Credits
Editor
Mary Sands has been a web designer for Big Bridge, and worked with Ira Cohen and Robert La Vigne on large art cyber-spectives. She designs and hosts art galleries by Larry Keenan, and has published articles in Rain Taxi, Kerouac Rag, and The Kerouac Connection. Mary is also a freelance editor for Trafford Publishing. She has been a part of the Coast Guard Auxiliary in Dana Point, California, and is a member of the Surfrider Foundation. Currently she lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
Contributing Editor
Born in Miami Beach, Florida in 1951, Michael Rothenberg is a poet and songwriter. He has been an active environmentalist in the San Francisco Bay area for the past 25 years, where he cultivates orchids and bromeliads at his nursery, Shelldance.
His broadside Elegy for the Dusky Seaside Sparrow was selected Broadside of the Year by Fine Print Magazine. The broadside of his poem "Angels" was produced in limited edition by Hatch Show Prints as part of The Country Music Foundation's museum resources. His songs have appeared in the films Shadowhunter, Black Day Blue Night, and Outside Ozona. He is also editor and co-founder of Big Bridge Press and Big Bridge, an online magazine.
Rothenberg's books of poems include Favorite Songs, Nightmare of the Violins (Twowindows Press), What The Fish Saw, Man/Women w/ Joanne Kyger, The Paris Journals (Fish Drum), Grown Up Cuba (Il Begatto Press, Amsterdam), and Intoxications. He is also author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press). Other editorial projects include Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen (Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2002) and As Ever, Selected Poems by Joanne Kyger (Penguin Books, 2002). He is presently working on the Selected Poems of David Meltzer (Penguin, 2004), and Selected Poems of Ed Dorn (Penguin, 2006).
Michael Rothenberg divides his time between Pacifica, California, and Miami, Florida and is on the constant lookout for bottle caps and pennies for his son Cosmos.
Artists
Terri Carrion was conceived in Venezuela, born in New York, raised in Los Angeles, and currently lives in Hollywood, Florida. She is assistant editor for Big Bridge Magazine. Her poems have or will appear in Vox, Slipstream, Pearl, Mangrove, Hanging Loose, The Cream City Review, Penumbra, Paper Tiger, Tigertail, Street Miami, The Miami Sun Post monthly arts section Mad Love, and online at BigBridge.org, Jackmagazine.com, Poeticinhalations.com, and Mipoesia.com. More of her photography will be featured at DeadDrunkDublin.com and in print in Gulf Stream Magazine.
Feature
Cece Chapman is an exhibiting artist, writer and graphic design graduate of Parsons School of Design NY, living in Northern California. Working in a Mexican design studio with a fifteen-foot German offset camera and a two-ton printing press with metal type, she noticed the illiterate four foot Indian printer reading fotonovelas at every opportunity. A Latin relative of the comic book, magazine and manga, these pulp novels are 95% staged, soap-opera-like photographs. It is an extremely popular and powerful political and educational tool, especially in countries with dozens of dialects. Later, living in a Mexican coastal village favored by local tourists and international surfers, she observed everyone constantly reading fotonovelas and magazines. Influenced by this hybrid format, Cece uses her photographs and art mediated digitally in the short story collections 'The Adventuress' and 'The Waitress'. For information about obtaining the inkjet print copies contact ccchpmn@earthlink.net. "The human pursuit of adventure, illusion and mystery intrigues me. I want to write short, fast, furious stories about life around me that leaves the reader wiser and wanting more. " www.imagechapman will be back up in September, and 'The Mistress' will be available soon.
Essays
Daniel Barth lives in Mendocino County, California where he works as a teacher and librarian at the Sagely City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. His poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of print and online publications. His chapbook, Coyote Haiku, was published in April, 2004, and a collection of poems, Fast Women Beautiful, is forthcoming.
Omar Swartz graduated magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law in 2001 and earned a Ph.D. in Communication from Purdue University in 1995. He is the author of five books and more than fifty essays, book chapters, commentaries, and reviews. Dr. Swartz teaches in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado at Denver and can be reached at Omar.Swartz@cudenver.edu.
Fiction/Nonfiction
Kane X. Faucher is a continental theorist and experimental novelist living in Canada. His works of literary and academic endeavour have appeared this year in Exquisite Corpse, Jacob’s Ladder 3, Me Three, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Variaciones Borges, Hackwriters, Starving Arts, The Danforth Review, Azimute, Ink Magazine, 3711Atlantic, Zygote in My Coffee 9, Quill and Ink, Mad Swirl, BlazeVox2k4, and forthcoming in Janus Head, Tin Lustre Mobile, and Retort Magazine. His novel, Urdoxa, will be released this autumn by Six Gallery Press. He is at work on his second and third tomes, Codex Obscura and Fort & Da, as well as two book-length theory texts, Polemic as Concept and Hegel in America: The Logic of Consumption. His Web site is http://www.geocities.com/codex1977.
Rohit Gupta is a widely published writer and a popular columnist for Bombay's leading paper, Mid Day. His work has also appeared in Flak Magazine, The Times Of India, CHIP magazine, The Vocabula Review, Man's World, Elle, The Sunday Observer, Gentleman Magazine, The Week, Christian Science Monitor, and the Asian Age. Among other work: Silent World was a sci-fi film for deaf children with dialogue in sign language; How To Spot a Terrorist is a screenplay satire that is going into production; The Indestructible Sandwich is a comic farce for theatre, written in collaboration with writer Emmet Cole; The Oyster Club, India's first e-novel, was the winner of E-author 1.0 Prize, given by Oxford Bookstore. Rohit is currently writing comics.
Marc Olmsted: Allen Ginsberg said "Marc Olmsted inherited Burroughs' scientific nerve & Kerouac's movie-minded line nailed down with gold eyebeam in San Francisco." His most recent book, What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost?--Poems from 3-Year Retreat (Valley Contemporary Press, 2001), has an introduction by Ginsberg. Photo credit: Tulku Garwang. His website is http://www.geocities.com/marcolmsted.
Stoyan Valev is a writer from Bulgaria (Europe, the Balkan Peninsula). He is the author of several books: When God was on Leave, a novel (1999); The Bulgarian Dekameron, a book of love stories with unknown end (2002 and 2003); and Time to be Unfaithful. One of his plays was presented in two Bulgarian theaters, and the Bulgarian National Television made a TV series based on a story that he wrote. Some of his stories have been published in American issues, and others will be published soon.
Poetry/Prose
Benjamin Andreu was born somewhere in Tennessee, sometime in the 1970s. After venturing into many unsuccessful careers all over the US, he finally settled down in Florida, where he now works as a computer programmer (still unsuccessful, but the point is that at least he finally settled down). He spends his free time writing and playing with an imaginary rottweiler puppy and a gerbil (who is real).
Juan Ismael Ramírez Labastida (Juan Beat) es Licenciado en Psicología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. En el ámbito Cultural fue director fundador de la Revista Estudiantil Comunicantes, editada en la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Es editor de Los Avengers Fanzine y colaborador de la Revista Generación. Juan Beat, ha colaborado en diversas revistas electrónicas nacionales como Fuga, Art&Comic, Literatura Virtual, México Volitivo; e internacionales como Revista Voces, Corvino Books, Baquiana, Poesía + Letras, Divague, Poesía Salvaje, Los Noveles, Le Resonace y La Revista Virtual de Luke. Constantemente participa en lecturas y festivales de literatura. Destaca la participación en "Réquiem para la Muerte Amorosa" (organizado por el ICCM y la Sociedad Artística La sangre de La Musas), el 5° Festival Internacional de Ficción y Fantasía (organizado por el ICCM, el grupo cultural Goliardos y La Sangre de las Musas); la XXX Feria Metropolitana del Libro (organizado por el ICCM); el Primer Festival de Literatura Alternativa (organizado por el ICCM, el grupo cultural INNOVAR-T y Producciones Pániko de Masas); Festival de Cultura Off Centro Historico (organizado por la Revista Generación, director: Carlos Martínez Rentería); y en El Homenaje en Bellas Artes, Al Poeta Beat y Creador de la Libería City Lights, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Organizado por la Revista Generación y El Instituto Nacional de las Bellas Artes).
Becky Bradway teaches creative writing at Illinois State University. She has published a book of creative non-fiction pieces, Pink Houses and Family Taverns, by Indiana University Press in 2002, and edited an anthology of creative non-fiction, In the Middle of the Middle West, published by Indiana University Press (2003). Her creative essays and short fiction have appeared in many places, including DoubleTake, E: The Environmental Journal, North American Review, Creative Non-Fiction, American Fiction, The Literary Review, ACM, Beloit Fiction Journal, and Third Coast, among others. One of her essays was a semi-finalist for the Pushcart Prize in 2003.
MTC Cronin has published six books and three booklets of poetry, the most recent being beautiful, unfinished ~ Arable/Song/Canto/Poem (Salt Publishing, UK, 2003). Her 2001 book, Talking to Neruda's Questions, is being translated into Spanish by the poet, Juan Garrido Salgado. She is currently working on her doctorate, The Law of Love Letters ~ Prose, Poems, Law & Desire, at UTS. Her next book, <More or Less Than> 1 - 100, is forthcoming in 2004 (Shearsman Press, UK).
Margarita Engle is a botanist and the Cuban-American author of two novels, Singing to Cuba (Arte Publico Press) and Skywriting (Bantam). Her work is published or pending in journals such as Atlanta Review, Bilingual Review, Blue Mesa Review, California Quarterly, Curbside Review, Harpur Palate, LUNA, Poetry Midwest, Poetry Greece, Red Wheelbarrow, Ship of Fools, Sidereality, tin lustre mobile, Thunder Sandwich, Wavelength, Xavier Review, and many others. Her most recent chapbook is a collection of haiku, Dreaming Sunlight (Feather Books, U.K.). Literary awards include a Cintas Fellowship and a San Diego Book Award. Books pending publication include a young adult novel-in-verse (Henry Holt & Co.) Engle has traveled extensively in Cuba and other parts of Latin America. She lives in central California, where she enjoys hiking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and helping her husband with his volunteer work for a wilderness search-and-rescue dog training program.
Kevin Connelly is the author of Testing the Drink, available at www.publishamerica.com/books/5311. He's a hysterically funny agoraphobic recluse with a penchant for wordplay and constant television watching. He currently resides with his girlfriend in California, where he works as a cashier at a grocery store. The eccentric poet never drinks water and refuses to wear anything but velour sweat suits.
Kelle Groom's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Agni, Luna, MiPoesias, Pilgrimage, Rhino, Shampoo, Slow Trains, Witness, and other journals. Her books are Underwater City (University Press of Florida 2004) and Luckily (Anhinga Press, 2006). She lives in Orlando and works as the grant writer for the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida.
Karyna McGlynn is a writer and photographer living in Seattle. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Wisconsin Review, Plainsongs, No Exit, Pindeldyboz, Poetry Salzburg Review, Blueline, and Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine. A four-time member of the National Poetry Slam Team, Karyna is the founder of Screaming Emerson Press, which publishes chapbooks by spoken-word poets. She attends the Creative Writing Program at Seattle University where she serves as poetry editor for the Cascadia Review.
Matt Myftiu was born and raised in Michigan and has called the state his home for all but two years of his life when he took a brief sojourn to Florida. He has been working in the evil empire known as the media (in the field of journalism) for the past ten years for various information-giving periodicals, and in that time has covered news, sports, entertainment and written many opinion pieces. He has also held several editing positions over the years, and is currently editing and doing page design/layout.
Julio Peralta-Paulino is a writer currently working on several projects. His work has recently been featured in Roman Candles and Eclectica.
Pedro Trevino-Ramirez works, writes, and breathes in the long white of Upper Michigan; even if he is across the street in Canada or sweating in the American desert, the environment of the UP remains a steady inspiration for him no matter what desk he sits at or factory he terrorizes. He is the editor of the spitjaw review, published quarterly, and its bimonthly print broadside, BEATDOG. His work has most recently been published in Cokefish, The Third Lung Review, Thunder Sandwich, Cotyledon, Adagio Verse Quarterly, The Laughing Dog, and Rock Salt Plum Review. He will be a monthly contributor to The Hold as of March, 2004. His chapbook, Origins and Anonymity, was printed early 2004 by Foothills Publishing.
John Ryskamp was born on July 14, 1954 in Detroit, Michigan. He received his Bachelors degree (highest honors) from the University of Michigan in 1974. He won a Hopwood Award, and his poetry professors were Radcliffe Squires and Donald Hall. He received his Masters degree in 1975 from Boston University, where he went to study Eliot with Robert Sproat, who built the poetry program there and brought Lowell, Vendler, and Sexton to the campus. He remembers very well waiting in Anne Sexton's empty office so she could sign a sheet for a course of hers, only to be told when he went to ask about her that she had killed herself. He got out of academia and took his JD in 1985. He currently lives in Berkeley, California, working in immigration law. He is three blocks from the site of the house on Milvia Street where Jack Kerouac lived for a brief time in 1954. One of his entries in Some of the Dharma dates from around the time John was born, and he happens to know just where he was when Jack wrote it.
Willie Smith is deeply ashamed of being human. His work celebrates this horror. While not exactly "an underground legend," as he is sometimes cordially maligned, he is most certainly a curse in his own mind. He describes his writing as CLASSIC BITCH. His stories and poems often read like notes for bank stick-ups. His novella Submachinegun Consciousness can be read free of charge at semantikon.com. He is reasonably clean, fairly sober, and happily married without children. His work has been known to revive the stoned. Photo credit: Susan J. Sanders.
Richard Stevenson is a Canadian poet living in Lethbridge, Alberta. He teaches Canadian literature, creative writing, composition, and business communication at Lethbridge Community College. He has published a CD of original jazz and poetry in homage to Miles and 14 full-length collections as well as a book, A Charm of Finches (Ekstasis Editions in Victoria, BC). Two more are forthcoming: A Tidings of Magpies (from Spotted Cow Press in Edmonton, AB) and Parrot With Tourette's (from Black Moss Press in Windsor, ON). Thistledown Press in Canada published an earlier collection of Richard's Miles poems called Live Evil: A Homage To Miles Davis in 2000; the ones in this issue of Jack are from a sequel called Bye Bye Blackbird.
Steven Stewart's translations have appeared in numerous journals, including the following: Harper’s, Poetry Daily, Crazyhorse, Atlanta Review, jubilat, and Hotel Amerika. His book of translations of the work of Spanish poet Rafael Pérez Estrada, Devoured By The Moon, was published by Hanging Loose Press in 2004 (in a recent review of the book in The Bloomsbury Review, Ray González writes that “this book should be noted as one of the best poetry books of 2004”). Steven's book of selected poems of Ory will be published by Green Integer Press in late 2005.
Carlos Edmundo de Ory is one of the major figures of twentieth-century Spanish literature. He was fundamental in modernizing post-Civil War Spanish poetry. In his efforts to rejuvenate a tired, conventional literary establishment, Ory not only faced opposition from that establishment but also encountered state censorship from the fascist Franco government. Ory’s role in Spain is analogous to that of Ginsberg and the Beat poets in the United States: he opened Spanish poetry up to new possibilities of poetic language and content. In fact, Ginsberg and Ory were friends and Ginsberg, along with Edith Grossman, translated a volume of Ory’s poetry, though the book never made it into circulation. While Ory’s work has been widely translated and read in Europe, it has up until now never been introduced to English-speaking readers. For almost six decades Ory has been one of Spain’s most innovative and original writers. He currently lives with his wife, artist Laura Lachéroy, in the village of Thézy-Glimont in France. Steven has been translating these poems with Ory’s permission.
Reviews
Jerry Cimino is the owner and proprietor of both The Beat Museum in Monterey, California and www.kerouac.com. This fall he will be touring the country with the Beat Museum on Wheels which has affectionately been dubbed the Beatmobile.
Mark Spitzer, punk provacateur & novelistic translator, is now a professor somewhere in Missouri. His latest books include From Absinthe to Abyssinia (Rimbaud translations) and The Church (Celine translation). See his website at www.sptzr.net.
Road
Tim Gilmore's work has appeared in such publications as Exquisite Corpse, Thunder Sandwich, and the University of North Florida's Fiction Fix. Currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida, he lives in Jacksonville and is madly in love with his partner, who took him home with her to Panama; he has two daughters and two cats, Rushdie and DeLillo.
Timothy M. Leonard is a Vietnam Veteran and served with the Screaming Eagles. He graduated from University of Oregon, B.S. psychology with major emphasis in journalism. He has lived in Australia, Bali, China, Ireland, Israel, Saipan, and Kuwait. Additional travels, writing, and photography involved Bhutan, Tibet, and Xinjiang and Yunnan, Chinese provinces. He recently completed six months in Morocco and Andalucia, Spain. He is an author of a children's book with ebooksonthe.net and is an e-book editor with AtlanticBridge.com. His writing and images appear in Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, IdentityTheory, ZoneZero, Journal E, OnTheBrightSide, Kids Highway, PoetrySuperHighway, NetAuthorsE2K, Babylon Travel, comrade.org.uk, Stirring, A Literary Collection; Word Riot, Electric Acorn, Hanford Watch, Red Paper, Thought Magazine, Grazalema.ws, Poets Against The War, Digging Up Texas,a book on archeology, OZimages, photo stock agency, Voices--Fall Issue 2003 3.2, The M.A.G. muse literary guild, Ink Pot-Lit Pot Press Anthology (October, 2003), GoNomad.com, and Naturaltraveler.com. He is marketing a travel memoir to literary agents.
