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TOFU INK ARTS PRESS WINTER 2021-2022 CONTRIBUTORS
Charlie Becker is a retired speech pathologist who now studies and writes poetry with the Community Literature Initiative in Los Angeles. He also has helped bring poetry to under-served high school students through the Living Writers Series and L.A. Unified School District. Charlie's first book of poetry and drawings, Friends My Poems Gave Me, was published by World Stage Press in 2016. He has also had poems published by Tofu Ink Arts Press Passager Journal, Comstock Review, The Dandelion Review, and Silver Pinion. Charlie lives with his partner, Aubry, in Laguna Woods, California.
Jerome Berglund is a writer and fine artist who cowrote a television pilot which at a festival for them received numerous accolades including best in show. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program, with emphases in screenwriting and philosophy. Berglund is author of the collection Plague Poems and Hack Haikus and the chapbook WILD/LIFE. His poetry appears in Abstract Magazine, Bangalore Review, Barstow & Grand, Cathexis Northwest Press, deLuge, the Dewdrop, the ElevationReview, GRIFFEL, Lychee Rind, Meat for Tea, Nine Cloud Journal, Poet’s Choice, a Quillkeeper’s Press anthology, Raw Art Review, the Silent World in Her Vase, Tiny Seeds, Wild Roof and most recently O:JA&L. A drama he penned was published in Iris Literary Journal. His short fiction has also been exhibited by the Watershed Review, Paragon Press, and the Stardust Review. Berglund is furthermore an established, award-winning fine art photographer, whose black and white pictures have been exhibited in galleries across New York, Minneapolis, and Santa Monica. In another life he worked as a visual effects artist for Lucasfilm and Dreamworks, and assisted on set at Lifetime and Comedy Central. He has the unique privilege of being able to say he was once Minnie Driver’s driver. Berglund is a committed activist as well, and has been actively involved in the Occupy, Standing Rock, and Black Lives Matter movements, and supported grassroots efforts promoting the Green Party.
Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Netherlands) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. His unfinished studies in mathematics and musicology mainly created a penchant for activities in a Dada vein, as did several unsuccessful jobs in offices and other well-organized systems. In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music. A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions.From around the year 1995 on Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well. He took a year off of performing in 2006. His renewed interest inmathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry. As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and keen grasp of structure, even in free improvisation. He has performed around the world, on all continents. With the use of live electronics, and sometimes projection of visuals, the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension. Blonk’s recorded / published output comprises some 60 titles: CDs, vinyl, books and cassettes.From his sound poetry scores he developed an independent body of visual work, which has been exhibited and collected in books. See tofuink.com to experience Jaap’s brilliant recordings.
Claire Blotter represented San Francisco in National Poetry Slams in Chicago, Boston & SF.
She has published 3 chapbooks and teaches poetry writing and performance. A 2018 Finalist for
the Fischer Poetry Prize, she judged the 2020 competition.
Liz Durab Boubion, MFA, RSMT is a multimedia dance-theater artist, presenter and Registered Somatic Movement Therapist dedicated to the practice of liberation through the body in relation to self, other and the world at large. As a Chicana and queer choreographer currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms. Boubion is making a bridge between several communities by placing value on identity, ecology and radical aesthetics through personal narratives, ritual performance and political art intervention. Her choreography, under the name of the Piñata Dance Collective founded in 2011, includes a body of work developed as deconstructed Piñata rituals, historically rooted and serving as a container for the creative process within the context of impermanence, adaptation and survival. She holds a bachelors of dance from CSU Long Beach, a MFA interdisciplinary art from California Institute of Integral Studies, is an associate teacher of the Tamalpa Institute and she serves as the founding artistic director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC) which is heading into its 8th season this Fall. See www.lizboubion.org and www.flaccdanza.org
Francesco Capussela in an Italian author class 1996. In 2021 his poem The Soldier's Sandals is printed in SURVIVAL, the Annual Winning Poetry Anthology by Hammond House Publishing, and his poem Statue of Slavery published by the International Human Rights Art Festival. Francesco is also a multi award-winning screenwriter and lives between Italy and the US.
Chalk Mafia came to be 2 years ago when street chalk artists Lori Antoinette and Jacque Keith DuBois, sitting around after an exhilarating day of chalking, decided it was time for them to get matching chalk-related tattoos. Fast friends since they met at the first Pasadena Chalk Festival (then called Chalk on the Walk), back in 1993, they kicked around several ideas, “chalkalisciousness”, “chalktastic duo”, “chalkadoscious”, and so many other such treasures. Suddenly Keith blurted out “Chalk Mafia!” Screeeeech!
“That's it!” Keith's next statement sealed the deal, “And I'm the CHALKFATHER!” Brilliant! So off they went to see fellow chalker and fabulous tattoo artist, Lesley Perdomo (@pacificangelart) for some ink action. When their “chalk family” saw what they had done, several of them asked if they could also be “Chalk Mafiosos”. Answer? Unequivocally and resoundingly, YES! And the Chalk Mafia as a group was born.
M.P. Carver is a poet and visual artist from Salem, MA. Her work has appeared or is
forthcoming in the Lily Poetry Review, Jubilat, and 50Haikus, among other journals. Her
chapbook, Selachimorpha, was published by Incessant Pipe in 2015.
Lori Antoinette had for many years been interested in creating a forum/website for streetpainters to increase their visibility as viable working professionals (yes, for money/actual dollars, not because “it'll help build your portfolio”), to make a listing so artists could be found by parties interested in booking their talents, and to share their multi-faceted and diverse talents with the public, beyond just chalking. She actually did create a website for these lofty goals a few years back, but her “real job” schedule allowed limited time, making it difficult to keep up.
With the sudden formation of the “Chalk Mafia” , a new opportunity opened up and now, being a full-time artist, Lori can better facilitate her dream.
The Chalk Mafia has become a place for streetpainters to not only be seen and show their wonderful talents, but more importantly, to come together to share valuable insights, job/event leads, recent works, and tools of the trade with each other as well as build a strong network and new friendships.
Lori Antoinette and Jacque Keith's tattoo dream has grown to be a collection of 340+ fine street chalk artists from countries all around the globe, and it's still growing! To see our members and some cool images of the artists at work and play, visit www.ChalkMafia.com Our presence is also on Instagram and Facebook at Chalk Mafia (@chalkmafia) To any streetpainters, chalk event organizers and assisting staff out there, we invite you to find our private group, “We Are Chalk Mafia” on Facebook. Just anwer the two questions, it's that simple. (note: the group is exclusive to chalk artists and those affiliated with chalk art. All others, we cordially invite you to follow us on our regular Chalk Mafia social media.) Thank you.
Chalk Mafia, killing ignorance with chalk!
Susan Michele Coronel is a NY-based poet and educator. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Spillway 29, The Inflectionist Review, Gyroscope Review, The Night Heron Barks, Prometheus Dreaming, One Art, Funicular, TAB Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Passengers Journal. In 2020, she received a Parent Poet fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her poetry was longlisted for Palette Poetry’s 2021 Sappho Award. She is currently working on a manuscript of her first book.
element of creating his “Poster Arte” is extracting a world from the photos he takes and imbuing
Keith Edwards was born in New York City and living in Albania. For Keith the most exciting he "canvas" with his interpretation of it as his new world.
K. Eltinaé is a Sudanese poet of Nubian descent. His debut won The 2019 Beverly Prize for
International Literature (Eyewear Publishing) and Muftah ́s Creative Writing Competition, co-
winner of the 2019 Dignity Not Detention Prize (Poetry International). Winner of the 2021 Tofu
Ink Arts Press Poetry Prize in Honor of Theatre Visionary Reza Abdoh.
Adele Evershed was born in a small town in South Wales and now lives in a small town in
Connecticut. The towns have absolutely nothing in common apart from Adele and lots of trees. Her
writing can be found in a number of places online and in print.
Frank William Finney’s work has appeared in Calliope, The Disappointed House, Lucky
Jefferson, Tofu Ink Arts Press, and elsewhere. His chapbook The Folding of the Wings is
forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
Margaret Hartley is a cartoonist and painter. My work has appeared in New Zealand and the
USA. I try to stand in my garden with a cup of tea every day.
Aaron Hoge is a visual artist and a writer. With over 40 years of art-making and multiple performances and exhibitions, Aaron is a seasoned professional artist. Using the mediums of drawing, painting, performance, video, writing, and photography Aaron’s work explores intersections between loneliness, becoming, homosocial relationships, and futurity.
Drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources such as cave paintings, graffiti, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, English Literature, Western Esotericism, and Philosophy, his studio practice represents an abiding interest in language, text, choreography, semantics, poetry, and the creation of striking visual images. Aaron becomes what he is through his visual art and writing. His lifework is the integration of all aspects of the human personality.
Jones Irwin teaches Philosophy and Education in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has published original monographs on philosophy and aesthetics. He has published poetry most recently in Tofu Ink Arts Press: Spring & Summer 2021, Poetry London, Showbear Family Circus, Passengers Journal, Festival Review, Plainsongs, The Dewdrop and fiction/creative nonfiction have recently been published in Kairos Magazine, The Decadent Review, and Critical Read. His vision is of a postmodern existentialist, with a dash of noir mixed in with a progressivist ethic. His new book is on how Paulo Freire's educational philosophy has influenced social and political thought in contemporary Italy.
Brian L. Jacobs is a poet and editor of Tofu Ink Arts Press. Brian grew up in Southern California and has been teaching GATE English and Humanities for twenty-nine years in both K-12 and college settings. He lives in Pasadena and has been married for 16 years to Thye, a
Professor of Nursing and a Nurse Practitioner. Both Thye and Brian are currently working on their PhD's. Brian was the assistant to the Poet's Allen Ginsberg and Julie Patton, during his time at Naropa in the mid 90’s. During that time he walked half way around the world while on a peace pilgrimage with Buddhist monks commemorating WWII visiting Europe, the Middle East and India. Brian is also a three time Fulbright Scholar, which has allowed him to study in Brazil, where he studied its water issues; China, where he studied its vast 10,000 year history; and Japan, spending time to participate in a case study in one of its small towns near the Japanese Alps. He had also earned a National Endowment of Humanities grant to China, studying its philosophies and histories while living in Xi’an. He subsequently participated in a grant from Fund For Teachers visiting South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho, plus earning other various grants that have taken him to places all over in the United States. He also taught teachers at a university in Fuzhou, China for five summers under grants from SABEH. Subsequently he has earned an Earthwatch grant to the rainforest of Ecuador, to study climate change and caterpillars and he recently earned another Earthwatch Senior Fellow Grant to teach teachers in Acadia, Maine studying climate change and crabs. Brian has been to 110 countries and had visited all 50 states, practices Yoga and is a proud vegan. Brian's poetry has been published in several publications including, Shiela-Na-Gig, the Crank, The South Florida Florida Poetry Journal, Progenitor Art and Literary Journal, GRIFFEL, Foxtail, Rip Rap, The Bangalore Review, Sunspot Lit, Anthropod, Pa'Lante, Dark Moon Lilith Press, Black Tape Press, Genre, Inky Blue/Celery, Red Dancefloor Press, Entelechy, 1844 Pine Street, Pasta Poetics, Trouble and Praxis. Brian marinates in inspiration from Gilles Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Audre Lorde, Edouard Glissant, Reza Abdoh, Marlon Riggs, Tim Miller, John Fleck, Karen Finley, Essex Hemphill, Patricia Smith, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, Pedro Almodovar, Keith Haring, NEA Four, Justin Phillip Reed, The Beats, Paul Celan, Artist Nick Cave, Sam Rami, Jean Rhys, Erasure, House Music, Robert Duncan, The Smiths, Lee Edelman, John Waters, Lana Del Rey, Patti Smith, Michel Foucault, American Visionary Arts Museum, Kurt Vonnegut, ACT UP, Daniel Day Lewis, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Lady Gaga, Zhang Huan, Arthur Danto, Derek Jarman, Kiki Smith, Marc Almond, Nina Hagen, Grace Jones, This Mortal Coil, Boy George, Bjork , Divine, Tracey Thorn, and Florence Welch.
Virginia Laurie is a student at Washington and Lee University whose work has been published in Apricity, LandLocked, Panoply, Phantom Kangaroo and Merrimack Review.
Dixie Longate hails from Mobile, Alabama where she lives with her three kids who she's almost
sometimes ever proud of: Wynona, Dwayne and Absorbine, Jr. She started selling Tupperware
as part of the conditions of her parole back in 2001. Within a few years, she became the top
selling Tupperware representative in the US. When a friend of hers told her she should turn her
living room party into a theatrical show, she laughed so hard at the idea, she almost had to put
down her drink. "Dixie's Tupperware Party" soon opened off-Broadway in 2007 to both raving
fans and rave reviews. The show earned Dixie a Drama Desk Award Nomination for
Outstanding Solo Performance. She lost to Laurence Fishburne. Really. Look it up.
The following year, with plastic bowls in hand, she embarked on a small tour to some theaters in
the US. Twelve years later, that tour was still running and had become one of the longest-
running off-broadway tours in history. Covid put a halt to the live shows for the time being
which meant Dixie had to go back to her trailer in Mobile to spend time with her kids 24/7.
It was while she was mixing a cocktail in the baby's room one morning that she thought, "Just
because I can't be on a stage in front of people doesn't mean I can't be on a stage not in front of
people but with people watching anyway." And a new show was born. "Dixie's Happy Hour" is
her third major show from America's Sixth Favorite redhead. Her second show, "Never Wear a
Tube Top While Riding A Mechanical Bull (and 16 other things I learned while I was drinking
last Thursday)" was originally produced by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts which
Dixie discovered is really hard to say after 8 alcoholic Shirley Temples. She has now ridden that
bull all over this great country and looks forward to mounting it again when this whole crazy
period in our lives is behind us. In the meantime, she wanted to give everyone a big hug even
though she can't do that in real life. You'll find that hug in "Dixie's Happy Hour."
dixiestupperwareparty.com
Jeff Mann lives in Fort Erie. Ontario just across from Buffalo. My studio is a shipping
container. I use cars and car infrastructure as the basis of most of my work because I believe
there are far too many cars in the world.
Andromeda Mendoza emigrating to Houston, Tx in 1989 from the Philippines, Andromeda worked to cultivate her talents in the arts. Exploring various creative avenues has led her to cement her love of photography. Her style is heartfelt—driven by anything that moves her.
Megan Merchant’s latest collection, “Before the Fevered Snow”, was released at the start of the pandemic with Stillhouse Press. She is an Editor at Pirene’s Fountain and The Comstock Review. You can find her work at meganmerchant.wix.com/poet.
Janet Meskin is a native Californian; a once-upon-a-time freeway flyer teaching modern dance and improvisation in the Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Orange county community colleges. After receiving her MFA in Dance at CWRU in Cleveland, Ohio she left her legacy as Founder/Director of SCANDALS with Janet Meskin and Friends. It is still alive and well today (with a new name) - 37 years strong! Janet studied with many of the modern dance icons including Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski. After 32 years teaching and training dancers, 17 of those with LAUSD she has retired gracefully into a plethora of art forms, mindfulness meditations and qigong healing. Janet has been published in Tofu Ink Arts Press Spring 2021 Issue.Postscript Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, Fairy Piece, Sledgehammer Lit, The Pangolin
Review, FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Small Leaf Press, and Nauseated Drive
Chelsea B. Nunn is a LGBTQIA+ artist and educator working and living in Knoxville, TN. She has served as a public visual art educator and mentor for the past ten years. She is a founding member of the artist collaborative formerly known as The Vacuum Shop Studios, where she has practiced painting for the past seven years. Her artwork and writing primarily investigate the sublime and delicate nature of the mental landscape, which includes but isn't limited to identity, emotionality, and relationship narratives. Her writing has previously been featured in Tofu Ink Arts Press Spring Issue, The Quaranzine: Poetry in the Time of Covid-19 (Fearsome Critters 2020) and Decomp Journal (Issue 1 2021). Explore more of her artwork and writing at www.chelsienunn.com.
Dana Miller is a wicked wordsmith, giggling provocateuse, and mega-melomaniac from
Atlanta, Georgia. Her poetic syllables like to trundle in the wilds—usually in search of a
smackerel or two. On their way, they have found themselves featured in
. When not wielding a lethal pen, Dana adores surf culture, Australian grunge rockers, muscle cars,
Epiphone guitars, glitter, Doc Martens, and medieval-looking draft horses with feathered feet.
Oxford, England is her spirit-home and Radiohead is holding the last shard of her girlhood heart.
years of my childhood growing up in rural Appalachia on a renovated tour bus as my parents This manuscript
contains three selected poems from my chapbook titled Candy Carpeted Hymns, a memoir of the
traveled to sing gospel. The artwork I have provided is titled Love Me, Love Me Not, a painting
that explores the complex nature of being queer in rural Appalachia--beloved as a bucolic
landscape, discarded as gaudy golden trinkets at a yard sale. Someone's trash is always another's
treasure as they say. Unfortunately, I am drawing this analogy towards the historic attitude of
queerness in Appalachia.
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014). His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Tofu Ink, Poetry Northwest, Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, and Green Mountains Review. His visual work has been exhibited in various galleries and art spaces such as Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, and Equinox Gallery. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. octavioquintanilla.com Instagram @writeroctavioquintanilla , Twitter @OctQuintanilla
Carol Radsprecher’s images combine figurative and abstract elements. She earned her MFA in painting from Hunter College, CUNY. A longtime painter, she discovered the wonders of digital image-making and found that media well suited to her need to make a succession of rapidly- evolving narrative images based on distorted representations of the human body, especially the female body. Her work has appeared in several solo shows and numerous group shows and has been published in print and/or online publications. Her website is http://www.carolradsprecher.com.
Suzanne S. Rancourt, (Abenaki/Huron descent,) inspired by Ionesco, & Beckett, author of 3 books: Old Stones, New Roads, Main Street Rag Publishers 2021, murmrus at the gate, Unsolicited Press 2019, and Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award winner, Billboard in the Clouds. A USMC and Army Veteran, she is
widely published. www.expressive-arts.com
JR Rhine is a poet, musician, and educator living in Asheville, North Carolina. His first children's book, "Jimmy Loves His Long Hair" is now available online. He tweets @jarjarrhine and is on Instagram @jrrhinepoetry.
Tofu Ink Autumn/Winter 2021
Ashley Parker Owens is an Appalachian writer, poet, and artist. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers University. She is an Honorary Winner of the 2021 Tofu Ink Poetry Prize that honors Theatre Visionary Reza Abdoh.
Andre F. Peltier is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he has taught African
American Literature, Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, Poetry, and Freshman Composition since 1998. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI with his wife, children, turtles, dog, and cat. His poetry is forthcoming in The Great Lakes Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Big Whoopie Deal, Prospectus, Tofu Ink Press, and an anthology from Quillkeepers Press. In his free time, he obsesses about soccer and comic books.
Kyleen Russell’s previous publication includes a creative nonfiction lyric essay, “Little Peanut, little Monkey,” in Shooter Literary Magazine. She has a BA in English and currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota with her boyfriend Reid and cat Nugget.
Ken Edward Rutkowski's work has recently been featured in The Beatnik Cowboy, Mad Swirl, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Fiction International (#54), The Fiction Pool and Synchronized Chaos. He has received honorable mention for the Tofu Ink Arts Press: In Honor of Reza Abdoh Visionary Arts Poetry Prize.
Ellen Skilton is a professor of education and poet whose work has appeared in The Dillydoun Review, The Dewdrop, and Rebelle Society. She is in the second year of an MFA Program in Creative Writing at Arcadia University. She is a chocolate snob, a swimmer, and lives in Philadelphia.
Joey Salomone was born and raised in the Midwest. Being homeschooled, Joey grew up spending much of his time reading and writing. He started writing poetry during his teenage years and continued throughout college and into adulthood. He currently lives and works in Kansas City, MO as a nurse and freelance writer.
Shalini Singh is trying to find how to fit Law, which was her main chunk in the professional world into her writings and how she can make finances and tech creative enough for a telling. She thinks some Laws are painful experiences and most times they should not exist. Because Shalini could not change the world with Law as her spouse, she wishes to change her world by her writings, however lonely it gets.
Maya J. Sorini, MS is a medical student with a background in trauma surgery research and
Narrative Medicine. Her poetry has appeared in Tendon Magazine and as part of Resilience
Dance Company St. Louis's performance, "Stanzas and Sculptures."
Cassie Premo Steele is a lesbian, ecofeminist, mother, poet, novelist, and essayist who writes on
the themes of trauma, healing, creativity, mindfulness and the environment. The author of 16
books, she is a recipient of the Archibald Rutledge Prize, named after the first Poet Laureate of
South Carolina, where she lives with her wife.
George L. Stein is a photographer from the greater NYC area focused on street, art, urban decay, surreal and alt/ portrait photography. He has been published in a number of literary magazines including Tofu Ink Arts Press Summer 2021.
Ali Telmesani is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Swansea University in South Wales. Author of House of Abbas: The Legacy of Harun al-
Rashid (Claritas Books), his research interests focus on Eastern and Islamic mysticism. He has been published in Tofu Ink Spring Issue.
Lauren Thomas is a Welsh poet whose writing is in The Crank Literary Magazine, Briefly Zine,
Re-side Magazine, Abridged and Green Ink Poetry. She has work coming in Dreich’s Summer
Anywhere anthology and Songs of Love and Strength by TheMumPoemPress.
Stacy Thomas lives in Squamish B.C., Canada. She runs a takeout joint with her partner Nicki,
and spends a lot of her time being in, and looking at water. She grew up in the Okanagan which
means she has trouble being anywhere that isn’t beautiful.
Rebecca Edmonson Vance is an artist who explores feminism and the self. Her work is inspired by pre-history, antiquity, pop culture, nature, and cosmos. Her art explores ways to present real figures that both herself and others can see their own bodies represented.
Sarah Sophia Yanni writing has appeared in DREGINALD, Maudlin House, Feelings, Full Stop, Tofu Ink Arts Press Spring and Summer 2021 Issues and others. A finalist for BOMB Magazine’s 2020 Poetry Contest, she lives and works in Los Angeles. sarahsophiayanni.com
Tofu Ink Autumn/Winter 2021
Lola Wang is a junior in high school at the Taipei American School in Taiwan. Her interests
include art history, writing poetry, golf and creating art.
Brian Yapko is a lawyer whose poems have appeared in Tofu Ink, Prometheus Dreaming,
Wingless Dreamer, Gyroscope, Cagibi, Society of Classical Poets, Chained Muse, Abstract