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Michael Alago
Michael Alago has worked in the music industry for nearly two decades as a producer and talent scout. Alago discovered Metallica and worked with a diverse group of artists that includes Michael Feinstein, Johnny Rotten, White Zombie and Nina Simone. Alago left the music business in the summer of 2003 to concentrate on another lifelong passion–photography. A collection of his work, titled Rough Gods was published in 2006. Michael has exhibited in New York, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Montreal, and Toronto.
www.roughgods.com |
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Michael Anthony
Michael Anthony was born and raised in Southern Massachusetts. After graduating high school, he joined the Army Reserves, completed basic training, and then went through job training to become an Operating Room Medic. One year later he begin college. Almost immediately upon finishing his first semester he was shipped off to Wisconsin to train for four months before he shipping off for Iraq. Once home, he organized the journals he kept while in Iraq into his first book, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq. This book, a memoir about what goes on behind the scenes during war, from the drugs and orgies to the suicides and friendships, published when Michael was just 23, made him the youngest published author/veteran in the entire United States. Michael is also a veteran’s advocate, speaking across New England on veteran’s issues, appearing in documentaries and fundraising for veterans with PTSD.
Michael is now following his dream of being a writer. It’s Not You, It’s Meat: A Vegetarian, A Carnivore and Their Hunt For Love—And Food, his second book, is set for publication in fall of 2010. This comic and romantic piece of nonfiction is about the journey he undertakes to turn his hardcore-vegan-girlfriend back into a meat-eater.
Michael is also a fulltime student at Bridgewater State College and is earning his undergraduate in creative writing. You can visit him at www.masscasualties.com. |
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Jeffrey Banks
Jeffrey Banks is a Coty Award-winning American designer of both mens and womens clothing and accessories whose own sense of style has earned him a place on the International Best Dressed List.
He is the co-author (with Doria de La Chapelle) of TARTAN: Romancing the Plaid (Rizzoli). He is co-editing the upcoming American Mens Fashion (Assouline).
www.jeffreybanksdesign.com |
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Bob Carey
Bob Carey
was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and has been making photographs since the age of 17. His passion for creating imagery and his efforts towards self-expression have been two of the driving forces in his life. Carey graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University and went on to photograph commercially with an emphasis in advertising. In 1993 he began to explore self-portraiture, manipulating and transforming his face and body into an unrecognizable self. This led to numerous solo gallery and museum exhibitions in the United States and Europe. In 2003, after 42 years of living in Phoenix, he and his wife and business partner Linda relocated to Brooklyn, New York to experience life in a different and culturally diverse environment. Carey’s photography continued on the same path of self-examination and transformation and he began to photograph himself dressed as a Ballerina in a pink tutu. The first image was created one day in a vast, desolate landscape during their journey to New York City. After six years his Ballerina series has grown into a large body of work, including numerous locations from across the United States. Carey describes this project as humorous, playful and introspective, and he hopes viewers even picture themselves as the Ballerina, sometimes caught in places and situations where one feels different, alone, adventurous, special, unique.
www.bobcarey.com |
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Candace Chu
Candace Chu was born in a small town in Alabama. After earning a Master’s Degree in Music (Jazz/Composition) she decided to take the next logical career step: she moved to New York City to become a boxing legend.
When it became apparent to all that she would not become a contender (“Ms. Chu high-jumped out of the ring and fled rather than face a second round with Lee Ann the Annihilator”), Candace gained sketchy employment as a diamond courier in Manhattan’s Diamond District.
Others hired her. Their stories must not be told.
What can be spoken aloud is that Candace Chu is the recipient of the Ziolkowski Piano Award; Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts commission (musical theater); and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She’s currently at work on another novel plus her upcoming album of children’s music, Old McDonald Had a Swingin’ Farm.
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Lyn Di lorio
Lyn Di lorio has a bachelor's degree Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University, an MA from Stanford University's Creative Writing Program, and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently an associate professor of English at The City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of Killing Spanish: Literary Essays on Ambivalent U.S. Latino/a Identity, as well as varius short stories and articles, and is also co-editor of Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism. Her most recent non-fiction article “On Being Latina in America and in American Literature” appeared in the Latinamerika issue of Sweden’s oldest cultural magazine Ord & Bild (Word & Image) in November 2009. The National Puerto Rican Coalition included her as an honoree at their national summit in Washington D.C. in May, 2009 with an award that “Honor(s) the Legacy of Puerto Rican women who have made significant contributions to our community.” A short excerpt from her manuscript Outside the Bones won an honorable mention in the Summer 2009 New Millennium Writings Contest, which received more than four thousand submissions. |
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Doria de La Chapelle
Doria de La Chapelle is co-author (with Jeffrey Banks) of Tartan: Romancing the Plaid, published by Rizzoli in 2007.
A freelance writer and publicist, she has written on fashion, beauty, and style for Mademoiselle magazine. |
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Yvonne and Yvette Durant
Yvonne and Yvette Durant are identical twins born and reared in Brooklyn, New York. While Yvette has had several careers–personal shopper to the stars, wedding planner, events and pubic relations manager for a restaurant group, Yvonne worked as a copywriter in several advertising agencies including a multi-national in Milan, Italy. Art runs in their blood thanks to their mother and that’s why art happily hangs on the walls of each of their apartments. And no–they didn’t play twin jokes on their teachers or boyfriends. Their innate good manners led them to begin writing a very successful blog on modern etiquette, addressing issues for people of all ages.
yvonneandyvettetiquette.blogspot.com/
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Thomas Evans
Thomas Evans is a visual artist living in New York City. Born in Bedford Hills, New York, the first time that Evans held a camera he felt a powerful connection to it, a gift which allowed him to explore lighting and composition in ways far beyond the ordinary. In his art, Evans has no fear. His camera is an open door to the world.
Evans is a photographer for The Patrick McMullan Company, and has shot fashion shows, celebrities, parties, and red carpets events. His work has been published in numerous magazines including Go, Paraphilia, Trystate, HX and Next. In addition to editorial work, Evans has shot cover art for recording artist and done portraiture for the wildly varied artist community of New York City. www.thomasevansphotography.com
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Thom Gilbert
Born in NYC.
Raised on Long Island.
Schooled at RIT, Museum School Fine Arts, and Tufts.
Lives in NYC and Connecticut.
Has been published in Interview, New York magazine, Gotham and LA
Confidential as well as commercial work for Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s, Target and Sundance.
Awards: Hasselblad Masters Series, American Photo Magazine “Best
Advertising Photography,” Photo District News Magazine “Best Commercial Photography.”
Playing drums since 11 years old and has a blues band, Johnny Boots Band; CD available on I-Tunes.
www.thomgilbert.net |
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Neil G. Giuliano
Neil G. Giuliano
was born and raised in Bloomfield, New Jersey in a Roman Catholic, Italian-American home. A few days after graduating high school in 1974, he traveled to Arizona to be close to his immediate family.
Twenty years later, in May of 1994, he became the youngest person ever elected Mayor of Tempe, Arizona (pop: 175,000) and served for a decade, retiring in 2004. The firsts, however, don’t end there. In 1996, he publicly acknowledged that he was a gay man, faced attacks from religious right opponents, won re-election three more times, his last with 70% of the vote, and won a recall election engineered by anti-gay activists with 68%.
His ten years as mayor won bi-partisan praise from those he worked with, including Senator John McCain and then-Governor Janet Napolitano, included a term on the board of directors of the National League of Cities and earned Tempe “All-American City” status in 2003, considered the “Oscar” of local government problem-solving success.
His national profile as a leader and public speaker grew; for 6 years Tempe was the largest city in America with an openly gay Mayor. His willingness to speak out publicly against the discrimination and defamation often faced by gay people led him to be selected and serve as the national President of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) from September 2005-June 2009.
GLAAD’s media advocacy and anti-defamation work, and strong influence within the entertainment industry, national news organizations and with journalists at all levels, has led to increased visibility and sweeping change in the ways that LGBT people are portrayed in the media. Giuliano has appeared on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ABC World News Tonight, Showbiz Tonight, Access Hollywood, and has been quoted by The Associated Press, and in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, USA Today, and numerous state and regional media outlets. For over a decade now, he has been among the nation’s most visible and effective leaders of the movement for gay equality, earning recognition in 2006 as one of Out magazine’s Out100, which recognizes the 100 most influential people in gay culture.
Prior to his work as President of GLAAD, and concurrent to his holding office in Tempe, he had a 25-year career as a senior administrator at Arizona State University (ASU). He served as lead organizer and co-chair for the final 2004 Presidential Debate held at ASU, which was viewed by over 57 million people nationwide and around the world.
As an educator, community leader, elected official and activist, he has spoken before groups of all sizes, from 25 at a Tempe neighborhood pot-luck, to the nearly one-million gathered for the April 2000 March on Washington, to 3500 seated in the Kodak Theater in Hollywood attending the 2008 GLAAD Media Awards.
His future plans include writing, speaking, considering another run for public office in beautiful Arizona, and—as he has throughout his long and distinguished career—helping others reach their goals and dreams. |
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Amalia Gladhart
Amalia Gladhart was born in Ithaca, New York, and grew up in Michigan. She has also spent close to two years in Ecuador. She studied at Michigan State University (B.A.) and at Cornell (M.A., Ph.D.), where she held a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. She is the translator of The Potbellied Virgin, by Ecuadorian novelist Alicia Yánez Cossío and the author of The Leper in Blue: Coercive Performance in the Contemporary Latin American Theater. She is currently Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Oregon. Poems and short fiction have appeared in Stone Canoe, The Iowa Review, Bellingham Review, The MacGuffin, Southern Poetry Review, Permafrost, and elsewhere. |
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George Green
George Green had a successful career as the President and General Manager of KABC Radio in Los Angeles. He spent 38 years at KABC and under his tenure KABC Talk Radio was launched as the first Talk station in America. George is most proud of the two charities that he founded. The Advertising Industry Emergency Fund which benefits unemployed personnel in the advertising business and a second organization called MAT (Minority Advertising Training) Program which trains Minorities for positions in the Ad business.
Since 1996, he has been the owner of George Green Enterprises, a company that specializes in Talent management, representing advertisers in Radio and TV. He had a brief acting career in TV and Motion Pictures. Golf is the primary sport he now enjoys. Water Skiing, snow skiing and Scuba diving are also part of his life.
www.georgegreen.net |
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Damien Walters Grintalis
Damien Walters Grintalis was imprinted with a love of books at an early age by her father, and has been writing for most of her life. At the age of eleven, two things happened which played a major role in the shaping of her wordcraft–she saw the movie Alien and read Stephen King’s The Shining. After that, her attraction to all things dark and scary turned into true love. Still a voracious reader of everything from nonfiction to edgy YA, she divides her time between writing and professional belly dance and lives in Maryland with her husband, three cats, and a 70-pound pit bull named Kane.
You can follow Damien on Twitter at twitter.com/DWGrintalis and visit her blog at dwgrintalis.blogspot.com |
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Ruth Horowitz
Ruth Horowitz has worked as a librarian in a Catholic girls’ high school, raised two children, run for public office, taught Torah at a Hebrew school, dispensed advice in a sex column, and served the causes of truth and grammar as an editor at Vermont’s alternative weekly newspaper, Seven Days, where she also contributed news stories, features and personal essays. The Vermont Press Association named “Kosher Caskets,” a profile of a coffin salesman, Best Feature Writing in a Non-daily for 2003.
As the youngest of four siblings (father an editor at The New York Times, mother a middle school librarian), it’s not surprising that Ruth’s children’s books so often champion unfairly maligned creatures: bats in Bat Time, horseshoe crabs in Crab Moon (a National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children for 2000), cockroaches in Break-Out At The Bug Lab and Big Surprise in the Bug Tank, and a baby brother in Mommy’s Lap.
Since growing up in Montclair, New Jersey, Ruth has lived in Paris, Los Angeles and Burlington, Vermont. She and her husband recently relocated to Rhode Island. Her current projects include a novel for adults and more children’s books.
You can follow Ruth at ruthhorowitz.wordpress.com. |
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Robert J. Hughes
Robert J. Hughes
is the author of the novel Late and Soon, which Edmund White called a novel of "Jamesian subtlety." He worked for many years at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote on culture, fine arts, theater and publishing. Currently he writes a twice-weekly column on the arts for ClassicalTV.com and is at work on his next novel.
He lives in New York. |
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Kevin Lane
Kevin Lane has been covering the social, fashion and cultural scene in South Florida for more than two decades. Early in his career, Lane wrote for several newspapers in New York City, before embarking on his ongoing work in Florida. He runs a successful public relations company and is a motivational speaker and history buff who lectures on subjects as diverse as Napoleon Bonaparte, King Tut and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. |
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Rich Merritt
Rich Merritt published a memoir, Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star, in 2005, followed in 2008 by a novel, Code of Conduct. He was featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine in a 1998 article by Jennifer Egan titled "Uniforms in the Closet: The Shadow Life of a Gay Marine." He has also been featured on the covers of The Advocate, A&U Magazine and other publications. He authored a regular column in The Navy Times and has been published in California Lawyer, Southern Voice and elsewhere. |
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Stephen Mikita
Steve Mikita has been a Utah Assistant Attorney General for over 25 years. Born with an incurable muscle disorder that has ravaged his body for 50 years, Mikita’s indomitable spirit and plainspoken wisdom have touched millions of Americans. “My parents could not teach me how to walk and run. Instead, they encouraged me to dream realistic dreams and climb mountains.”
He was the first wheelchair freshman in the history of Duke University, where he graduated magna cum laude. While at Duke, Mikita interned for the House Administration Committee in Washington, D.C., as well as the United Nations in New York.
He then graduated from Brigham Young University Law School. While in law school, Mikita served as Senator Orrin Hatch’s (R-Utah) law clerk. He was also a law clerk for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mikita is also a popular motivational speaker throughout the country. His audiences are as diverse as the Iowa Farm Bureau, the United States Tennis Association, the United States Army, the Tennessee Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, and the American Legion. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, Sally Jessy Raphael, Leeza, Court TV, CNBC, and EXTRA.
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Randi Newton
Randi Newton attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha on a scholarship she received from the Miss America Organization and later moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. After being laid off from her non-acting/ pay-the-bills job, Randi wandered into a strip club and walked out with a waitress gig. One year later, on Valentine’s Day, she made the jump to ecdysiast et voila: a new stripper was born. Since then she has been featured on Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, Inside Editon, The Today Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Gayle King Show, and The Today Show. She was also a panelist on Fox Nation's Strategy Room and went head to head with Bill O'Reilly on the The O'Reilly Factor. Randi continues to act, perform stand up, and is a columnist for Exotic Dancer magazine.
You can follow Randi at www.wallstreetstripper.com. |
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Eric Rickstad
Eric Rickstad is a novelist and screenwriter. His first novel Reap was published by Viking/Penguin to high acclaim. His script Funeral for A Friend is due to be produced in the summer of 2011. His novels, stories, and scripts–lauded by critics and readers alike–strip back the bucolic veneer of rural America and root around in its tragic and blackly comic underbelly.
Boyhood in northern Vermont exposed Rickstad to marijuana growers, criminals, cons, and raconteurs as he worked as a bricklayer, roofer, house painter, and logger. Rickstad's writing eventually led him from the Vermont woods to the halls of The University of Virginia where Faulkner and Poe left their marks. There, as a Hoyns Fellow, he wrote Reap and classic American short stories.
He lives in Vermont with his wife, daughter, and dog.
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RuPaul
RuPaul skyrocketed to international fame with the release of the CD, Supermodel of the World, which was followed by roles in several movies (The Brady Bunch, To Wong Foo..., But I'm a Cheerleader), The RuPaul Show on VH1, many high profile endorsement deals (including a beauty contract with M·A·C Cosmetics), a wax portrait at Madame Tussaud's Museum in Times Square, a best-selling autobiography and raising millions of dollars worldwide for people living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2004, after a four-year hiatus, RuPaul returned with RuPaul Red Hot, which garnered three top ten dance singles, blockbuster success with the RuPaul doll, feature film roles in Another Gay Sequel and Starrbooty, a film in which RuPaul wrote and produced, and sold out appearances worldwide with RuPaul's legendary night club act.
RuPaul's Drag Race, the search for America's next drag superstar, premiered on Logo & VH1 in February 2009 to rave reviews, and was recently picked up for a second season. RuPaul's latest album Champion was released February 2009 and reached #1 on the iTunes Dance Chart. Cover Girl (Put the Bass in Your Walk), the first single, is currently cruising its way to #1 on the Billboard charts. |
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Casey Sherman
Casey Sherman made international headlines with his re-investigation of the notorious Boston Strangler case in 1999. It was a personal crusade for the veteran journalist. Sherman is the nephew of 19-year old Mary Sullivan, believed to be the last victim of the Boston Strangler. Through Sherman's re-investigation, he was able to prove that self-confessed killer Albert killer was not the real Boston Strangler. Sherman chronicled the re-investigation in his 2003 acclaimed true-crime thriller, A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler (Northeastern University Press). The book was later released in paperback under a new title: Search for the Strangler (Warner Books, 2005) Sherman's second book, Black Irish was released in 2007 and reached #5 on Amazon's list of hottest selling new releases. The much-anticipated sequel Black Dragon followed in 2008.
2009 looks to be a breakout year for the Boston author. He has two new books set for release. The first is titled The Finest Hours (Scribner May 19, 2009). It is the gripping true tale about one of the Coast Guard’s most daring sea rescues. Sherman’s other book is titled, Bad Blood: Freedom and Death in the White Mountains (UPNE, 2009). Bad Blood brings the author back to his true-crime roots as he uncovers the disturbing truth behind one of New England’s most shocking crimes–the deadly police shooting in Franconia, New Hampshire in 2007.
Casey Sherman has appeared on dozens of television programs including The Today Show, The CBS Evening News, The View, Dateline NBC, America’s Most Wanted,Unsolved Mysteries, CNN, Fox News, The History Channel, Discovery, The CBS Early Show, 48 Hours Mysteries, The Travel Channel, and National Geographic.
Sherman has been nominated for an Emmy Award and is also a contributing editor for www.theopencase.com and a writer for Boston Common and Boston magazine, as well as a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. |
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Jeremy Shipp
Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker nominated author of Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves. His shorter tales have appeared or are forthcoming in over 50 publications, the likes of Cemetery Dance, ChiZine, Apex Magazine, Pseudopod, and Shroud Magazine. Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse called Rose Cottage. He lives there with his wife, Lisa, a couple of pygmy tigers, and a legion of yard gnomes. The gnomes like him. The clowns living in his attic--not so much. Feel free to visit his online home at jeremycshipp.com and follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JeremyCShipp. |
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Leslie L. Smith
Leslie L. Smith is currently working on his PhD in Educational Theater at NYU, where he also received a BA in Creative Writing. He was born and raised in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and moved to New York City in 1991. He founded and ran Revelation Theater from 2000-2004 and has worked for twenty years in the Off Broadway community. Smith has also worked in social services including senior positions in the American Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program. He wrote, produced and directed the feature film David Searching, which is available on DVD from Waterbearer films. |
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James St. James
James St. James is the author of the Disco Bloodbath, the Edgar-Award nominated nonfiction book that was made into the movie Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green, and the ground-breaking young adult novel Freak Show, voted on of the best of 2007 by Kirkus and School Library Journal. James's ground-breaking voice is one in a million; as he himself puts it, "I have two influences sitting on my shoulders when I write, an angel and a devil. Diana Vreeland is the angel, saying “More, more!” And Samuel Beckett is the devil, saying “Cut, cut!”
Hailed by Newsweek magazine as a celebutante, James was one of the original Club Kids and has been a fixture on the nightlife scene for over twenty years. Despite his busy social and writing schedule, James still finds time to contribute to the World of Wonder website and make numerous appearances of pop culture TV shows such as Tyra, America's Next Top Model, and the break-out hit RuPaul's Drag Race.
James St. James lives in Los Angeles. |
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