Emergency Methods
Emergency Member Bios
The Emergency Collective runs an indepedent literary press, Emergency Press, and publishes an on-line liteary arts magazine, The Emergency Almanac, 'mirror-hosted' at Web Del Sol.
Emergency Press publishes books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and hybrids of these. Manuscripts are selected in an annual contest open to members who contribute to the Emergency Almanac the previous year.
No open submissions are accepted at Emergency Press. However, the Emergency Almanac is always looking for dedicated writers who are interested in becoming Emergency reporters, those who sympathize with our vision, and are receptive to the challenge of applying their craft to both the expansion and definition of the emerging Almanac style. If this sounds like you, we invite you to send us a short letter (1-2 pages) which introduces you to us, and addresses specifically why, and what, you would like to write for the collective. Along with this letter also attach a short sample of your writing (3-30 pages) which you believe would be an appropriate first publication for you in the Emergency Almanac. All such introductions should be emailed to the Emergency Almanac.
The Emergency Almanac is written by 'reporters' who cover pressing events/issues in a rigorous, high art, journalistic manner. Our reporters are often given assignments by other Collective members with the reporter's agreement, of course. Reporters may work certain 'beats' if they like, beats defined by issue or location, i.e., the aesthetic of garbage/recycling or East Harlem. Reporters are the Collective members, their reportage the Collective vision.
Collective members are encouraged to contact would-be 'reporters', put them on 'the beat', and solicit material for the Emergency Almanac.
To some extent, then, the Emergency Almanac is a literary magazine modeled on The Farmer's Almanac—a text which is meant to be, above all, useful. Collective members can work on whatever private projects they like, but when writing for the Emergency Almanac they must make sure the writing is useful…in that it could at least suggest more ways to be 'creaticritically' observant of the world and, at best, inform citizens in a way that the combined actions of writers and readers might affect public policy.
The principles of the Emergency Almanac might be summarized in a few informal guidelines:
1. Make it relevant (to the reader's daily life).
2. Be familiar with the friction and gravity of the rhetorical situation.
Physically engage with the direct object of the reportage (if you are
going to write about doorways, hang a door—don't recede to using
the door as a vehicle of metaphor for the tenor of, say, love).
3. Avoid clichéd dualities (which don't seem to aid humans in an
evolution toward anything better than they already are—avoid tired
dualities which imply whole systems of old thought, such as splits between
mind/body, work/pleasure, art/politics, etcetera).
Emergency Press books share similar aesthetics as those outlined for The Emergency Almanac.
All members are asked to read and score manuscripts submitted to the annual Emergency Press book contest. To remain active, members must read and score for the contest at least once every three years.
Joseph Andriano's short stories have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Argonaut, and Louisiana Literature. He has also written a novel, Song of Circe, which was a finalist for the New Century Writers Award, and which he is currently attempting to publish. He has also published two books of literary/cultural criticism.
Derek Ayres had his New York City solo debut with ZieherSmith in September, 2003. He has received attention from the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Magazine, and contemporary magazine #51. He lives and works in New York City.
Maria Luisa Basualdo has a background as a modern dancer and now dedicates herself to freelance photography and teaching yoga. She lives far from her native Argentina in Chicago, with her husband, daughter and dog.
Mark Bayer is an assistant professor of English at the American University of Beirut. He has published on Shakespeare, the early modern theatre, and other aspects of Renaissance literature and culture and is currently completing a book-length study provisionally entitled "Theatre and Community in Shakespeare's London".
Brian Belott is an artist and collector of found art. His work
has appeared in galleries worldwide, including Atelier Cardenas Bellanger
in Paris, Canada in New York City, Counter Gallery in London, Galleri
Christina Wilson in Copenhagen, Galeria Comercial in San Juan, and Galleri
Loyal in Stockholm. The photographs featured in the Emergency Almanac
were found.
Aaron Belz is a graduate of NYU (1995), presently
working on a Ph.D. in English at Saint Louis University as well as teaching
English in a local high school. He's published poetry in Boston
Review, Fence,
McSweeney's,
Fine Madness,
Canary, Gulf Coast,
Mudfish, Exquisite Corpse,
Jacket, Margie,
and other places, with more forthcoming in other places. His prose has
appeared in publications as diverse as
Wired, Books & Culture, and Publishers Weekly. Belz's latest project
is a poetry series entitled "Readings
@ City Museum," which has featured the likes of Gabe Gudding,
Arielle Greenberg, Kent Johnson, Mary Jo Bang, and Susan Schultz. More
biographical info about Aaron Belz and a record of publications can be
found at http://belz.net.
Jenny Benjamin Smith has had poems published in the New York
Quarterly, Poetry Motel, Wisconsin Review, Iowa Woman, Columbia, and
Crab Orchard Review. She has poems forthcoming in the South
Carolina Review, Chelsea, The Baltimore Review, Hubbub, and Carquinez
Poetry Review. She teaches literature to high school students in Milwaukee.
Stephen Bitterolf was born in 1976, in Caracas, Venezuela, and received his BA in Art History from Pennsylvania State University. He is represented by ZieherSmith in New York City, where his recent exhibition of drawings "Mostly Cloudy" appeared in March, 2005 and includes 10 works on paper depicting a photograph of Fallujah from the New York Times. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Nellie Bridge grew up in Washington State. She earned her MFA from NYU as a New York Times Fellow, and was recently awarded the Amy Award for Poetry. Her poems are forthcoming in Rattapallax. She works at the Authors Guild, where she helps writers build and maintain their own websites.
James Carlson lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he has founded a non-profit organization called Bucketworks, which is dedicated to emerging community self-growth. His goal is to make Milwaukee a city known worldwide first for having the best schools on Earth, and only then for having the best beer and the best cheese.
Matthew Chase is a Brooklyn artist who constructs intricate, organic
sculptures and installations from materials found on the sidewalk, such
as gum, plastic, and discarded paper. His work explores our relationship
to nature and our urban environment, by reworking the brightly colored
detritus of our consumption, into forms derived from the biology of decay.
He creates his own ecology, flora, fungi, nests and invertebrates, which
are installed as if infesting the site. A graduate of Rhode Island School
of Design, he has shown in New York, Boston and Providence.
B.C. DeFore holds a B.S. in math from the University of Puget Sound. Stomping upon the lie of hemisphered brains, Defore uses his creative side to study cryptography and abstract algebra, and his more technical side to create graphic design, digital photography, and writing for Emergency Press among other projects.
Timothy Donnelly's poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, Fence, the Paris Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Verse, Volt and elsewhere. He received a BA from The Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from Columbia University, where his thesis manuscript was awarded the Writing Division's David Craig Austin Prize. He has been poetry editor for Boston Review since 1996 and is currently a graduate student in English at Princeton University. In 2001, he received a Master Writer Fellowship from the New York State Writer's Institute. His first book of poems, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit was published by Grove Press in 2003. He lives in Brooklyn.
Kathleen Eull lives and writes in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She is
currently working on her first novel and is preparing to return to the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for graduate studies.
Chad Faries lives outside the United States
whenever he can. He has been known to document the European underworld
while fulfilling his duties as a Fulbright Fellow in Budapest. He was
the co-winner of the Emergency Press annual book contest in 2005, and
his book, The Border Will Be Soon, was
released in September, 2006.
Chris Fink is assistant professor of English at Beloit College. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines nationwide. A former dairy farmer and journalist (simultaneously), Fink was on assignment the sad day, in 1994, that California trumped Wisconsin as America's Dairy State.
Nick Flynn's Some Ether was published by Graywolf Press in 2000 and won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. The three poems that appear in The Emergency Almanac are selected from Blind Huber, released in 2002 by Graywolf, as well. W.W. Norton published Nick's memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship.
Kevin Gallagher teaches at Boston University and lives in Gloucester,MA with his wife and son. His poetry has been published in Harvard Review, Partisan Review, Green Mountains Review, LitVert, Jacket, and elsewhere. His recent books are Putting Development First: The Importance of Policy Space in the WTO, and Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond.
Steven Gillis is the author of the novel The Weight of Nothing (Brook Street Press, 2005). Steve's first novel, Walter Falls, was published in 2003 and went on to be named a finalist for both the 2003 Book of the Year for Literary Fiction by ForeWord Magazine and also a finalist for the Independent Publishers Association 2004 Book of the Year—the only novel to be named a finalist for both awards. Walter Falls was recently released in paperback. Currently at work on a new novel, Temporary People, Steve's stories, articles and book reviews have appeared in over a dozen journals, most recently in the new editions of Monkeybicycle, Orchid and Gargoyle. Steve teaches writing and literature at Eastern Michigan University and is the founder of 826 Michigan, a nonprofit mentoring and tutoring organization for public school students specializing in reading and writing and a chapter of Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia. All author proceeds from Steve's novels go to his 826 Michigan foundation. Steve lives in Ann Arbor with his wife Mary, and children Anna and Zach.
Jason Gitlin/advertising copywriter/New York/Member of the Counterpart Alliance Artist's Partnership/Masters/NYU in Poetry/Columbia in Religion.
Dan Golden is an artist aqnd cartoonist living and working in
Jersey City, New Jersey. His work has recently appeared in exhibitions
at the Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn. His dog is named Nutley. Dan Golden
is also the creator of the pop up faces displayed on the main page the
Emergency Almanac, summer 2006.
Christopher Grimes' award winning short fiction has appeared in Western Humanities Review, The Cream City Review, Red Rock Review, Brooklyn Review, First Intensity, Reed Magazine, Literal Latte, Ark/angel Review and elsewhere. "The Inspection" is collected in Public Works: short fiction, very short fiction and a novella, released by Fiction Collective 2 in 2005.
Tom Hansen lives in Seattle but prefers Norway. After twenty years of informal education, he began his formal education in 2000. He along with others started the literary magazine KNOCK while at Antioch University Seattle, where he received an undergraduate degree. He is an MFA student at The University of British Columbia.
Timothy Marvel Hull was born May 30th, 1979 in New York City to
Richard and Josephine Hull, a professor of African history at NYU and
a Batik artist and Caterer, respectively. Hull was raised in the bucolic
craft community of Sugar Loaf, New York, 50 miles NW of New York City.
Hull attended the progressive Hampshire College in 1997-98 yet he received
his BA from New York University in 2001, and studied at the Museo Pecci
in Prato, Italy as well as the Studio Marangoni in Florence. He attended
an Artist in Residence program in Berlin, Germany for the Occidental Development
Foundation International in 2003 and 2004 and has been exhibiting his
art work in various venues in New York as well as internationally since
2002. Hull divides his time between the urban New York City and the family
apple farm in Warwick, New York. He will receive his MFA from the Parsons
School of Design in 2006.
Jayson Iwen has had work published in journals
such as New
American Writing, Clackamas
Literary Review, Fence,
The
Cream City Review, Poetry Motel, and Southern
Indiana Review, An interview he conducted with Paul Hoover was
recently reprinted in Fables
of Representation, by the University of Michigan Press. He has
work forthcoming in Onthebus,
The Marlboro
Review, Third
Coast, and REED.
Jayson was an Assistant Professor of English at the American University
of Beirut in Lebanon for three years, and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
He was the co-winner of the Emergency Press annual book contest in 2005,
and his book, Six Trips in Two Directions,
was released in September, 2006.
Brett Kell is a writer, husband, gourmand, and public relations professional. In 2004, he earned a Master's degree in Management with a paper on corporate social responsibility in the fast food industry. Brett has contributed to various publications, websites, and media. His poetry has most recently appeared in Clare, KNOCK, and Paj Ntaub Voice. Brett is currently assembling his third chapbook, Nonce Words. He and his wife Lauren live in Milwaukee, WI.
Elisabeth Kinsey received her BA at Metropolitan State College
of Denver. She has published poetry in Wazee Journal, Metrosphere,
won first prize in Writes of Spring, published articles in YourHub.com
and The Metropolitan and has two short stories in the Women's Writing
Anthology, The Self That Was Her Story.
Anastasios Kozaitis lives in New York City
with his wife and son. He has published his poems and translations in
The New Republic, Nedge, LA Times Book Review, Mantis, VeRT and
The Guardian. A 2002 graduate of the Bennington Writings Seminar,
he edits the electronic poetry service PotD and was one of the
founding editors of Compost magazine.
Jeff Ladouceur's book Ebola was published by L'Oie de Cravan in Montreal in 2002. He has had solo exhibitions in Victoria, Vancouver, Tornto, and Montreal and his New York debut will be in October, 2004 with ZieherSmith. His second book was published by L'Oie de Cravan in October, 2004. He was born in Victoria, British Columbia and now lives and works in Vancouver.
Wes Lang was born in Chatham, New Jersey. His most recent solo exhibition was Home at Last at ZieherSmith in March 2004. He lives and works in New York City.
Ernest Loesser is a writer and journalist in New York City. His non-fiction has appeared in Tokion; in his most recent work, The Fix, he investigated the underground network of former addicts in New York and across the US conducting addiction-interruption therapy with the illegal substance Ibogaine. His fiction has appeared in Anathema and the High Horse Zeitung published in London. He lives and works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Gary MacDonald teaches English at Virginia State University, concentrating on culture and literature of nineteenth-century United States. His most current work involves native American literature and eco-critical perspectives.
Jerry McGuire has published two books of poems, The Flagpole Dance (Lynx House) and Vulgar Exhibitions (Eastern Washington University). Much of his work is poetry, drama, and experimental fiction done in collaboration with musicians, dancers, and visual artists, and designed for specific performance environments. He is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Molly McQuade's books include Barbarism, Stealing Glimpses, An Unsentimental Education, and By Herself. Her writing has appeared recently or will soon appear in Southern Review, Parnassus, TriQuarterly, Jubilat, and the Paris Review. She contributed an essay about J. D. Salinger's use of parentheses to the recently released anthology, Letters to J. D. Salinger. Her column, "Works in Progress," appears regularly in Booklist, the national magazine of the American Library Association. A critic as well as a writer and an editor, she reviews frequently for The Washington Post , The Chicago Tribune, Newsday and others; for the last four years, she has served as a member of the board of the National Book Critics Circle. Recently the writer in residence at The James Merrill House, she taught last spring at Johns Hopkins University and at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Ander Monson lives
in Michigan, where he edits DIAGRAM
and the New Michigan Press. His book of poems, Vactionland, was
published by Tupelo
Press in 2005, and Sarabande
Books published his novel-in-stories, Other Electricities,
in spring 2005. A book of essays, Neck Deep and Other Predicaments,
won the 2006 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, and will be released in
February, 2007.
Christopher Patton won The Paris Review's 2000 Bernard F. Conners Prize for Poetry. He teaches creative writing and literature at Arcadia University in Philadelphia.
Adam Pendleton was born in Richmond, Virginia and has exhibited
widely throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions with Yvon
Lambert in New York, Rhona Hoffman in Chicago and Roberts and Tilton in
Los Angeles. His first book of poetry "so i independent in georgia
in the 90's" was published by Yvon Lambert in 2006. He is represented
by Perry Rubenstein in New York.
David Poolman was born in Wallaceburg, Ontario. He has exhibited widely in his native Canada and has recently exhibited twice in solo and group exhibitions with ZieherSmith in New York City. He lives and works in London, Ontario.
Francis Raven is a graduate student in philosophy at Temple University.
His first novel, Inverted Curvatures, was publishedvy by Spuyten
Duyvil. Poems of his have been published in Mudlark, Conundrum, Untitled,
Pindeldyboz, Big Bridge, Le Petite Zine, and Can We Have Our Ball
Back? Essays and articles of his have been
published in Jacket, Clamor, In These Times, The Fulcrum Annual, Rain
Taxi, Sauce, and Pavement Saw.
Sally-Ann Rowland was born in in Adelaide, Australia. In 2004 her work was featured in a group exhibition at Guild & Greyshkul, New York and in solo exhibitions at Western Exhibitions, Chicago and ZieherSmith, New York. Her work was also featured in a group exhibition at Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
David Scher was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 1991, he has exhibited his paintings in solo exhibitions with Leo Koenig Inc., New York, Roberts Tilton, Los Angeles, Museo des Artes, Guadalajara, Mexico, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, Miami Dade Community College, Wolfson Galleries, Miami, FL, and Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn, NY. He lives and works in New York City.
Lupe J Solis, Jr., Chicano writer, teaches Ethnic Literature/Creative Writing at Southwest Minnesota State U. His book of stories won the Minnesota Voices Project for Short Ficition, 1997, and he is currently finishing his first novel, Como Se Dice?
Christopher Stackhouse is a writer and painter living in Brooklyn. He is co-author of the book Seismosis (1913 Press, 2006), featuring his drawings in discourse with the poetic text of writer/professor John Keene.
Dayana Stetco is an Assistant Professor of Drama and Film at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is the director of The Milena Group, an interdisciplinary movement theatre ensemble she founded in 2001. Her recent shows include: The Fantastical Nightmares of Mr. Dorian Gray, Scar, The Language of Mannequins, Milena Stripping (National Playwriting Award), Interview, Seducing Velasquez (produced by Theatre in the Mill, UK). Her short stories and plays have been published both in her native country, Romania (Poesis, Echinox, Steaua) and in the US [Dispatch, Metrotimes, Interdisciplinary Humanities, mark(s), gender(f)].
Christine Tapio lives in Seattle, WA. She is a student at Antioch University Seattle, where she studies expressive arts therapy. She is an advisory editor for KNOCK, published in Seattle.
Bryan Tomasovich won the Emergency Press book contest in 2003. Ouisconsin: The Dead in Our Clouds was published in 2005. Poems from Ouisconsin appear in the summer, 2004 issue of the Emergency Almanac. Elsewhere, his poems can be found in The Massachusetts Review, ISLE, 5 Trope, DIAGRAM, Jubilat, and Nimrod . He teaches at Antioch University Seattle, where is the faculty editor of KNOCK.
Adam Ward lives and works in NYC.
Karin Weiner was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey and grew up in Vermont. She has exhibited at Lisa Boyle Gallery in Chicago and has had solo exhibitions with Sixspace in Los Angeles and ZieherSmith in New York. She received her MFA from Hunter College and lives and works in Brooklyn.
Henry Williams was born and raised in the piedmont of North Carolina; he currently resides and works in New York. His poems have appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, Fire (Oxfordshire), The Brooklyn Review, The Emergency Almanac, Offerta Speciale (Torino), among others.
Kyoko Yoshida was born and raised in Fukuoka, spent seven years in Kyoto, and five years in Milwaukee. Presently Assistant Professor in English at Keio University, she lives in Yokohama. Her stories have appeared in The Cream City Review, Panic Americana, Chelsea, and others.
Dave Yost has served with the U.S. Peace Corps (Mali) and the Burmese Volunteer Program (Thailand) He is an M.A. student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His short fiction has appeared in The Iconoclast and edifice WRECKED.
Emna Zghal was born in Tunisia, North Africa. She received her BA from L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Tunis and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Tunisia, France, USA, Germany, Japan, Kuwait, India, Libya, Lebanon and Italy. She was part of the 1997 edition of the New Delhi Triennial and 1995 edition of the Kuwait Biennial. Zghal has received fellowship residencies and done projects with the Newark Art Museum, The Lower East Side Print shop, The MacDowell Colony, The Weir Farm Trust, The Vermont Studio Center, Blue Mountain Center and La Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris. Emna Zghal's portfolio of prints "The Prophet of Black Folk" was acquired by The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.
Scott Zieher was born and raised in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His poetry has recently appeared online at Eleven Bulls, Flaneur, Slurrymagazine, and Diagram. In March, 2003, he and his partner, Andrea Smith, opened ZieherSmith Inc., a contemporary art gallery featuring artists in all media and located in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. Scott won the Emergency Press book contest in 2004, and Virga was published in 2005.