John Peck is a writer, musician, and letterpress printer. His work has recently been published in Jubilat, Bateau, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He plays bass in the band American Steel, and lives with his wife in Oakland, California.

Nathan Lean is an author and a scholar of Middle Eastern studies. He has written extensively about Islam, American foreign policy, national politics, and global affairs. He is the co-author of Iran, Israel, and the United States: Regime Security vs. Political Legitimacy (Praeger) and is currently writing a book on Islamophobia. He is also a contributing writer at PolicyMic.com.

Gary Fabiano is an award-winning photojournalist who has spent the past 14 years traveling around the world photographing war, conflict and disaster.  When he is not overseas, he is based in Washington, DC photographing the President of the United States on a daily basis for different global media outlets. His vision is in flux currently exploring the moving image as well as the still image to tell stories through filmmaking.

Nicholas Weissman is a freelance journalist and multimedia producer based on Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Food and Wine, The History Channel, CNN Money and PBS. He is currently co-producing a feature-length documentary on the Minutemen along the US/Mexico border.

Anne Dailey is a freelance writer and aspiring agrarian who spends much of her time trading labor for food on local farms and gently lecturing anyone who will listen on the the benefits of raw dairy.  She maintains a blog and website at poundsweet.net. Her previous articles for Last Exit examined raw cider, farm stands, heirloom tomatoes, forgotten foods, homemade saurkrautand raw milk.

Bryan Joiner likes to write about politics, sports, literature, philosophy and television, occasionally all at the same time. He is a contributing editor for Last Exit and the founder and editor of garlic, Shea Stadium, Martha’s Vineyard, A-Rod, his mother and the financial crisis for Last Exit.

Walmsley Apricot is a fictional character who writes just the facts of an illusory world in a forgettable time.



Carlo Bevilacqua, photographer and documentary filmmaker, was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1961. He has directed a number of films, including Little Red Robin Hood, a biographic documentary about Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine’s singer and drummer, with Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, Paul Weller and Nick Mason. His latest photographic exhibition, The Last Wall, will be included in Plaza 2009: Celebration for the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, at the Nuova Academia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan from November 9th to 20th.

Born in Genoa in 1955, Saverio Paffumi has been a journalist for 30 years, covering news, current affairs culture and entertainment for many newspapers and magazines. He ha salso published a novel, as well as some biographies, song lyrics and plays.


Nick Morris is a photojournalist/photographer with The Image Group Photography in the San Diego, CA area and contributes to The North County Times on a regular basis. He’s also worked for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, San Jose Mercury-Palo Alto Daily, Blackpool Magazine, Riviera, 7Sky and numerous other publications. He completed an embed in 2007 with the US Marines 13th MEU.

Mark Loiacono is an art historian, writer and musician living in Washington, DC. He is currently writing a doctoral dissertation on Andy Warhol’s abstract paintings at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

James S. Kaplan is a tax and estate attorney at Herzfeld +
Rubin, P.C. in Lower Manhattan. He is a walking tour historian who has given walking tours of Lower Manhattan for more than 25 years. On October 24, he will be giving for the American Museum of Financial History, a walking tour entitled the “Great Crashes of Wall Street” on the history of Wall Street and the economic growth of New York, which he has given annually with Richard M. Warshauer since the crash of 1987. His previous work for Last Exit looked at Thomas Paine’s and Revolutionary War general Horatio Gates’ legacy in New York.

Joe Milutis is a writer, media artist and Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Washington-Bothell. He is the author of Ether: The Nothing That Connects Everything (Minnesota). His previous contributions to Last Exit include an excerpt of the short film, The Idea of South and Say It Plain, an essay on Elizabeth Alexander’s poem for Obama’s inauguration.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. His latest book, All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice, will be published in 2009 by Soft Skull Press. He also is the author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.

Cynthia Daignault is the art critic for Last Exit. An independent painter, writer and curator, she lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her works can be viewed online at CynthiaDaignault.com. She dedicates her free time to cupcakes, the banjo and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. She pledges as New York is her witness that Cynthia is to Felix as Joan of Arc was to France. Her most recent reviews looked at Dan Graham: Beyond, Picasso Mosqueteros and The Generational: Younger than Jesus.

JB Reed is a photojournalist living in New York. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and International Herald Tribune. JB’s previous work for Last Exit examined Obama’s inauguration, his election and the final days of Coney Island.

Kael Alford has worked as a freelance photographer covering culture, politics and conflict in the Balkans and the Middle East for many US and European magazines and newspapers including Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The New York Times, The Times (London), The Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle, NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands) Vanity Fair, and others. Her photography from Iraq was included in the book and exhibition “Unembedded: Four Independent Journalists on the War in Iraq”(Chelsea Green, 2005). She is currently working on a multimedia project documenting coastal erosion in southeast Louisiana and the impact of coastal degradation on the communities there. She is currently a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and is represented by Panos Pictures in London.

Nick Rosen is an award-winning documentary maker, author and broadcaster. As well as several books, he has written for the The Times (London), The Guardian, Washington Post and Reuters, and produced documentaries for CBS 60 Minutes and PBS Frontline. He wants to launch an off-grid Energy Company. He can be reached at nick@off-grid.net.

Mary Cuddehe is a freelance writer based in Mexico City. She has written for The Associated Press, The New Republic and The Miami Herald, among other places. Sometimes she also produces videos.

James Ledbetter is an author and editor based in New York City. His most recent book is Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx. Ledbetter is also editor of The Big Money, a business Web site published by Slate.

Gordon Welters is a photojournalist currently based in Berlin, Germany. Since 1998 he has been working as a freelance editorial and reportage photographer. He has been published in national and international magazines and newspapers. Gordon’s portfolio can be seen at www.gordonwelters.com. His current work can be seen at www.blog.gordonwelters.com.

Jon Vachon is a freelance photographer based out of Brooklyn, New York. Born in Korea and raised in Vermont, Jon was trained as a filmmaker at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. In recent years however, Jon has committed himself to photography, discovering the power of the still image. A continuing fascination for different cultures has led him to travel whenever he can, always taking along his camera. To view more work visit www.jonvachon.com.

Armando Ribeiro was born in Luanda, Angola in 1976.After finishing a BA Hons. Communication Studies and Journalism by the Instituto Politecnico de Setubal – Portugal in 1998, he started is career at LUSA – Portuguese News Agency. He worked in digitisation and data base of historical photographic archives and for several media outlets prior to become a freelance photographer/photo editor in 2001. He’s now represented by VIA-Visuals. He’s currently based in London, UK. Working mainly in reportage and documentary photography, Armandos work covers environmental, social and human related issues. Armando has published works and exhibited in several countries across Europe, and he is experienced in both digital and analogical photography. www.via-visuals.com.

Kevin Bay researched the development of dream-sleep, publishing in The Journal of Applied Physiology, Neuroscience, and Sleep, before moving to New York to become a fishmonger.

Matt Richtards is an artist born in the barren wasteland of northwest Ohio. Visit www.matthewrichtards.com, www.youtube.com/richtards, and mattrichtards.blogspot.com to gain insight on other adventures. He currently resides in the wasteland of “Bushwick” Brooklyn, New York.

Soumik Mukherjee is a writer, editor, photographer and painter based in the United Arab Emirates. His write-ups have been published by The Statesman (New Delhi and Kolkata editions), www.indiatimes.com (The Times of India group), Hindustan Times, Khaleej Times, Oman Tribune and The National.

Paul Coover graduated from Indiana University with degrees in journalism and sociology. He is currently living in his hometown of San Diego and coaching track and field at a local high school.

Hadeel Al-Shalchi is a Canadian journalist. She studied chemical engineering at school before working as a radio reprorter and newsreader for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Ottawa, Canada. She now works for the Associated Press as a reporter in their Middle East bureau in Cairo, Egypt. She owns a Louis Vuitton purse.

Kahtan Alamery is an Iraqi born New York freelance photographer, trained as a filmmaker but leaned toward photography. “I wanted to stop the image and give the viewer a chance to start a dialogue and to connect with the subject.” He spent the last five years following stories in conflict/crisis zones (Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon) and developing countries (Central America , Africa and South East Asia)
He believes there is hope in every story.

Paul O’Hanlon is photographer with a love for fresh local food and the people who make it possible. He and partner Kelly Kingman relocated to Beacon, New York in 2008, from Brooklyn. They encourage everyone they meet to follow suit, until Beacon becomes overrun, at which point they will deny having done so. They work together on hudsongrown.com, a site celebrating local food and the restaurants that serve it. Paul’s work can be seen at pdofoto.com.

Born in 1979 in Taiwan, Wayne Liu moved to Texas at age five, and lived there and in New Jersey before returning to Taiwan six years later. He has been living in New York City since 1999. He is currently editing and printing new photographs from his second trip to China, part of an ongoing exploration called, “China, You are a Luck Star.” An exhibition of this work was shown at Chelsea Market, New York, in 2008, and excerpts were published both in Foam Magazine (Amsterdam) and Eyemazing (Amsterdam) in 2008. On the side, he has shot fashion and a music slideshow.

Nicole Whelan is a writer and musician who lives in Brooklyn. Her previous pieces for Last Exit include Confessions of a Cyberchondriac for Issue 11, “5 Questions” with earthquake predictors Cal Orey and Vladimir Kellis-Borok for Issue 7, New Jack City for Issue 4.

John Metcalfe reported for the Washington, D.C. City Paper and Seattle Weekly before moving to New York to freelance. Despite his affection for Russ Meyer movies, he says that normal-sized breasts are good too.

Byron Werner spent 28 years doing animation painting for cartoons, commercials and special effects work on movies in Los Angeles. In 2004, he quit his job and moved to Little Rock to devote himself to his artwork. His work is a psychedelic folk-art using found materials in a hand-made way, heavily influenced by Op-Art, psychedelic dance posters, underground comics and such influences as M.C. Escher, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and Dr Seuss. He can be contacted at byronwerner@gmail.com and his artwork is on view at www.rockseye.com/werner.

Sasha Costello is a gender ambiguous being with an eye for detail, a lust for life, a thirst for stories and a yearning for everyone to get along already.

Luke Jerod Kummer is a writer, editor and photographer based in the Middle East. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, New York magazine, The Village Voice, New York Press, The National, City Limits and elsewhere. In his spare time he likes getting punched in the face.

Rose Dakin is a writer living in Abu Dhabi with her husband, John Gravois, and 5-month old daughter Iola. She has a weekly column in The National, has been published in Slate, and has co-authored guidance reports on extractive industries’ community participation. She administers a small artists and writers residency program in northern California, called Old Growth Arts, from afar.

Bryan Joiner likes to write about politics, sports, literature, philosophy, and television, occasionally all at the same time. He is a contributing editor for Last Exit and the founder and editor of garlic, Shea Stadium, Martha’s Vineyard, and A-Rod for Last Exit.

Tim Parsa is an American writer and filmmaker who has lived in Mexico City since 1997. He has published short stories, essays and articles in many U.S. and Mexican publications, including New York Times Magazine, Details, New York Press, Vogue, New York Magazine and McSweeney’s. From 2002 – 2005 he was a Contributing Editor at Details, and from 2004-2006 he published a monthly column in Chilango, a city – guide magazine for México City

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist in New York City. A former editor of New York Press and Moscow’s The Exile, his writing has appeared in The Believer, High Times, The New York Times, Wired, The Nation, Penthouse, Reason, The International Herald Tribune, and many other publications.

Mark Hellen dabbles in writing, photography and architecture. He currently is still searching. Mark can be reached at mhellen55@gmail.com.

Kramer O’Neill lives in Brooklyn. He is a contributing editor for Last Exit; of all the creative odd jobs he does, photography is his favorite and, thus far, his least lucrative. More of his photography, as well as short films and samples of his title designs, can be found at www.krameroneill.com. His photos have also appeared in Issue 3 and Issue 4.

When Teresa Herrmann is not writing about public diplomacy efforts she is editing Hey, Be Us!, the crass culture site she co-founded in 2008. She is proud of her “Show Me” state roots and spends her free time writing on the environment and travel. Teresa last wrote a dispatch from South by Southwest for Issue 5.

Matt Richtards is an artist born in the barren wasteland of northwest Ohio. Visit www.matthewrichtards.com, www.youtube.com/richtards, and mattrichtards.blogspot.com to gain insight on other adventures. He currently resides in the wasteland of “Bushwick” Brooklyn, New York.

Dr Salem Humaid is a writer & researcher in cultural & anthropological studies from the UAE.

David Grocott studied to be an archaeologist before moving into journalism. A lengthy stint on newspapers is behind him and, older if not necessarily wiser, he now writes about what interests him. He has been published in newspapers and magazines in several countries about subjects as diverse as the sociology of ants and 1930s British holiday resorts. He is interested in contemporary art, popular culture, literature, monuments and cricket. David lives in Colchester, England and enjoys writing, gardening and finding weird stuff to interrogate. He can be reached at Grocott1977@hotmail.co.uk. His last piece for Last Exit was on the Roma community in England.

M.L. Johnson is a journalist based in Milwaukee. She has covered education and politics, but really just wants to write about food and farm animals. She wrote The Mistress of Taliesin for Issue 8 and href=“http://lastexitmag.com/article/wine-hunting-in-beer-country”>Wine-Hunting In Beer Country for Issue 2.

Danny Gold is an aspiring travel writer and journalist currently residing in New York City. He also aspires to not have a day job. He’s written freelance articles for a few small travel websites and publications, and blogged his way through Southeast Asia and from Cairo to Cape Town. Other interests include documentary film-making and people who enjoy picking up the bar tab. Danny last wrote about his attempt to cross into Myanmar for our Islands issue. He can be reached at gold.dannyg@gmail.com.

Lito Elio Porto, Ph.D., is based in Austin, TX, where he teaches Latin American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. For 2008-2009, he will be teaching cultural studies and writing at The New School. His latest work is The Ecology of Language: Energy Acquisition, Energy Degradation, and the Cycles of Human Meaning-Systems.

Philip Henken’s work has appeared in publications of dubious repute such as New York Press, the Village Voice online and Deathrock Magazine, as well as publications of even more dubious repute: an action sports magazine wholly owned by the Philip Morris company; a travel lifestyle blog funded by Starwood Hotels. He is also active in the underground postpunk band Funeral Crashers. Although the Funeral Crashers are not metal, their debut full-length La Fin Absolue du Monde recently received a three-and-a-half star rating (just short of a “Metal Meltdown”) from blog “The Metal Minute”. He is pictured in his natural habitat.

From 1997 to 2006, William Bryk wrote two newspaper columns about local history and eccentrics, “Old Smoke” for New York Press and “Past and Present” for The New York Sun. He has also written feature articles and reviews for Saveur, New York Newsday, New York City Tribune, New York Chronicle, The Wanderer, Reflections, Murray Hill News, and Talking Turkey. From 1996 to 1998, he wrote, edited, and published Port Ivory, a quarterly ‘zine about life and history on Staten Island. William last wrote “Men of Destiny” for Issue 5. When he’s not writing, he practices law. He lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Sandra Koponen lives in NYC and works occasionally as a photographer and writer. She plays alto sax and percussion with Kenny Wollesen’s Himalayas and is currently working on producing/directing short films and videos.

Mary Austin Speaker is co-founder of Triptych Readings and recent curator of Reading Between A & B poetry series in New York City, which pairs emerging and established writers. She has been Poetry Editor of Indiana Review at Indiana University, where she was also an Associate Instructor of Creative Writing. Her work has received recognition from Seattle Review, Diner, Lumina, Black Warrior Review, Phoebe and the Academy of American Poets, and appears or is forthcoming in International Feminist Journal of Politics, Five Fingers Review and Failbetter, among others. She has received fellowships from Indiana University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and she currently works as a book designer and illustrator. She lives in Brooklyn. You can find her at http://www.maryaustinspeaker.com.

Michael Dinan lives in Connecticut. He can be reached at m_a_dinan@hotmail.com.

Keelin Daly is a photographer based in southern Connecticut.

Sara Edwards hopes to one day be a genius artist, designer and illustrator. She can be reached at loveislaughter@gmail.com.

Bradley Hope is a reporter in Abu Dhabi. He recently finished a two-year stint at the New York Sun, covering crime and writing features. He is an editor and co-founder of the New York Moon, a bi-lunarly publication of experimental projects and journalism.


Sabrina Kim is an aspiring novelist in Brooklyn, where she spends most of her time drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while trying to think up character names for her next book. Once upon a time, under another name and on another planet, she was a starving journalist; she is still starving, but doesn’t have to wake up quite as early every morning.

Kelly Deegan resides in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. A lifelong curator of mindblowing retro/vintage memorabilia, she hopes to someday make a living providing these amazing goods to the public in a self-owned retail paradise. Until then she will continue to take various jobs in film and television.

Vesna Jaksic is a journalist who currently lives in Toronto. She has reported for three newspapers in Connecticut and New York, covering topics such as health, immigration and legal news. She wrote about the tiny Croatian island of Lokrum for Issue 5. You can read more of her work at www.vesnajaksic.com.

When Teresa Herrmann is not writing about public diplomacy efforts she is editing Hey, Be Us!, the crass culture site she co-founded in 2008. She is proud of her “Show Me” state roots and spends her free time writing on the environment and travel. Teresa sent a dispatch from South by Southwest for Issue 5.


Ana Monroe began taking pictures of bands at age thirteen when her father started bringing her along to concerts he was shooting. She mostly enjoys shooting smaller venues where she’s so close the band and the crowd she alternately has to dodge beer spills and passionate swings of guitar necks. She has been shooting in New York regularly for the past three years. Ana took photos of South by Southwest for our Islands issue. You can see more of her work at www.anamonroe.com/photomusic. This was her first trip to South by Southwest and hopes to attend South by Southwest again next year.

Titus Kuria grew up in the Mathare Valley, Kenya’s second-largest slum. Today, he works as a Kenyan agent running the Canadian-Mathare Education Trust, which pays for the education of secondary school students who hail from low-income families in and around the Mathare Valley. He also serves as the coordinator for the Mathare Roots Youth Group, a group of local young men and women formed to address issues that affect people in their community. He wrote “Yearning For Normalcy” for Issue 4.

Megan didn’t plan on moving permanently to Nairobi, it just became the natural thing to do. First a volunteer with street girls in Kibera (Nairobi) in 1998, three years later she was invited to focus the organization on sustainable businesses and youth leadership – and became a foster mom. In 2006 she began working with indigenous communities on poverty reduction strategies, and started her own organization, ZanaAfrica, and found her passion to keep girls in school and address child trauma resulting from the post-election violence. She wrote about the post-election struggles in Kenya for Issue 4.

Helen Hsu is an occasional writer and a museum employee. Born in Manhattan and raised in Queens, she now lives in Brooklyn, cares for two black cats, and rides a pink bicycle. She wrote “Art History Is A Blood Sport” for Issue 4.

Tony Gerber was born in New York City and began his directing career creating films for live theatre. His short film, Small Taste of Heaven premiered at Rotterdam and the Sundance film Festival and enabled him to direct his first feature, Side Streets, starring Rosario Dawson, Valeria Golino and Shashi Kapoor. He collaborated with Berlin-based artist Ann-Sofi Siden on her QM, I Think I’ll Call Her QM and had the privilege to work as Associate Director with artist Matthew Barney on his Drawing Restraint 9 (starring Bjork) and Cremaster IV. Gerber is currently in pre-production on a documentary series for National Geographic, shooting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His previous work in television earned him two Emmy Awards. An excerpt from his documentary Full Battle Rattle appeared in Issue 4.

Jesse Moss is the founder of Mile End Films, a New York-based production company. His award-winning documentaries include Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story (PBS), Con Man (HBO/Cinemax), and Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood (AMC). He is currently working on a series of scripted training films for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs about a new cognitive therapy designed to help Iraq War Vets, and producing Disturbing the Universe, a documentary about the radical lawyer William Kunstler. Prior to establishing his own production company, Moss worked as a producer for Barbara Kopple and a speechwriter on Capitol Hill. He has been a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, and was named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2003. An excerpt from his documentary Full Battle Rattle appeared in Issue 4.

Lauren D. Klein is a freelance journalist living in New Delhi. Her recent work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press’s ASAP, and Mint, a publication of The Wall Street Journal and the Hindustan Times. She wrote about Bollywood for Issue 3.

Ethan Smith works for the mainstream media. He wrote about the Iowa caucuses for Issue 3.

Jessica Baran spends her days working at a non-profit for architecture and design and her nights producing art criticism and poetry. Her writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Harp & Altar and the Readings Between A & B website. She wrote A Little Human Touch for Issue 2. Jessica currently lives in Brooklyn.

Keach Hagey and Paul Menchaca met while working as reporters at a newspaper in Queens. They have complained over many a beer together — so many beers, in fact, that they had to start an online magazine. Keach works for a newspaper in Abu Dhabi. Paul reports on that pesky sub-prime mortgage market for some mysterious entity of financial journalism. He lives in Brooklyn.