Lit Journal Contributors
Mimoza Ahmeti
Mimoza Ahmeti | wiki | was born in Kruja, Albania. She is the author of books of poems, Be Beautiful, Especially Tomorrow, Delirium and The Pollination of Flowers. She is the author of the novels The Architrave and The Hallucinating Woman. The Ridiculous Common Link, a collection of short stories, was published in Albania on 1996. She is married and has two daughters.
Anna Andrade
Anna K. Andrade, translator and fiction writer, was born in Brazil and moved to New York City in 2000 to attend City College in order to obtain a master’s degree in creative writing. She has had short stories published both in Portuguese and English, the most recent being “A Daughter’s Secret” in the fiction anthology Coloring Book . She currently teaches intensive writing at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and The College of New Rochelle.
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Tom Bissell
Tom Bissell is the author of Chasing the Sea and God Lives in St. Petersburg. He contributes to Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, and other publications. He lives in New York.
Kelly Braffet
Kelly Braffet‘s first novel, Josie and Jack, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005. It was praised as “wicked fun . . . a gothic tour of hell” (Los Angeles Times) and “a compelling study of love, hate, and psychopathic jealousy” (New York Post). Braffet was born in Long Beach, California, in 1976, and has lived in Arizona, rural Pennsylvania and Oxford, England. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, and has taught novel writing at the Sackett Street Writing Workshop. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with her fiance, the tall and embarrassingly talented writer Owen King. They have three cats.
Kate Braverman
Kate Braverman is an experimental writer of a singular and ruthless breed. She is a poet, short fiction writer, essayist and author of the novels, Lithium for Medea, Palm Latitudes, Wonders of the West, and The Incantation of Frida K. Her Graywolf Prize winning memoir, Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir was published in Feb. 2006. Kate also recently won the 2005 Mississippi Review Prize and received a Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship for lifetime recognition of achievement. Kate’s short-story “Mrs. Jordan’s Summer Vacation” won Editor’s Choice Raymond Carver Short-Story Award.
Ken Bruen
Ken Bruen, born in Galway, Ireland, is the author of more than a dozen extremely dark crime novels. His book The Guards, which began the Jack Taylor series, was nominated for every single award in the mystery field, and won the Shamus Award. Mr. Bruen has a PhD in metaphysics and taught for 25 years in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.
Susan Buttenwieser
Susan’s fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Failbetter, Epiphany, Ducts and other publications. She has received several fiction fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and teaches writing in organizations that serve at-risk populations including the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and Rikers Island.
Jane Ciabattari
Jane Ciabattari is the author of the short-story collection, "Stealing the Fire." Her short stories have been published in VerbSap.com, LiteraryMama.com, Ms., The North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Hampton Shorts (which honored her with an Editors' Choice STUBBY Award), The East Hampton Star, and Redbook, which nominated her story "Gridlock" for a National Magazine Award. Her story “Payback Time" was a Pushcart Prize "special mention." Her story "How I Left Onandaga County," appears in the anthology "The Best Underground Fiction" (November 2006,Stolen Time Press) and also was a Pushcart Prize honorable mention. She serves as vice president/ADD THIS:membership of the National Book Critics Circle and a blogger on the NBCC board blog, Critical Mass. The North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Hampton Shorts (which honored her with an Editors' Choice STUBBY Award). www.janeciabattari.com
John J. Clayton
John J. Clayton’s third novel, Kuperman’s Fire, was published in July, 2007. His Wrestling with Angels: New and Collected Stories, was published by Toby Press in September, 2007. His stories have won prizes in O.Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and in the Pushcart Prize anthology. His second collection, Radiance, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in 1998. His second novel, The Man I Never Wanted to Be, was also published in 1998.
Clayton has edited six editions of an anthology, the Heath Introduction to Fiction (now for Hough-ton Mifflin). He has also written a good deal about modern fiction, including Gestures of Healing, a psychological study of modern British and American fiction. His Saul Bellow: In Defense of Man won awards in literary criticism. He has published criticism on various twentieth century writers including D. H. Lawrence, E. L. Doctorow, and Grace Paley.
Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen was born in southern New Jersey, in 1980. A literary critic for The Forward he lives in Brooklyn, NY. His books include a collection of stories, The Quorum (2005), and a novel, Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto (2007). Another novel, A Heaven of Others, is forthcoming in 2008.
T Cooper
T Cooper is the author of the novels Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes (Dutton, March 2006) and Some of the Parts (Akashic, 2002). T is also co-editor (with Adam Mansbach) of an anthology of original fiction, entitled A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing (Akashic, 2006), from which “The Story That Refuses to Die” is excerpted. T’s work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The New York Times Style Magazine, The Believer, and Poets & Writers, in addition to a handful of anthologies. T lives in New York City.
Tod Crouch
Tod Crouch is author of the novels The Night Watchman, Common People, Romanticide, Victors, Cutting Teeth and The Anna Log Children’s Series. He received a Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia College for Photography in 2001 after directing and writing two theatrical productions, Undying Loyalty and Of course: a Series of One Acts. before finishing five other plays. He Co-Curates at Papa B’s Studio in Brooklyn and occasionally volunteers for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. He makes most of his money as a bouncer in a lesbian bar. Tod tends to be a cheery lad. If you were to be Tod’s friend, he would want you to know that he’ll talk to anyone about anything anytime, but will probably forget your name and hates answering phones. The book he wish he wrote is Herman Hesse’s “The Glass Bead Game”. His favorite word is “surprise”. His least favorite word is “but”. He wants to be remembered as “a neat guy to meet.” His six word epitaph is “He had an amazing run, thankfully.” He is from Illinois and has lived in New York for five years.
Allison Leigh DeFrees
Allison Leigh DeFrees is a poet and an immigration attorney living in New York City and Austin, Texas. Her past includes stints as a playwright, actor, and punk rock singer. Former jobs include bread delivery woman, horse stall cleaner, waitress, wooden boat renovator, medical malpractice lawyer, Calculus tutor, journalist, and speech writer. She likes poetry best, and in 2005 published a handbound volume of poetry, “Glass Bones.” She still carries a torch for mathematics.
Rebecca Donner
Rebecca Donner is the author of the novel Sunset Terrace, and the editor of the story collection On The Rocks: The KGB Bar Fiction Anthology. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Bookforum, The Believer, People Magazine, and Post Road. She has taught creative writing at Wesleyan, Barnard and Cooper Union, and is presently working on her second novel. Visit Rebecca at RebeccaDonner.com.
Sunset Terrace: A Novel by Rebecca Donner
Colleen English
Ken Foster
Ken Foster is the author of the bestselling memoir, The Dogs Who Found Me, and a collection of stories, The Kind I’m Likely To Get, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is also the editor of two anthologies: The KGB Bar Reader and Dog Culture. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Bark, The Believer, Urban Dog, Salon, Fence, Flaunt, and other publications, and he has appeared as a guest on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program with Terry Gross, WGBH’s “Morning Stories.” He is most recently the author of Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found. He lives in New Orleans with Brando (a Dane/pit bull), Zephyr (a rottweiler/shepherd), and Sula (an American Pit Bull Terrier)
Steve Geng
Steve Geng grew up an army brat in Philadelphia, Germany, and France. An irrepressible romantic, he’s been (among other things) a career thief, an actor on the TV show Miami Vice, and finally a dedicated member of Manhattan’s twelve-step recovery community. He concedes his love of writing to be a legacy from his sister, the late New Yorker humorist, Veronica Geng. His affinity for storytelling produced two screenplays and, as a student at NYU, a novel, Bop City, set in Paris during the Algerian revolution. Thick As Thieves is his first published book. He lives and writes in Manhattan.
John Haskel
John Haskell is the author of American Purgatorio and I Am Not Jackson Pollock.
Lori Jakiela
Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoir Miss New York Has Everything (Warner/Hatchette 2006) and a poetry collection, The Regulars (Liquid Paper Press 2001). Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Tears in the Fence (U.K.) and elsewhere. She lives in Trafford, Pa., the birthplace of the chocolate-covered pickle.
Etgar Keret
READ MORE ABOUT ETGAR KERET | Personal Website
Born in Tel Aviv in 1967, Etgar Keret is the most popular writer among Israeli youth today. Keret started writing in 1992 and has published four books of short stories, one novella, three books of comics and a children`s book. Bestsellers in Israel, his books have received international acclaim and have been translated into 16 languages, including Korean and Chinese. Missing Kissinger has been listed among the 50 most important Israeli books of all time. In France, Kneller`s Happy Campers was one of La Fnac’s 200 books of the decade; the story, “The Nimrod Flip-Out” was published in Francis Ford Coppola`s magazine, Zoetrope (2004). Over 40 short films have been based on Keret`s stories, one of which won the American MTV Prize (1998). A number of his stories have also been adapted for the stage, in Israel and abroad. Keret has received the Book Publishers Association’s Platinum Prize several times. He has also been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize and the Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Prize. His movie, Skin Deep, won 1st Prize at several international film festivals, and was awarded the Israeli Oscar. Keret is currently a lecturer in the TV and film department at Tel Aviv University. Rutu Modan, with whom he co-wrote Dad Runs Away with the Circus, received an Andersen International Honor Citation (2002) for her illustrations.
Alex Littlefield
Alex Littlefield is a contributor to Radar magazine and a former police correspondent for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. His play Indulgences was performed by an Oberlin College theater group, and his translation of an Argentine dogsledding memoir from the arctic north of Greenland is forthcoming in Canada. He works at an independent press in New York.
Cecil Marcos
Cecil Marcos invented Animal Collective for his eighth grade science project. Panda Bear is actually his left arm. No one suspects anything. Aside from pioneering the luxury sundial industry and being named Georgia’s All-State high school quarterback in 2003, Cecil is one of the nation’s most accomplished recumbent tandem bicyclists. Time Out New York describes his bicycling performance as “virtuostic ... a must see. Like Lance Armstrong playing co-op Mario Kart with God.” In his free time he enjoys watching Friday Night Lights while absently flipping through old issues of the Financial Times Weekend Supplement.
Douglas A. Martin
Born in Virginia in 1973, Douglas A. Martin was raised in Georgia. His first novel, Outline of My Lover, was selected by Colm Toibin as an International Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and has been adapted and staged by the Forsythe Company for their multimedia production “Kammer/Kammer.” His second novel, Branwell, has recently been published, as well as They Change the Subject, a collection of stories.
Ted Mathys
Ted Mathys' first book of poetry, Forge, was published by Coffee House Press in 2005. A second collection, Surface to Air, will appear from CHP in 2009. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, his poems have appeared in Fence, Verse, jubilat, Web Conjunctions, Aufgabe, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Ohio, he now bunkers in Brooklyn.
John McCaffrey
More of John McCaffrey’s writings can be accessed at www.jamccaffrey.com.
Brendan McCall: Crime Corner
Born in California, McCall is an actor, director, and choreographer whose work has been presented internationally. He has taught at institutions such as the Yale School of Drama, New School for Drama, New York University, the Atlantic Acting School, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, among others. He lived in New York City for 18 years before moving to Oslo in 2008, where he is the Director of The International Theater Academy Norway (TITAN), a 2-year professional theater education program combining innovative artistic craft with practical entrepreneurship. For more information, see http://www.titanteaterskole.no.
Kevin Moffett
Kevin Moffett was born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. His stories have received the Nelson Algren Award and the Pushcart Prize, and have appeared in McSweeney’s, Tin House, StoryQuarterly, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. “Tattooizm,” originally published in Tin House, is forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories 2006. His first collection of stories, Permanent Visitors, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, judged by George Saunders, and will be published in October. He lives with his wife and young son in Gettysburg, Pa., where he will spend 2006-2007 as the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College. Contact Kevin at .
Permanent Visitors by Kevin Moffett
Dale Peck
Dale Peck is the author of The Law of Enclosures, Now It's Time to Say Goodbye, What We Lost: Based on a True Story, Martin and John, Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction. In August 2006: FSG will reissue Martin and John as part of the FSG Classics series. January 2007: Drift House: The First Voyage comes out in paperback; Drift House: The Amulet of Babel comes out in hardcover (Bloomsbury). May 2007: Carroll and Graf will publish a new novel, The Garden of Lost and Found.
Arthur Phillips
Arthur Phillips was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His first novel, Prague, was a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, recipient of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and has been translated into seven languages. The Egyptologist was published in 2004 and was on not eleven but twelve 2004 Best Fiction Lists. His novel Angelica is coming out in 2007.
John Radosta
John Radosta lives with his wife in son in Boston and teaches high
school English. He is an avid brewer, and loves gadgets.
John Reed
John Reed received his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University; writing has appeared in such venues as Bomb Magazine, The New York Press, New York Arts, Cover Magazine, Paper Magazine, Timeout New York, The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum, Artnet, Open City and Playboy; Books Editor of the Brooklyn Rail since 2004; author of the novels, A STILL SMALL VOICE (Delacorte Press 2000/2001), THE WHOLE (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster 2005), the 2004 bestseller, SNOWBALL’S CHANCE (Roof Books 2002/2003), and a yet untitled “New Play by William Shakespeare” (Penguin, 2008); teaches at New School University.
Jason Starr
Jason Starr, born in Brooklyn, has been compared to Jim Thompson and James M. Cain. His novel Tough Luck won the Barry Award, and the Anthony Award for Twisted City. He currently lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.
Kevin T. S. Tang
Kevin T. S. Tang recently graduated Dartmouth College with an honors degree in English Literature, a higher honors degree in saying hi when you’re actually waving at the person behind him, and a M.A. in retracting his greetings awkwardly and running away. At Dartmouth, Kevin was prose editor of the campus literary magazine and won some awards for his fiction thesis. He is a published magazine travel & culture writer in his hometown, Taipei, Taiwan.
David Unger
Guatemalan-born David Unger is the author of Life in the Damn Tropics (Syracuse University Press, 2002, Wisconsin University Press, 2004, [Vivir en el maldito trópico. Random House Mondadori, Mexico, 2004; Recorded Books 2005; Locus Publishing, Taiwan, 2006 and Yingpan Brother Publishing, China, 2007]).
His short stories have appeared in Playboy Mexico (October 2005), Currents from the Dancing River: New Writing By Latinos (New York: Harcourt), Tropical Synagogues: Latin American Jewish Fiction (New York: Holmes and Meiers), and in literary journals here and abroad. His new novel, In My Eyes, You Are Beautiful, has just begun making the rounds with publishers. He has translated eleven books, among them Teresa Cárdenas’s Letters to My Mother (Groundwood Books, 2006), Rigoberta Menchú’s The Honey Jar (Groundwood Books, 2006) and The Girl from Chimel (Groundwood Books, 2005), Ana María Machado’s Me in the Middle (Groundwood Press, 2002), Silvia Molina’s The Love You Promised Me (Curbstone Press,1999 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 IMPAC Prize); The Popol Vuh (Groundwood Press, 1999); Elena Garro’s First Love (Curbstone Press); Bárbara Jacobs’ The Dead Leaves (Curbstone Press); and Nicanor Parra’s Antipoems: New and Selected (New Directions). He is the recipient of several prizes including the 1998 Ivri-Nasawi Institute Poetry Prize, and he shared in the 1997 ALTA Translation Prize for Roque Dalton’s Small Hours of the Night (Curbstone Press). He serves on the advisory board of Críticas Magazine, Curbstone Press and the Multicultural Review. He teaches Translation in the City College of New York’s MFA Program.
Life in the Damn Tropics: A Novel (Paperback) by David Unger
Zachary Tyler Vickers
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Zachary Tyler Vickers has appeared in The Emerson Review, H-NGM-N Journal, mud luscious, The Idiom Magazine, as well as elsewhere. He is an Iowa Writers’ Workshop fellow and an SLS fellow. He has completed his first collection of stories entitled, “Disfigured Paper Animals,” and is currently working on another collection and a novel.
David Winner
David Winner is the fiction editor of The American, an international monthly magazine based in Rome. His writing (fiction and nonfiction) has appeared in The Village Voice, Phantasmagoria, Berkeley Fiction Review, Cortland Review, Fiction, Confrontation and British literary magazines such as Staple and Dream Catcher. He won first prize in The Ledge magazine’s 2003 Fiction Contest as well as being nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. A short film based on his story was recently shown at Cannes.
Jesse Workman
Jesse Workman got his MFA in Screen Writing from Boston University in 2002. He is working on a book of poetry and short stories.