Zinta Aistars
Zinta Aistars is the published author of three books. She is an
editor for LuxEsto, the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine,
and has published poetry, travel essays, stories, and articles
in the United States, Latvia, England, Sweden, Germany, and Australia.
Her work also appears in many e-zines, including Fiction Attic,
Ghoti Fish, Saucy Vox, Ascent Aspirations
Magazine, Menda City Review, Ash Canyon Review,
Flashquake, The Redbridge Review, River
Walk Journal, Poems Neiderngasse, and many others.
She publishes a monthly newsletter of marketing tips and inspiration
for writers called Zeenythe Communications and is an editor for
the literary e-zine, insolent rudder.
Read 'The Tease'
Matthew Lee Bain
I am thirty autumns old. My avocations include the study of psychology,
German (language and culture), and philology. In my free time,
I enjoy strength training, viewing avant-garde cinema, and rolling
around on the floor while screaming in agony.
Read '.....In The House of Seasons'
Wyatt G. Bessing
Wyatt G. Bessing lives north of San Francisco, CA, where he works
as an educational consultant and writing teacher. He graduated
from California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in Writing and
has since spent far too long revising his thesis project, a modern
fantasy novel he is now preparing to loose upon the world. An
earlier version of his story in this issue was chosen for a reading
to benefit the local edition of the literary magazine Night
Train.
Read 'People Are Starving In Ethiopia Starts
A Trend'
David Fraser
David Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is
the founder and editor of Ascent
Aspirations Magazine, since 1997. His poetry and short
fiction have appeared in 28 journals including Three Candles,
Regina Weese, Ardent, and Ygdrasil.
He has published a collection of his poetry Going
to the Well (2004). David is currently the BC Federation
of Writers Regional Director for The Islands Region.
David Fraser has a BA in English from University of Toronto,
and an MEd in adult education from OISE. In Ontario he taught
English, Creative Writing Writer’s Craft among other subjects
at the secondary school level for 30 years. He was the ski school
director for High Park Snow School for 8 years. Currently he is
a full time writer who also teaches skiing at Mt Washington in
the winter.
Read his Poetry
Shaun Grech
Shaun Grech (b.1976) is a Maltese self-taught artist who has been
painting obsessively for the last couple of years. Grech has not
attended art school or any formal tuition and his works are largely
a product of experimentation and exploration, inspired by a quasi-obsessive
penchant for observing people. Grech's work is based on an honest
depiction of people in fragile states, what he calls 'humble chronicles
of living' and common themes running through Grech's work include
poverty and destitution, politics, chaos and pain. Grech's lastest
exhibition 'Pictures from the Outside' work has been critically
acclaimed by the Maltese media and his work is also found at the
Maltese National Museum of Fine Arts. More information about Grech
and his work is available at: www.shaungrech.com
View his Artwork
Mark Harris
Mark Harris has been performing in a variety of guises around
Montreal for nearly seven years. He got his start doing spoken
word/ranting & raving at a handful of Street Eaters events
and subsequently had some poetry appear in the Street Eater
zine. From there he moved into music, becoming the front
man for local prog-metal outift Bitter Rind, as well as producing
a slew of solo shows that placed him alone behind the microphone
and the piano. His solo shows were often stripped down gigs where
he brought the raw sound of alterno-rock to the piano, at which
he covered material from artists such as PJ Harvey and Tool, while
throwing in a healthy mix of original compositions. He was a resident
at the monthly Coco Cafe events, where his spoken word performances
confronted issues such as homophobia, gender mutation, pornography
and bodily fluids. His piece of erotic fiction "The Sporting
Life" was published in the Montreal smut zine Lickety Split.
Mark's most recent melding of his artistic practices with his
academic world happened at Concordia University's 2005 "In
and Out of the Sound Studio" conference, at which he gave
a lecture entitled "Blood Songs and the Solo Scream: The
Sonic Gender Terrorism of Diamanda Galas." Mark is currently
working in a new 3-piece band and hopes to be performing again
soon.
Contact Mark Harris at: city_of_no_sun@hotmail.com
Read his Poetry
Joshua Landers
Joshua Landers is a California native recently transplanted to
Northwest Arkansas to attend graduate school at the University
of Arkansas. He is currently obtaining his MFA in creative fiction
writing, while continuously studying and furthering his craft
of writing. This is his second publication.
Read 'One Last Sip'
Adam Smith
I graduated from the University of Arizona, where I studied German
and Journalism. After years and years of writing in a winterized
garden shed, I decided to step out and get some help... Two writers
and their workshops that made immediate, tangible changes in my
writing are B. Lee Hope at Solstice Summer Writers' Conference
and Dennis Lehane at Writers In Paradise. Those two writer/teachers
will cut years of suffering from any emerging writer's life. As
for Chicken Fingers, I would still be in my shed fiddling
with it if not for Outsider Ink's patient and wise editor,
Sarah Eddenden.
Read 'Chicken Fingers'
Shane Strange
Shane Strange is a writer living in Brisbane, Australia. His work
has previously been published in Skive Magazine and Verandah.
Read 'French Lessons'
Lynn Strongin
Lynn Strongin, was raised in the Northeast and in various parts
of the deep South. She began writing musical compositions at age
four and branched out into poetry after polio at age twelve. Worked
for Denise Levertov in Berkeley during the Sixties. Has twelve
published books, among them the recently released anthology The
Sorrow Psalms (University of Iowa press, June 2006.) Her
fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and currently
appears in "The Dublin Quarterly." Poetry in over thirty
anthologies, seventy journals, among recent appearances are work
in Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, New Works
Review, Confrontation. Work forthcoming in the grief
issue of Sinister Wisdom, as well as appearances as featured
poet in this upcoming autumn's Artistry of Life, and
Snow Monkey. She has made British Columbia, Canada, her
home for the past twenty-seven years.
Read her Poetry
Timothy Wright
We human beings are the original cabinets of curiosities—our
bodies not of wood and glass, but of flesh and bone whose shelves
are crowded with enormous varieties of emotions, perceptions,
experiences. Expressed through the brain or manifested on/by the
flesh, the things we keep secret or share through art, writing,
and verbal discourse enrich our understanding of ourselves as
well as of others…or simply frustrates the hell out of everyone.
The universe is without and within. Sometimes it's angry, and
dark; sometimes it's a laugh and a delicious glass of wine.
I reside in Atlanta where I paint and write and usually have
some terrific, angst-driven new project to keep me occupied and
vital in the face of our lately conservative, sometimes banal
culture. Thank God for angst. Along with my writing, I am at present
doing monoprints of kabuki masks, and have also created a small
edition (10) of an artist's book with inkblots and prose. Rorschach
would shudder.
Read his Poetry
