Contributors

Dan Geddes is the author of The Satirist: America's Most Critical Book (Vol. 1) and the founding editor of the online journal The Satirist: America's Most Critical Journal, an astonishing collection of satires, reviews, reviews of imaginary works, fiction, essays, poems, and satirical news. Geddes' satires and critical essays in The Satirist have been widely cited in books and academic journals and assigned in Literature courses in the US and countries abroad. He lives in Amsterdam.

Tom Deisboeck is a published cartoonist and children's book illustrator. He is largely self-taught yet propelled by great mentors like Charles Zembillas (The Animation Academy in Burbank, CA) and John Byrne (The London Art College, UK). Tom's cartoons focus on current events, including political and scientific topics. When he is not drawing for The Satirist, Tom enjoys illustrating children's books. He lives with his wife, son and dog in Massachusetts. For more info, visit: http://tom-deisboeck.squarespace.com/

Martin H. Levinson, PhD, New York University, is a past president of the Institute of General Semantics, book editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics, and a contributing editor to The Satirist: America's Critical Most Journal. He has published 14 books and scores of articles on topics ranging from self-help fairy tales to social and historical analyses. He is currently a faculty member with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Stony Brook University, a teacher for the United Federation of Teachers’ Si Beagle Learning Program, which is located in New York City, and a lecturer on contemporary and historical topics for schools and public libraries.

Paul Lander is a TV comedy writer, award-winning columnist and producer. His humor pieces have appeared in MAD, American Bystander, Weekly Humorist, McSweeneys, National Lampoon, Robot Butt, Little Old Lady Blog, Humor Times, Humor Outcasts, Politipod, and more. He's written stand-up material that's been performed on The Daily Show, Real Time, Conan, David Letterman: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize and The DL Hughley Show. Dan McConnell, NCS cartoonist since 2012, published in MAD, Reader's Digest, and others. Online with The Satirist, American Bystander, Weekly Humorist, Humor Outcasts and others. cartoonydan[at]gmail.com

A journalist and playwright, Elaine’s books of American cultural history were published by Little, Brown, Putnam and Capra; her plays by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus and Art Age. Musical plays are An American Cantata; The Would-be Diva; Isadora! and COLE and WILL: Together Again! Non-musical dramas are The Chameleon; Two Margarets; The Trial of Mata Hari and The Nominee. The “I” Word; Gun Show Follies and Secrets of the Showroom are short comedies. She has written for many national magazines; The New York Times and the LA Times. Latest articles appear monthly in the aptly-named online journal The Satirist. [See LA. Times Obituary]

Various pseudonymous writers and other contributors.

Jeffrey Meyers, FRSL, had thirty-four books translated into fourteen languages and seven alphabets, and published on six continents.  Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway came out with LSU Press in November 2025.  The Biographer’s Quest appeared with Mercer University Press in April 2026.

Michael J. Mangano is an award-winning creative director and former member of Directors Guild of America, who has written for such talents as Jack Klugman, Judd Hirsch, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. His humor essays are currently being published online, and he is working on his first novel (and his golf swing).

Stephen J. Lyons is the author of six books of essay and journalism and the Substack newsletter "The Revolution Starts Here.”

Don Unger was born at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and has spent more than fifty years now touring medical facilities across Europe and the Americas. He has published about thirty short stories, a handful of poems, hundreds of journalistic pieces, and done a few dozen radio commentaries for local NPR affiliates. He writes the occasional unpublishable novel as well—one of which was his MFA thesis. He was disappointed to discover that his PhD did not earn him a prescription pad. He accepts that writing is clear evidence of mental illness; he also understands that any relief writing provides is symptomatic and temporary. He has had a headache since 1990.

DAVID COMFORT is the author of popular nonfiction titles from Simon and Schuster, Citadel/Kensington and Writer’s Digest Books. His short fiction appears in Evergreen Review, 3AM magazine, Morning News, and Eclectica. He is a Pushcart Fiction Prize nominee, and finalist for Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren, Narrative, and Glimmer Train Awards. His literary essays appear in Pleiades, The Montreal Review, Stanford Arts Review, Free Inquiry, Johns Hopkins' Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review, and The Philosopher (UK).

Mollie Fermaglich is a satirical essayist who has written for Glamour, New York Times, London Times, Mademoiselle, Village Voice, King Features Syndicate and several other magazines and newspapers. She is the author of Mollie's Rules for the Socially Inept, and two blogs, www.molliesrulesforyou.com and her political satire column for The Times of Israel.

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published five full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), & Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. Kevin’s most recent poetry collection Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital was published by Salmon Poetry in June; one of the poems from which will feature in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4.

Fred Russell is the pen name of an American-born writer living in Israel. His novels Rafi's World (Fomite Press), dealing with Israel's emerging criminal class, and The Links in the Chain (CCLaP), a thriller set in New York with an Arab-Israel background, were both published in 2014. A collection of his opinion pieces called Short Takes: American Notes (Scars) appeared as a chapbook in 2015 and his longer stories and essays may be read in Third Coast, Polluto, Fiction on the Web, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ontologica, and Unlikely Stories: Episode 4.

ANDY COWAN is an award-winning writer whose credits include Cheers, Seinfeld and 3rd Rock from the Sun, and hundreds of cartoon panels for the King Features strip, Bizarro, Rhymes with Orange, Harry Bliss's for The New Yorker and Bliss, Reader's Digest, and Prospect, among others. His memoir from Black Rose Writing, Banging My Head Against the Wall: A Comedy Writer’s Guide to Seeing Stars, was acquired in 2019 by The National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, deemed one of Time Magazine’s 100 best places in the world. He can be reached through his website, http://www.andycowan. net/ DAN MCCONNELL, Dan McConnell, NCS cartoonist since 2012, published in MAD, Reader’s Digest, and others. Online with The Satirist, American Bystander, Weekly Humorist, Humor Outcasts and others. cartoonydan[at]gmail.com

Casey Alexander is an English professor living in Barcelona. She has a BS from Georgetown University and an MFA from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in The Satirist and The Normal School.

Jennifer Moses is the author of four books — two fiction and two non-fiction. Her short work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Southern Review, New Letters, Pushcart Prizes, Best New Stories from the South, Glimmer Train, Commentary, and numerous other publications.

During his day job, Walter Bowne teaches AP Lang and Composition, American literature, and journalism in New Jersey. But at night, under the flicker of candlelight, Walter Bowne attempts to write comedy, first person essays of utter humiliation, and a novel of satire about education that grows by 1K each day. He has been published in numerous newspapers and magazines. Follow him on YouTube at Walter Bowne and "Down with Bowne" on Spotify.

Edward Stanton’s novel Wide as the Wind won the 2017 Next Generation Indie Award for Young Adult Fiction.

A se­nior lec­turer in film and jour­nal­ism at Penn State Uni­ver­sity, Boaz Dvir is an award-win­ning film­maker (Jessie’s Dad, A Wing and a Prayer).

Jon Reiner is the James Beard Award-win­ning au­thor of the mem­oir The Man Who Could­n’t Eat and the di­rec­tor of the award-win­ning doc­u­men­tary film Tree Man. His work has ap­peared in Es­quire, The At­lantic, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Huff­in­g­ton Post, been nom­i­nated for a Na­tional Mag­a­zine Award and recorded for NPR.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author (with Emily Robertson) of “The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools” (University of Chicago Press)

K.D. Tay­lor is the au­thor of The Cos­mic Odd­ball, a book of po­etic satires.

E. A. Bourland lives in Washington, DC with his wife, their children, and her cat. His web site is https://www.hwaet.com/.

Marleen S. Barr’s When Trump Changed: The Feminist Science Fiction Justice League Quashes the Orange Outrage Pussy Grabber (B Cubed Press, 2018) is the first single authored Trump short story collection. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction and teaches English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction criticism. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. She has edited many anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. Her novels are Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir.

Tim Koechlin is the Director of the International Studies Program at Vassar College, where he has an appointment in International Studies and Urban Studies. Professor Koechlin has taught and written about a variety of subjects including economic, political and racial inequality; globalization; and urban political economy. He has also published several “less scholarly” essays on politics, baseball, aging, healthcare, Chris Christie, Barry Manilow, and doughnuts.

Matthew M. Ployhart is a writer of poetry, short stories, and satires. He published his first book, On the Repetition of Human Habits, in 2019. Before then, he began his writing career with the publication of several individual poems through various contests. In his free time, Matthew Ployhart enjoys writing war novels and historical fiction pieces. He hopes readers will be inspired by his work to write their own, and he often turns to popular topics for inspiration.

Lauren LoGiudice is an actor, comedian, and character chameleon originally from Queens. Lauren’s work has been featured by The New York Times, McSweeney’s, BBC, Roma C’e’, Bust Magazine, and NY1, among others. MothStorySLAM Champ. Her 15+ characters make her followers laugh-cry on Instagram @laurenlogi.

David Galef has published humor in places ranging from the old British Punch to Spy and The New York Times Book Review. For over a decade, he’s written a humor column for Inside Higher Ed about a school called U of All People. He’s also the author of over a dozen books. His latest work of fiction is My Date with Neanderthal Woman, which won Dzanc Books’ short story collection award. His day job is professor of English and creative writing program director at Montclair State University. For a little self-aggrandizement, see www.davidgalef.com and @dgalef.

William's humor writing has appeared in Weekly Humorist, Robot Butt and Points in Case, among other places. Coincidentally, it has not appeared in other places as well.

Tim Doyle is an award-winning political illustrator/humorist. “Tyranny, Treachery, the 6th of January: Humor in the Darkest of Times” is his latest effort to bring humor into a dark period of political upheaval. Tim’s previous books were the acclaimed “Welcome to the Swamp: An Illustrated Journey into the Deplorable World of Donald J. Trump” and “2021 A Year in Review: THE AFTERMATH”. His acute eye for detail and resolve to present images truthfully have been developed by working as a commercial photographer/film-maker in a previous career. During this time, Tim received numerous awards both nationally and internationally. By turning his creativity to political satire, Tim has been able to distill the broad range of political misfortune into an accurate portrayal of wrongs within the system. Tim's plans are to keep making the public aware so that change can happen, if only we are actively involved. As the late U.S. Representative and activist John Lewis said, "When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something! Do something! Get in trouble! Good trouble! Necessary trouble!"

David Alpaugh’s work has previously appeared in The Satirist, as well as in more than 100 other literary journals from Able Muse to Zyzzyva. He recently completed a musical play with his composer brother, Lewis, entitled: “Yesteryear: The Life and Times of François Villon.”

I'm an award-almost-winning humor writer. Read more on karapanzer.com.

Rfreed is the pseu­do­nym for the Ghostrid­er­writer which is the pseu­do­nym for the Lap­top fin­ger lap­dancer which is the pseu­do­nym for Pa­per­waster which is the pseu­do­nym for Mark Twain which is the alias for Mitch Mc­Connell. Some­times I won­der if I ex­ist at all. In my al­ter ego I have to go out and work a real job. What a drag………

Tony Powers is a born and dragged-up New Yorker. He has written hit songs, acted in hit movies (Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas), produced, directed, written and acted in award winning music videos, released an acclaimed CD, and currently blogs at http://barkinginthedark.com. For a complete overview of his bio see Wikipedia. He greatly appreciates any and all who read and/or listen to any of his works.

Janet Eve Josselyn is a graduate of Colby College, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Boston College Law School. She is a blogger for The Huffington Post and has published one novel, Thin Rich Bitches. She enjoys collecting advanced degrees and not using the knowledge for monetary gain. To her credit, she is remarkably optimistic despite her obvious shortcomings and lack of talent.

ERIC LICHTBLAU is a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the best-selling author of The Nazis Next Door and Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice. His latest book, Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis, was released in October of 2019. He was a Washington reporter for the New York Times for fifteen years and for the Los Angeles Times for fifteen years before that. He has also written during his career for the New Yorker, TIME, the Intercept, and other publications. He has been a frequent guest on NPR, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and other networks, as well as a speaker at many universities and institutions. He lives outside Washington, D.C.

Josh Schultz is a ghostwriter, editor, and professional intuitive. You can learn more about his work at his website: www.theliterature.org.

Matt Kolbet teaches and writes near Portland, Oregon. Recently, his work has appeared in Inklette, Inwood Indiana, and 3 Elements Review. His second novel, Lunar Year, will be out in Autumn, 2016.

Chris Iovenko is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles with many documentary and narrative film credits. Iovenko’s writing has been published in such places as The Atlantic, The American Prospect, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Details, Spin and The New Republic.

David Sheskin is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in The Dalhousie Review, Puerto del Sol, the Journal of Irreproducible Results, Permafrost, Gargoyle and Notre Dame Review. Among his recent books are Plaid Cats, Art That Speaks and David Sheskin’s Cabinet of Curiosities. A former university professor, he is also the author of The Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures.

Jason Half-Pillow lives in Vicenza, Italy, where the people speak Italian in what sounds to be a Swedish accent. His writing has appeared in many places, including his computer and on unemployment application forms and at the Santa Cruz, California DMV. His writing has also appeared in the Iowa Review, Hobo Pancakes, The Driftwood Press, the Bicycle Review, and The Paris Review, though in the last case, it was his handwriting: he used the inside cover to practice forging his mother's signature. He is left-handed but plays tetherball with his right.

In the course of be­com­ing a poet and psy­chol­o­gist, An­drew Kuhn has sold fire­wood, re­built apart­ments, done aid work, and worked as a jour­nal­ist. His po­ems have ap­peared in Able Muse Re­view, Chi­maera, The Mailer Re­view, and Vend­ing Ma­chine Press; work is sched­uled for pub­li­ca­tion in The Heron’s Nest and Com­mon Ground Re­view. Kuhn also con­ducts in­ter­views with dis­tin­guished po­ets in sup­port of the Ka­tonah Po­etry Se­ries, an or­ga­ni­za­tion that has brought live po­etry read­ings to Ka­tonah, NY for al­most fifty years. Some­times when he’s thor­oughly drenched him­self in a po­et’s work, he shakes him­self like a dog, and af­fec­tion­ate par­o­dies ap­pear on the wall, which he copies down be­fore they dry and dis­ap­pear.

Rebekah Iliff is the founder of WriteVest, a writer's collective specializing in publisher-ready content for enterprise brands and startups. In addition to her client work, she is a contributing writer for Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Business2Community and a guest columnist for The Satirist. Her writing has also appeared in Mashable, HuffPost, Bloomberg Businessweek, FastCompany, and The New York Times. She has advised on books such as Everyone's a Critic, written by NYT bestselling author Bill Tancer, and The Fuzzy and the Techie, recently released by venture capitalist and Presidential Innovation Fellow, Scott Hartley. Currently, she is the lead writer and producer for "Food Roots," a travel-food documentary series set to air on PBS. For her creative work, Rebekah is currently represented by ICM Partners in New York.

Clark Zlotchew is the author of 19 books, among them two thriller novels, the poetry collection A Presence of Absence: Poetry (2021), and three collections of short stories, one of which was an award winner. His fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction have appeared in Crossways Literary Magazine, The American Poetry Review, and many other literary journals in the U.S. as well as abroad. Earlier fiction of his had appeared in his Spanish versions in three Latin American countries and the state of Colorado. Dr. Zlotchew is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish, Emeritus.

Daniel Goodwin is an award-winning poet and novelist. His writing has appeared in several Canadian journals and newspapers. Catullus's Soldiers, his first poetry collection, won a 2016 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature. His second novel, The Art of Being Lewis, will be published in March 2019.

Chrissy Benson is a lawyer and writer living in New York City. Chrissy is a regular freelance legal writer for The Maryland Daily Record, and her short stories and articles have been published in Romantic Shorts, AltVariety, The Binnacle, and Audio Arcadia. She is currently finishing up her first novel, which she aims to release….soon! A two-time marathon runner, Chrissy starts her days by the East River, where she runs every morning. She lives in Manhattan's East Village with her vegan cat, Sammy.

A scientist by training and a writer by inclination, David R. Bowne, Ph.D. is an associate professor of biology at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. When not mucking around in wetlands with students studying turtles and salamanders, teaching courses merging ecological science and creative writing, or enjoying quality time with his wife and two teenage children, he can be found tapping away in the dark of his basement office. His fiction and creative nonfiction works are published in Hippocampus, The Write Launch, and The Showbear Family Circus. His scientific articles are widely published in journals with less creative names.

Helga Hewston is a New York born writer, blogger and poet who currently lives in Amsterdam. Her well-received blogsite was created in 2009 and can be accessed at: www.hewdge.com

Mary Louisa Cappelli is a high school, college instructor, and researcher who has written for numerous academic publications.

Tariq Mehmood is a novelist and documentary film-maker, who lives and works between Manchester and Beirut. An award-winning writer, his first novel, Hand On the Sun, was published in 1983 by Penguin (London). His latest, You're Not Proper, a story of two girls struggling in a town seething with Islamophobia, was published in March 2015 by Hope Road (London). He is the co-director of the multiple award-winning documentary Injustice, a story about people who have died in British police custody. He teaches at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon.

When he is not writing cranky humor pieces, Stuart Green is a Professor of Law at Rutgers University, and the author of several impenetrably highbrow books of legal theory, as well as op-eds that have appeared in various fancy schmancy publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic.

E. Wohn is a female attorney who spends most of her time trying to get the last word. She is the product of a very large and dysfunctional family and is nailing her 19th year of therapy.

Blechner is a writer living in Brooklyn.

David Toussaint (Why Jake Gyllenhaal is Too Pretty for Oscar; Our Mainstream Media Love Affair with Hillary Clinton!) is a contributor to the Huffington Post, and the author of four books, most recently DJ: The Dog Who Rescued Me.

Emily Parzybok is an essayist and political consultant living in Seattle, Washington. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Balance Our Tax Code advocating for progressive revenue solutions at a state level. She has been published in The Satirist, The Syndrome Mag and Points in Case. She has work forthcoming in the Uncertain Girls, Uncertain Times anthology, a collection of inspiration and encouragement for young women. She is currently an MFA candidate in creative writing at New York University.

Becky Gar­rison’s seven books in­clude Roger Williams’ Lit­tle Book of Virtues, and Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church (Pub­lish­ers Weekly Starred Re­view). Fol­low her cur­rent pro­jects via twit­ter @Beck­y_­Gar­ri­son

Melissa Balmain edits Light, America's only journal of comic verse, and teaches humor writing, poetry writing, and journalism in upstate New York. Her work has appeared in The American Bystander, The New Yorker, The New York Times, McSweeney's, The Satirist, and other magazines and newspapers. Her comic poetry collection Walking In On People (winner of the Able Muse Book Award) is often mistaken by online shoppers for some kind of porn. Twitter handle: @MelissaBalmain

Cynthia Gralla is the author of The Floating World, a novel published by Ballantine, and The Demimonde in Japanese Literature, an academic monograph from Cambria Press. She has written for Salon, Electric Literature, The Mississippi Review, The Coil, Entropy, B O D Y, and other publications. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and teaches at Royal Roads University.

Lewis R. Tucker holds a PhD in marketing and a BS in management from the Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from Columbia University. He taught at St. Mary’s University, University of Connecticut, Clark University and the University of Hartford, Sultan Qaboos University, the American University of Sharjah and Capella University. His primary interests are in Marketing Management, Global Marketing and Marketing Social Responsibility and Ethics. His work experience includes product management for First National City Bank and service as an officer in the US Army. Finally, he has consulted for a number of companies and obtained numerous research grants.

Anna Murray is CEO of emedia, llc., a technology consulting company, and a writer. Her essays have appeared in Vox, Luna Luna, The Reject Pile, The Daily Mail, Soundings Review, Piker Press, Adanna, and The Guardian Witness. Her recently completed new novel is represented by David Black Agency. Her non-fiction title, The Complete Software Project Manager, was published in January 2016 by John Wiley & Sons. One reviewer commented, “This is a technical book that reads like a novel.”

Basta is the pen name of an academic working in Washington DC. She teaches and writes about Congress and the Executive Branch.

Steven Michaels was a hopeless and optimistic fool until the recent election. He is the author of Sweet Life of Mystery: The Misadventures of a Panicky Private Eye, a parody of the genre in case the title didn’t give it away! He is currently working on an anthology with other local authors in Western Massachusetts, along with independent work on his grandmother’s memoir, which he has vowed not to publish until at least three or four family members forget he exists.

Sam Weller is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning writer and the authorized biographer of author Ray Bradbury. Weller new collection of Gothic short stories, Dark Black, will be released this May. Weller is a professor in the English and Creative writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. He can be found on Twitter @Sam__Weller

Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a writer and cardiac surgeon in eastern Maine, obtained his MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His stories and poems have appeared in Barrelhouse, Bellevue Literary Review, Cutthroat, The Examined Life, Neon, Red Rock Review, and ZYZZYVA.

Grethel Ramos Fiad is a Cuban-American journalist, accountant, poet, writer and photographer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a handful of publications, which include South Florida Poetry Journal, Burningword Literary Journal, South Florida News Services and Fat Crab Magazine. As an undergraduate student, she was awarded the John Wolin SJMC Scholarship, the Abel Mestre Scholarship and the Janet Chusmir Memorial Scholarship. She lives in Miami with her husband and her cat.

Max Henry is a New York City-based actor and writer. Yep. He’s one of those. Max began his time in New York at Late Show with David Letterman, worked on the Drama Desk Award-winning Queen of the Night, and recently served as part of the originating cast/devising team for the hit immersive experience ZeroSpace. He also once had a three-way slow dance with Emma Stone and Alan Cumming.

Bruce Lader’s work has ap­peared in The Lit­er­ary Jour­nal of the Kurt Von­negut Memo­r­ial Li­brary: So It Goes, Po­etry, New York Quar­terly, The Blooms­bury An­thol­ogy of Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Amer­i­can Po­etry, Harpur Palate, Against Agamem­non: War Po­ems an­thol­ogy, and other mag­a­zines. Cer­vená Barva Press pub­lished Fugi­tive Hope and nom­i­nated “Win­ter Night Fugue” for a 2015 Push­cart Prize. His other books in­clude, Em­brace (Big Table Pub­lish­ing, 2010), Land­scapes of Long­ing (Main Street Rag Pub­lish­ing, 2009), and Dis­cov­er­ing Mor­tal­ity (March Street Press, 2005), a fi­nal­ist for the Brock­man-Camp­bell Book Award. Win­ner of the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod Po­etry Com­pe­ti­tion. He has re­ceived a writer-in-res­i­dence fel­low­ship from The Wurl­itzer Foun­da­tion, and is the Di­rec­tor of Bridges Tu­tor­ing, an or­ga­ni­za­tion that ed­u­cates mul­ti­cul­tural stu­dents. Au­thor site: http://​www.bruce­lader.com.

Frank Palmeri taught literature at the University of Miami. He is the author of several articles on satire and two books, including Satire in Narrative: Petronius, Swift, Gibbon, Melville, Pynchon. Ted Wendelin taught Spanish for Translation and Business at the University of Colorado at Denver. He wrote, with Frank Palmeri, "The Long and Despicable History of Voter Suppression," (April 22, 2018), which was republished on newsweek.com and several other sites and is forthcoming from University of Georgia Press in History in the Headlines: Voter Suppression.

Dave Nor­ton en­joys long walks on the beach, din­ner by can­dle­light, and qual­ity satire about the world around us. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @TESOL_­Dave

Michael Gessner has authored 11 books of poetry and prose. He has been a finalist in several competitions including 'Discovery/The Nation,' 'The Pablo Neruda Award,' and North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize. His work appears in The American Journal of Poetry, American Letters & Commentary, American Literary Review, The French Literary Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Oxford Review, Rue des Beaux-Arts (Paris,) Sycamore Review, Verse Daily, The Yale Journal of Humanities and others. He is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. Other publications and information may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-gessner or https://www.michaelgessner.com/

Edward Giron is a produced playwright whose works have been produced in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Diego Counties. He is also a voice over artist, having done work for The Discovery Channel, Magic the Gathering, Cessna, So Ca Lexus Dealers, Chinet, and several theatrical films. His passions include acting on the stage and directing for the stage. He is based in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, Ca and is in the process of getting a dog.

Alexander Carver is a produced playwright and screenwriter, as well as a published author. His short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Dark Matter Journal, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. He writes and resides in Santa Monica, California, where he is recently completed his first novel: O Jackie.

Michael Opest holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is an Adjunct Instructor at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His scholarly work focuses on play and games in literary modernism, and has appeared in Joyce Studies Annual,The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual, and elsewhere. He lives in New York City.

Corey Pajka is a Brooklyn, NY-based writer. His satirical work has been published by Points in Case, The Weekly Humorist, Flexx Mag, Robot Butt and The Satirist. His theatrical work has been produced regionally at theatres across the U.S. and in New York at Off and Off-Off Broadway venues. His radio plays are available to stream on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other outlets. He is also a climate change activist, working with 350Brooklyn. He co-edits their bi-weekly newsletter and contributes to their e-magazine Parts Per Million. He is married to another playwright, and they have a Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Sancho Panza. www.coreypajka.com

Alan Lord is a part-time human being, and Karlos Bedoya is an architectural hat designer from Detroit. Alan Lord's book, ATM SEX, is available on Amazon.

I am a graduate of Gettysburg College, Yale University Divinity School, and the Hartford Seminary Foundation, where I earned a Ph.D. I am the editor of The Essential Luther (Baker) and the author of Carevision (Judson) and Provocables (C.S.S.). I have published several articles and over 100 book reviews. I received the Joseph Sittler Award for Writing. Since retiring to Florida in 2001, I have turned my attention to novelty writing projects. Military, Rapid River, Humor Times, Senior Outlook Today , and The Short Humor Site have published my work.

William Craig Rice has worked as a schoolteacher, auto mechanic, college teacher and president, and federal official. His verse has recently appeared in The Caribbean Writer, The New Criterion, and The Road Not Taken. He lives in Washington, DC.

Poet, essayist, and recovering engineer Lisa Rosenberg is the author of A Different Physics (Red Mountain Press). The recipient of a Djerassi Residency and Wallace Stegner Fellowship, she served as a regional Poet Laureate in California, and is a frequent speaker on the confluence of arts and sciences. She in no way confesses to having written confessional poetry.

Wal­lace Run­nymede, a for­mer bog-dwelling sav­age, is a cur­rently iron­i­cally-slick denizen of the An­glo-Me­trop­o­lis. Hail­ing from the dark and dis­rep­utable Celtic-cav­ernous tra­di­tion of dark gal­lows hu­mour, he is ‘deeply of­fend­ed’ by the ig­no­ble main­stream tra­di­tion of phi­los­o­phiz­ing with a ham­mer…he prefers to hu­morize with a bat­tleaxe!

Brandon Cole is a critically-acclaimed New York playwright and screenwriter. Brandon co-wrote MAC (winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1992) with actor/director John Turturro as well as ILLUMINATA (1998), both screenplays based on his plays. He wrote and directed OK GARAGE (1998), starring Lili Taylor, John Turturro and Will Patton. Brandon's collaboration with Alexandre Rockwell produced SONS (1989), starring Samuel Fuller, William Forsythe and William Hickey, 13 MOONS (2001) and PETE SMALLS IS DEAD (2010). He is the recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts fellowship in screenwriting/playwriting.

Jacob Buckenmeyer is a writer, educator and former journalist in Washington state. He holds degrees in journalism and creative writing. His fiction has been published in Vine Leaves Literary Journal.

Adrian Chap­man teaches Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture for Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame and Florida State Uni­ver­sity at their cen­tres in Lon­don, Eng­land. In ad­di­tion to his aca­d­e­mic work, he has pub­lished fic­tion in Ars Med­ica, has a short story up­com­ing in The Jour­nal of Med­ical Hu­man­i­ties, and has had verse pub­lished by Uni­ver­sity of Glas­gow.

Charles Skold is a graduate student at Harvard, working towards a Master of Theological Studies and a Master in Public Administration. He is from Freeport, Maine, and believes in the audacious claim that every person is a human being.

Christine Stevens teaches, performs and writes in Western Massachusetts. Her work can be found on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Jennie Young writes, teaches writing, and directs the Writing Foundations program at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Her work can be seen in McSweeney's, Slackjaw, HuffPost, InsiderHigherEd, and elsewhere. Follow her on Medium at https://medium.com/@jennieyoung.

Thalia Ostendorf is a Dutch-Surinamese writer and cultural critic, and co-founder of Chaos Press (Uitgeverij Chaos), the only intersectional feminist publishing house in the Netherlands. She is currently conducting her PhD research at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her research focuses on war literature and its influence on contemporary peace activism and remembrance practices in the UK and the US. Ties Dams is an essayist and political theorist based in the Netherlands. He teaches, writes and consults on geopolitical strategy. He authored a book on the life and rule of Xi Jinping, titled De Nieuwe Keizer (Prometheus, 2018). He was educated in Utrecht, Xiamen, London and Hong Kong.

Brian Huba teaches 12th-Grade English in Upstate New York. His Op-Eds & essays have appeared on Yahoo.com, in the Sports Column, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Democrat & Chronicle, the NY Journal News, the Syracuse-Post Standard, the NY Daily News, and the Utica Observer-Dispatch. Brian’s fiction has been published on 101 Words, in Reed Magazine, The Griffin, Down in the Dirt, Literary Juice, and The Storyteller.

Akash Pandey is a creative person currently pursuing his Retail Analyst job, alongside continuing Humour Article writing. His work has been published in different platforms including "Youth Ki AWAZ", and he takes part in the rising Hip Hop culture (innovating new steps in Breaking and Cap Tricks) in the streets of Trivandrum, India.

Michael Chaney has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Fourth Genre, Los Angeles Review, Minnesota Review, and Prairie Schooner. He lives in Vermont. His latest book on comics is Reading Lessons in Seeing (Mississippi, 2017).

Armed with degrees from Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School, Bob Waldner moved to New York City many years ago to seek his fortune. Not being an adept fortune-seeker, he started writing fiction. His short stories have appeared, or are scheduled to appear, in The Saturday Evening Post, Pinball, theEEEL and Mulberry Fork Review. He continues to practice corporate law in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife, Erinn, and his two daughters, Maureen and Madeleine. You can find him on the web at www.bobwaldnerbooks.com.

Stacey Woods is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Es­quire, where she wrote the monthly Sex/​Hu­mor col­umn for over a decade. For­merly, she was a cor­re­spon­dent on The Daily Show with Jon Stew­art, she has pub­lished a mem­oir (I, Cal­i­for­nia, Scrib­ner), and has nu­mer­ous tele­vi­sion and jour­nal­ism cred­its. She also plays the char­ac­ter Tri­cia Thoon on Ar­rested De­vel­op­ment.

I work in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. My humor and other writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, 5:21 Magazine, Epoch, Cimarron Review, Crack the Spine, The Pedestal Magazine, Writing Disorder, The Piltdown Review, Thoughtful Dog, Gawker, The Guardian, Hollywood Dementia, In Posse Review, Adelaide Magazine, Word Riot, Hobart, Ducts Magazine, Blunderbuss Magazine, Storyglossia, Able Muse, The Furious Gazelle, Eyeshot, JONAH Magazine, Eclectica, The Boiler, In Posse Review, Bound Off (podcast), Fiction Attic Press Anthology, Black Denim Lit, Stirring, Drunk Monkeys, and Fictive Dream. My latest is in All the Sins (UK) and The Lowestoft Chronicle

Lynn Levin’s short fiction has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Cleaver, The Evening Street Review, Amarillo Bay, The Broadkill Review, and other places. She is the winner of the 2021 Bucks County Short Fiction Prize. A poet, writer, translator, and teacher, Levin has published five collections of poems, most recently The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020), named one of Spring 2020’s best books by The Philadelphia Inquirer. She teaches at Drexel University. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.

Louis Marvick lives in Lüneburg, Germany. He published ten Dissonant Intervals in 2016 and an 18th-century adventure story, The Friendly Examiner, in 2020. Two older novellas plus a new one, The Second Mask, are forthcoming from Zagava Books. Now old, he was for thirty-four years Professor of French at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Cameron Hunt McNabb is an assistant professor of English at Southeastern University. She specializes in medieval and early modern drama, and she has published in numerous peer-reviewed and popular venues. Most recently, she published two articles in Salon, “The truth about Internet slang: it goes way back” and “The creation of William Shakespeare: how the Bard really became a legend.”

The 2015 Boston Writers’ Room Fellow in Nonfiction and former essays editor for The Rumpus, Tracy Strauss is not known for her satire. She has published memoir and essays in The Huffington Post, Salon, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, xoJane, Poets & Writers Magazine, Writer’s Digest Magazine, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, The Feminist Wire, The Dodo, The Southampton Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Beyond the Margins, and other publications. In 2014, Tracy appeared on The Steve Harvey Show as a relationship blogger for The Huffington Post. Bustle has highlighted Tracy as one of eight women writers to follow. Follow her on Twitter @TracyLStrauss and at tracystrauss.com.

Kenneth Langer recently completed his debut novel, The Bird’s Nest. His reincarnations include Sanskrit scholar (Harvard Ph.D.), university vice president (Brandeis), founding president of an international green building consulting company (EMSI), and aspiring cellist. Ken’s blogs can be found on his website: https://www.kenlanger.net/.

Jason Rhys Parry received his PhD in comparative literature from Binghamton University. He writes about literary theory, architecture, and international politics.

Matt Tanguay teaches English at a charter high school in Detroit, MI.

Worst-selling author T Philly Loyd loves fat chicks and cheap beer, though not necessarily in that order. He has worked for Forbes and McGraw Hill, both times running for his life as if waking up from a nightmare. His dream is to one day move to Hollywood, dig up the body of Hank Chinaski, and run away with a Razzie. Until then, he lives with his mom in Dumbass, Texas. Come check out T Phillious and his band of lovable losers at https://realflashbytes.wordpress.com.

Anna Stolley Persky, a lawyer and award-winning journalist, lives in Northern Virginia. She’s pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University. Her fiction has been published in Mystery Tribune, The Write Launch, VOIS, and The Plentitudes Journal. Her poetry has been published in the Sad Girls Club Literary Blog, You Might Need to Hear This, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and The Closed Eye Open. Her creative nonfiction has been published in The Washington Post.

Melissa, hailing from the sunny shores of Sydney, Australia, now lives in The Netherlands. There, she tries to adapt to the unique absurdities of Dutch culture, including their chilly climate. Holding a Creative Writing degree from Griffith University, she is also an academic editor—because who wouldn't want to spend their days correcting other people's mistakes? She enjoys life to the fullest with her wife, their lively group of five children, and a chihuahua named George, who, despite his diminutive size, believes he rules the household.

Jennifer Hanno is the winner of the Empirical Prize for Fiction and has a story forthcoming in Ploughshares. You can read more of her writing on her blog at jenniferhanno.com

Car­olyn Mam­chur is a pro­fes­sor at Si­mon Fraser Uni­ver­sity, an au­thor of nu­mer­ous ar­ti­cles, po­ems, chil­dren books, books on psy­chol­ogy, short sto­ries, and screen plays, and a cre­ator of two botan­i­cal gar­dens. She and her daugh­ter own and op­er­ate Magic Horse Gar­den, a sanc­tu­ary they share with vis­i­tors, stu­dents, clients and four ther­apy horses, five lla­mas, two rab­bits, two dogs, twelve chick­ens, three ducks, two doves, but no par­tridge in a pear tree.

Derek is a NYC based writer, director, choreographer, performer and arts educator originally from Rochester, N.Y. He recently completed the MSc Playwriting program at the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded the William Hunter Sharpe Memorial Scholarship for playwriting. His plays include The Exhibit, In Good Conscience, Waist Deep, Til Death, Peace and Quiet, and his original rock musical Pie Eater was a Next Link selection for the NYMF 2016. Derek is also a long standing company member of 3-time Drama Desk nominated theatre company Parallel Exit.

Sophia Moskalenko is a psychologist, a radicalization expert, and a writer who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her three children and a French bulldog. Her personal essays have recently appeared at The Rumpus, BuzzFeed News and Vox. She has coauthored award-winning nonfiction books (Friction; The Marvel of Martyrdom), and her debut novel, The Bird and the Beggar, is scheduled for release in 2020 (Magnolia Press).

Alexandra Regueiro has watched the 2019 hit film “A Star Is Born” starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper over 20 individual times, sings the songs from the film at the top her lungs in the shower and can be often be caught imagining a parallel universe in which she plays Gaga’s role and wins an Academy Award for her performance. Apart from that, Alexandra is a graduate from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications and was a contributing writer for the university’s unofficial newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator. Alexandra works in marketing and public relations and resides in Miami, Florida where she spends most of her time staring at herself in every mirror she passes by. Alexandra has a keen interest in fashion, film, television and the spelling difference between theatre and theater. Follow Alexandra on Instagram and Twitter @nanaregg

A comedian/musician that focuses on radical joy. Co-creator of health satire podcast, Beyond Being Well.

Brad Erickson, PhD, lecturer faculty in Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University, composed the book, music and lyrics of four comedic alt-musical theater productions: Apostasy of the Sea Monkeys, No Time Like Never, DayGlo Yodel, and Low Expectations. His scholarship on humor includes “Grotesque logic: Catalan carnival utopias and the politics of laughter.” (2021) Journal of Visual Studies 36(4-5), 507-523, “George Clinton and David Bowie: The space race in black and white.” (2016). Popular Music and Society 39(6), 563-578, and “Les virtuts cíviques del caganer.” [The civic virtues of the defecator] (2011). Caramella: Revista de Música i Cultura Popular, 25, 47-50.

Jared Bennett is an educator in West Virginia. He can be reached at @Jaredbennett3

Tanner Jones is a high school teacher, freelance writer, and writing coach.

Formerly an editor at The Jerusalem Post, Eric Sumner is a Tel Aviv-based writer who specializes in listicles. The above article is intended as satire and should be taken as such.

Don taught English for the past sixteen years in all-boys' prep schools, concentrating primarily on personal, project-oriented creative nonfiction writing. Prior to this he was a professional actor, written plays and music, and actually worked for an oxymoron on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center. During all this time, he has been writing consistently and has just started to submit his work for possible publication. His latest completed work, a screenplay entitled 'The Last Truth,' was submitted to The Big Break screenwriting contest and was selected as a quarter-finalist in the Drama division. He lives in a cabin, adjacent to the Shenandoah National Forest with the fond memory of his dog, Honey.

Brian Arundel received an MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications that include Salon.com, Mid-American Review, Bryant Literary Review, Under the Sun and Buddhadharma, as well as the anthologies "The Practice of Creative Writing," "Best of Brevity" and "Contemporary Creative Nonfiction." His play "Sara, Sam, Etc.", is forthcoming from Červená Barva Press. Brian worked in the publishing industry for 15 years as an editor and writer before recently transitioning to the nonprofit sector. He lives outside of Portland, Maine, with his wife, Manuela.

Arianna S. Warsaw-Fan Rauch is a free-lance violinist and writer. She is hardly ever employed, but she works tirelessly nonetheless—driven by the narcissistic belief that the world will eventually notice her. She lives in Berlin with her remarkably tolerant German husband, who enables her delusions by laughing at everything she writes, applauding loudly whenever she plays, and working a real job so that she, along with her eventual vizslas and children, can have food and shelter and Jimmy Choos.

W.T. Fal­lon be­lieves if you can’t say some­thing nice, you should say some­thing funny and to­tally true. She has few mar­ketable skills, but is highly tal­ented in the ar­eas of sar­casm, satire, and snark. For the past sev­eral years, she has writ­ten for the lo­cal Grid­iron Show, and this year she started a blog called Sharable Sar­casm. The 2016 elec­tion pro­vided so many op­por­tu­ni­ties for hu­mor that she de­cided to write her first novel, a po­lit­i­cal satire called Fail to the Chief, which will be re­leased in Sep­tem­ber.

Hansel is an nth-generational clone of Adolf Hitler's personal wax begonia. 'Co-author’ Nathaniel Wander is a retired anthropologist and public health researcher with a barely publishable sense of humor. He has spent his career annoying the tobacco industry and notably, Mexican tobacco baron Carlos Slim. Oh, and also his friends.

Karen Rile lives and writes in Philadelphia. Her satire appears or is forthcoming in American Bystander, LOLComedy, and others. When she’s not being funny she writes fiction and teaches creative writing to undergrads at the University of Pennsylvania. She has an MFA from Bennington College and studies satire through Second City. She’s also the founding and chief editor of Cleaver Magazine.

Zachary Karem is an award winning screenwriter living in Los Angeles and while primarily having worked in television so far, he'd like to make the move to real literature, like The Onion or The Satirist. Penelope Eaton is an award winning journalist and has recently ventured into the soulless world of Hollywood screenwriting. To maintain her sanity she likes to write jokes and practice her laugh-cry.

Stephen F. Eisenman is Professor of Art History at Northwestern University and the author of ten books including Gauguin’s Skirt (Thames and Hudson, 1997), The Abu Ghraib Effect (Reaktion, 2007) and The Cry of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights (Reaktion, 2015). He has published political criticism in Counterpunch. His chapbook titled American Fascism Now (2020), illustrated by Sue Coe, was recently published by Rotland Press.

Besides twelve books of artistic and scholarly prose, the most recent ones being In the Jaws of the Crocodile: A Soviet Memoir and Farewell, Mama Odessa: A Novel, the author’s work has also appeared in the Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, World Literature Today, Prizm International, and elsewhere. Emil Draitser is a three-time recipient of the New Jersey Council on the Arts fellowships in writing, as well as numerous grants for fiction and nonfiction from the City University of New York. Currently, he teaches Russian at Hunter College in NYC.

Helen Laser is a New York City-based writer and audiobook narrator. Her work has been published in Lit Magazine, Referential Magazine, Crab Fat Magazine, The Weekly Humorist, Robot Butt, The TQ Review, Muses, Inwood Indiana Press, First Writer, Pop Machine, Gone Zine and Beast Grrl Zine, to name a few. In the audiobook world, she is an Audie Award Finalist, multiple Audiofile Earphones Award winner, LA Times Book Awards Finalist, and RUSA Listen List pick. Her narration has been selected by Reese Witherspoon for her book club, for the Read With Jenna/Today Show Book Club, and has made many lists including (but not limited to): Audible's "Editors Picks," Apple Audiobooks "Must Listens," Libro.fm's "Most Pre-Ordered Audiobooks," Amazons "Top 10 Audiobooks," The New York Times "7 Audiobooks to Listen to Now," The Wall Street Journal's "The 12 Best Audiobooks for Every Reader" and many more.

George Lo­go­thetis hails from scenic Gary, In­di­ana. His fic­tion and jour­nal­ism have ap­peared in The Baffler, The Portland Review, The Brownstone Review, Vignette, Speak, Uno Mas, and 1903 Magazine. He lives in the Hud­son Val­ley, where his home, and san­ity, are cur­rently be­ing com­pro­mised by an in­va­sion of per­pet­u­ally peck­ing wood­peck­ers.

Nat Hrvatin is an educator and theatre artist from Ohio. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and Theatre at Kent State University and her master’s degree in Integrated Language Arts from John Carroll University. Natalie’s work as a playwright includes a satirical play, A Proper Homemaker, and an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The adaptation, Alice and the Dreamchild, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which was produced by Kent State’s Transforum Theatre in 2016.

Karin Aurino writes satire, poetry, short fiction, and she's working on a first novel. She is a former Longform and Series Television Producer, and her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Orphans, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, 50 Word Stories, Bacopa Literary Review, among others and has received recognition from Glimmer Train. Aurino lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and their dog, George. Follow @KarinAurino

Matthew Bruce's writing can be found in The Cincinnati Review, At Length, Gargoyle, West Branch, Hotel Amerika, Superstition Review, The Common, and The Carolina Quarterly, among others. His fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart and the storySouth Million Writers Award, with one story a finalist for the Mid-American Review Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize. He lives in Minneapolis.

Kristine Laco is a satirist, memoirist, and dog loverist. Her work has appeared in Slackjaw, Belladonna, Greener Pastures, and her father’s rubbish bin. Her middle finger is her favorite. To send hatemail, go to her website www.kristinelaco.com

Mark Spitzer (So You Want to Be the President) is the author of 25 books, mostly about fish, but he also writes short stories as a way to deal with the nightmare of reality TV taking over reality. He is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas. More info at www.sptzr.net.

Brian K. Pinaire is a writer, researcher, editor, and former tenured professor of political science at Lehigh University. He holds a BA in politics from Whitman College and a PhD in political science from Rutgers University. Pinaire is the author of THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER'S FATHERHOOD: a comic memoir, THE CONSTITUTION OF ELECTORAL SPEECH LAW, and over seventy articles in both academic journals and commercial outlets. You can review his published works at www.brianpinaire.com.

Steve Salerno is a widely published essayist and professor of journalism. His 2005 book, SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, explored the self-improvement industry’s wider footprint in society. You can follow him on Twitter @iwrotesham

I have taught at the University of Colorado for years and although the attached essay is satirical it is also true. I have many publications of poetry, eco essays and humor. I teach Creative Writing and despair for the future of higher education.

JORDAN WALKER is a journalist in Washington, D.C and Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has also appeared in McSweeney’s, The Smart Set, Refresh Magazine, and Offscreen. She enjoys running for absurdly long distances and exploring the endless frontiers of her Instant Pot.

Jen is a writer, podcaster, educator, mother, and total jackass living in Olympia, WA. There is no greater glory to Jen than making you laugh. You can find her work in McSweeney's, The Offing, The Belladonna, Points in Case, The Rumpus, and many more. Find her complete list of work at jenfreymond.com, and check out her podcast, called I Never Saw That.