 |
Masthead
Karen
Kopacz
Director, Designer and Featured
Artist Editor
|
|
Karen is
an art director, designer and
artist consultant, living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is curator
of the Mobile
Art Gallery , a series of exhibits that take place at various
venues in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to help build connections
between local artists, business owners and the community. Karen
was a panel member for Fostering New Culture on the Internet in SXSW's
2005 Interactive Festival. She has been featured on KFAI's radio
program Art Matters, also heard as a podcast on
mnartists.org. A member of AIGA and MIMA,
her Web design has been featured in the design anthology "Portfolios
Online." Karen is a former columnist and photographer for Pitchfork and
a former art director and writer for First
Avenue Magazine. Her writing
and photography have appeared in a variety of publications.
Karen is the featured artist editor for Exhibitionist. |
| Photo by Matt Porath |
Gene
Dillon
Writer
|
 |
Gene Dillon lives in Boulder,
Colorado with his wife and 2 children. A native of Chicago, Gene
moved out West for a multitude of reasons he does not yet
understand.
Gene has been an integral part of Mental Contagion since November
of 2002. He has contributed as a writer, editor and producer,
and was the creator of a conversation feature called The
Shovel, in which he interviewed people from all walks of
life. He is currently working on publishing of a collection of
his stories. Documenting the process of publishing his work, Opening
the Can replaces his monthly column until either the book
is finished, or he is.
Gene is a co-producer of Mental Contagion and writes the column Tin
Can.
|
Wendy
Lewis
Writer, Featured Writer Editor
|
 |
Wendy Lewis relocated
her family in 1998 from the urban lively of Minneapolis to the
mysterious haven of Cannon Falls, a small farming community on
the Cannon River, 50 miles southeast of the twin cities.
She migrates regularly from small-town life to the cities to
commune with friends, perform with her band Redstart (Princess
Records) and work a day job regularly enough to pay the bills.
There is nothing she loves more than a ravaged table, guests
flush with food and wine and conversation late into the night.
The river runs. The door is open. The dogs are friendly.
Urban-girl-gone-country was the inspiration for Wendy's column Rūs.
Wendy is the featured writer editor for Pure
Hash. |
Dean
Pajevic
Writer
|
 |
"Everybody tells
you kids are going to change your life. 'Yeah, sure. Whatever,'
you say. Then they come along. And your life changes."
"I look at her big, three-year-old eyes and I don't want
to sit the fence anymore. I want her to grow up in a world where
nature and people are not lashed to the mast of that sinking
ship called History. So I write. It's like jamming a crowbar
into my heart and soul, prying back the stinking, rotten planks
and feeling as much joy and life as I can stand. And sharing
it."
Dean is presently working on a book about love, death and redemption
(with car chases and sex). A creative library of his work is
available on his Web site deanpajevic.com.
Dean writes the column Mags . |
Sam Edsill
Interviewer
|
 |
Sam Edsill is a recent
graduate of the University of Iowa, where he studied English
literature, creative writing and journalism. Sam was a staff
writer for The
Daily Iowan and spent a summer writing in Dublin. Currently
living in Iowa City, he spends his free time traversing the Midwest
and contemplating the vast unknown of the future.
Sam discusses art and the environment in the interview column Cause & Effect. |
Emily
Johnson
Writer and Interviewer
|
|
Emily Johnson is a choreographer/director/curator originally
from
Alaska, currently based in Minneapolis. She founded her company,
Catalyst in 1998. In the decade since, she has created, produced
and
toured her dance work throughout the USA and in Russia, Amsterdam,
and Montreal with support and commissions from organizations
that include the Walker Art Center, Interact Center for the
Visual and Performing Arts, VIZIT, and the Bush, Puffin, and
Jerome Foundations.
When she doesn't have a commission, she
gets the company in a van and drives to Nebraska to do a show
on a farm, or they get on a plane for a week of camping and
performing in small, Alaskan bars and art galleries. She writes
about dance/performance in in
her self-published, community spirited dance response writing
project, post-re-view.
Her dance films have screeed in festivals and at universites
and a new film titled "Natasha with
Trains" is
forthcoming. She produces the dance series Windfarm @ the Rogue
Buddha and co-curates the dance/film series, capture!, at the
Bryant Lake Bowl Theater in Mpls.
Emily discusses dance in the interview
and essay column Call & Response .
|
Photo by
Cameron Wittig |
Katie
Bratsch
Contributing Writer
|
 |
Katie lives and writes
in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has a backyard with a hammock,
which pleases her for now. Come winter, though, she'll be dreaming
again of coffee fields, beaches and banana leaves. One day,
she plans to have a hammock slung between olive trees in Costa
Rica.
Meanwhile, she writes and edits for magazines, collaborates
on art projects with friends and is training to teach yoga.
She studied literature and writing at the University of Minnesota
and has worked in K-12 education, advertising and magazine
publishing. |
Geoff
Herbach
Podcast Host
|
 |
Geoff is a writer and
teacher living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is co-founder of
the Lit
6 Project, a group that writes and performs the Electric
Arc Radio show around the country, most notably at the Ritz
Theater in Northeast Minneapolis. He is a regular guest of the Talking
Image Connection reading series and has read stories on Minnesota
Public Radio. His short fiction has appeared in American
Nerd, Bathtub Gin and in other publications. At
one time, Geoff was a notable national expert on land use and
urban gardening. Geoff's novel "The
Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg" is to be published by Crown/Three
Rivers Press in April of 2008.
Geoff hosts the podcast interview series Hearing
Voices. |
Stephanie
Wilbur Ash
Podcast Host
|
 |
Stephanie Wilbur Ash
grew up sucking on a chili dog outside a Tastee Freeze. Nothing
happened. Then she was a bank teller, a hotel clerk working night
desk, a newspaper columnist, a bureaucrat, a mom and a feature
writer. A lot of stuff happened that she isn't ready to talk
about yet. She is one thesis short of an MFA, and it seems that
she may be that way forever. While avoiding working on her thesis,
Steph is a principal in the the Lit
6 Project, the only woman performer/writer with the wildly
popular Minneapolis-based Electric
Arc Radio show and is the books and literature columnist
for Metro
Magazine. Her features and profiles have appeared all
over kingdom come, and her fiction has appeared in Mississippi
Review, River City, the Rake, and Northography.com.
Steph hosts the podcast interview series Hearing
Voices. |
|
|
