JESUS ANGEL GARCIA is the author of badbadbad, a transmedia novel about sex, God, rock ‘n’ roll and the social web: What’s the line between self-destruction and redemption? Is there such a thing as sexual morality? What does intimacy look like in a culture dominated by e-communication? Stories adapted from the project — which combines a traditional print book with a soundtrack of original songs derived from the narrative and a series of short documentary films based on the novel’s themes — have been published or podcasted in 3:AM Magazine, Monkeybicycle, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Orange Alert and other venues. Info, excerpts, song samples and film clips may be found at http://badbadbad.net.

ALYSON LYON is the co-producer/co-host of Essay Fiesta (every third Monday at the Book Cellar) and a founding member of The Chicago Story Collective. Alyson also has a background in acting. A Chicago native and graduate of DePaul’s Theatre School, Alyson’s performance highlights include: 12 Ophelias at Trap Door; The Vagina Monologues at the Apollo Theatre; Pajama Girl, her one-woman show, at the Chopin Theatre, a guest appearance on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and a cameo in Jeff Garlin’s I Want Soeone to Eat Cheese With. She reads her personal essays all over town and currently works as a makeup artist.

ROBERT RODI has written fiction, nonfiction, criticism, plays and comic books. His newest effort, Seven Seasons In Siena: My Quixotic Quest for Acceptance Among Tuscany’s Proudest People, was released in June by Ballantine Books. He has also jsut released a new novel — a Hitchcock-for-the YouTube-age thriller entitled The Sugarman Bootlegs — exclusively as an e-book. He has published seven other novels, including Fag Hag and When You Were Me, and the nonfiction book Dogged Pursuit: My Year of Competing Dusty, the World’s Least Likely Agility Dog. His short fiction can be found in a number of anthologies, including Men On Men 5, His and Sandman: Book of Dreams. His literary criticism has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, New City and The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review. He blogs about the Chicago performing arts scene for The Huffington Post and writes a “guerilla lit-crit” blog on Jane Austen, Bitch In a Bonnet. He was a founding member of the Chicago-based performance art troupe, The Pansy Kings, who were active throughout the 1990s, and he wrote sketches for the Live Bait Theater. Recently he became an auxiliary member of the monologuist ensemble BoyGirlBoyGirl. He is also the front man for the fusion rock band 7th Kind.

FEATURED ORGANIZATION: THE NEIGHBORHOOD WRITING ALLIANCE, publishers of the Journal of Ordinary Thought, provokes dialogue, builds community, and promotes change by creating opportunities for adults in Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods to write, publish, and perform works about their lives. The Journal of Ordinary Thought publishes reflections people make on their personal histories and everyday experiences. It is founded on the proposition that Every Person Is a Philosopher.

Jane Hertenstein lives in Chicago in the Uptown neighborhood and has been involved in community building for the past twenty-five years. Jane has published three books: A young adult novel titled Beyond Paradise; Home is Where We Live, a picture book about life at a homeless shelter as seen through the eyes of a young girl; and Orphan Girl, the story of a bag lady Jane met at the shelter. Orphan Girl was highly praised in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Book Section as well as in other national review journals.

Allison Amend was born in Chicago on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets 2-0. She attended Stanford University and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has received awards from and appeared in One Story, Black Warrior Review, StoryQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner and Other Voices, among other publications. Her debut short story collection, Things That Pass for Love, was published in October 2008 by OV Books. Visit her on the web at allisonamend.com.

Mickey Hess taught part-time for several universities in Kentucky and Indiana before moving to his current position as Assistant Professor of English at Rider University. His books include Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Music, Movement, and Culture (Greenwood, 2007), and Is Hip Hop Dead? The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Most Wanted Music (Praeger, 2007). His writing has appeared in Ninth Letter, Punk Planet, and Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category. He lives in Philadelphia.

Sharon Solwitz’s story collection Blood and Milk (Sarabande, 1996) received the 1997 Carl Sandberg award and the Midland Author’s prize for adult fiction, and was a finalist for the 1997 National Jewish Book Award. Her stories have been published widely; their awards include the Pushcart, the Nelson Algren and the Katherine Ann Porter. Her novel Bloody Mary (Sarabande, Inc.) came out in 2003. She teaches at Purdue University in W. Lafayette, and lives in Chicago, where she and her husband poet Barry Silesky edit Another Chicago Magazine.

Philip Stone is a Chicago musician and writer. He currently plays drums for the nationally touring rock band, Sanawon. His short fiction has appeared in the anthology Life Sentences (Wipf and Stock, 2007) and Montage Magazine. Philip was a Splendid Magazine music critic for several years, but stopped once the threatening hate mail mentioned his family members by name. After a two year hiatus and strong encouragement from his therapist, Philip is writing again. Philip has a day job.

Steven Sacks: Since returning to Chicago from Ecuador, where he lived for 12 years and founded the country’s first certified organic farm, Steven Sacks has read his short stories on Chicago Public Radio’s Writer’s Block Party, at the Uptown Writer’s Space, and for the “Mortified” show at the Green Mill, where he was also the featured performer for the “2007 Best of Mortified.”

Rahnee Patrick writes fictional and non-fiction essays to explore the lives of marginal folks, particularly lives of women, Asian Americans, and people with disabilities. In 1996, Rahnee won the Women’s Studies Essay Contest, Creative Category for her fictional essay The Living. In that same year, her short story Virtual Reality was awarded First Place in the short story competition of the Lester M. Wolfson Award writing contest. In 2000, Am I Who?, a non-fiction essay was first published Face2Face Press, a Web forum that discussed interracial concerns. Instructors frequently use Am I Who? as one of many representations of the Asian American experience.

Allyson Walters is a Chicagoan and refugee of the research sciences,which she left behind two years ago to focus on the writing she always loved. Her next stop is the School of the Art Institute, where she will begin a graduate program in writing this fall. She is currently working on her first novel, as well as a collection of short stories based on Irish and British folklore.

Join us this Memorial Day Weekend on the last day of the festival, SUNDAY, MAY 25th @ The Charleston Bar (2076 N. Hoyne) 7:30pm

Come check out these local literary magazines, pick up an issue, and hear the editors read their own work.

FEATURING:
Chicago Review: Robert P. Baird is the editor of Chicago Review and a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slate, Bookforum, and Chicago Magazine.

Make Magazine: Mike Zapata is a writer and educator living in Chicago. He is co-founder, co-publisher, and fiction editor for MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine. He has produced and written for comedy revues at Second City’s Donny’s Skybox, The Viaduct, The Trap Door Theater, and the Apollo Theater Chicago, and is co-creator, co-writer of the television pilot Settling Up. He is also a 2008 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship recipient for Prose. Currently, he is working on novel which takes place in Chicago, New Orleans, and Quito, Ecuador.

Fifth Wednesday Journal: Michael Newirth is guest fiction editor of the current issue of Fifth Wednesday Journal. He was fiction editor of Bridge Magazine prior to its 2006 demise. His stories, essays, and reviews appear in numerous publications and anthologies, including Other Voices, Another Chicago Magazine, Open City, Time Out Chicago, The Baffler, Pushcart Prize XXII, and Boob Jubilee: The Cultural Politics of the New Economy.

Bruiser Review: Simon A. Smith is the editor of Bruiser Review. In a past life, he was a regular contributor for Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight program. His fiction has appeared in Look-Look Magazine, Storyglossia, Dogzplot, Banana King, The Columbia Chronicle, Insolent Rudder and a few others. He is currently working on his first novel, Escape From Dreamland, and hopes to have it finished by the end of this year.