Nic Alea

I am a believer in magic, taboo, poetry, spilling open, collaging memories, musica, la mission, relief from gender constraits, progress of life in the forest, love to the moon. also a student, lover, & bloomed rosebush. Pam Benjamin: I am a writer living in San Francisco. I recieved my  MA in fiction from SFSU in May 2010 and am currently working toward my MFA in poetry because pieces of paper look nice framed.    Ink published my first book, "The Pigeon Chronicles or Bike Messenger Assassins" in August 2010. I am the co-host of "Common Threads Open Mic" on Pirate Cat Radio where I have read from my other episodic fiction, "Dottie and Bree", "The Soon to be Legend of Farmer Keef", "Hijo Perdido (Little Boy Lost)", and "Polly's Escape". My poetry has been bublished in nineteen various literary journals. I slso really like to bake cookies.

Amy Kathleen Benninghofen 

Amy Kathleen Benninghofen grew up in the Mississippi Delta. She spent the first part of her adult life living in New York City and Los Angeles pursuing a career as an actress (which means that she has a lot of restaurant experience). Now she lives happily in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and two small children. Whenever they do not require her attention, she tries to write.  

Bob Bergin

Bob Bergin, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, writes on the history of aviation in Southeast Asia and China, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), and military operations in the China-Burma-India WWII theater.  He has written three novels set in Asia. 

Ed Bowers

A Brief Biography In My Own Words: I came to San Francisco in 2001 after losing everything I had worked for while trying to be someone I was not; I lost my marriage, my dogs, my cats, and my precious underground comic book collection.  So, in order to avoid losing my soul, I decided to be a writer.  Growing up, I died several times.  By the time I was five I’d had hepatitis and pneumonia, then went on to get whooping cough, measles, the flu, you name it.  Then I was mercilessly bullied because that was my special role in a mediocre small town.  The citizens there tried to make me psychotic, but it didn’t work. Now my role is to write.  The Universe wrote me into this mess, but I can write my way out.  I hold a poetry reading at the corner of Taylor and Turk at the 21 Club every second Wednesday of the month with the desire to inspire those who have never written poetry before to write poems that are tickets taking them beyond what YOU think they are.   Read me if you want, or write something yourself. Or do both.  That would be better. This is the end of what could have been a long autobiography. Love, Mad Dog Bowers  

Dianna Calareso

Dianna Calareso earned her MFA from Lesley University and her creative nonfiction has been published online and in print, including Paradigm, Concisely, Wilderness House Literary Review, and the Dream of Things Anthology Saying Goodbye.  She works as a writer, editor, and teacher in Nashville, TN, where she lives with her husband and two cats;  she currently authors two blogs, www.dcalareso.blogspot.com (creative nonfiction) and www.mostlylocal.blogspot.com (local cooking/eating).

Richard Cummings

Richard Cummings taught international law at the Haile Sellassie I University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is the author of ‘The Pied Piper’, the play ‘Soccer Moms From Hell’, and for Playboy, ‘Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’. He has recently completed a new novel, ’Prayers of an Ibo Rabbi’, a ghost story about the Ibo slaves who drowned themselves off the coast of St. Simons Island, Georgia. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications.

Tyler Garant

Tyler Garant is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is currently attending Temple University.

Brandon Lingle

Brandon Lingle’s essay “A Fair Fight in a Neutral Location,” is a notable in The Best American Essays 2010. His award-winning work has appeared in more than twenty publications including The North American Review, Narrative Magazine, Mississippi Review, War, Literature & the Arts, Blue Earth Review, Redivider, Anderbo, Adirondack Review, Juked, and Hot Metal Bridge. He serves as Art Director and Nonfiction Editor of War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities.

Valery Oisteanu

Valery Oisteanu is a writer and an artist with an international flavor. Born in Russia (1943) and educated in Romania and France, he has adopted Dada and Surrealism as a philosophy of art and life. He is the author of 10 books of poetry, a book of short fiction and a book of essays: The Avant-Gods. For the past 11 years he has been a columnist for NY Arts Magazine, and an art critic for Brooklyn Rail and Artnet. He is also a contributing writer for French, Spanish, Canadian & Romanian art and literary magazines: La Page Blanche, Dart International, Art, Viata Romaneasca, Romania Literara, Altitudini, et al. As a performer Valery Oisteanu is well known to downtown NYC audiences, performing original Zen Dada multi-media shows in his unmistakable style of "Jazzoetry."

Guinevere Q

I host a variety show for Poetry, Music, Comedy, and Performance Art the last Sunday of every month at Viracocha. I currently attend the University of San Francisco. My hobbies and interests include Theater, Neuroscience, Tenants' Rights, San Francisco History, Sci Fi, Chess, Film, and Astronomy. I also work as a tour guide on top of a double decker bus. My hope is to collaborate with more poets and continue to promote creative expression. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by so many talented people in the artist community.  

Leo Racicot

Leo Racicot is the recipient of The Antonio Machado Poetry Forum Award (1998). Leo’s collection of poems, "Alone in the Yard" was released last fall and his story, "The Little Man" is being released by Snug Harbor Press and will be issued in both audio and animated form on cablevision this fall. His work has appeared in "Co-Evolution Quarterly", "Utne Reader", "First Hand", "Spiritual Life", "Gay Sunshine Journal", "Newport Life", "Poetry", "Shakespeare's Monkey", "Faith and Inspiration", "The Poet", "Yankee" and many others.

Sam Sax

Sam Sax, part of the 2010 sf slam team, is ten months new to the bay after a ten month tour throughout the United States and Canada. Featuring at poetry slams (the Green Mill, Slam Nuba, Portland Slam, Van Slam, among others), open mics, college campuses (Oberlin College, Brown University, University of Maryland, UT Austin, etc.), basements, alleyways, dive bar backrooms, queer glitter festivals, and street corners. He has worked with queer youth across the country as well, from Chicago to Portland (About Face, SMYRC, Homo A Go Go, etc) and is interested in cultivating community and identity through spoken poetics.

Ron Singer

Ron Singer served with the Peace Corps in Nigeria from 1964 to 1967. His writings about Africa have appeared in publications including Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Georgia Review, opendemocracy.net, Poets & Writers (online), and The Wall Street Journal.  “A Visit to Westcliff Flats" will be included in his forthcoming book, Uhuru Revisited (Africa World Press/Red Sea Press).

Danny Shot

Danny Shot was longtime publisher and editor of Long Shot arts and literary magazine which he founded along with Eliot Katz in 1982. Shot’s poetry has appeared in: bum rush the page (Def Poetry Jam) Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Henry Holt), In Defense of Mumia (Writers and Readers), The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth), the French anthology; Changing America: U.S. Poems of Protest 1980-1995 (Le Temps des Cerises) Paris. He has authored 12 Poems of Love and Terror, 12 Poems of Love and Rebellion, 13 Poems of Youth and Beauty, and What a Wonderful World (LSP). Shot has read his poetry throughout the United States, also appearing on television (WNBC, New York) as part of Felipe Luciano’s Wordchestra. Danny recently completed work on the graphic novel Cafeteria, collaborating with artist Cliff Tisdell. Mr Shot lives in Hoboken, NJ (home of Frank Sinatra and baseball) with his wife and two sons.

Sean Taylor

I am still twenty four years old, my first collection of short stories entitled Everything to do with you was published and released on Seventh Tangent press in May of two thousand ten. I am currently working on a second collection. I am mostly left handed and will almost always fight you over it. The second best thing about San Francisco is the Giants, the first is the literary community.

Sagy Zwirn

Sagy Zwirn, 27, is an Israeli writer. He is a certified lawyer and has written his Master's thesis about Dostoevsky at Tel Aviv University. Prior to his Master's studies, he served as a military prosecutor in the Israeli Air Force JAG. Several poems, short stories, and articles of his have been published in the US and the UK, and a book review he wrote has been published by the British "The Quarterly Review". Sagy has also written two novels, and his agent is now looking for the right publisher. Sagy has also written two plays, and a New York publisher has shown interest in one of them.