2023 Lit Hop Bios

0 CommentsTuesday • May 9, 2023 • by admin

7/8: ArtSpeak @ MFA Gallery in the 75208

Brian K. Scott has worked as an artist freelancing and collaborating all of his life. In 1993 Brian graduated from the University of North Texas with a B.F.A in Printmaking with a minor in film. Brian has been an active artist in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for over two decades, in addition to showing in art galleries in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Little Rock, Chicago, and the entire state of Texas. In the past, Brian K. Scott has had extended affiliations with several Dallas art galleries such as Ro2 Art, Gray Matters Gallery, and 500X Gallery. He was a founding and principal artist with the Holton and Associates from 1993-99. He has collaborated with Brian Jones since 1990 in the art group Chuck & George. Currently, Brian is the Technical Facilities Manager for the School of Arts and Performance at the University of Texas Dallas, where he’s responsible for running the new 6,000 square foot SP/N Gallery. He is also founder and a principal artist of the Art Services Collective, and co-founder of the Oak Cliff Studio Tour. Brian Scott is represented by Ro2 Art in Dallas. Read more!

Brian Keith Jones earned his BFA in Painting from The University of North Texas in 1998. After completing his degree, he established a studio in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, where he has lived and worked for over 20 years, co-founding the annual Oak Cliff Visual SpeedBump Art Tour. Jones is also widely known for his role in the acclaimed Dallas art duo Chuck & George. The wild, yet symbiotic collaboration of Brian K. Jones and Brian K. Scott influences, and is influenced by each artist’s individual work, serving as a constant source of inspiration. They both own and operate Art Services Collective which offers many art related services such as murals and trompe l’oeil for the private and design community. As well as creating his individual art for the galleries, Brian K Jones has created many privately commissioned works. ​​Read more!

Charles Hancock is one half of infamous “low-tech” print masters, Texas-born The Amazing Hancock Brothers who look to shock as much as inform. Their bold, unabashed style combines screen printing, woodcuts, and acrylic into mixed-use pieces that resemble part Circus Freak posters, part insane patterns, and all crazy, in-your-face attitude. Brothers Charles and John often chuck all sense of propriety out the window, then rip down the curtains, screen clowns or skulls or grotesque portraits on them, and then chuck that out the window, too. As members of Dirty Printmakers of America, they are able to use their ferocious, fearless talent to push the awareness and accessibility of printmaking to the huddled masses, democratizing art and technique. Read more!

Buddy Mohmed: “I started the band ‘American Bedouin’ to more fully express myself as an artist. I have been lucky to have some great musicians record my music. I came up with the name because I am a born, raised, trained, American musician, from a family of immigrants, so I was also listening and learning music from other cultures – specifically Arabic, but also ‘Gypsy’, Greek, Latin, African, etc., so I use the Arabic word ‘Bedouin’ to describe my style as ‘nomadic’, i.e., ‘All Over the Map’. American Bedouin has played music festivals and theater. We were ‘Off Broadway’ accompanying a one-man show ‘Down a Long Road’. I personally relocated to Montreal Ca and created the bass-player Clown role for the Cirque du Soleil show ‘Corteo’, and toured with the show for 2 years.” (courtesy Dallas Voyage Magazine.) Read More!

Dana Sudborough is a vibraphonist, composer, photographer, union organizer, father and nature lover. He will be performing as half of the American Bedouin duo with Buddy Mohmed. Read more!

7/22 ArtSpeak @ Bathhouse Cultural Center
You know, next to White Rock Lake

Rosemary Meza-DesPlas: “ I was born and raised in Garland, Texas; a manufacturing-based suburb of Dallas. My parents’ heritage is rooted south of the US border: my mother was born in Allende located in Coahuila, Mexico. My father, born in Santa Maria, Texas, grew up in Tampico situated within Tamaulipas, Mexico. The tenacity of my eight aunts in the face of personal tragedies and adversities was an early inspiration; their narratives contributed to my embrace of feminist ideology.” Rosemary Meza-DesPlas currently lives in Farmington, New Mexico. The cornerstone of her artwork is the female experience within a patriarchal society. She is a 2022 recipient of the prestigious Ford, Mellon Foundations Latinix Artist Fellowship and numerous other awards. Her work is exhibited internationally. She is also a spoken word artist, often incorporating her performance art into her exhibitions. Read more!

Benito Huerta is the recently retired Director and Curator of The Gallery at UTA, at the University of Texas at Arlington. By far the longest-serving director in the gallery’s nearly 40-year history, Huerta has created an enduring legacy that will be hard to match. Though he is stepping down from his gallery position, Mr.  Huerta will continue to teach studio art classes part-time in the Department of Art and Art History as part of a phased retirement program. Mr. Huerta earned his BFA from the University of Houston and his MA from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. As an undergraduate studying commercial design, he discovered his talent for painting in his last year before graduation, and was encouraged to continue his studies by mentors such as artist Gael Stack. Once he earned his MA in 1978, his artistic career blossomed, and he has been a prolific studio artist ever since, exhibiting extensively both nationally and internationally. Read more!

8/5 Roxy and Judy Gordon Fest @ Top Ten Records on Jefferson Blvd–(where it’s at)

Roxy and Judy Gordon were publishers, writers, artists, thinkers, influencers of Dallas lit scene, 70s to 90s. Their works were internationally recognized by artists and critics, including Richard Brautigan, Leonard Cohen, Peter O’Brien and Townes Van Zandt. Rolling Stone  Magazine  included Gordon in a cover story for readers to keep their eyes on for the future of literary arts. Roxy was editor of the UT literary magazine in college at a time when numerous future distinguished writers were incubated. He was published by Scribner while he was barely out of college. He and Judy then joined the Vista Volunteers and relocated to the Assiniboine Sioux Reservation at Lodgepole, Montana. Roxy was eventually adopted by tribal leaders and given the name First Coyote Boy. The Gordons moved to California and did a lot of things, then Albuquerque, where they founded a magazine centered on Texas songwriters. They brought their dedicated activism on behalf of the American Indian Movement, and Wowapi Press imprint to Dallas in 1977. They subsequently published a number of writers, focusing on women writers of diverse backgrounds. A number of interdisciplinary artists and scholars could be found at their home any hour of the day. WordSpace founder, Robert Trammell, lived in a camper in their front yard for a spell–many artists found a temporary home with the Gordons. Their friends from around the world visited often and introduced a sophisticated network, exchange of ideas and collaborations to interact with Dallas artists. The Gordons were essential catalysts and building blocks for developing the Dallas literary scene. Roxy passed on to the other side in 1997. Judy recently followed. Their energy, altruistic intentions and open-hearted personalities will always be missed. Roxy’s work is currently being archived at the Bill Witliff Collection. Read more!

For this event, some of their friends and fans will present performances and tributes to this iconic art couple:

Performance artist Laney Yarber will reprise a staged tableau vivant that incorporates a music recording by Roxy. It was originally created at the Gordons west Texas ranch. The performance will include cameo appearance of Yarber’s son, Joe Flaten, and will be videotaped by the great filmmaker, Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation.) You heard right: Jonathan Caouette will be in the house! Yarbers first large-staged performance, Patty Duke Meets Patty Hearst was made possible by Murray Smithers at Delahunty Gallery. Other works have been funded by the NEA and City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture. Her iconic avant garde performances include The Reveries of St. Theresa, Giving up the Farm, Dallas Travelogue, Pedestrian Dance and Dharma Broads I, II, and III (co-produced with kx Minzer.) She regularly collaborates in internet performances for artist and professor Lou Garza’s arts classes in Guadalajara.

Jeffrey Liles is an important writer whose subject matter crosses many topics. His many music articles can often be found in  Dallas Observer. He’s written on Roxy more than once. Liles has performed as an Island Records touring artist (Decadent Dub Team) and spoken word recording under the persona-inscription Cottonmouth, Texas. He is the talent buyer for The Kessler Theater and Longhorn Ballroom, drawing on past experiences at LA’s Roxy Theater and Dallas’s Theater Gallery, where he booked bands ranging from New Bohemians to Nirvana. He also booked a play by Roxy Gordon and Cherokee writer LeAnne Howe. Liles was a great friend of the Gordons and a regular visitor at their house on Oram Street.

Karen x Minzer worked for the Gordons’ graphic business when she moved to Dallas and started living at the Ambassador Hotel in the mid-70s (1900s.) One of her books is published by the Gordon’s Wowapi Press. She collaborated with the Gordons on a number of projects and literary events (good parties and garage-publishing projects.) Roxy wrote a song about her on one of his albums. You can read more on her on the WordSpace directors’ page.

Joseph Justin is a writer and music anthologist. His music-love most often focuses on blues, jazz, psychedelic and country music contributions of Texas music makers. Roxy and Judy would have been honored to have him in the house talking about them.

Joey Cloudy is a Beat writer and founding editor of a the early 21st century literary magazine, Death List Five. He was a co-host of Bill’s Open Mic and a favorite subject of Peter Orozco’s historic documentary film and recording project, PAO Productions. Cloudy’s published chapbooks include Howl, 108 Poems for Allen.

Carlos Salas is a Beat poet and co-founder of Poets on X+. He regularly performs at numerous venues. He regularly visited with Judy at WordSpace and Kessler Theater events during her later years,

Josh Weir is a Dallas poet and regular reader at Mad Swirl and Poets on X+.
He is a published author and spent hours talking with Judy at gallery openings.

Oblong Cassidy and Space Horse is a music project with poet Brett Ardoin, featuring Scott Krakowski, Andrew Jenkins, and Les Bewley. 

8/22 MusicSpeak @ Lucky Dog Books
Down Garland Rd in E Dallas

Mark Ridlen is a seminal music maker and producer of the Dallas youth culture scene arts 80s onward: Quad Pi to Lithium Xmas, with Greg Synodis and Chris Merlick. Past collaborators of his music projects are a who’s who list of Dallas musicians. He’s a DJ and personality-with-the-mostest who keeps his pulse running with the interdisciplinary arts scene, 24/7. Read more!

Wanz Dover is a writer and happening electronic composer and DJ. “I make Electro as Blixaboy. Postpunk Bass/vocals in Black Dotz. I love Detroit,Berlin,sci-fi,comic books, Nick Cave, The Stooges, Afrobeat, & krautrock—to name a few. He’s provided stage music for a number of bands, including MC 900 Ft Jesus. Listen up!

Brandon Jemeyson is a musician and songwriter in the popular Dallas band, The Sutcliffes. Learn more!

Chris Merlick is a musician, visual and performance artist. He regular performs his Duchampaphone conceptual art. He’s played in numerous bands and is a member of Lithium Xmas. Um, Chris is this really you?

Clancy Manuel  is a musician, songwriter, and Happenings collaborator. She works in services and technical support for Fort Worth Modern Museum.

Lopez | Tran | Hamzeh | Suarez | Romero

0 CommentsSaturday • July 30, 2022 • by admin

VICTORIA LOPEZ | ANNIE TRAN | SHAHRZAD HAMZEH | PRISCILLA SUAREZ |LINDA ROMERO | HOSTED BY OPALINA SALAS

Victoria Lopez is an author and the 2022 City of McAllen Poet Laureate. In 2015, she began to introduce herself as a writer and built her confidence by engaging with the community. Her first novel, Fire in May, was published in 2016, the same year she was selected as a tenant of the McAllen Creative Incubator. Victoria writes “Poetry on Demand,” a performative demonstration of spontaneous writing. Using her typewriter, you may give her a word, topic, phrase, question, feeling, or thought and she’ll write you a poem to either keep or share with someone you love! “The most important thing about being a writer is identifying who you are and what you represent, what is your mission? What are you putting into the world? Spend time with yourself and be gentle, the words will come, and when they do, let them be authentic.” You can join Victoria for “Unfolded: Poetry Project” workshops at the McAllen Creative Incubator. 

Annie Tran is Assistant Editor of Reunion Literary Magazine at University of Texas at Dallas. She is a second-year M.A. Literature student with a B.A. in Literary Studies, and a minor in Creative Writing from UTD. She is a cisgender asexual writer, train enthusiast, lover of Greek mythology, and she experiments with the concept of“word butter” in her writing. Her work appears in Oddball Magazine, Wingless Dreamer, Drunk Monkeys, and more.

Shahrzad Hamzeh is a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Dallas majoring in Visual and Performance studies with a focus on dance. She hopes to influence the inclusion of Persian dance and other Iranian performances to the dance curriculum. She is an Iranian Researcher, Dancer, Choreographer, Model, Actress, Producer, Director, Dramaturge, Poet, Writer, Photographer, and Artist. Hamzeh’s current research interests are dance and religion, dance and sexuality, dances of Silk Road, ritualistic dance, and healing by dance. She left her home country to pursue her passion for dance due to the illegality of dance in Iran. She first started dancing when she was five years old with her sister’s guidance and continued to self-train through instructional CDs and movies, classes on aerobics and rhythmic movements at the local gyms and trained to be a Zumba instructor by the time she was 20 years old. Her love of dance lead her to Arezou Zare, who taught her the intricacies of Bollywood and some amateur Russian dancing. While she was getting her BA in Urdu Language & Literature at the University of Tehran she studied Kurdish dancing with Vria Boojar and Asu Naderi. This led to her appearance in Aziz-E Shahngal directed by Qodbeddin Sadeghi. She simultaneously trained in Classical and Modern Persian dances, Azeri, Turkish, Spanish Belly Dancing, and Sevianna with Mina Moradi for four years. She felt the need to know more about the history of what she was being taught. This decision led to her graduation with a MA in Theatre Studies from Illinois State University. While a student at Illinois State University she presented papers on dance and performance in Iran, and taught classes on Persian dances, Belly dancing, Kurdish, and Azeri, lectures and movement. 

Priscilla Celina “Lina” Suarez is a Mexican American author who was the 2015-17 McAllen Poet Laureate. She is co-founder of the Gloria Anzaldúa Legacy Project (GAL) which was formed to honor the legacy of Anzaldúa and share her work with a broader public. During her childhood, she lived surrounded by the farmlands of the then small colonia of Las Milpas, TX, where she first heard many of the cuentos she shares in Cuentos Wela Told Me. Her poetry collection, La La Landia: A Journey Through my Frontera CD Shuffle, was released in April 2022 from FlowerSong Press.

Linda Feliciana Romero is from Harlingen, Texas and has been published in Boundless, the anthology for the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, Along the River 2: More Voices from the Rio Grande (VAO Publishing), Twenty: In Memoriam (El Zarape Press), and La Bloga. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 for her poem, “In the Passenger Seat” by El Zarape Press which appeared in Boundless 2017. She is a Certified Academic Language Therapist and has a private practice providing dyslexia therapy. Photo by: Anaia Irish Funtanilla.

Opalina Salas is a Dallas-based poet queen of the Oak Cliff poetry scene, where she hosts the Poets on X+ Open Mic at MFA Gallery and popular host for many WordSpace events. She has performed in venues and lit fests all over the U.S. and regularly contributes to the Mad Swirl Open Mic. She and her poet husband, Carlos Salas also founded an electronica/spoken word duo, Your Loving Son. Salas is included in the Beatest State in the Union, and multiple lit zines. Her book Black Sparrow Dress. The title simultaneously puns and tributes one of the great historic poetry presses and publishers of many of her favorite books. In her own words, her poetry collection is “about recalling the past and letting go. It’s about the town I call home and the poets I call friends. It’s about love and remorse, outrage and abandonment, but also hope. It’s about a woman’s journey through changes; aging, addictions, laments, misgivings, to eventual empowerment.”

Celia Munoz | Nancy Real

0 CommentsWednesday • June 15, 2022 • by admin

Celia Alvarez Munoz was born in El Paso, Texas in 1937, Álvarez Muñoz is a conceptual multimedia artist currently living and working in Arlington, Texas. She is recognized internationally for her diverse and multifaceted body of work including artist books, photography, painting, written text, installation and public art. Álvarez Muñoz states that the mission driving her artistic practice has always been one of an “Artivist”: an artist and activist. This ideology and philosophy underscores much of her career and work. As a child, her father was deployed to Alaska and Germany, leaving Álvarez Muñoz in the care of her mother, aunt and maternal grandmother in El Paso. Her childhood experiences and youth living in the borderlands inspired much of her later creative practice, referencing dichotomous cultures, values and language complexities found along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with the physical, psychological and socio-political issues of life along the border zone. In college she studied art of all levels, receiving her BA in Art from Texas Western University (now University of Texas, El Paso), and started a career in teaching art to children upon graduation. She also worked in advertising as a fashion illustrator prior to graduating from college. Álvarez Muñoz, her husband, and their two small children relocated throughout the U.S. several times before finally moving to Arlington. Álvarez Muñoz enrolled in graduate school at North Texas State University (now University of North Texas, Denton) in 1977, where she studied with known Texas artists Vernon Fisher and Al Souza. During her studies, she began work on her well-known Enlightenment series, a multimedia, conceptual visual book and language project including a total of ten works she created over a span of about five years. Enlightenment visually portrays the confusing and often erroneous misunderstandings caused by language barriers, cognitive development, and language acquisition. Throughout the series, the artist plays with text, puns, and double meanings she experienced growing up along the Mexican border. The dominant themes of her bilingual and bicultural heritage, as well as an emphasis on education and educational principles (referencing her work as a teacher throughout much of her career), are seen throughout the Enlightenment project, as well as her oeuvre, with later photographs and works addressing these still current and poignant experiences. Álvarez Muñoz recalls numerous moments of both a personal and historical importance as key landmarks in her practice and development as an artist. The following are key historical and personal moments that have impacted and continue to influence my career: 1)A dramatic demographic shift in El Paso with the settlement of The Chamizal Treaty. 2) Installations/collaborations with retirement communities remembering Snugg Harbor in New York’s Staten Island, and Cerveceria Carta Blanca in Monterrey, Mexico. 3) An airport in Phoenix, Arizona’s connection to WW II. 4) Protest to unfair women’s labor practice in the manufacturing industry in the USA and Manchester, England. 5) Roswell, New Mexico’s attitude towards its “aliens.” 6) A coming-out GBL Texas community’s move to San Francisco, California.  7) San Antonio’s convention center expansion hinge honoring regional music.  8) San Antonio River links a park to the history and function of its river.  9)San Antonio’s main plaza reveals a multitude of its stories.  10) A protest installation with SMU/West Dallas due to the Calatrava Bridge and the gentrification in the once segregated Hispanic demographic. 11) A protest to the feminicides in Mexico’s Cuidad Juárez NAFTA maquiladoras.  12) An Austin, Texas library’s acknowledgement to its power and water treatment plants. 13) Participation in “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985” at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2017), followed by travel to The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, and Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2018).  My mission in art making has always been one of an Artivist – I am an artist and an activist.”These experiences and accomplishments as an Artivist have left an indelible impact on Álvarez Muñoz’s laudable and prolific career, who is recognized by numerous awards and achievements. In 1995, she received the Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Visual Arts from the Women’s Caucus for Art. Prior to this award, Álvarez Muñoz received two National Endowment for the Arts grants for both Photography and New Genres (1988 and 1991); she is also the recipient of the CAA Committee on Women in the Arts Recognition Award, and the Outstanding Centennial Alumnus award by the University of North Texas College of Arts and Sciences. In 2009, Roberto Tejada (the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston) published a book on Álvarez Muñoz and her work (Celia Álvarez Muñoz, (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press; University of Minnesota Press.) Álvarez Muñoz’s work has been featured in numerous national and international solo and group exhibitions of note, including: University of Texas at El Paso; Whitney Biennial; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Dallas Museum of Fine Art; Capp Street Project; University of Texas at Arlington; Station Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-85, at the Hammer Museum and Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, followed by the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018), among others. She is represented in numerous public and private collections throughout the states, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Getty Research Institute; Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts; and Texas Commission on the Arts 2021 Artist of the Year.

Nancy Rebalreceived her BA from American University in Washington DC, studied design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and earned a MA and MFA from the University of Dallas. She was granted a residency at RockyMountain Women’s Institute and two from Vermont Studio Center. She is a co-creator of the interactive public art- workSTATIONS: creating the Collective Voice of Forgiveness which has traveled through the US, Ireland and Africa. NancyRebal’s artist-career spans over forty-five years in a wide variety of ap- plications. She spent years managing a design studio in Los Angeles after a stint as a graphic de- signer for The Hollywood Reporter. When she moved to Denver, she returned to painting and was represented by Kyle Belding Gallery and taught art at the University of Colorado. After moving to Texas she was represented by Edith Baker Gallery then Craighead Green Gallery. She resigned from galleryrepresentation in 2007. She taught art at the University of Dallas. Since 1995 she has painted major crucifixes, stations of the cross and shrines for Catholic churches, also designing numerous stained-glass programs for Foster-Stained Glass of Bryan, Texas. Rebal is a founding artist of Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency. Painting and sculpture are now herprimary concerns. She works in a 5000 sq.ft. studio, originally the 1924 L T Davis grocery store, across the street from the100W building of the Corsicana Residency. Recently, she became business partners with Jean Searcy in co-foundingArtTown Corsicana, LLC, restoring historic buildings in Corsicana to be used as studio spaces for visiting artists and writers. She lives in both Corsicana and Dallas with her husband David Searcy.

Karen Minzer (aka with an X) is a beat up beat down phoenixed neo beat still tripping poet performer and recent humanities abd phd primarily mentored by the great Fred Curchack, Dr. Shilyh Warren and Dr. Kimberly Hill at University of Texas at Dallas, where she also enjoys the privilege of teaching rhetoric and u.s. history. She has six chapbooks of poetry–all published by either historic Paris Records label or the legendary Roxy and Judy Gordon’s Wowapi. She’s included in Christopher Carmona and Chuck Taylor’s edited anthology, Beatest State in the Union and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University where in the ’70s she began a long-term mentorship with Allen Ginsberg. Mairead Case was influential and integral to the more recent Naropa certification adventure. Minzer’s most recent manuscript resides in the Allen Ginsberg Library. Subsequently, Joe Milazzo recently lent a helping hand to re-sequence the pieces. Since then, it’s been kind of dead in the water publishing-wise due to the time-consuming rigors of doctoral process. But an excerpt appears in a cool lit mag, Entropy: “What Kind of Person—A Playlist.” The full manuscript has the same title and can be described as a sui generis collection of subjective, sometimes gossipy biographical sketches, essays and a few contemplative poems mostly influenced by Sei Shonagon, Michel de Montaigne, and Harry Matthews—and beat confessional tendencies. Minzer has worn many hats for WordSpace—as producer and performer in multiply-staged iterations of Dharma Broads; assisting Robert Trammell and later Ben Fountain as a series coordinator and event dishwasher—evolving into a nine-year tenure as director of this awesome literary organization started by The Trammells and Jerry Kelley–and pushed through by other brilliant and talented writers and thinkers. You should check out the list of former WordSpace board members on the website to get an idea of the history of influences on WordSpace. Minzer is currently compiling a creative nonfiction storytelling project of Dallas lit arts comprising oral interviews and gossip, archival research, and Dallas socio/political history.

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Sophia Dembling | Debbie Scally

0 CommentsWednesday • June 15, 2022 • by admin

Sophia Dembling is author of The Introvert’s Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy Worldand Introverts in Love: The Quiet Way to Happily Ever After. Sophia also is the author of 100 Places in the USA Every Woman Must Go, The Yankee Chick’s Survival Guide to Texas and co-author ofThe Making of Dr. Phil: The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone’s Favorite Therapist and I Can Still Laugh: Stories of Inspiration and Hope from Individuals Living with Alzheimer’s.Her essays and articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines nationwide, including regularly penned articles in Psychology Today.She is a native of New York City who transplanted to Dallas to work as a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News. She is widely traveled and was married for thirty years to Dallas musician Tom Battles, who passed away in 2020. She is a political activist and focuses much energy on voter registration and women’s rights, placing herself in active protests and support of political candidates that advocate on behalf of equal rights. www.sophisdembling.com

Deborah Scally is an assistant professor of humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. She writes mostly about anime and manga. This book explores anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki’s films through the lens of the monomyth of the Heroic Quest Cycle. According to Joseph Campbell and other mythology researchers, the Quest is for boys and men, with women acting as either the Hero’s mother or the Prize at the end of the journey. Miyazaki nearly exclusively portrays girls and young women as heroes, arguing that we must reassess Campbell’s archetype. The text begins with a brief history of animation and anime, followed by Miyazaki’s background and rise to prominence. The following chapters look at each of Miyazaki’s films from the perspective of the Heroic Quest Cycle, with the last section outlining where Miyazaki and other animators can lead the archetype of the Hero in the future.

Karen Minzer (aka with an X) is a beat up beat down phoenixed neo beat still tripping poet performer and recent humanities abd phd primarily mentored by the great Fred Curchack, Dr. Shilyh Warren and Dr. Kimberly Hill at University of Texas at Dallas, where she also enjoys the privilege of teaching rhetoric and u.s. history. She has six chapbooks of poetry–all published by either historic Paris Records label or the legendary Roxy and Judy Gordon’s Wowapi. She’s included in Christopher Carmona and Chuck Taylor’s edited anthology, Beatest State in the Union and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University where in the ’70s she began a long-term mentorship with Allen Ginsberg. Mairead Case was influential and integral to the more recent Naropa certification adventure. Minzer’s most recent manuscript resides in the Allen Ginsberg Library. Subsequently, Joe Milazzo recently lent a helping hand to re-sequence the pieces. Since then, it’s been kind of dead in the water publishing-wise due to the time-consuming rigors of doctoral process. But an excerpt appears in a cool lit mag, Entropy: “What Kind of Person—A Playlist.” The full manuscript has the same title and can be described as a sui generis collection of subjective, sometimes gossipy biographical sketches, essays and a few contemplative poems mostly influenced by Sei Shonagon, Michel de Montaigne, and Harry Matthews—and beat confessional tendencies. Minzer has worn many hats for WordSpace—as producer and performer in multiply-staged iterations of Dharma Broads; assisting Robert Trammell and later Ben Fountain as a series coordinator and event dishwasher—evolving into a nine-year tenure as director of this awesome literary organization started by The Trammells and Jerry Kelley–and pushed through by other brilliant and talented writers and thinkers. You should check out the list of former WordSpace board members on the website to get an idea of the history of influences on WordSpace. Minzer is currently compiling a creative nonfiction storytelling project of Dallas lit arts comprising oral interviews and gossip, archival research, and Dallas socio/political history.