ISSUE ONE///MAKERS

Jaffa Aharonov lives in St. Louis, where she cooks for money, makes art and music for fun/sanity, and gardens with juve kiddos for feeling like an okay person. If you like, you can contact Jaffa at mammalcomplex@gmail.com. 

Jaffa cannot remember the names of most of her cousins.

Scott Alden draws pictures, plans parties and writes stories. He lives in a cabin in rural Massachusetts with an electric frying pan, a stack of comic books and a brazen field mouse. He is emboldened by deadlines and can be reached at scottjarrodalden@gmail.com.

Not Specialties: State Capitals, Matching Socks, Casseroles.

Joe Collins is currently at work on a graduate degree in poetry. A native of the Chicagoland area, he has lived there, and elsewhere in the Midwest, for most of his life. collins.joseph.a+writer@gmail.com.

Unspecial at: Seafood | Mushrooms | Washing Dishes | Motorcycles | Swimming | Birdies | Haircuts | Corporate Finance | Nauticalisms | Needlework | VicLit

Jennifer Denrow lives in Denver and likes the sky. She talks about it sometimes here: www.somerabbits.blogspot.com.

Specialties don’t include: diving, rest, mime photography, looking for wind, fast-forwarding, deanimating, looking for horses, ears of corn, putting things near other things, telling, sewing, or finance.

Andy Fogle is an upstate NY high school teacher originally from Virginia Beach + DC. He has 3 chapbooks from March Street Press and Pudding House (Extincting the Drunk, New Batteries for Your Halo, and Dragon Emerging from Waves), an MFA in poetry from George Mason University, and is working on his PhD in Education at SUNY Albany (pf753981@albany.edu).

Non-specialities: socializing, restraining southern/beachtown dialect.

Roxane Gay's work appears or is forthcoming in Annalemma, The Collagist, DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, Hobart, Keyhole, Monkeybicycle and others. She is the associate editor of PANK and can be found online at http:///www.roxanegay.com.

Things that are not my specialty:
Drawing proportionately sized hands and feet when sketching stick figures, gagging, memorizing poetry, sorting laundry, jumping jacks, sitting through a Tyler Perry movie without losing control, and lasting more than an hour without cursing.

Lately, Maggie Ginestra's period cycle is in sync with the Anheuser-Busch brewing cycle. Hops in the air and she just don't care. She runs a l'il chapbook shop on cherokee street, yeah stl.  check it out: stirruppants.blogspot.com.

Specialties do not include: becoming a lizard, riding the Gravitron, cakes.

Joseph Goosey parks cars in Jacksonville, Florida. He has 2 chapbooks online and 2 in print. He thanks you for reading.

Shit I can't/won't do: multiplication and division, balancing finances, talking to strangers about college or jobs or rent, joining the peace corps.

Kit Kennedy has published in Blood Orange Review, Bombay Gin, CLWN WR, FRiGG, Mannequin Envy, Merge, Runes, Snow Monkey, 21 Stars Review, you say.say, and Van Gogh’s Ear.  She hosts the reading series at Gallery Café in San Francisco.  The cat’s name is haiku. E-mail her at kit.kennedy@yahoo.com.

Don’t: sew; can’t: use power tools (exception:  hair dryer and occasional vacuum cleaner); won’t: knit. Although once in college I knitted a six-foot aqua blue scarf.  To this day, I retain no fear of the sea.  Some miracles are questionable.

Kelda Martensen is an artist and educator living in Burien, Washington where she teaches at Pratt Fine Art Center and South Seattle Community College and is the Youth Education Director at the Burien Art Gallery.  Kelda is thrilled to be living back in the Puget Sound after over a decade away spent residing in Oregon, Ireland, South Africa, California, Japan, Alaska and Missouri.  Kelda received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her BA from Willamette University.  Always interested in community art projects, commissions and collaborations, Kelda would love to hear from you.  Please write to kelda.martensen@gmail.com.  Additional work can be found at www.keldamartensen.com.  

Can’t do list: Can’t keep houseplants alive, won’t do competitive running, can’t eat mayonnaise, can’t listen to Pon de Replay without dancing, can’t wear-out my dog.

Ben Spivey lives and writes in Atlanta. His stories have appeared in or are forthcoming from Abjective, Thirst For Fire, >Kill Author, Corduroy Mountain, Titular, and others. Ben blogs at www.yourbrainsblackbox.blogspot.com.

Not good at following driving directions. Won't talk about my sister's break up.

Jay Thompson, co-editor of the journal Thermos and cofounder of the Princess Seismograph arts collective, lives in Seattle. He's published poems, criticism, and Dungeons & Dragons fiction. He writes a poetics column for the Kenyon Review, and he keeps a personal blog at the101dmnations.livejournal.com. Write to him about chapbook trades, space exploration, and hot-air balloons.

Not my specialty: knots, deft characterization, yoga, plant identification, being quiet at movies, driving a car.

Jason Vivona makes paintings in the Bay Area, then often, he sends them elsewhere so people can see them, or put them on  skateboards, record covers, or clothing. Even more often he travels with them and paints on things that are near by. Vivona rides dirty and lives free, as all proper gypsies should. contact through digital smoke signals at jasonvivona@gmail.com.

“I can't and won't stop, baby get down."

Kyle Winkler lives in Indiana. He's ridden in a combine in a wheat field. It was bucolic. And while we're getting personal, let's just say his cat is possessive. He's also working on a novel--I mean, who isn't? Contact: kmwinkler@gmail.com.

Things i won't/can't/don't do: Speak French to Albanian bums. Refract moonlight back to the lunar surface for further study. Handle fresh lava, ungloved. Pay bills on time. Accept smelly consequences. Ignore an opportunity to pet a kitten. Refuse to kiss a girl in a car by a lot of corn while Sam Cooke plays on the radio. Idly watch child exploitation. Eat potted meat.