Mariela Griffor
Publisher
A native of Chile, Griffor was forced to flee the regime of Augusto Pinochet after the murder of her fiancé by agents of the dictator and threats against her own life. She spent 12 years in Sweden, where she met her husband, Edward Griffor, a native Detroiter and world-renowned mathematician. In 1998 the couple moved to Grosse Pointe Park, where they live with their two daughters.Griffor earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and a certificate in Montessori education, and is completing a master's degree in Media Studies at Wayne State University.She is a co-founder of the Detroit Institute for Creative Writers at Wayne State University, where she also served as Detroit Urban Woman Writer in Residence in 2003. She is curator of the Poets Follies reading series at the Grosse Pointe Artists Association. She is the author of
Exiliana.
Peter Markus
Fiction Editor
Peter Markus is the author of three books of short-fiction,
Good, Brother, The Moon is a Lighthouse, and
The Singing Fish. His stories and poems have appeared in such literary magazines as
Black Warrior Review, Quarterly West, Massachusetts Review, Northwest Review, New Orleans Review, Third Coast, Post Road, 3rd Bed, Seattle Review, The Prose Poem, The American Journal of Print, Willow Springs, Another Chicago Magazine, Phoebe, as well as online at 5_Trope, failbetter, taint, elimae, Pindeldyboz, La Petite Zine, Eyeshot, DIAGRAM, and
Eleven Bulls. His work has also appeared in numerous anthologies including
New Sudden Fiction (Norton) and
Fiction Gallery (Bloomsbury USA). He has taught at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Peter holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University.
Publicist: Bonnie Caprara
Ilya Kaminsky
Poetry Editor
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of
Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine.
Dancing In Odessa was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine.
In addition, Ilya writes poetry in Russian. His work in that language was chosen for "Bunker Poetico" at Venice Bienial Festival in Italy. In late 1990s, he co-founded Poets For Peace, an organization which sponsors poetry readings in the United States and abroad with a goal of supporting such relief organizations as Doctors Without Borders and Survivors International.
Ilya has served as a Writer In Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy and has taught poetry at numerous literary centers. In Fall 2006, he will begin teaching in the graduate writing program at San Diego State University. Ilya has also worked as a Law Clerk at the National Immigration Law Center, and more recently at Bay Area Legal Aid, helping impovershed and homeless in solving their legal difficulties. He currently lives in Berkeley, Califonia with his beautiful wife, Katie Farris.
Sean Tai
Art Director
He grew up in Fredericton, N.B. and now lives in Toronto. He is contemplating several writing projects, including a novel based on his story “American Woman”, which won Special Honourable Mention in the 1998 This Magazine Great Canadian Literary Hunt. In his spare time he has been reading Flannery O'Connor and Francine Prose, as well as occasional manuscripts from the slush pile at McClelland & Stewart, where he is employed as a typesetter.
