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.
Chelsea Allison
Chelsea Allison graduated from Duke University with a BA in English and a certificate in Policy Journalism & Media Studies. After a year-long stint in investment banking, she now works in magazine publishing in New York.
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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Frederica Bepler
Frederica Bepler is a writer and editor in New York City. She graduated with a degree in Creative Writing from Oberlin College.
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
Adam Eaglin
Adam Eaglin holds degrees in literature and writing from Duke University and Boston University. His writing has appeared in Words Without Borders, Harvard Review, Publishers Weekly, TheAtlantic.com, and VanityFair.com, among others. He works in book publishing in New York.
Maya Eilam
Maya Eilam graduated from The College of New Jersey with a BA in English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies. She takes a loose phenomenological approach to literature and focuses on engaged reading with discerning reflection.
Linus Urgo
Jason Price Everett
Jason Price Everett was born in Orlando, Florida in 1972. He was educated at Lafayette College, Cornell University and the University of Paris. He has held twenty-six different positions of employment to date, one of the more recent being that of English professor at a university in Xian, China. He is the author of Unfictions, a collection of short prose available from 8th House Publishing. His work has appeared in such diverse publications as Si Senor, Hubris, CRIT Journal, The Mad Hatters’ Review, BITEmagazine, Writers Notes Magazine, Farmhouse Magazine, The Quarterly Review, The Prague Literary Review, City Writers Review, Riverbabble, Underground Voices, BLATT, The Alchemy Review and Revue Mètropolitaine. He currently lives in Montreal.
Eric Felipe-Barkin
Eric Felipe-Barkin is a working filmmaker, writer, illustrator and published translator. He holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University’s fiction program and regularly staffs the sundry camera departments of New York City’s commercial film industry. He is currently at work on no less than twenty western short films, a Sunday comic series based on the work of Winsor McKay and something else by the time you read this.
His work can be seen at http://ericfelipebarkin.wordpress.com/.
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.
Heather Green
Heather Green’s two poetry chapbooks, No Omen and The Match Array, were published in 2010 by LATR Press and Dancing Girl Press, respectively. A few of her translations and original poems are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly and Barrelhouse.
Frank Haberle
Frank Haberle’s short stories and articles have appeared in numerous print and online journals. He has worked for New York City nonprofit youth organizations for the past 25 years, and is the Board Chair of NY Writers Coalition, which creates community writing opportunities across New York City for at-risk, homeless youth, and others in social service settings.
John Haskel
John Haskell is the author of American Purgatorio and I Am Not Jackson Pollock.
Morten Høi Jensen
Morten Høi Jensen is a freelance book critic. His writing has appeared in Bookforum, The Quarterly Conversation and Open Letters Monthly, among others. He is the books editor for Idiom Magazine.
Samantha Hunt
Richard Jackson
Richard Jackson is a PhD candidate and freelance writer from the UK. He enjoys writing about Central and Eastern Europe and has submitted articles to journals such as Transitions Online and Literature Across Frontiers. He manages and writes for the website ‘Lemberik’ – www.lemberik.org – which concerns contemporary Jewish life in Europe today. For KGB, he is learning how to write in American English – an admission he is not proud of.
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.
Olena Jennings
Olena Jennings completed her MFA at Columbia University and her MA at the University of Alberta. Her translations from the Ukrainian have been published in Poetry International, Poetry International Web, Chelsea, and the Wolf. Her feature articles and book reviews can be found on KGB Bar Lit, Fanzine, and the Millions.
Sean Jones
Sean F. Jones is a writer who has published feature interviews with Pulitzer Prize winners, internationally bestselling authors, and MacArthur-certified geniuses, so he feels pretty bad about himself. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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.
Ian King
Ian F. King is, among other things, a contributing editor for Slice Magazine, where he also manages their NYC Literary Events Calendar. His writing has appeared in Line, Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Take the Handle, Slice and Nylon, among other places. He lives in Brooklyn.
Vladimir Kleyman
Vladimir Kleyman was born in Chernovtsy, Ukraine and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. He now lives in New York City and is working on a collection of short stories.
David Laskowski
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 a ventriloquist sock puppet worn on his left arm when he gets bored on the weekends. 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 “virtuosic ... 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.
John McCaffrey
John McCaffrey’s stories and reviews appear regularly in literary journals and anthologies. A Former New York Times Fellow, he helps to direct a New York City nonprofit and also teaches creative writing classes in Hoboken, NJ. Contact him for interview ideas at .
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.
Joey McGarvey
Joey McGarvey works in publishing. She is a graduate of Stanford University and is currently earning her master’s at New York University. She is also a founding member of [tk] reviews
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
Joseph Morgado
Joseph Morgado currently lives in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, where he grows sunflowers and pumpkins. He is working on his first book of short fiction.
Farid Nassif
Farid Nassif was born in Boston, studied Literature at Bennington College in Vermont and is now getting his MA in English at Brooklyn College. He regularly reads from his profane yet compelling book, “Civilized Man” at Cornelia St. Cafe, Sycamore Bar, Freddie’s, and numerous literary salons. He has also performed original works in countless venues in Boston and Los Angeles. His book is accessible on amazon.com and bn.com. Farid is now working on a second book while dedicating his days to the Human Rights Foundation.
Luke Pearson
Luke Pearson is a soon-to-graduate illustration student and comics artist from the UK. He has been writing and drawing his own comics seriously for about a year and intends to continue doing so alongside his illustration career.
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.