* * *
Fred Abrahams
memoir
has had an interesting life. Fleeing Germany just before the Holocaust he spent his childhood on the upper west side of Manhattan. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School and the University of Pennsylvania before serving a tour of duty with the US Army in Germany. A career in marketing grew into a stint as a writer/producer of TV infomercials. A quad bypass started him writing about his experiences, including: travels in post-war Europe; partying with the abstract expressionist painters of the Chelsea school; his 270 minutes of fame as a champion on a TV Quiz show; visits to the original Studio 54; co-founding The Improv comedy club; and all the interesting people he’s met along the way. An avid skier and amateur photographer, he now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Derek Alger
fiction
Derek is a graduate of the Columbia University MFA fiction writing program, and serves as a Contributing Editor to PIF Magazine. His fiction has appeared in Confrontation, Del So Review, and The Literary Journal, to name a few. He has worked as an editor and reporter for newspapers in the Bronx for over 20 years.
Michael Andreoni
humor
Michael Andreoni’s stories have appeared in Iconoclast, Fogged Clarity, Unlikely Stories, Allegory, and other publications. He lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Devyani Borade
fiction
Devyani Borade is a professional writer. Several of her articles and stories have been published in magazines in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, and her essay ‘The Ties That Bind’ (http://ducts.sundresspublications.com/content/the-ties-that-bind/) has previously appeared in Ducts 25. Devyani writes on topics ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary with a light, personal and refreshingly different voice. Her other two great loves are chocolate and trying her husband’s patience. Visit her unique blog Verbolatry at http://devyaniborade.blogspot.com to enjoy the adventures of Debora, her alter ego!
Robert E. Bowen III (1965-2010)
poetry
Robert was a gifted jazz and classical bassist, composer, visual artist, educator, and devoted father. Born in Massachusetts and raised in Ohio, he moved to New York City in 1996. He died on August 30, 2010, as a result of injuries sustained in a hit-and-run accident while riding his bicycle in Manhattan. Bob was devoted to poetry; several tributes to him are available on The Best American Poetry Blog: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/08/this-just-in-amy-lemmon.html; http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/10/there-is-not-more-than-one-by-jerry-williams.html.
Alec Bryan
memoir
Alec lives in Utah and doesn’t even have one wife. His first novel has been serialized by Prick of the Spindle, which after the third installment will now be published as a book via Aqueous Books this November, and is titled Night on the Invisible Sun. Short stories can be read at Oddville Press, Dogzplot, LITnIMAGE, Corium Magazine, The Waccamaw Journal, and forthcoming in Pank and Mudluscious. Visit him at www.alecbryan.com to see further information about the author and his projects.
Peter Dobill
art gallery
Born in New Zealand, Peter Dobill is a Brooklyn, NY based actionist. He received his BFA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2004 in addition to the 2008-2009 Franklin Furnace Fund For Performance Art Grant. Dobill co-founded and has curated the Maximum Perception Performance Festival in Brooklyn, NY since 2008. He has performed and exhibited internationally in galleries/venues including Exit Art, NY, NY; English Kills Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Nurture Art, Brooklyn, NY; Open Realization Contemporary Art Gallery, Beijing, China; and Rockefeller University, NY, NY as well as being artist in residence at Ox Bow, Saugatuck, MI in 2007. www.peterdobillactionist.com
Stacey Py Flynn
fiction
Stacey is a graduate student at the University of Maryland where she is studying to become a library media specialist. She lives and roams the regions around Washington DC with her teenage son. She’s been writing fiction and memoir since she was a child, takes classes at Gotham Writers Workshop and is surprised every day at how well she functions in the real world.”
Heather Fowler
fiction
Heather received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University in May of 1997. She has taught composition, literature, and writing-related courses at UCSD, California State University at Stanislaus, and Modesto Junior College. Among other venues, she has recently published stories in the following journals and anthologies: Prick of the Spindle (Issue 4.3, Fall 2010); Up the Staircase (Spring 2010); Dark Sky Magazine (Featuring Mel Bosworth reading her micro-fiction on video, May 2010); Necessary Fiction (April 2010); Back in 5 Minutes ~ an expression of depression (print, volume 1. Little Episodes, London. February 2010, UK.) ; and the stark electric space…an international anthology of indie writers (print, Graffiti Kolkata, India. Winter 2010). Her book SUSPENDED HEART is due out from Aqueous Books in December of 2010. Please visit her at www.heatherfowlerwrites.com.
Mindy Greenstein
essays
Mindy is a clinical psychologist and psycho-oncologist, as well as a writer. She lives with her husband and two sons in New York City.
Jake Kalish
humor
Jake has written for Details, Maxim, Playboy, and Men’s Fitness, and Ducts, among other publications. He is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium Of Imaginary Fights and the proud father of Una and Esme.
Laura Keeble
art gallery
Laura is a London-based artist who produces traditional works as well as street art interventions. More about her projects can be found at: www.laurakeeble.net
Melissa Larson
memoir
Melissa is a proud New Jersey resident with a husband, three dogs, and an overused vacuum cleaner. She teaches high school English, coaches Track and Field, and runs the occasional marathon.
Katrinka Moore
poetry
Katrinka’s poetry collection Thief was published by BlazeVOX in 2009. Pudding House will release her new chapbook, Falling off horses, in 2011. She lives in New York City.
Patrick Okell
essays
Patrick lives in Seattle, and is an ex-lawyer turned stay-at-home father to four-year-old twins. He finds the hours and the demands of the clients to be surprisingly similar in both jobs. In his spare time he likes to pretend he is a writer. This is his second essay to be published in Ducts. You can read more of his writing at http://slokell.com.
Joelle Renstrom
essays
Joelle lives in Boston where she teaches writing and literature. Her work has appeared in Carousel, the Sycamore Review, Briarpatch, Guernica and others, and she is a recipient of the CBC Television Jim Burt Prize in Creative Writing, the Hopwood Award for Poetry, and the Virginia Voss Writing Award. She is currently working on a collection of essays about the intersection of literature and life.
Rafael Sanchez
art gallery
Rafael (b. Newark, New Jersey, 1978) is a performance artist who often takes his work to the streets and other unconventional spaces. In his performances, Sanchez frequently subjects his body to extreme stress and pain to materialize ideas of memory, spirituality and endurance.
Dale Seever
humor
Entertainer Dale is the host of the whiskey-fueled podcast, Dale Radio, broadcasting on a semi-regular basis from the foul banks of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. He’s appeared in venues large and small, deploying his skills as storyteller and master of ceremonies from the tar pits of LA to the dive bars of NY. During the day he can be found in Times Square. Handing out flyers. For comedy shows and musicals. For more from Dale please visit www.daleradio.com or follow him on twitter, @daleradio.
Madelyn Sergel
essays
Madelyn is a freelance writer, playwright, and Co-Artistic Director of Clockwise Theatre, where the world premiere of her play Special Needs will open this winter.
Sunsh Stein
memoir
Sunsh has lived in New York City for more years than she thought possible. She has a master’s degree in journalism and has written for JazzTimes and Jazz Notes. She’s the author of the unpublished Sibling Rivalry: The Road to Love Is Paved with Medication and is currently working on Reality — What a Concept. Sunsh also works as a patient advocate/educator/navigator.
Joshua Willey
fiction
After growing up in Oakland and studying literature in Portland, Joshua Willey moved to China and commenced working a perennial series of day jobs including firefighting and commercial fishing. He’s published a book on film with Verlag as well as poems, photographs, short fiction, and literary criticism. He is currently writing Hydrogen, a novel about hitch hiking, and seeking a publisher for Frostwork, a manuscript of poetry and black and white photography. Some his work can be found at joshuawilley.com.
Jack Willis
memoir
Jack is President of the Willis Group, a television and documentary film Production Company. He has been a producer and executive in commercial, cable and public television. He created and executive produced the EMMY award-winning innovative news show, THE 51st STATE, for WNET/13. He was Co-Executive Producer of PBS’ groundbreaking, EMMY award-winning, The Great American Dream Machine, and Willis’ series, CITY WITHIN A CITY, which also won an EMMY, and was widely credited with helping to achieve passage of Milwaukee’s Open Housing law in 1967. Willis has produced and directed numerous award winning documentaries and has also produced films for CBS News as well as THE HUMAN ANIMAL series (1986,) with Phil Donahue, for NBC. With his wife, Mary, he has written several highly rated network movies of the week and co-authored the book, BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS MIRACLES. He has a BA and LLB from UCLA and an Honorary Doctor of Law from St. Johns University in Minnesota.
Bonnie ZoBell
fiction
Bonnie has received an NEA, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, the Capricorn Novel Award, and was included on Wigleaf’s 2009 Top 50 list for very short fiction. Her work has been included or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Night Train, Storyglossia, Necessary Fiction, The Greensboro Review, Blip, and Pank. She received an MFA from Columbia, teaches at San Diego Mesa College, and can be reached at www.bonniezobell.com.
STAFF
Jonathan Kravetz
editor-in-chief
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.
Sharon Gurwitz
treasurer
Sharon’s careers as psychology professor, banker, and management consultant all come in handy for managing the business side of ducts. When she’s not working on a consulting project or writing her novel, she enjoys going to the theater, ballet, and classical music concerts.
Dana Benningfield
memoir editor
Dana comes to her role of writer and editor with a breadth of experience in several disciplines. She started out as an advertising account executive on Madison Avenue before moving over to work behind the scenes in film production for Walt Disney Pictures. She then expanded to theatre arts, where she worked to develop new plays as literary manager, director and actor. Since moving into the publishing world, Dana has enjoyed working with numerous writers, both fiction and non-fiction, taking on editing and ghostwriting projects, as well as evaluating manuscripts for writers, publishers and agents. In addition to many notable writers, she credits her parents for her editing and story-telling abilities. As an English teacher, her mother emphasized the importance of sound writing and proper grammar; her father would often spin a tall bedtime tale, thereby instilling in her the power of a story well told. Dana holds a B.S. with honors in Advertising and Communications from The University of Texas at Austin, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and an M.F.A. from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival/UA. www.benningfield-editor.com
Anne Mironchik
assistant
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. 4newsongs@earthlink.net
Kat Rodies
humor editor
Kat Rodies is a nurse practitioner, medical writer, and short fiction enthusiast who has been called the ideal person to have with you in a POW camp.
Elizabeth Rosen
essays editor
Elizabeth is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College. In previous incarnations, she has also been a writer for Nickelodeon, an associate producer for the news, and the editor of two academic journals. She has published her nonfiction and fiction in various publications.
Cindy Stockton Moore
art gallery editor and illustrator
Cindy is a Philadelphia-based artist. Her two person exhibition ‘An Island Now Peopled’ is on view at Chashama Chelsea Project Space (New York, NY) until January 2011. Outside of the studio, Cindy works as adjunct professor of studio art and theory. Her essays have appeared in ArtNews, New York Arts Magazine, NY Sun, in addition to on-line and university publications. A listing of her current exhibitions and projects can be found at: www.cindystocktonmoore.com
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.
Illustrators
Chris Frost (humor section)
When not reminiscing about life in the old New York, Chris Frost designs and crafts handbags. His illustrations have appeared in Ducts and Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium Of Imaginary Fights. He currently resides in Bushwick, but dreams of a move to Puerto Varas.
Natalie Lerario
Natalie has been working as a graphic artist since 2005 and has recently completed a web design certificate program in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Along with graphic design, Natalie also enjoys creating digital illustrations. www.NatalieLerario.com
Steve Tarantino
Steve attended FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology ) in New York for Illustration. He graduated in 1991 with a BFA in Illustration. www.stevetarantino.com.
* * *