glover is a feminist writer and author of "Cast the First Stone," her first novel. Glover, who graduated from Oral Roberts University in 2003 with a BA in Literary Writing, enjoys tutoring English as a Second Language and Creative Writing and has plans to provide fantastic and futuristic stories as learning tools for her students. Glover, who has lived in Ohio, Virginia, Oklahoma and San Francisco, currently resides in Chicago and, despite being an introvert, seeks adventure and dreams of living in Europe someday.
Amy Guth is the founder/director of Pilcrow Lit Fest, managing editor at So New Publishing, assistant fiction editor at 42 Opus and author of Three Fallen Women (2006). She has written for The Believer, Monkeybicycle, Ninth Letter, Four Magazine, Bookslut, The Complete Meal and Outcry, among others. In addition to her personal blog, Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again, she also writes a running, adventure and fitness blog, Bonkless. Previously, she collaborated in several sketch comedy productions at Second City's training center and other improv comedy venues, and hosted/curated Chicago's Fixx Reading Series. Next, she's focusing on her next novel, volunteer disaster response, filmmaking and adventure races.
Savannah Schroll Guz is author of The Famous & The Anonymous (2004) and editor of Consumed: Women on Excess (2005). Her new fiction collection, American Soma, will be released by So New in 2009. She writes a monthly reference book review column for Library Journal and is an art critic for Pittsburgh City Paper. Previously nominated for a Pushcart and a Storysouth Million Writers Award, she teaches English at West Virginia Northern Community College.
Tim Hall was born when he was very young and small and has since grown older and much larger. Finding the real world entirely too difficult, he began creating his own worlds in elementary school and still has trouble telling the difference sometimes. He recently relocated from NYC to the Chicago suburbs so when sea levels rise he will be sitting on some prime oceanfront property. He is the creator of AuthorShares, a new way for writers and presses to sell stock in their work.
Lynn Haller is a literary agent with Salkind Literary Agency, a leading literary agency for computer and other nonfiction books. She has represented authors in such leading computer book series as the Dummies, Head First, and Missing Manual series, as well as finding writers for Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Mapquest, and other tech companies; she has also represented a broad array of other nonfiction projects outside of the tech world. Lynn is also an author; her latest book is Design Secrets: Products 2: 50 Real-Life Product Design Projects Uncovered.
Jane Hertenstein has been involved in community building in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago for the past twenty-five years and splits her day between cooking breakfast for 300 people and writing. She leads a creative writing workshop at an area homeless shelter and is also the co-city rep for SCBWI, a national organization for writers and illustrators for children. Jane has published two books, one a young adult novel titled Beyond Paradise which was a PBS Teacher Recommended Book, and Orphan Girl. She has also published a children's picture book titled Home is Where We Live: Life at a Homeless Shelter Through a Young Girl's Eyes. Her short stories have appeared at tonopahreview.com, WordRiot, cantaraville.com, and Rosebud magazine.
Jessica Hopper is a music and culture critic based in Chicago. Her work regularly appears in Chicago Reader, LA Weekly and Chicago Tribune; she is also the music consultant for This American Life. Her book, The Girls Guide to Rocking (Workman), will be published in May 2009.
Andrew Huff is editor and publisher of Gapers Block, a Chicago-centric web publication he co-founded in 2003 with designer Naz Hamid. The site has a volunteer staff of around 75, and has received accolades ranging from top news-reporting blog in Chicago Magazine's recent "Best Chicago Websites" feature to being named one of the best city blogs in Forbes.com's "Best of the Web." Andrew has been blogging since January 2001, and in addition to Gapers Block is now a full-time professional blogger and social media consultant after 10 years in public relations. Blogging clients have included American Express, Starwood Hotels, A&E television and Kenneth Cole. He lives in West Rogers Park with his partner, Cinnamon Cooper, and two cats.
Lindsay Hunter is a writer living in Chicago. She is the co-founder and co-host of the Quickies! reading series, and her work has been published in places like Nerve, MAKE, Featherproof, Hobart, and Thieves Jargon, among others.
Stacy Jill Jacobs is a writer, event producer, marketing goddess, and web geek grrl all wrapped up into one package. She is the Marketing Director for aqua betty, a full service marketing firm geared to support small businesses and individuals. Stacy is currently working on her first book of short stories about her family entitled "The True Stories of a Rye Bread Princess."
Tim Jahn is a new media thinker and creator from Chicago, IL who probably has a song stuck in his head right now. His blog "The Sun Rises Today" explores marketing, brands, and media through the eyes of everyday people. With a background in web development and a love for movies with great stories, Tim writes from both a logical and a personal point of view. He believes that small is better, people should be treated like people, and simple will always win.
Leah Jones is the founder of Natiiv Arts & Media where she is a social media coach for artists, writers and musicians, and is also the social media staff member for Pilcrow Lit Fest. Prior to launching Natiiv, Jones was at Edelman PR as the Digital-Culture Evangelist. She served on the Strategic Services team and previously, she was the Conversation Analyst in the me2revolution--focusing on research and internal communications. Before joining Edelman, Jones worked in study abroad administration, university housing, restaurant management, and is a former stand-up comic. With a degree in chemistry from Millikin University, her diverse background helps her make unique connections online and off. Jones has been blogging since November 2003 at Leah in Chicago, also writes for a number of online and offline publications and has a novel in the works.
Jesse Jordan received his MFA from Columbia College, and his work has been published in Bluelit, FreighTrain, Annalemma, Ghost Factory, and Hair Trigger 26, in which it received the David Friedman Memorial Award, as well as in The Panic Diaries (Ulysses Press, 2004). Also, he is regular reader at Chicago's Reading Under the Influence, and is completing his first novel, The Detective.
James Kennedy is the author of The Order Of Odd-Fish (Random House / Delacorte Press 2008), a fantastical YA comedy that was one of the Smithsonian's Notable Books for Children 2008. Booklist praised ODD-FISH as "hilarious . . . readers with a finely tuned sense of the absurd are going to adore the Technicolor ride" and Time Out Chicago described it as "a work of mischievous imagination and outrageous invention." After graduating the University of Notre Dame with a degree in physics and philosophy, he worked as a junior high school teacher and computer programmer. He trained in improv comedy at Second City and Improv Olympic. He is in the Chicago art-punk band Brilliant Pebbles. James also lived for three years in Japan--ask him about his terrifying experience at Japan's rough-and-tumble Naked Man Festival. James' theatrical, borderline spastic readings from THE ORDER OF ODD-FISH have caused concern at bookstores, libraries, and schools. He lives in Humboldt Park in Chicago.
Lenny Kleinfeld began his career in 1211 BC, writing the scripts for the Warp trilogy at the Organic Theater. During the following centuries he reviewed theater for the Reader, wrote the theater column for Chicago magazine, and supplied fiction and humor to fill the spaces between the photographs in Playboy. He then moved to Los Angeles where he specialized in selling screenplays which never got produced. His first novel, Shooters & Chasers, was published this February. Kirkus Reviews called it a spellbinding debut, Mystery Scene magazine shot back, no, it's a dazzling debut, while the Sun-Times settled for asserting Kleinfeld's debut...is smart, intriguing and very funny.
Jacob S. Knabb’s double-life as Fiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine and lecturer of composition at UIC has led him to cast his demons into a herd of swine he saw by a ravine. He is still waiting to hear them hit bottom.
Daniel Kraus is a Chicago-based writer and filmmaker. He is the director of six feature films, including Sheriff (2006 season premiere of PBS's Emmy-winning "Independent Lens") and Musician (2007 New York Times Critics' Pick). His first novel, The Monster Variations, will come out in August from Random House/Delacorte and has recently been optioned for a movie. His second novel, Rotters, will come out from Random House/Delacorte in 2011. He has written regularly for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Maxim, and Salon.com, and is Associate Editor for Booklist magazine.
Stephanie Kuehnert got her start writing nonsensical short stories in grammar school and bad poetry in junior high. She moved on to creating 'zines in high school and eventually wound up at Columbia College Chicago where she got both her BA and MFA in Creative Writing. Her first YA novel, I Wanna Be You Joey Ramone, was published in 2008 by MTV Books. Ballads Of Suburbia is forthcoming from MTV Books in July 2009. Stephanie lives in Forest Park, IL.
Deb R. Lewis has been published in literary magazines in Europe and the U.S., including Cafe Irreal, Outsider Ink (Artist Spotlight), Velvet Mafia, Gertrude, Blithe House Quarterly, Dyversity, International Drummer, and Bad Attitude. She's been a featured reader in many venues, including Homolatte, Jenny Seay's Tamale Hut Cafe, Women and Children First, Quimby's, the Bailiwick Studio Theater, and WCRX 88.1 FM as well as 2nd Story monthly and special performances for Literary Gangs of Chicago and Strawdog Late Night. Her novel, Hades' Son, was a Top Three Finalist in the 2008 Project: Queer Lit novels competition.
Billy Lombardo’s collection of short fiction, "The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories" was a Chicago Tribune Best Fiction of 2005 selection. “Meanwhile, Roxy Mourns,” a book of poetry/prose (EM Press) and his novel in stories, “How to Hold a Woman,” (OV Books) are due in June 2009. He is the founding artistic director of Polyphony H.S., a national student-run literary magazine for high school writers and editors. He teaches at The Latin School of Chicago.
Carol Ng-He, born and raised in Hong Kong, is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and art educator. She received a Master's degree of Arts in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Carol has exhibited and performed locally including the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Jane Addams-Hull House Museum, Koehnline Museum of Art at Oakton Community College, Woman Made Gallery, Mess Hall, Links Hall, and the Duncan YMCA Chernin Center for the Arts in Chicago. In her interdisciplinary art practices, Carol explores the hybridity of cultural identities, and interactivity of human intellectual exchange across time, space, and imagination. Her work is featured on Chicago Artists Resource and her publications include Silk Road Theatre Project's Alternative Cultural Education and Stepping In and Out: Performance Art in the Community College ESL Curriculum on Community Arts Network, as well as Reflection on the Role of Artists: A Case Study on the Hidden Visual Curriculum of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in Teaching Artists Journal. As a teaching artist, Carol has been a member of Chicago Teaching Artists Collective (CTAC) since 2006 and has freelanced at the Silk Road Theatre Project, Chicago Teen Museum and Young Asians with Power! (YAWP!). Currently she teaches at Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University, and Oakton Community College.
Conor McCarthy is a graduate of Wheaton College. He obtained his four-year bachelor's degree in Psychology, with minors in Bible and Theology and General Badassery. He has been a writer of humor and satire for two years, writing for publications such as "Off the Record," "The Wittenberg Door," and "The Talking Mirror." He is now the co-founder and Managing Editor of TheTalkingMirror.com, a site that receives tens of dozens of hits every day. TTM focuses on satire and humor from a conservative perspective, as well as Conor's campaign to win Jennifer Love Hewitt's hand in marriage. He also has some other writing projects underway, including two screen plays and a novel (about zombies).
Pat Mohr serves as the program coordinator for 826CHI. In this role, he manages the field trip program and co-manages the drop-in tutoring program. Pat joined 826CHI as an intern in the fall of 2007, assisting with programs and student publishing before joining the staff in the summer of 2008. After graduating from Miami University in 2006 with a degree in literature, Pat traveled and taught in several Latin American countries before returning to Chicago.
J. Adams Oaks has an MFA from Columbia College Chicago. He is a member of Serendipity Theatre�s story development team and curates their "2nd Story" reading series at Webster's Wine Bar. He has been published in Hairtrigger, River Oak Review, 2D, No Touching and The Madison Review. His work won Chicago Public Radio"s "Stories On Stage" competition. And his first novel, Why I Fight (April 2009, Simon and Schuster), won both the National Society of Arts and Letters regional competition and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award.
Nick Ostdick is in the MFA program at Southern Illinois University. Once the editor of RAGAD, a literary broadside and online magazine, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Margins, Annalemma, Night Train, Pindeldyboz, and elsewhere, and his story 'The Sleeping Shags' was a 2007 StorySouth Notable Story. He's read at conferences and venues across the country and is currently working on a collection of short ficton.
Jason Pettus is the owner and executive director of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. Before that he was a creative writer for a decade; among other interesting experiences, he self-published three novels and two travel books, placed second at the 1997 National Poetry Slam, won a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and performed in such venues as National Public Radio and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
Will Petty served as the associate editor of West Suburban Living Magazine for more than four years in suburban Chicago. Concurrently, he was the founder and managing editor of The Insider, an alternative newsweekly distributed to more than 1,000 locations throughout Chicagoland. Presently, he is the Communications Director of the Chicago Teamsters. The labor organization represents 22 local unions, assisting more than 100,000 members in coordinating Teamster activities, solving problems and organizing.
Caroline Picard is the Founding Director of The Green Lantern Gallery & Press, a Co-Editor for the literary podcast The Parlor. Her writing has been published in a handful of publications including the Phildelphia Independant, AREA Chicago, Omnia Vanitas, and the Chicago Art Journal Review.
Melissa Pierce is passionate about learning how technology has changed the way we think of ourselves both as a society and as individuals. She's interested in understanding why it has enabled us to live more spontaneous less planned lives, and is bootstrapping the documentary film and accompanying book Life In Perpetual Beta to explore these issues. In May of 2008, she accidentally became a documentary film producer after using her family's handy camera to record a conversation she had with author Dan Pink. Hell bent on doing exactly what she loves for the rest of her life, Melissa is determined to unmask the link between creativity and authenticity, and share her findings with the world. When she isn't filming or writing you can find her speaking at conferences, crashing private parties, making art out of duct tape, and discovering the wonders of Chicago with her three precocious children.
Jill Pollack, founder of StoryStudio Chicago, is an award-winning communications consultant, writer and editor. Through StoryStudio, Jill teaches creative writing to individuals and leads customized seminars for businesses and professionals. Using her degree in theatre, Jill curates and directs the reading series, "Writers Read Showcase." She has published books for children and young adults and is currently at work on a novel for adults.
Dave Reidy lives in Chicago. In 2007, Charles D'Ambrosio named his story "The Regular" the winner of the Emerging Writers Network Short Fiction Contest. Dave's collection of stories about performers will be published in June 2009 by Ig Publishing. More of his work can be accessed through Facebook.
Evelyn Rodriguez is a conceptual artist and interactive media writer currently residing in Chicago and New Orleans. She has a BS in computer engineering, and has been an invited speaker at social media and blogging conferences such as SxSW Interactive, BlogHer, Syndicate, and SNCR. Since surviving the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, she has shifted from transactional use of participatory Internet media to experimental artistic and humanist projects that transcend the printed word. An essay featured Evelyn’s micro-blogging of post-Katrina New Orleans has appeared on the anthology, "Toward 2012: Perspectives on the New Age" edited by Daniel Pinchbeck. She is currently writing an alternative reality game delving into themes of creative ecosystems and muses incorporating handwritten letter-writing and 'zines.
Dan Sinker teaches in the journalism department at Columbia College Chicago where he focuses on entrepreneurial journalism and the mobile web. He was the founding editor of the influential underground culture magazine Punk Planet until its closure in 2007 and is the editor of We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet, the collected interviews. He was a 2007-08 Knight Fellow at Stanford University and currently blogs about media for the Huffington Post.
Sarah Stanley is the founder of Sarah Stanley Inspired. She has been blessed to be able to start 5 business before the age 30. Sarah is also a competitive athlete in the running & triathlon world. She uses her passion for healthy living to inspire others. Be it running, cycling, lifting weights, yoga, Pilates, she enjoys not only keeping fit, but also being healthy. Being active is a part of her daily life. Being an athlete also helps in her daily as a entrepreneur. Being able to juggle a multitude of daily tasks is just like training! It is great to place or win your age group, but it is ever better to inspire others to live a happy, healthy and happy life.....and using her real life as a real example.
James Stegall has been Publisher at So New since 2001. His work has appeared on Nerve, Flak, Bookslut, and many others. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.
Megan Stielstra directs Story Development for 2nd Story, Chicago's urban storyteller series held in wine bars, and is currently editing their first print anthology. She's told stories at all sorts of places including The Goodman, The MCA, The Neo-Futurarium, Story Week Festival of Writers, AWP, The Dollar Store, and for Opium's Literary Death Match (she won. Because literature is so very dangerous). Her writing has appeared recently in Other Voices, Fresh Yarn, Pindeldyboz, Swink, Perigee, and Punk Planet; regularly for Chicago Public Radio; and on stage for Theatre Seven of Chicago and Bohemian Archeology in NYC. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Columbia College and The University of Chicago.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the novels Lucky Man (Manx Media, 2007) and Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine (Orange Alert Press, 2008) and the short story collection Repetition Patterns (CCLaP, 2008). Ben also compulsively blogs at This Blog Will Change Your Life, the center of his vast, albeit faux media empire and oversees This Zine Will Change Your Life, which he thinks you should totally read.
Lindsay Tigue is a Chicago-based writer, the marketing and editorial associate for post-secondary programs at the Great Books Foundation, and an editorial board member for the quarterly magazine, The Common Review. She is one of the editors of the Great Books Foundation's upcoming anthology, Even Deadlier (October 2009), which groups short stories thematically by the seven deadly sins. Before graduating with a B.A. from Michigan State University's honors English literature and creative writing program in 2007, she won the second-place Swarthout Prize for Fiction and was an editor of the oldest undergraduate-run literary journal, the Red Cedar Review. While at Michigan State University, she worked for Michigan State University Press and had the opportunity to manage production for the prestigious nonfiction literary journal, Fourth Genre.
Ivan Vega is an actor, photographer, producer & co-founder and co-artistic director of UrbanTheater Company (UTC). His recent acting credits include: Crime Against Humanity at Batey Urbano; Los Calices Vacios/The Empty Chalices at Instituto Cervantes/People's Theater (also a part of the US premiere at Aguijon Theater; From The Streets to the Stage at The Goodman's 2008 Latino Theatre Festival/UTC; Sketchbook 2008 at Steppenwolf/Collaboraction; Eulogy for a Small Time Thief at Batey Urbano/UTC (2007 After Dark Award for Outstanding Performance as David Dancer) & Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams at Victory Gardens. Other credits include: Short Eyes at Aguijon Theater/UTC (Inaugural Production); Two Sister's and a Piano at Apple Tree/Teatro Vista; Perversiones at Aguijón Theater (2004 International Theater Festival in Arequipa/Cusco, Peru); Bodas de Sangre at Aguijón (also performed at The Goodman's 2004 Latino Theatre Festival, Anna In The Tropics at Victory Gardens (world premiere) & Latinologues at Bailiwick/House of Blues. Mr. Vega holds his Bachelor's in Fine Arts in acting from the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University. He has also appeared in many films & is voice-overs talent in Chicago.
Joanne Vena, Director of School Partnerships at Columbia College, supports and oversees the strategic partnership development with members of the college and public education locally to meet the CCAP mission in three areas- the professional development of teachers and teaching artists, college readiness programs for promising high school students and the college's work in six Chicago Community Schools. Prior to coming here in 1991, Ms. Vena was the Director of the Arts-in-Education and Local Arts Agency programs at the Illinois Arts Council, where she developed and supervised the agency's services and programs for individual teaching artists and nonprofit education groups, expanding the partnership between artists and communities. Joanne has served on several panels and conference committees, including the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds a BFA in printmaking and sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Shifra Werch is a self described theatrician. She has performed, designed and/or directed over 200 professional productions ranging from film and musical comedy to opera and performance art. Some of her accomplishments actually garnered awards including a couple Of Jeffs. Among her favorite endeavors are the artistic direction of Opera Piccola and teaching at Lake forest College which included classes in theatre history, acting and performance art. She has proudly midwived many original works to the stage including her own Eros. Currently she is exploring internet performance, writing a libretto based upon Jewish magic realism, and staging vaudeville for Girlie Q Burlesque. So far, her last submitted short story has not been rejected.
David Wolinsky really has no preference when people ask whether he likes to be called "David" or "Dave." Some construe this as being non-committal, flexible, or merely difficult, while the truth probably lays somewhere between the three. A life-long Chicagoan, his first professional aspirations were to be a game-show host (and he's got the pictures to prove it), though later settled for a position at The A.V. Club and Decider. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University and an internship at Rolling Stone, he moved back to Chicago, where he enjoys writing about himself in the third person to this day.
Sharon Woodhouse is the founder and publisher of Lake Claremont Press, a local, independent publisher specializing in books about Chicago. In addition to running her company, she also enjoys sharing her knowledge of publishing and discussing issues in publishing in various forums: She has presented on this topic to dozens of organizations, including the Illinois Women�s Press Association, the Midwest Writers Association, and the Self-Employment in the Arts conference. Her articles have appeared in publications like Crain�s Chicago Business, Publisher�s Weekly, and American Bookseller. She has counseled over 300 new college graduates, aspiring authors, and career changers on book writing, book proposal writing, book publishing, and/or careers in publishing.
Kate Zimmer is the Communications and Marketing Manager for the PTA national organization. Yes, that PTA. Kate has an MSM in management and marketing from Walsh College with a BA from Kalamazoo College. She is an active member of the PRSA, AMA, AFP, CIMA, Rotary International and, of course, PTA. Managing the PTA brand extends to all aspects of print, web and television media message management from advertising to public policy to research publications to promotional brochures and event collateral to program production. She often guest posts on the PTA blog, iVillage, the Hot Mom’s Club, and a number of educational forums.
Todd Zuniga is the founding editor of Opium Magazine and a co-founder of the Literary Death Match reading series. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his fiction has appeared most recently in Canteen, and online at Lost Magazine. He recently turned in a book titled "Passport," a non-fiction collection about memory and home that covers 20 countries. During the day he works as a freelance editor for 1UP.com and ESPN Video Games. He longs for a Chicago Cubs World Series victory and an EU passport.
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