Steve Abee: Steve Abee has published two books: King Planet, a collection of stories and poems, and The Bus: Cosmic Ejaculations of the Daily Mind in Transit, a novel. He also released a CD, titled Jerusalem Donuts, but that was a million years ago. He is currently working on a new novel, titled Johnny Future, and he has a poetry manuscript that is looking for a publisher. He is a middle school English teacher, is married, has two daughters, and lives in LA. Steve’s latest work, Great Balls of Flowers, is forthcoming from Write Bloody Press.
[Web Selects: “Things to Do”]
Alan Abrams: Having come to terms with his woefully misspent youth, Abrams now agonizes over the ebbing of middle age. Writing, which is not his profession, is a balm that eases this process. When not writing, or otherwise frittering away his time, Abrams runs a design-build firm in Washington, DC.
Contact: alan@abramsdesignbuild.com
Website: www.abramsdesignbuild.com
Blog: "The Careless Perfection of Nature": http://alanabramsrantsravesandwrites.blogspot.com/
[Web Selects: “Last Trip”]
Zack Anderson: Zack Anderson is a writer/filmmaker who splits his time between San Francisco, Los Angeles and the lost planet Nibiru. He collects antique roller coasters and heart-broken meteorites.
Contact: zack@strangelovefilms.com
[Web Selects: “Hannah”]
Scott Antonucci: Scott Antonucci is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles. Although his educational and spiritual paths are unending, he currently survives politically and religiously unaffiliated. Should you wish to find him, try the beach, the canyon, Starbucks or his website.
Website: www.scottantonucci.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Mirror”]
Sarah Bowles: Sarah Bowles writes fiction--very, very rarely. She is excited just to put pen to paper and see her mangled words on the page. Sarah does, however, get to play a lot. And when Sarah takes a moment to think about her life, just as it is, she is often surprised at how happy this makes her.
[90 Mins Ass. / Venice: “Buttons”]
Mark Brinker: Mark Brinker recently moved to Chicago. He works as a freelance film and video editor. The frosted window into his soul is at www.blogismarkbrinker.blogspot.com. He does his best writing while lying in bed, on big sheets of poster paper.
Website: www.blogismarkbrinker.blogspot.com
[Web Selects: “The Works”]
Kelley Calvert: Kelley Calvert is on a fossil fuel-free, cross-country trip, running on empty in search of many things: veggie oil for the next leg of her trip, hope, extra pens, a place to sleep...and the New America.
Website: www.hopeindisenchantment.com
[Web Selects: “A 17-Mile Drive”]
[90 Mins Ass. / Venice: “A Tale of Two Cities in Limbo”]
Luanne Castle: Luanne Castle received an MFA from Western Michigan University and a PhD from the University of California, Riverside. She taught at California State University, San Bernardino before moving to Arizona, where she now lives with a herd of javelina.
Contact: mlmmcastle@aol.com
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
The Chef: Cook To Bang originated out of The Chef’s passion for food that is rivaled only by his lust. Culinary adventures have taken him from Paris to Sydney to Rio to Mumbai to Hanois to Nairobi in search of new flavors (and positions). He once catered an eight-course dinner for actress Renee Russo that she declared, “orgasmic.” The Chef has worked as a creative executive for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and written episodes for Warner Bros, Nickelodeon and Disney. The Chef hopes these simple recipes inspire you to cook, eat, drink and screw with reckless abandon. Stay tuned for the cook to Bang Chef's contributions to The Food Network's website and his forthcoming Cook to Bang book from St. Martin's Press.
Website: www.cooktobang.com
[Web Selects: “Artichoke and Poke Dip” and “Balls-On-It Balsamic Strawberries”]
Michael Colucci: Michael Colucci is a writer for hire with a plethora of prestigious and fiscally useless degrees and accomplishments to his credit. He would like to thank the editors of Black Boot for keeping the hippy spirit alive in the trenches of Hollywood.
Contact: michaelcolucci2000@yahoo.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “The Guatemalan Sensei”]
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “Smirking Dragon”]
Bradley Combest: A military brat who grew up in Alaska, Australia, and yes even Kansas. He enjoys history, philosophy, thinking about writing but actually procrastinating, beer snobbery, coffee, big ol' cigars, and wishing he could grow a beard. Goals: A mansion.
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Under My Skin”]
Thea Constantine: Thea Constantine is a writer whose short stories have most recently appeared in 'In Focus', the quarterly magazine of the PEN Cyprus Center and a running column "On the Yellow Line" for Street Roots. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, musician David Minick.
Contact: thea.constantine@gmail.com
[Portlandia: “Portlandia: Part One”]
Dennis Cruz: Born in San Jose, Costa Rica, Dennis Cruz migrated to Los Angeles with his mother when he was only six months old. Growing up all over L. A., he attended thirteen public schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is a self- taught poet who derives his inspiration from having survived extraordinary circumstances as a child. Cruz' work is a reflection of these spiritual hardships, and is both riveting and unforgettable. He has been writing steadily for twenty years, and has performed at various L.A. venues, including Beyond Baroque and the World Stage, and has also appeared on public radio stations KXLU and KPFK. "The Beast Is We" is the latest of his eight chapbooks of prose and poetry. Cruz once received a kiss from Gregory Corso, and has read for both Joni Mitchell and Timothy Leary in their living rooms. He also contributes his words and hectic vocal style to the experimental noise-jazz trio, Multiple Now Syndrome. He lives in Northeast L.A. with his wife, Annette, and five year old son, Henry, named in honor of his hero, Charles Bukowski.
[Web Selects: “The Leaves of Meat”]
Kerry Donoghue: When Kerry Donoghue isn’t storming the literary castles of San Francisco with her writing group, Team Forever Stamps, she is a willing poison-checker in a monthly cupcake-baking competition. Her short fiction has appeared in Southern Gothic Shorts, The Fiction Circus, and The Furnace Review, and her story, “The Hungry,” was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize.
[Web Selects: “Tiny Dinosaurs”]
Monica Drake: Monica Drake has an MFA from the University of Arizona and teaches at the Pacific NW College of Art. She is a contributor of reviews and articles to The Oregonian. The Stranger, and the Portland Mercury and her fiction has appeared in the Beloit Fiction Review, Threepenny Review, The Insomniac Reader, and others. She has been the recipient of an Arizona Commission on the Arts Award, the Alligator Juniper Prize in Fiction, and a Millay Colony Fellowship, and was a Tennessee Williams scholar at Sewanee Writers Workshop. Her debut Novel, Clown Girl, is published by Hawthorne Books.
Contact: http://monicadrake.com/
[Web Selects: “When Food is Crucial”]
Annaliese Fauerbach: Annaliese Fauerbach is a junior at NYU. She was raised in Bel Air, Maryland. On the rare occasion that she writes something, it is usually about Bel Air, Maryland. She enjoys bad music, fast cars, and expensive leather boots. She can usually be found reading about the antebellum United States, eating too much, or knitting.
In Issue: [Issue 6: “Hometown Boys”]
Jameson Fitzpatrick: Jameson Fitzpatrick was the 2008 recipient of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts’ Creative Writing Dept.’s Award of Excellence and a winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival’s Young Poets competition, for which he had a featured reading and was published in the Fresh Voices 2008 chapbook. He currently attends the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.
In Issue: [Issue 6: “Sfumato”]
Tim Gerken: Tim Gerken lives in upstate NY on a ridge overlooking the Butternut Valley. He teaches writing at Morrisville State College and is director of the school’s art gallery. He received his MFA in poetry writing from Brooklyn College. He takes photos everyday, and writes as often as he can. More than enough of his photos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/twgerken/sets/
In Issue: [Web Selects: “My Gorilla”]
Deja Gworek: Deja Gworek lives in Riverside, California with one husband, one son, and four black cats who try their best to keep her awake during the wee hours of the morning when she writes. She currently works as an advisor at a university.
In Issue: [Web Selects: “Shadow”]
David Hargreaves: When David Hargreaves isn’t growing moss, or speaking in tongues in Corvallis, Oregon, he’s a linguist interested in the Newar language of Kathmandu.
Contact: hargred@wou.edu
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
Shawn Hatosy: Shawn Hatosy is the proud father of Jordan Cassius Hatosy. He currently resides in West Hollywood with his beautiful girlfriend Kelly. He is one of the coolest guys on the planet and was voted “most talented” by Linganore High School’s class of 1994. Go Lancers!
In Issue: [90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “The Silent Treatment ...”]
Steven Heighton: Steven Heighton is the author of the novel Afterlands, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His fiction and poetry have been translated into nine languages, have appeared in such publications as Tin House, Poetry, Brick, and London Magazine. He has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Journey Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award. Heighton has received the Lampert Award, The Petra Kenney Prize, the Air Canada Award, and gold medals for fiction and for poetry in the National Magazine Awards. For 2009 he is the writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa. He lives with his family in Kingston, Ontario.
Website: www.stevenheighton.com
[Web Selects: “A Right Like Yours”]
Jessica Hollander: Jessica Hollander is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Alabama. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarterly West, Hayden's Ferry Review, Sou'wester, Prism Review, and Hobart, among others. You can visit her at jessicahollanderwriter.com
Contact: jessicahollanderwriter.com
[Web Selects: “Postcards to Harper Lee”]
Elaine Howell: Elaine’s stories have been published in several literary magazines, including Zyzzyva. When she is not at her day job as corporate writer, she is writing her first novel, hiking the hills and canyons of Los Angeles , reading, or drinking red wine. Current obsession: Blennies.
Contact: msbluebard@yahoo.com
[Web Selects: “Regular”]
Sinta Jimenez: Sinta Jimenez has been a lifelong student of the arts receiving formal training in dance, writing, and painting. Reincarnations previous to her current pursuit of an M.F.A. in Writing from Otis found her working as a financial analyst, herbal medicine specialist, waitress, non-profit legal assistant, and model. She speaks four languages, has lived in three continents, and has travelled to over 35 countries. She currently resides in Los Angeles.
In Issue: [Web Selects: “Rehab”]
Ariana Kelly: Ariana Kelly lives and works in Los Angeles, though she feels like a resident of a more amorphous place called "way out west." She is currently working on completing a book-length manuscript of poems entitled Sea Level.
[Web Selects: “Keeping On”]
Linda Lay: In her thirties, she still views the world as a newborn baby, yet fortunately maintains an elegance that comes from experience. Novels could be written about her turmoils and just as many novels could be written about her accomplishments. From a Boy George look-a-like, to a 2-piece suit clad wanderer, to a homeless artist, to a vegan preacher, to a hot dog eating fashion icon. I only hope the world is ready for Yaya. This entry was written by courtney, courtesy of lindalay.net.
Contact: lindalay.net
[Web Selects: “Welcome”]
Daniel Leamen: Daniel Leamen has read at over 100 venues across the United States and Canada including Brown University, the University of Maryland, the University of California-Berkeley, and at theaters including the Orpheum in Flagstaff, AZ and the Victoria Conservatory of Music in Victoria, British Columbia. He currently lives in Boulder, CO where he studies yoga, trains for marathons, and enjoys incredible mountain views. In the fall he will begin study for his Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland.
Contact: danleamen@gmail.com
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
Charles Liebezeit: Charles Liebezeit is a woefully skinny guy with horrid teeth but a pleasant face. Hailing originally from northern New Jersey (not far from Manhattan) he lives currently in the Castro district of San Francisco in a room perched above a busy and noisy gay nightclub where lesbians have drunken brawls in the street and techno-disco bumps its way through the night. He needs to find another abode.
Contact: liebezeit06@hotmail.com
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
Siena Leslie: Siena Leslie is from Los Angeles. She likes cats and mollusks, and her favorite color is blue. In the fall she will be at Harvard, studying everything she can get her hands on.
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Games”]
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “Edge of Somewhere”]
Alexandra Mattraw: Alexandra Mattraw’s chapbook, Projection, is forthcoming from Achiote Press (http://www.achiotepress.com/newbooks.htm). Her poems have also appeared in journals including Seneca Review, Denver Quarterly, and VOLT. Last summer she was a resident poet at Vermont Studio Center, where she enjoyed the company of several painters with whom she’s currently featured in the online catalog and art show: The New Weird America (available at http://www.facebook.com/l/b7aef;lulu.com).
[Web Selects: “Poems”]
John Maurer: John Maurer went to some fancy college, has other less-than-impressive accolades, and is from a city in the Midwest he no longer lives in. Quixotic is his favorite word.
Contact: john.maurer@gmail.com
[Web Selects: “i’m in a band called My Name’s Joe”]
Larry Milburn: Born in New York City, 1971. Moved to Connecticut, 1983. Landed at Hollywood & Vine, 1994. Look me up in 50 years and I'll tell you how it all panned out.
Contact: larrymilburn1@mac.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Conversations on the Heels of Dead Men”]
Sierra Nelson: Sierra Nelson is a co-founder of the literary performance art groups The Typing Explosion (www.typingexplosion.com) and the Vis-à-Vis Society (www.myspace.com/visavissociety). Her collaborative chapbooks include “13 Love Poems & One Ugly One” and “Desire & Flotation Devices.” She is founder of Seattle’s Cephalopod Appreciation Society and the proud mother of 23 typewriters.
Website: http://www.typingexplosion.com/
[Web Selects: “An Odd Assortment of Poems”]
Mindy Nettifee: A fixture of the Southern California poetry scene from the time she was old enough to be arrested, she was featured on the cover of NEXT magazine when she was only 15. Mindy went on to become a Grand Slam Champion of the Long Beach/Orange County Poetry Slam, competing on and coaching teams at 5 National Poetry Slam Competitions. In 2006 Mindy published her first full length collection Sleepyhead Assassins on Moon Tide Press. Her work has been featured in ISM magazine and the California Poetry Anthology. She is a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and has a new book forthcoming on Write Bloody Press.
Contact: www.thecultofmindy.com
[Web Selects: “The Connection Between God and Nature Beats Me Over the Head With its Earthy Mallet”]
Ashley M. Nissler: Writing lets me escape a very beige and vinyl subdivision that squats on the edge of a Wal-Mart parking lot. I live in North Carolina with my husband, daughters and somewhat disturbed cat. I write when life allows. My poems have been published at Strange Horizons, Literary Mama and Poemeleon as well as in Tar River Poetry. My children's fiction has appeared in Ladybug and Cricket.
[Web Selects: “Lost: White, Wool, Hand-Knit”]
Sara C. Rauch: Sara C. Rauch grew up in western Massachusetts, gallivanted around the US for a few years, went to college in New York City and is currently settled in Northampton, MA, where she works for a small publishing company. She and her partner have 4 very large cats, which makes for an exciting, if cramped, home life. She enjoys riding her bicycle to work.
[Web Selects: “The Ideal Loosens”]
Melanie Reitzel: By day, I'm an intrepid maternity nurse specialist in lactation; I remind moms and babies how to be mammals. The rest of the time I'm working on my MFA in creative writing at SFSU. As a kid, I ws always in trouble for being sassy--now I'm getting a degree in it.
[Web Selects: “Gauloises”]
Tyler Requa: I took tenth place at the Young Writers Conference in third grade, received a perfect score on my eighth grade Presidential Fitness exam and a one-seventy on someone else’s LSAT. I currently reside in Los Angeles where I peddle drugs, flesh and words in no particular order.
Marianne Ruane: Marianne is a Los Angeles transplant originally from Scranton, PA, with degrees in Russian language and film production. She still has a lot to say and appreciates all encouragement to write! She likes hiking and beach volleyball, can give herself a kick-ass pedicure, and has been known to steal meat fat scraps from unsuspecting peoples' plates.
Contact: http://www.unstuckat40.blogspot.com/
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “Graffiti: Writing is All in The Family”]
Lorri Vodi Rupard: Lorri Vodi Rupard grew up in Toronto but currently resides in Georgia. She divides her time between three daughters, and one bulimic Chocolate Pointed Siamese cat, Princess Kumbia Marimba of Typhong. Lorri launches and abandons creative projects to keep sane. She is finishing her degree in creative writing and sometimes awakens at 2 AM haunted by a word she must immediately move to the other side of a page.
Contact: lrupard@gmail.com
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
Roland Schneider: I’m an old guy, young and vigorous, from the Midwest. Years ago was a writer and production assistant for commercial films and TV. Since then an “entrepreneur” of sorts. Some of that is reflected in a novel nearing completion. The novel was nurtured in a Master’s Writing Class at UCLA a couple of years ago. I play tennis. I’m eager to get acquainted with the folks at Black Boot.
[Web Selects: “Bravo in the Desert”]
J Sackett Jr.: J Sackett Jr. was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in various locales. He has constantly bounced from one place to another for most of his life, and this fall will be heading to the United Kingdom to pursue postgraduate research in Northern Irish poetry.
Contact: jsackettjr@aim.com
[Web Selects: “Poetry Scroll”]
Nathan Troutman: Bats left. Dead pull, but power to both alleys. Likes it inside, keep it down and away. Throws left. Decent arm, outstanding range. Good clubhouse guy.
Contact: honestheat@gmail.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Anyone? Anyone?”]
Spencer Walker: Conceived in India, born in Hong Kong, Spencer lives in a cartoon world where half-naked servant girls feed him grapes. He also writes funny words and is a creative executive at Cartoon Network where his interns do his work while he mocks hipsters on (see below):
Website: http://hipsterhunter.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Zorro: El Bastardo!”]
Phoebe Wilcox: Phoebe Wilcox is a lifelong resident of Eastern Pennsylvania . The first chapter of her novel, Angels Carry the Sun, has been published in “Wild River Review,” and an excerpt from a second novel in progress, The Use of Flower Symbolism in Feminist Art and Literature, has been published in “Wild Violet.” Her story, “Carp with Water in Their Ears,” published in “River Poets Journal” has been nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize. Recent poetry may be found in “Blue Collar Review” and “Word Riot,” and is forthcoming in “Fiction at Work,” “VISIONS,” “The Battered Suitcase,” “The Northville Review,” “Waterways,” “Counterexample Poetics,” “Glossolalia,” “Sixers Review” and in a chapbook of the River Poets. She has also been the recipient of a James Michener Scholarship award.
[Web Selects: “Adventures of a Crazy Love-Vibe Chick”]
R.L. Wilkinson: Richard is periodically overcome with knee buckling clarity, hot flashes of consciousness which he dismisses because of their simplicity. He knows that his failure to acknowledge these adds acres to the corn maze of his life, but most think Richard realizes this and is merely biding his time until he unleashes a great harvest providing popcorn for all those longing for a silent snack.
Contact: Richard@RLWilkinson.com
[Web Selects: “Grief 2.0”]
Aimee Joy Willis: Aimee Joy Willis, born March 21, 1977, Hammond, IN. About me: I'm the villain that ties you to the train track, complete with the curly mustachio and pipe organ in the background.
Contact: ajwbarefooted@hotmail.com
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Trap”]
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “Finding Sex”]
D. Harlan Wilson: D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and English professor. His most recent works include two novels, Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance and Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria, and a book of cultural theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. Hundreds of his stories and essays have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies throughout the world in several languages, and he is the editor-in-chief of The Dream People, a journal of irreal texts. Visit Wilson online at www.dharlanwilson.com.
[Web Selects: “Whale & Giraffe”]
Madeleine Witenberg: Madeleine has recently moved to New York City and already misses Los Angeles. She blames all of her decisions on an obsession with stories. She loves fairy lights, wishing under bridges and you. She loves you a lot.
Contact: mjw413@nyu.edu
[90 Min Ass. / Hollywood: “Stealing Souls”]
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “A New World Order”]
Patrick Zeller: Patrick Zeller is a freelance shaman and global right wing strategist. His recent works include a 151 foot idol currently on display at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York City, Falun Gong and U.S. attorney, Ken Star. He’s been acting for Theatre, Television and Film since he was a child but only since 1999 for money. www.patrickzeller.com, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1594770/
[90 Min Ass. / Venice: “Bits and Pieces of Everything”]
