Millie Ehrlich

memoirs

Mildred has been writing poetry since she was a child and has published in college literary journals, including Turning House, the journal of Union Theological Seminary, where she works as the Faculty Secretary and International Student Advisor. She has taken fiction and non-fiction workshops at the Writer's Voice of the Westside Y in NYC and attended various writing conferences around the country. She has a Bachelor's degree in Theater and a Master's degree in Teaching ESL. Her website, www.englishforeverything.com, offers online editing services for native and non-native speakers of English. She was the development editor for several popular-level physics books by her brother, Robert Ehrlich, including Nine Crazy Ideas in Science/Some of Which May Even Be True… She has just finished writing a memoir, Beauty through Broken Glass.

Alicia Finn

essay

Alicia lives in Austin, Texas and is pursuing her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Queen’s University of Charlotte. She is working toward her black belt in taekwondo, so don’t mess with her.

Jennifer H. Fortin

columns

Peace Corps Volunteer Jennifer H. Fortin grew up in Gaithersburg, Md., then went on to Goucher College where she majored in Art and English. Since graduating, the 24-year-old has served the Peace Corps mission in Bulgaria as a primary education volunteer teacher. She writes extensively and has literary and poetic work printed in a number of publications. Jennifer describes the world around her in tactile terms compelling her readers to feel the what she is feeling, to know the bitter cold that her students are feeling; to know the anguish of a people grieving over their great needs; a people heartened by the work of the Peace Corps.

Daniel Gallik

poetry

Daniel has had poetry and short stories published by Hawaii Review, A.I.M.(America’s Intercultural Magazine), PARABOLA, NIMROD, LIMESTONE (University of Kentucky), THE HIRAM POETRY REVIEW, AURA (University of Alabama), and WHISKEY ISLAND (Cleveland State University). Daniel’s agent in the last few months has sold the writer’s first novel, A Story Of Dumb Fate. www.deepcleveland.com will be publishing his Linn Poems in the months ahead.

Doug Garr

memoir

Doug Garr is a journalist and author of most recently, "IBM Redux: Lou Gerstner and the Business Turnaround of the Decade," a business narrative of a corporate icon under siege. He was a sky diver for 14 years and a D license holder, signifying expert parachutist. The Pucker Factor is excerpted from his memoir, "Between Heaven and Earth."

Richard Goodman

memoirs

Richard Goodman is the author of French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France. He has written on a variety of subjects for many national publications, including The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Commonweal, Vanity Fair, Garden Design, Grand Tour, The Writer's Chronicle, salon.com, Saveur, Ascent and The Michigan Quarterly Review. He has twice been awarded a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony. In 2003, he was awarded a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He created, wrote and narrated a six-part series about New York City for Public Radio in Virginia. He has taught creative writing in New York City for a number of years where he is associated with the New York Writers Workshop. He presently teaches creative nonfiction at Spalding University's Brief Residency MFA program in Louisville, Kentucky. Recently, he wrote the introduction for Travelers' Tales Provence, and his essay about Paris appears in the collection, The Best Travelers' Tales 2004. His essay, "In Search of the Exact Word," appears in the new Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus from Oxford University Press.

Phyllis Gutterman

essays

After eleven years of marriage to Larry Gutterman, she serves up twenty one meals a week (without tips) to her three perpetually growing children. Please don’t tell the EPA , but she admits to using paper and plastic plates.

Kevin Heath

essays

Kevin earned a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Cincinnati and now teaches writing at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. He’s published in numerous places, including The Chariton Review, the Mars Hill Review, and Tennis magazine. His work has been nominated for both the Pushcart and Best American Essay honors.

essay

Alberta Hendrickson is an English major at Western Washington University and plans to graduate fall quarter. Her personal essay ‘Pilgrim’ won second place in the 2004 President’s Writing Awards at Boise State University. Alberta is twenty-nine years old. She wants to be a writer when she grows up.

fiction

Xuan Tuan Anh Ho, known as Su, is a native of Vietnam. "The Manager of Byproduct Processing Factory or Factory Number 10" draws on his family history as well as the history of his country before, during, and after The American War. Su is a junior at Webster University in Cha'am, Thailand. This is his first published story.

Richard Kostelanetz

essay

Richard appear in Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , Webster’s Dictionary of American Authors , The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, NNDB.com, and the Encyclopedia Britannica , among other distinguished directories. Living in New York, where he was born, he still needs two bucks to take a subway.

essays

Jennifer finally understood how to form grammatically correct sentences in her English tongue while living abroad after college. And for the first time, she realized she actually enjoyed writing. Upon returning to her native San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-90s, she began freelancing for BabyCenter and other online publications. From there, she launched into paper, writing for Parenting, Parents, American Baby, BabyTalk, Scholastic, Real Simple and Safeway Select magazines. Her friends and family have been urging her for years to write down her stories. And so she is trying.

Terri Light

poetry

Terri Light is a graphic designer and volunteer urban gardener amid the glorious ruins of Detroit. Transplanted to the Motor City from Virginia, she works and teaches at the private school portrayed in "The Virgin Suicides." Her poetry appears in current or forthcoming editions of "Eclectica," "horse less review" and "The Hiss Quarterly."

fiction

Kecia is a native of Cleveland, and has been writing stories since she was 9 years old. However, she spent most of her adult career in Chicago making a living as a writer of software manuals and other business materials. She’s been told that technical writing kills your fiction writing skills, but she’s hoping that's not entirely true, seeing as she just picked up and moved 200 miles away to attend the Iowa Writers' Workshop at an age when many of her peers are spending their downtime serving as their kids' chauffeurs and worrying about their IRAs.

"Commuting" is a story based on a real event (although definitely a work of fiction) involving erotic encounters across races. (There's no nudity or orgasms in this piece.)

Valeri MacEwan

fiction

Valerie is the editor/publisher of the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature She studied creative writing in Holland at the Ploughshares International Fiction Writing Seminar, received a grant from the NC Arts Council to fund the original print issue of The Dead Mule, and is an outspoken advocate of Linux and open source software Her writing has appeared in numerous places like the Mississippi Review, Tattoo Highway, The Asheville Poetry Review, Night Train Magazine and others. She spent 3 years as the Books Editor for Popmatters Magazine of Global Culture and was also a columnist there. MacEwan helped to incorporate WebDelSol as a non-profit organization and was instrumental in the founding of the wow-schools.net project. Along with their neighbor Lloyd, she and her husband humanely trap town-dwelling possums and return them to the wild. Not out of an environmental concerns but because Lloyd's got 2 Schnauzers and the MacEwan's have 3 Jack Russell Terriers and a Scottie and the bark-fest brought about by possum incursion is unbearable at 3 A.M. Her novel, Dancing with Uncle Virgil, has been in the "edit stage" for almost 7 years. Her blog, Mental Kudzu, is located at macewan.net.

Benjamin Malcolm

columns

Benjamin Malcolm works both as a freelance writer and teacher in Northern Thailand. A native of the larger Boston area, he worked for several years in Washington, D.C. before he returned screaming to his Peace Corps roots in Asia. He currently lives peacefully with his wife Supalak in the northernmost province of Chiang Rai.

Dirk Markham

stage

Dirk has been making pyscho-acoustic sculptures since 1998. He draws inspiration more from modern continental philosophy rather than pop bands. For Dirk, music is a transcendental experience which can give a unique insight into being-in-itself as well as the metaphysical beyond. By day he works for two record labels in Berlin - Monika Enterprise and Gigolo. By night he experiments with soundscapes, constantly trying to create something which challenges the understanding. Aliases/other projects: D-Rock, The Hemulen, Disk, Markham/Cheney & Gorman, CIA Post-Listening

Kia Neill

art gallery

Suzanne Nielson

fiction

Suzanne, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, teaches writing at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and at Metropolitan State University. Her poetry, fiction and essays have been published in various literary journals nationally and internationally; most recently her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Mid-America Poetry Review, The Pedestal, Pindeldyboz and 580 Split. Upcoming work will appear in Banyan Review, R-KV-R-Y, Lodestar Quarterly and Gin Bender Poetry Review. So'ham Books will publish her collection of poetry titled "East of the River," in October 2005. She received a BA in Writing from Metropolitan State University, and a MALS degree with an emphasis in writing from Hamline University where she is currently completing her doctorate work in Education.

Jake Novak

humor

Heather Aimee O'Neill

poetry

Alicia Martinez Pardies

stage

Alicia is a respected journalist in Buenos Aires. She has worked in Italy, Mexico and Cuba. Her notes covering some important cultural aspects made her receive the first award for cultural press given by the Italian Embassy and the Corriere della Sera in Buenos Aires. Nowadays she works as the representative of the Ansa Agency in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Helen Rafferty

columns

Cornelia Ravenal

fiction

Shelly R. Rich

fiction

Terrence Ross

stage

Sunsh Stein

memoir

Sunsh lives in New York City, but has one foot out the door. She's a freelance writer with a master's degree in journalism and a day job as a patient advocate. She was recently called an "advanced hippie."

Alix Strauss

fiction

Alix has been a featured lifestyle trend writer on national morning and talk shows including ABC, CBS, CNN and most recently, VH1. Her articles cover a range of topics, from beauty and food trends to celebrity interviews, appearing in an array of publications such as: The New York Times, The New York Post, Time Magazine, Town & Country Travel, and Self, among others. Her collection of shorts, THE JOY OF FUNERALS, was published by St. Martin's Press in both hard and soft cover. The Joy of Funerals will be heading to the big screen with Stockard Channing attached to direct. Alix will write the screenplay as well. Currently, she is working on a novel.

Nicole Tucker

essays

Nicole is masquerading as a Ph.D student in Indiana, not the state, but the small city or town or village in Pennsylvania. She hopes to stay focused enough to write a dissertation (any suggestions?), conquer the LSAT (170), get into law school, and--her ambition since high school--marry well (available for dates with eligible bachelors).

Anca Vlasopolos

fiction

No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement (Columbia University Press, 2000), awarded the YMCA Writer’s Voice Grant for Creative Non-Fiction in 2001, the Wayne State University Board of Governors Award and the Arts Achievement Award in 2002; a poetry collection entitled Through the Straits, at Large; a chapbook of poetry entitled The Evidence of Spring; and a detective novel entitled Missing Members; as well as short stories and over two hundred poems in literary magazines such as Porcupine, Typo, Perigee, Poetry International, Branches Quarterly, Barrow Street, Adagio, Avatar, New Works, Terrain, Bathyspheric Review, Nidus, Full Circle Journal, Short Story, Natural Bridge, Center, Evansville Review, Santa Barbara Review, River Styx, Spoon River Poetry Quarterly, Weber Review, etc.; The Poetry Harmonium, music and poetry compact disk collaboration with composer Christian Kreipke and poets Carol Carpenter and Suzanne Scarfone. "Frailty, Thy Name" is an antidote to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a late teen's growing awareness of flawed humanity.

Richard Willis

memoirs

Richard grew up on a farm near Marengo, Iowa. He is both an actor and a teacher. After receiving his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, he taught and directed there for three years, and later at Lewis & Clark College where he was chairman of the Department of Theatre. He has been active as a member of Actor's Equity, the Screen Actor's Guild, and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists for over twenty years. He is published in New Author's Journal, Words of Wisdom, Red Wheelbarrow, Phantasmagoria, and Iconoclast. He and his wife, Linda Barry, live in New York City

Amy E. Wirtz

poetry

Amy is currently residing in Baltimore MD, moonlighting as a charm school mistress and an aspiring writer. She has been published on Mcsweeneys.net and with Comrades Press. Her very favorite activities include avocados and off-shore betting and the occasional use of concertinas as props.

Kimberly Whitam

stage

Helen Zelon

memoirs

Helen's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Brooklyn Bridge and Scientific American: Explorations. A proud booster of her adopted hometown (New York), she is a nonfiction contributor to Totally Brooklyn.

Aaron Zimmerman

art gallery

A native of West Virginia, Aaron is a 3 year-old multimedia artist now based in New York City. He shows with Jersey City, New Jersey's Gallery 58. He is active with the art collectives Die Kase Hause (diekasehause.com) and The Poo Syndicate (thepoosyndicate.com). He also writes and illustrates for various publications and websites including crowndozen.com, Zoo Magazine, and bitchingandmoaning.org.

STAFF

Jonathan
Kravetz

editor

Jonathan is best known for his ability to scratch his forehead and squint his eyes simultaneously.   He is a writer, editor and some time trumpet player who spends too much time reading long feature stories on the world wide web. He is a co-founder of ducts and founder of the New York based reading series, Trumpet Fiction, held each month at KGB Bar in the east village.   He has studied writing with a number of teachers in New York, including Alice Eliot Dark (fiction), the late Fred Hudson (screenwriting) and Alison Estes (children's fiction) and has held a number of odd jobs, including news reporter, taxi cab driver, projectionist and ducts installer (hmmmm).   He currently works as a computer consultant.   He has recently taken up improv comedy classes with the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater of NYC as a way to discover finer and more glorious ways of embarrassing himself on a weekly basis.   You can contact him at editor@ducts.org.

Philip
Shane

Philip is a freelance film editor and co-founder of ducts . His programs have appeared on PBS, ABC, Cinemax, Lifetime Television, The Learning Channel, and in theaters and film festivals around the world.   He lives in New York with his wife Julie.

Daniel
McCoy

humor editor &
illustrator

Dan trained in improvisation at The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. He also trained as a "normal" actor, but you've probably never seen any plays he's been in. He's a regular contributor to Jest Magazine, and his sketches have been performed on the public radio program, Rewind, and NPR's Morning Edition (speaking of public radio, he also interned at WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show, where he prepared interview notes for Mr. Lopate). Dan currently writes for, and performs in, the Juvie Hall shows "Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You," and "Saturday Night Rewritten," where he is a regular fixture at the anchor desk. Although unemployed in the traditional sense, he has countless temp jobs to his credit, and has the bank account to prove it. He lives in Brooklyn with his patient wife and a small impatient cat.

Anne
Mironchik

treasurer

Anne, although a fine treasurer, is much more renowned for her songwriting, which reaches back to capture the classic brilliance of favorite hits by Carole King and Laura Nyro. She blurs the lines between jazz, country, rock and R&B, weaving melody and rhythm together in masterful ways. Her rich alto voice leads listeners from one genre to another as she explores the struggles, loves, fears and joys of everyday heroes. When she's not writing great music, Anne is busy crunching numbers for ducts! Anne's new CD "Find Me " is now available and can be found at www.annemironchik.com.

anne@ducts.org

Cindy Moore

art gallery editor

Kara Murray

Jenah Pelley

Illustrator

Charles
Salzberg

essays, criticism and reviews editor

Charles is a New York based freelance writer and teacher. He has published a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction books. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Arts & Leisure section, Redbook, New York Magazine, Travel & Leisure and many others.

Tim Tomlinson

fiction editor

Tim's fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, North American Review, Libido, and elsewhere. He's published haiku in Modern Haiku, Time Haiku, and Black Bough. He's an occasional journalist, and a full time teacher, working at both NYU and the New York Writers Workshop.

Ryan Van Winkle

poetry editor

Ryan is 24 years old and lives out of a backpack. He has no permanent residence and is a happy freelance writer. He spends as much time naked as humanly possible. E-Mail him at ryan@smaxx.com.

Sarah Graham

webmaster