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Mehmet Sander started dancing with Geyvan Mcmillen in Istanbul in 1984. He continued his dance education at the London Contemporary Dance School, California State University (Long Beach), Harvard University and American Dance Festival. He founded the Mehmet Sander Dance Company in 1990, performing throughout the United States and participating in numerous events and festivals such as the Holland Dance Festival, New Moves (Scotland), ICA’s National Look at Live Arts (UK), Klapstuk Festival (Belgium) and Munich Dance Festival (Germany). Sander′s recent UK work includes the commission and presentation of original works Uncomfort Zone at Queen Mary, University of London (2011) and Impact at Fierce Festival (2012). He premiered his new work Trust Fall at Bristol’s In Between Time Festival (2013) and performed his new solo BANG at the legendary Royal Vauxhall Tavern (2013).Tate Modern presented Mehmet Sander's sold out workshop in 2014. The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago commissioned and performed Mehmet Sander's work Inner Space at the Kennedy Center and other prestigious venues.
Clifton Snider was an internationally acclaimed author of eleven books of poetry, including Moonman: New and Selected Poems and The Beatle Bump, and four novels, the most recent of which is his historical novel, The Plymouth Papers. He pioneered LGBTQ literary studies at California State University, Long Beach. A Jungian/Queer literary critic, he has published hundreds of poems, short stories, reviews, and articles internationally, as well as the scholarly book, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: A Jungian Interpretation of Literature. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of New Mexico and retired from teaching at California State University, Long Beach, in 2009. He is the recipient of the Lorde-Whitman Award from OUT LOUD: A Cultural Evolution, 2018. His work has been translated into Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish. We will miss you... RIP 10/25/21
Sarah Sophia Yanni's writing has appeared in DREGINALD, Maudlin House, Feelings, Full Stop, and others. A finalist for BOMB Magazine’s 2020 Poetry Contest, she lives and works in Los Angeles. sarahsophiayanni.com
Melinda R. Smith Melinda R. Smith came late to painting through the medium of poetry. It was while designing the cover for her collection of poems Tiny Island that she became entranced with visual imagery. Soon, she was working exclusively in a visual medium. In her work, Melinda explores the liminal regions between reality and fantasy, using tropes strongly reminiscent of childhood play. With her background in poetry and theater, she conceives of her pictures as staged theatrical scenes that tell archetypal stories whose roots reach for the dark core of memory and truth. Melinda was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and has lived in Los Angeles, California, for over 25 years. She can be found at melindarsmith.com.
Charlie Becker is a retired speech pathologist who now studies and writes poetry with the Community Literature Initiative in Los Angeles. He also has helped bring poetry to under-served high school students through the Living Writers Series and L.A. Unified School District. Charlie's first book of poetry and drawings, Friends My Poems Gave Me, was published by World Stage Press in 2016. He has also had poems published by Passager Journal, Comstock Review, The Dandelion Review, and Silver Pinion. Charlie lives with his partner, Aubry, in Laguna Woods, California.
Aaron Hoge is a visual artist and a writer. With over 40 years of art-making and multiple performances and exhibitions, Aaron is a seasoned professional artist. Using the mediums of drawing, painting, performance, video, writing, and photography Aaron’s work explores intersections between loneliness, becoming, homosocial relationships, and futurity. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources such as cave paintings, graffiti, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, English Literature, Western Esotericism, and Philosophy, his studio practice represents and abiding interest in language, text, choreography, semantics, poetry, and the creation of striking visual images. Aaron becomes what he is through his visual art and writing. His lifework is the integration of all aspects of the human personality.
Christie Frields Arts are the best way to gather individuals and build communities. I’ve taught art to children and adults around the globe. My creative background includes proposal, grant writing and coordinator for public art projects in cities throughout the United States. I’ve held positions as project manager, exhibitions designer, art advisor and business manager in museums and galleries, non-profit arts institutions and private organizations. As an exhibiting artist, my work has been included in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Canada and Europe. I have experience in film and video production as director, editor and costume designer.As a visual artist, I maintain an independent art practice and have produced works of art for national and international exhibitions in museums and galleries. Selected solo exhibitions include CRG Gallery in New York; Marc Foxx and David Patton Galleries in Los Angeles; group exhibitions at Hammer Art Museum Los Angeles,18th Street Art Projects, Santa Monica, CA, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. In 2001 I was awarded a prestigious art grant by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and received numerous published reviews in support of my art. During this time I was also a Visiting Artist Lecturer at UCLA, CalArts, ArtCenter, Otis College of Art and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
Gordon Blitz's novella Shipped Out was published as part of Running Wild Press Novella Anthology Volume 4 Book 1. on January 1st. He has published work in Two Hawks Quarterly (2020), The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Issue #22 of Really Systems, Abstract Elephant Magazine (2020), Gay Wicked Ways (2020) and Emeritus Chronicles (2020), (2020) Free verse Revolution and Fall 2019 Vitamin ZZZ. He’s a standup comic who has performed at the GLBT Village in Hollywood, Canters, and The Ruby. His stories recorded at AKBAR in Hollywood are available on the Queer Slam podcast called “Just Gordon.” He continues to perform his stories monthly on zoom as part of the queer slam podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/…/episode-21-just-…/id1446511726…
Check out his blog URL https://culturecritique.blog/
Ali Telmesani is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Swansea University in South Wales. Author of House of Abbas: The Legacy of Harun al-Rashid (Claritas Books), his research interests focus on Eastern and Islamic mysticism.
Janet Meskin is a native Californian; a once-upon-a-time freeway flyer teaching modern dance and improvisation in the Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Orange county community colleges. After receiving her MFA in Dance at CWRU in Cleveland, Ohio she left her legacy as Founder/Director of SCANDALS with Janet Meskin and Friends. It is still alive and well today (with a new name) - 37 years strong! Janet studied with many of the modern dance icons including Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski. After 32 years teaching and training dancers, 17 of those with LAUSD she has retired gracefully into a plethora of art forms, mindfulness meditations and qigong healing. Janet would like to meet a new soul mate -
Tammi Titsworth grew up in an Arkansas junkyard catching snakes and salamanders, riding horses and dog sleds, and scaling tires and trees with equal ease. Today, she is a founding partner of Shores Editorial Services, where she was selected as an Emerging Leader by the U.S. Small Business Administration. She also is a recipient of the Allen Tate Creative Writing Award. As a dedicated and published writer and editor, she has worked with the World Bank, Wiley Publishing, Adobe, IEEE, and the American Chemical Society. As part of her passion for the arts, she served as Editor in Chief of The Southwestern Review and Co-Fiction Editor for Oxford Magazine. Tammi’s creative writing background (through undergraduate work at Rhodes College and graduate work at Miami University) informs her daily life and work, as she embraces the power of art to eviscerate obstacles and invent paths forward.
Zee Bernardo is the founder and creative director of Tantum Los Angeles and Seulement Los Angeles. He started Tantum in 2005, specializing in bucket hats and selling to stores all over the world. In 2013, responding to changes in the industry, Zee started Seulement, with the idea of giving second lives to vintage clothing and accessories. Zee moved to Los Angeles from Manila in 1990, and can found on Instagram @seulement.losangeles. He can also be reached at seulement.losangeles@yahoo.com.
H. Raven Rose bleeds stardust-tinted ink. Captivated by stories as a girl, portals to distant worlds, she began writing as a teen. Her stage play The Park at Night was staged as readings in Los Angeles by First Stage LA, one of which starred Jessica Biel in the lead role as Leila. The play was based on Rose's novella Dark Eros. Rose has won awards for game and animation storytelling and writing and is a postgraduate in Creative Writing at Swansea University. Rose's undergraduate screenwriting thesis research analysed the superiority of alternative versus traditional story development techniques for screenwriters in the context of hemispheres of the brain and used tools and techniques drawn from brain research, expressive arts, and mind-body practices. Her PhD practice-led creativity research explores voice development and writing flow, and writer's block. Her research focuses on childhood development and advancement of the individual female psyche and personality in the context of critical issues of attachment and identity (and how those pertain to emerging adult creativity and the literary individuation process). Rose has taught advanced screenwriting and writing the world over from Los Angeles to Wales. Find her online at hravenrose.com.
Chelsie Blair Nunn is a LGBTQIA+ artist and educator working and living in Knoxville, TN. She has served as a public visual art educator and mentor for the past ten years. She is a founding member of the artist collaborative formerly known as The Vacuum Shop Studios, where she has practiced painting for the past seven years. Her artwork and writing primarily investigate the sublime and delicate nature of the mental landscape, which includes but isn't limited to identity, emotionality, and relationship narratives. Her writing has previously been featured in The Quaranzine: Poetry in the Time of Covid-19 (Fearsome Critters 2020) and Decomp Journal (Issue 1 2021). Explore more of her artwork and writing at www.chelsienunn.com.
Reza Abdoh: "The extraordinary life of Iranian-born American theatrical maverick Reza Abdoh (1963-1995) resembles in many ways that of the seminal Romantic composer Franz Schubert. Both of these prodigiously talented artists reflected in their work the tumultuous times they had been born into; both died prematurely, in their early 30s, of a slow-killing disease which had been demonized by the societies of their era. Both left behind a substantial body of work that is constantly referenced, quoted, analyzed and taught to eager followers. What makes Abdoh very different form Schubert, however, is that in order to emerge in all its glory, Abdoh’s oeuvre required the participation of countless people who followed his daring visions.Described as a provocateur whose actors “mooned audiences, became slaves under torture, and hung nude upside down in fish tanks,” Abdoh was best known for his large-scale experimental works, often staged outside the traditional theater environment. Created with his company, Dar a Luz, his pieces were performed in lofts, hotels and on the streets of New York City’s then-gritty Meatpacking District throughout the early 90s in New York, Los Angeles and Europe. Abdoh’s expressive imagery was inspired by everything from classical literature, to his own harrowing experience as a gay man diagnosed with AIDS in the context of the American political landscape of the 1990s, to TV talk shows and BDSM iconography, with subject matter ranging from personal memories to racial issues, violence in America, sexual repression, cruelty, and death." Adam Soch (See our Prize in Reza's Honor)
Adam Soch fled the communist Eastern Europe in 1980 to seek creative freedom in the United States. He is an award-winning filmmaker and producer, lauded by the media for the “stunning, remarkable and compelling” images that are a hallmark of his films and theatrical productions, as well as his editing style. He has worked on projects involving such luminaries as opera superstars Placido Domingo and Angela Gheorghiu, actors Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanessa Redgrave, and Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Michail Gorbatchev. Throughout 1990s, he collaborated closely with Reza Abdoh on many of his most acclaimed productions, including Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice, Bogeyman, Tight Right White, and Quotations from a Ruined City. Mr. Soch is one of four founders of an international television channel Classic Arts Showcase. Viewed daily by millions of people throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, The ARTS Channel focuses on highlighting the disciplines, pleasures and wonders of classic arts such as ballet, opera, theater, dance and film/video, through the power of television.
Jonathan “Minty” Minton is all about breeze blocks, those iconic concrete building bricks seen throughout Palm Springs, California where he lives. Soon after moving to this mid-century mecca with his husband in 2015, Minty was captivated by the bold geometric simplicity, dimensionality and patterns they created. With a background in model making, design and manufacturing, Minty applies breeze block themes to jewelry, beverage coasters, magnets, keychains, table lamps and an endless pipeline of projects in silicone, fabric, wood, plaster, concrete, urethane, candy and ice. Each new project brings with it the opportunity to learn new techniques, solve design/production challenges, all of which feed the hunger to create and express the "breeze block idea". Popular with the mid-century fans who flocks to Palm Springs twice a year for Modernism Week as well as the year round fans that live there, Minty’s breeze block creations are locally made and locally inspired. Customers include not only local retailers and galleries, but also online customers across the US, UK and Australia.
Jessica (Tyner) Mehta, born and raised in Oregon and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary artist, author, and storyteller. She has received several writer-in-residency posts around the world, including the Hosking Houses Trust with an appointment at The Shakespeare Birthplace (Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK), Paris Lit Up (Paris, France), the Women’s International Study Center (WISC) Acequia Madre House post (Santa Fe, NM), the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (Nebraska City, NE), and a Writer in the Schools (WITS) residency at Literary Arts (Portland, OR). Jessica has three books releasing in 2021 from New Rivers Press, Meadowlark Books, and Not a Pipe Publishing. She is currently the post-graduate research representative at the Centre for Victorian Studies at the University of Exeter, England. She is the first Native American to serve in this role at the largest institutional Victorian research centre in Great Britain. Learn more about Jessica at her website, www.thischerokeerose.com, where you will find links to her books, upcoming projects, and the Emmy award winning documentary on her life and work from Osiyo Television.
Twitter @CherokeeRoseUp
Instagram @thisCherokeeRose
Gerard Sarnat won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for handfuls of 2021 and previous Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published including in The North Meridian Review, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Blue Minaret, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Newark Public Library, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, New York Times, London Reader and Review Berlin as well as by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Chicago and Columbia presses. He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry is a physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to protect democracy plus deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to future granddaughters.
Jones Irwin teaches Philosophy and Education in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has published original monographs on philosophy and aesthetics. He has published poetry most recently in Poetry London, Showbear Family Circus, Passengers Journal, Festival Review, Plainsongs, The Dewdrop and fiction/creative nonfiction have recently been published in Kairos Magazine, The Decadent Review and Critical Read. His vision is of a postmodern existentialist, with a dash of noir mixed in with a progressivist ethic. His new book is on how Paulo Freire's educational philosophy has influenced social and political thought in contemporary Italy.
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent book of poetry is Mist in Their Eyes (2021). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.
Calum Robertson (they/them) is a queer fae teadrinking riverbank wanderer, who lives in Calgary, Canada. They hope to be reincarnated as a dove, next time around.
Colette Chien is a senior at Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in poetry and wildlife ecology. Her previous published work includes the chapbook, “the poison in our houses” in Silent Actions Magazine, the poem, “i was born into this place a bit of fire & a cancer” into Love and Squalor magazine and The Rising Phoenix Review, the poem, “visceral fears & ampersands have nothing to do with this” in The Sarah Lawrence College Literary Review, the poem “swamp angel, not even a little brackish” in The Rising Phoenix Review, and the poem “on top of the earth resting in uncertainty” in The Rising Phoenix Review. “i was born into this place a bit of fire & a cancer” has been nominated for the upcoming 2022 Pushcart Prize.
Brian Yapko is a lawyer whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prometheus Dreaming, Canary Lit. Review, Gyroscope, Marathon Lit. Review, Cagibi, Grand Little Things, Society of Classical Poets, Poetica, Chained Muse, Garfield Lake Review, Tempered Runes Press, Auroras and Blossoms, Showbear Family Circus, Sparks of Calliope, Iris Lit. Journal, Rainbow Poems, Parliament Lit. Journal, Light Poems, Apricity and Abstract Elephant. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his husband, Jerry, and their canine child, Bianca.
Andre F. Peltier is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he has taught African American Literature, Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, Poetry, and Freshman Composition since 1998. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI with his wife, children, turtles, dog, and cat. His poetry is forthcoming in The Great Lakes Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Big Whoopie Deal, Prospectus, Tofu Ink Press, and an anthology from Quillkeepers Press. In his free time, he obsesses about soccer and comic books.
Jon-Alexander Genson is half Mexican and was raised in Antioch, Illinois, just outside of Chicago and Milwaukee by his Mexican-immigrant mother. He grew up with a fascination for literature, film, and television. He spent six years in the United States Army as Military Police while attending Illinois State University where he majored in Creative Writing. His passion for the entertainment industry was realized during his deployment to Guantanamo Bay where he worked detainee operations. He started working with Park Artists Group, Aperture Entertainment, and Lionsgate before moving on to Sheree Guitar Entertainment as an Executive Assistant for literary management & development in January 2020.
Online Portfolio: https://damaged77.wixsite.com/jongenson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/citizen_punx/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jon.genson
Email: citizenpunx2013@outlook.com / jon-alexander@shereeguitarent.com
Asantewaa Boykin R.N, M.I.C.N is a San Diego, CA native, Emergency RN, daughter of Valerie Boykin and granddaughter of Bertha Brandy. Her poetry combines her love of words, storytelling, and resistance. Exploring topics like; space-travel, black-femme militancy,& motherhood. Which describes her first full length poetry collection, “Love, Lyric and Liberation.” Asantewaa is co-founder of APTP (Anti Police - Terror Project) an organization committed to the eradication of police terror in all of its forms. Along with being a dedicated nurse she is also a founding member of the Capital City Black Nurses Association. Asantewaa along with a brave group of organizers and medical professionals developed Mental Health First or MH FIRST a mobile mental health crisis response team aimed at minimizing police contact with those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis. While her greatest honor is being the mother of her son Ajani and bonus daughter Aryana and granddaughter Lilith.
“Being about the business of our ancestors on behalf of our children is the highest calling one can have.”
Carl Boon is the author of the full-length collection Places & Names: Poems (The Nasiona Press, 2019). His writing has appeared in many journals and magazines, including Prairie Schooner, Posit, and The Maine Review. He received his Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century American Literature from Ohio University in 2007, and currently lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at Dokuz Eylül University.
Saptarshi Bhowmick is a thinker in his twenties, currently living in India, West Bengal; City - Berhampore. While he is studying, he also takes great interest in writing poems, and on a spur of different topics, he enlightens the subject matters with a little touch of sublime rhyme. If you took a little time in reviewing his poems, you will understand the jovial touch which I speak of! He is renowned locally for his bilingual poems and internationally he has been published before. (“A Last Night” on Rainbow Poems, UK Remembrance Edition)
Alex Wells Shapiro is a poet and artist from the Hudson Valley, living in Chicago. He reads submissions for Another Chicago Magazine and Frontier Poetry, and is a co-founder of Exhibit B: A Reading Series presented by The Guild Literary Complex. He has work recently published or forthcoming in Jelly Bucket, Mason Street, Sobotka, and Warm Milk Publishing. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming in Spring 2022 with Unbound Edition Press. More of his work may be found at www.alexwellsshapiro.com.
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Lisa Joffrey is an actress and producer, known for Dave (2020), On the Ropes (2019) and How to Get Away with Murder (2014). IMDb.com/LisaJoffrey
Jack Giaour (he/him/his) is a queer writer who makes his living as a freelance ghost. Many of his poems have been published - many more have not. He currently lives in Massachusetts.
Glen Armstrong edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville, and Midsummer. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.
Hirotoshi Ito's family has been involved in stonework since 1879. From my birth, I grew up surrounded by various kinds of stone and work such as stone lanterns and gravestones. Although I was determined to eventually take over my family business, I entered the Metal Work Department of Tokyo University of the Arts. The stimulating encounters with other metal artists in the school, and their work, became the foundation of my way of thinking and of my creativity. My work can be divided into two groups. One is a solid sculpture carved from marble or granite where I alter the natural surface of the stone into sculptural forms that do not appear to be stone but some other material. The other group is made from river stones where I use the natural forms of the stones and make alterations and additions that give the natural stones different character. All of my work in both categories relates to the ordinary images, objects, and experiences in daily life. A prominent characteristic of both types of my work is my attempt to create the illusion that the stone is something MORE than stone or is a different material altogether. Matsumoto City, where I live, is surrounded by splendid mountains and is richly endowed with natural beauty. The stones delivered from these mountains have been washed by fresh streams of water over very long periods of time, and each stone has a unique form that has been created naturally. As I gather stones on the riverbank, I imagine stories and works of art I can create with them. However, I try to emphasize the natural shapes, colors, and beauty of these stones and generally try not to change their original shapes. Respecting and utilizing the natural characteristics of original material is a very old and important aspect of Japanese culture. We have a concept of creativity known as MITATE, which involves creating new values by taking something that holds certain significance in one context and placing it in a different context. A typical example is raked gravel in a temple garden that resembles flowing water. Although I am a contemporary artist I feel that such ancient Japanese concepts are deeply embedded in my DNA.
Domi Miyamoto fondly recalls Allen Ginsberg, at Naropa, praising his use of colloquial language (he was so amused and asked me to define the word, “dork”) and taking the time after an event to put his hand on a shoulder, saying, “And now you can tell everyone that we read together.” He grew up as a Japanese-Mexican-Filipino Ethnoastronaut in a time of Stranger Things, warning would-be bullies that he was just like Bruce Lee. His most treasured moments include becoming married with his wife(poet, Shanley Rhodes) and his daughter arriving in this world(her name being Gaelic for “So beautiful only poets can describe her”). Of course, his years as a Stay-At-Home Dad were totally rad!
Shanley Rhodes cut her teeth as a poet at Naropa University some 25 years ago. In the intervening decades, she has spent most of her time as an LA educator and (to her utter bemusement) a soccer mom.
Tamzin Whelan lives in a green valley in Bristol, UK. She has a research masters in transnational writing and is PhD candidate in creative writing at Swansea University. She recently won funding to investigate gender bias in children’s literature, and since then spends most evenings scanning picture books. She’s taught English and yoga in South Korea and Spain, and spent six months interviewing grandmothers in Colombia for an ethno-novella. You can find some of her work at Sheriff Nottingham and Singing Lampposts. When not writing Tamzin likes to feed the crows, make things out of clay and hang out with her two outrageous cats.
David Talaski-Brown an artist from Portland,OR mostly known for my nerdy pinups. I graduated from the Art Institute of Portland in 2011, majoring in media arts and animation. During the day I work at Liquid Development as a art lead, doing character design and concept art for video games. By night I draw cheeky pinups of male super heroes inspired by my love for mid-century illustration and comic books. My pinup work has lead to me getting to do official cover art for comics from Image, Aftershock and most recently DC. https://www.instagram.com/davidtalaskidraws/?hl=en
Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Miller's creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Hailed for his humor and passion, Miller has tackled this challenge in such pieces as POSTWAR (1982), COST OF LIVING (1983), DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (1984), BUDDY SYSTEMS (1985), SOME GOLDEN STATES (1987), STRETCH MARKS (1989), SEX/LOVE/STORIES (1991), MY QUEER BODY (1992), NAKED BREATH (1994), FRUIT COCKTAIL (1996), SHIRTS & SKIN (1997), GLORY BOX (1999), US (2003), 1001 BEDS (2006), LAY OF THE LAND (2009), and ROOTED (2016). Miller's performances have been presented all over North America, Australia, and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is the author of the books SHIRTS & SKIN, BODY BLOWS and 1001 BEDS, which won the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for best book in Drama-Theatre. His solo theater works have been published in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the Delirium. Miller’s book 1001 BEDS, an anthology of his performances, essays and journals, was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2006. Miller has taught performance at UCLA, NYU, the School of Theology at Claremont, Cal State LA, and at universities all over the US. He is a co-founder of two of the most influential performance spaces in the United States: Performance Space 122 on Manhattan's Lower East Side and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA. Miller has received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1990, Miller was awarded a NEA Solo Performer Fellowship, which was overturned under political pressure from the Bush White House because of the gay themes of Miller's work. Miller and three other artists, the so-called "NEA 4", successfully sued the federal government with the help of the ACLU for violation of their First Amendment rights and won a settlement where the government paid them the amount of the defunded grants and all court costs. Though the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1998 to overturn part of Miller's case and determined that "standards of decency" are constitutional criterion for federal funding of the arts, Miller vows "to continue fighting for freedom of expression for fierce diverse voices." Since 1999, Miller has focused his creative and political work on marriage equality and addressing the injustices facing lesbian and gay couples in America. Says Miller, "I want the pieces to conjure for the audience a site for the placing of memories, hopes, and dreams of gay people's extraordinary potential for love." In 2017 he received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Professional Theatre. Miller lives in Venice Beach with his husband Alistair McCartney. His fifth book A Body in the O was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2019. http://www.timmillerperformer.com/about.html
Ben Macnair was born in 1976 in Nottingham, and now resides in Staffordshire, UK. He has been writing creatively on and off for the last 18 years. His poetry has appeared in Purple Patch, Raw Edge, and various small print publications, and websites. His Short Stories have appeared in Twisted Tongue, and in two Forward Press Anthologies, whilst Journalism and reviews have appeared in Blues in Britain Magazine, Blues Matters Magazine, Verbal Magazine, and various local newspapers and The Independent. Four of his short plays have been performed in London and America, whilst another three have been adapted into a short film. Follow him on Twitter - @benmacnair
William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award. Pretty Things to Say, (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2020) is his latest collection of poetry.
Michael Favala Goldman (b.1966) is a poet, jazz clarinetist and translator of Danish literature. Among his sixteen translated books are The Water Farm Trilogy by Cecil Bødker and Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen (a Penguin Classic).His first book of original poetry, Who has time for this? was published in 2020. HIs second book of poetry, Small Sovereign, is forthcoming this October. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running bi-monthly poetry critique groups since 2018. https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/
Matt Hollrah is a professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma. His poetry has appeared most recently in Parabola and is forthcoming in Artful Dodge. He lives in Edmond, OK, with his wife Julie and their kids, Sadie and Simon.
Antonio Rael is a visual artist who creates cover art, art for TV and film. He has worked on the Community of Angeles Public Art Project, Hollywood Forever Day of the Dead Cover Art, Olvera Street Public Art Project, Kids Eyez Peace Mural and the Wall-Las Memoria Project Cover Event Art.
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing(Slough Press, 2014). His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Poetry Northwest, Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, and Green Mountains Review. His visual work has been exhibited in various galleries and art spaces such as Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, and Equinox Gallery. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. octavioquintanilla.com
Instagram @writeroctavioquintanilla , Twitter @OctQuintanilla
Aazam Irilian was born in Iran and has resided in Southern California since 1977. Her extensive experience in a broad range of mediums is led by her passion for painting and sculpture. She is also an art educator with a Masters degree in Art Education as well as being certified as a practitioner in, NLP, Therapeutic Imagery and in Social Emotional Arts (SEA)*.Aazam has shown in galleries throughout California as well as Oregon, and Florida and her works are in various private collections around the world. She is a member of SCWCA, Los Angeles Artist Association (LAAA) and Women Painters West (WPW). Aazam has been sharing her passion for the expressive arts with students of all ages and diverse populations for over thirty years. She believes in the therapeutic aspect of the arts, and uses the creative process as a tool for healing for those dealing with life challenges and overcoming adversity. Visit aazamirilian.com to view more examples of her art. aazam@aazamirilian.com
Jojo L. has more than ten years of experiences in branding, marketing and retail communications. He lives in both Singapore and Malaysia. In 2019, he started his own branding and marketing boutique agencies, JLTY Atelier (Singapore) and JLTY Marketing (Malaysia). Specialized in digital/ visual communications, he is mobile-tech savvy, skilled in typography, pre-press, printing and product photography. From 2010 to 2013, he was a part-time volunteer of Project X, a human rights organization based in Singapore that provides social, emotional, and health services to people in the sex industry. A linguistic graduate and polyglot, he speaks English, Mandarin, Malay and French. He has passion for the arts and travel, and occasionally, writes poetry.
Brian L. Jacobs is a poet and editor of Tofu Ink Arts Press. Brian grew up in Southern California and has been teaching GATE English and Humanities for twenty-nine years in both K-12 and college settings. He is 51, lives in Pasadena and has been married for 16 years to Thye, a Professor of Nursing and a Nurse Practitioner. Both Thye and Brian are currently working on their PhD's. Brian was the assistant to the Poet's Allen Ginsberg and Julie Patton, during his time at Naropa in the mid 90’s. During that time he walked half way around the world while on a peace pilgrimage with Buddhist monks commemorating WWII visiting Europe, the Middle East and India. Brian is also a three time Fulbright Scholar, which has allowed him to study in Brazil, where he studied its water issues; China, where he studied its vast 10,000 year history; and Japan, spending time to participate in a case study in one of its small towns near the Japanese Alps. He had also earned a National Endowment of Humanities grant to China, studying its philosophies and histories while living in Xi’an. He subsequently participated in a grant from Fund For Teachers visiting South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho, plus earning other various grants that have taken him to places all over in the United States. He also taught teachers at a university in Fuzhou, China for five summers under grants from SABEH. Subsequently he has earned an Earthwatch grant to the rainforest of Ecuador, to study climate change and caterpillars and he recently earned another Earthwatch Senior Fellow Grant to teach teachers in Acadia, Maine studying climate change and crabs. Brian has been to 110 countries and had visited all 50 states, practices Yoga and is a proud vegan. Brian's poetry has been published in several publications including, Shiela-Na-Gig, the Crank, The South Florida Florida Poetry Journal, Progenitor Art and Literary Journal, GRIFFEL, Foxtail, Rip Rap, The Bangalore Review, Sunspot Lit, Anthropod, Pa'Lante, Dark Moon Lilith Press, Black Tape Press, Genre, Inky Blue/Celery, Red Dancefloor Press, Entelechy, 1844 Pine Street, Pasta Poetics, Trouble and Praxis. Brian marinates in inspiration from Gilles Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Audre Lorde, Edouard Glissant, Reza Abdoh, Patricia Smith, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, Pedro Almodovar, Keith Haring, NEA Four, Justin Phillip Reed, The Beats, Paul Celan, Artist Nick Cave, Sam Rami, Jean Rhys, Erasure, House Music, Robert Duncan, The Smiths, Lee Edelman, John Waters, Lana Del Rey, Patti Smith, Michel Foucault, American Visionary Arts Museum, Kurt Vonnegut, ACT UP, Daniel Day Lewis, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Lady Gaga, Zhang Huan, Arthur Danto, Derek Jarman , Kiki Smith, Marc Almond, Nina Hagen, Grace Jones, This Mortal Coil, Boy George, Bjork , Divine, Tracey Thorn, and Florence Welch.
