CONTRIBUTORS:

JIM ANDREWS

Jim Andrews does Vispo~Langu(im)age at http://www.vispo.com and produces Defib with Dan Waber. Jim started his literary publishing ventures in radio; he produced FINE LINES and, later, ?FRAME?, both of which were broadcast around Canada for six years. Since then he has published And Yet, a lit mag, and organized and hosted Mocambopo in Victoria BC for two years before moving in 97 to Seattle where he now works as the lead technical writer for shopnow.com.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa is a native New Yorker of African-Caribbean ancestry. She is a psychic counselor and energy bodyworker whose professional practice includes Tarot, guided imagery meditation, shamanic journeying, channeling, Therapeutic Touch and Reiki. Eva has over 15 years experience with Tarot and nearly 25 years experience exploring consciousness and creativity, having been introduced to Jungian psychology and the "mind games" work of Jean Houston and Robert Masters while studying at Fordham University where she received her B.A. in Communications (1974). She also studied Community Health Education at Hunter College School of Health Sciences and received the President's Award for HIV/AIDS Creative and Scholarly Work, Hunter College, First Prize, 1992.

Through Radical Magick (formerly Spirit Crossroads, which she founded in 1992), she has produced and facilitated workshops and special events sponsored by numerous health and social service, spiritual, feminist, people of color, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender organizations. Eva has counseled women at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and clients of the Manhattan Center for Living. She served on the board of directors of Black Pride NYC (1999) and is a member of the advisory board of Q-Spirit, an organization devoted to queer spirituality.

As a writer, Eva contributed work to The Zenith of Desire: Contemporary Lesbian Poems about Sex (ed., Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Crown, 1996), Does Your Mama Know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories (ed., Lisa C. Moore, RedBone Press, 1997), Queer Dog: Homo Pup Poetry (ed., Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Cleis, 1997), Kuumba, Starfish, and WV. More of Eva's poetry will appear in Other Countries: Black Gay and Lesbian Voices Rising (ed., G. Winston James) and in Isis 2000. She has read at numerous venues including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, and A Different Light Bookstore. She has just completed work on open wing, her first collection of poetry.

Eva conceived and wrote the text for "Alter-Altars: we hold divine space within our bodies", performing it with actor Alex Fisher and dancer-choreographer Nadine Helstroffer. She later collaborated with Ms. Helstroffer on "The Labyrinth Dance" and "We Are Creatures of The Wilderness". Eva has performed poetry and trance meditations with drummers Bernadette McGowen and Panamá.

For over 20 years, Eva has been published as a dance journalist with criticism and features appearing in "Dance Magazine", "Soho News", and "The Village Voice", among other publications. She has also written reviews for the Dance Online Web site, http://www.danceonline.com. Eva has interviewed performing artists, choreographers, and artistic directors and evaluated dance organizations for NYSCA, the NEA, and other arts funding organizations. As a WBAI radio broadcaster (1987-89), she worked with the Women's Radio Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters Collective (OUTLOOKS), and co-hosted the Tuesday Afternoon Arts Magazine as well as producing her own specials. In 1999, she contributed several Tarot Journeys segments--exploring the richness of archetypal imagery--to Martha Cinader's Orature, a spoken word/music program on WBAI.

Eva's monthly column, Tarot World, and her interactive feature on Tarot and creativity, Click-on Tarot!, appears on Cinader's Web site, www.PlanetAUTHORity.com

Eva may be reached at tarotworld@planetauthority.com.

Disclaimer

In accordance with the laws of New York State, the practice of Tarot divination is for entertainment purposes only. Visitors to PlanetAUTHORity.com who purchase the services of its Tarot consultant, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, agree to do so according to their own free will.

MELVINA HAZARD

My writing is informed by rage and outrage. Not only in myself, but from what I observe in others around me. Coming from a tiny claustrophic village, and from a poor, working class family, I am mainly concerned with exposing the injustices I see and experience-the horrific lagoon monster luking beneath the bubbly surface of happy island life.

I write from 3 very dark and disturbed spaces- pyschologically, the confusion of defining a language that can be claimed as 'our own' has lead me to concort a bastardisation of several linguistic influences: the 'illiterate' dialect of my rural dialect, which for me is the strongest vehicle for expressing rage at the mass-popular level; the commercialised language of advertising and american cultural imperialism; french/spanish patios-colonial baggage, and creolised hindi- my lost heritage.

I like to think of my work as that of having a social conscience (or forcing one where there is none) - a weapon of social agitation. - Historically- Trinidad is an immigrant, post colonial society, now neo-colonised by american influences- so I also attempt a historical significance- expressing the cultural disorientation in a multi-immigrant society (and my own roots as an afro-indo-amerindo-spanish-Trinidadian) and speak satirically about our lack of definition.

Needless to say, my writing has been criticised here as having a disruptive, controversial tone. So much so that the series INYASPACE was censored and eventually dropped by a daily newspaper because the owners claimed that the newspaper was supposed to be a bastion of conservatism and had no room for 'gutter language or graffitti, which said... too much in the wrong way". Ironically enough, the series developed a cult following of young people who regularly kept the illustrated pieces as clippings and there were even imitations sent in for publication.

GERRY GOMEZ PEARLBERG

Gerry Gomez Pearlberg's book of poems, Marianne Faithfull's Cigarette (Cleis), was a 1998 Lambda Literary Award recipient and finalist for a 1999 Firecracker Book Award.

She has edited three poetry anthologies: The Key To Everything: Classic Lesbian Love Poems (St. Martin's Press), The Zenith of Desire: Contemporary Lesbian Poetry About Sex (Crown), and Queer Dog: Homo/Pup/Poetry (Cleis). Queer Dog won a 1998 Firecracker Book Award. Pearlberg's poetry has been widely anthologized, and is forthcoming in Global City Review, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder Mouth Press) and The World in Us (St. Martin's Press).

She teaches at The Writer's Voice in NYC.

GLORIA WILLIAMS

Gloria is a writer, spoken word performer, and sculptor born in Brooklyn, New York. She received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan, and an undergraduate degree from The School of Visual Arts in New York. She currently performs her work solo or with musician Micheal Delia who puts music and sounds to her words.

She has performed her work for Dixon Place, in clubs The Knitting Factory, The Tunnel, Wetlands, The Cooler, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, St. Marks Poetry Project, Barnes & Nobles bookstore, and other venues in New York, and in Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. She has also organized spoken word and music events at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Exit Art/First World gallery, and the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center and other performance spaces in New York.

Her poetry has previously appeared in the poetry anthology Aloud, Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, literary magazines Tribes and Lungfull, and Interview Magazine. She is included in the spoken word CD compilation Family Affairs. Her poem story Cracked Tale, which she also also illustrated, was recently published by Big Fat Press (Cracked Tale is available at St. Marks Bookstore in NY)