Lit Journal Contributors
Susan Agar
Susan Agar recently moved to New York from Philadelphia, where she taught a grief writing workshop and was the Program Coordinator of Musehouse: A Center for the Literary Arts in Chestnut Hill. She has an M.A. in English Literature from London University, and an A.B. from Sarah Lawrence College.
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.
Peter Augerot
Peter Augerot is a graduate of UNCW. He currently interns at The American Reader. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Je Banach
Maggie Beauvais
Maggie Beauvais is a freelance writer and Assistant Literary Events Editor for Slice Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, is good with babies, and takes unreasonably long walks.
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.
Jon Boulier
Jon Boulier is a writer, photographer, and an instructor at the University of San Francisco. He’s contributed to Opium Magazine, Block, and The Rumpus. As a photographer, he’s shot regularly for How I Learned, the Franklin Park reading series, and The Monthly Rumpus. He’s currently at work on a novel and a collection of short stories.
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.
David Burr Gerrard
David Burr Gerrard is a writer living in New York. His debut novel, Short Century, will be published by Rare Bird Books in 2014. A graduate of Columbia’s M.F.A program in fiction, he is a contributing editor at Tottenville Review, and his short fiction has appeared in Extract(s).
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.
Juan Carlos Reyes
Juan Carlos Reyes is originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador. In 2007, he received a PEN USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellowship, and his stories, poems and essays have appeared in Arcadia, Black Warrior Review, Blue Stem and The Busy Signal. He holds a Mathematics degree from New York University, and he currently teaches creative writing, literature, and composition at The University of Alabama. He’s recently finished work on his first novel, A Summer’s Lynching.
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.
Mike Dell’Aquila
Mike Dell’Aquila received a BA in English from Penn State University
and an MA in English from Brooklyn College. His writing has appeared in a
variety of print and online publications including Writing Our Way Home
(forthcoming), Paterson Literary Review, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana,
Florida English Literary Journal, Italian Americana, and Kalliope: A Penn
State Literary Journal. Mike also maintains a blog at
http://mikedellaquila.blogspot.com and is currently at work on his first
novel.
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
Matthew Dreiling
Matthew Dreiling recently graduated from Pacific Lutheran University, where he studied English literature and politics. He currently lives in New York.
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.
Sarah Gerard
Sarah Gerard is a New York-based writer and bookseller. Her work has appeared in BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, Slice, and New South. She’s an MFA candidate at The New School.
David Burr Gerrard
David Burr Gerrard’s debut novel, Short Century, will be published next year. He is a contributing editor at Tottenville Review.
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 won the 2011 Pen Parentis Award for his short story South of Hartford; his other stories have appeared in numerous print and online magazines. Frank is a grantwriter working with New York City social service organizations. He is a Board member and workshop leader for the NY Writers Coalition, a nonprofit group developing writing communities in prisons, youth centers, senior centers and social service programs throughout New York City.
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.
Someone Kind
Ian F. King
Ian F. King is the editor of KGB Bar & Lit Journal’s book reviews section, the literary events editor for Slice Magazine, and a contributing music writer for Line - A Journal. His writing has also appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Slice, Take the Handle, and Nylon.com, among other places, and can also be found at the music blog Dear Jerks. 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
Will Lasky
Will Lasky has spent a great deal of time in the former Soviet Union on various jobs ranging from bumbling shepherd of American students to human rights advocate to journalist. Lately, he lives in Brooklyn where he writes in his free moments. Currently, he’s working on a draft of a young adult novel.
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.