WENDI AARONS (Mother Trucker); (Loser Mom); (Kenny Loggins Must Die)
...............................................................................................

Wendi Aarons lives in Austin, Texas with her family. In the past few years, she has written for McSweeneys, The Big Jewel, Parentwise:Austin, austinmama.com, and Esther's Follies, Austin's famous comedy revue. She has also been a commentator on Austin's NPR station, KUT.

This year Wendi obtained a weird sort of fame when the letter she wrote about Always Maxi-Pads for McSweeneys became an internet hit. Now people send her e-mails about their periods. Prior to breeding, Wendi was a copywriter. Prior to Texas, she spent 10 years in Los Angeles, where she worked in various capacities for Warner Bros., The Gersh Agency and Disney. She is currently writing a book of humorous essays and taking out her frustrations at www.wendi-aarons.com.

ANDREA ABBATE (Hell); (The Reason I Screen My Calls)
...................................................................
Developed and written shows for HBO, Showtime, NBC, and CBS. Appeared nine times on Politically Incorrect. Currently writing a memoir called Childhood on the Rocks. Andrea spends most of her time doing charity work for at risk kids -- the Foster Program, and the World Literacy Crusade. She really wants people to cry at her funeral.

JANE MEREDITH ADAMS (Adventures in Dissociation)
..............................................................
Jane Meredith Adams is co-author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning book The Last Time I Wore a Dress (Putnam/Riverhead), which was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award and has been translated into German and Japanese. She’s the recipient of the Clark/Gross Award in the Novel and the Associated Writing Programs Intro Award, as well as a Squaw Valley Writers Conference scholarship. A mother of twins, she tells all in the essay, “My Nanny, My Self,” which appears in the award-winning anthology Searching for Mary Poppins (Penguin/Hudson Street Press.) Her essays have been aired on NPR’s Morning Edition and have appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, Health, San Francisco, and Organic Style. A former staff reporter for the Boston Globe, her reporting has appeared in Salon, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Dallas Morning News and Los Angeles Times.

ALLISON ADLER (I am Coated with Feces -- and Loving It!)
..............................................................
Allison is a brand new mom and Writer/Producer of a bunch of TV shows. Most recently Life as We Know It, the critically acclaimed and little seen coming of age drama on ABC.

Way less recently -- Beverly Hills 90210, (back when Brenda was on) It's Like, You Know… (the only TV show to include an ellipses in its title), Just Shoot Me and Family Guy. Allison's favorite new hobby is sleep. She rarely gets to do it.

VALERIE AHERN (The Christmas Secrets)
...............................................................................................
Valerie Ahern has been living in L.A., writing and producing TV for over ten years. She has worked on a dizzyingly diverse list of shows including Married...With Children , Clueless, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Hannah Montana, Spyder Games (an Emmy-nominated soap she created with partner Christian McLaughlin), Drawn Together, Hot Properties, and, most recently, Desperate Housewives.

HARLYN AIZLEY (Google This); (In the Closet with Barbie)
...................................................................
Harlyn is the author of two books, Buying Dad: One Woman's Search for the Perfect Sperm Donor (Alyson Publications) which appeared on nonfiction bestseller lists including The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe, and The Other Mother (to be published by Beacon Press, 2006). Her writing can also be found in 96 Inc., Berkeley Fiction Review, Boston Magazine, Mangrove, and The South Carolina Review, and has aired on public radio stations nationwide.

A resident of Boston, when visiting Los Angeles Harlyn dabbles on the Sit N'Spin stage and gets her hair cut, though usually in the opposite order. Presently, Harlyn is working on a novel about regular decaf vanilla blendeds and (hetero) sex. One day you will be able to read excerpts from it on www.harlynaizley.com, but for now she still has no idea how to use Dreamweaver.

ALIEN #7005634 (I Do! I Do!)
...................................................................
Alien #7005634 is a 32-year-old freelance journalist, story teller and two-time divorcee. She writes for publications including BUST, Whole Life Times, Science & Spirit, and Penthouse. She is currently working for Entertainment Tonight UK as a researcher and associate producer. Her life dramatically changed three years ago when she stepped into a crosswalk on Melrose Avenue and was smacked down by an SUV that dragged her fifty feet before stopping. She is (still) working on her first "novel from memory," titled Metal in My Flesh.

Her author picture was taken at a wedding; someone else's.

CHARLIE ANDERS (The Week of Rental Car Disasters)
...................................................................
Charlie Anders is the author of Choir Boy (Soft Skull Press 2005) and the co-editor, with Annalee Newitz, of She's Such A Geek (Seal Press 2006). Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, ZYZZYVA, Tikkun, Punk Planet, the SF Bay Guardian, the New York Press and many additional magazines and anthologies. She's the publisher of other magazine <www.othermag.org> and the organizer of the award-winning Writers With Drinks reading series in San Francisco. She doesn't own a car..

RICHARD ANDREOLI (We Can't Have Anything Nice)
...................................................................
Besides collecting really cool but ultimately useless pop culture crap, Richard Andreoli works as a freelance writer in Los Angeles. He moved here from San Diego to attend UCLA, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1995, majoring in English Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing.

After graduation he worked in the entertainment industry as a development executive; basically, this meant people submitted their scripts to him, and he told them they sucked. He also produced a standup comedy show, some live theater projects, and made it to the third level writer's lab with The Groundlings. That's when he realized that none of this was directly advancing his writing career, so he quit and began developing his humor and mainstream reportage for various magazines. His words have appeared in The Advocate, Los Angeles Confidential, CARGO Magazine, Metro Source, and on Playboy TV.

Most recently he was contracted by the Comic-Con International: San Diego to revamp their Update magazine, and the first edition hit comic book stores November 1st. But all that pales in comparison to interviewing both Lynda Carter and Jennifer Garner this past year; Jennifer complimented his biceps. He can now die a happy man. Mondo Homo: Your Essential Guide to Queer Pop Culture is his first book. You can find him at www.richardandreoli.com.

ROMIE ANGELICH (My Prom Date's Name Was Bubba)
...............................................................................................
Romie is the producer and host of the monthly series Border’s Published, Produced, Or On Their Way. She was a stand-up comedienne from 1982-1996. After taking a long break from the road to raise her two boys with husband/comedian Peter Moor, she started writing and performing her scripts and essays at theaters in Los Angeles, including Bang Studio, The Comedy Central Stage, The Falcon Theater, The HBO Workspace, The Steve Allen Theater, and The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. She loves having the wonderful venue of Border’s Books and Music’s performance stage to perform a fresh essay each month. Her show, (which is part performance, part talk show and part signing,) promotes books, CDs, DVDs, and the live shows of the talented people she just happens to know.

ALICIA ANKA (Becoming a Flower)
..............................................................
Alicia Anka received an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. She found writing when she was about eight years old, and has been trying to make it her friend ever since. She spent her early working years as an elementary school teacher and then moved into writing content for educational companies such as LeapFrog,Inc in Emeryville, California. She's also dabbled in editing and copy writing. Alicia now resides in Europe, where she is teaching English, copywriting and pursuing her fiction works.

REBECCA ASHER (From Spot to Gone)
...................................................................
Rebecca is currently the script supervisor on Arrested Development. She has done the same job on various television shows including Undeclared and Andy Richter Controls the Universe, as well as films including Donnie Darko and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, starring Will Farrell.

Rebecca has also directed and edited four Instant Films, part of a film series in LA featuring films written, shot and edited in 48 hours, and co-directed three shorts for the acclaimed mockumentary series CA$HINO.

LUCY BAKER (The Hall of Asian Mammals)
..............................................................
Until she moved to New York City, Lucy Baker wore her heart on her sleeve. Now she stuffs it down her left pant leg for safekeeping. She has written for the Village Voice, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Ducts.org, ReallySmallTalk.com, and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, among others. She also tells stories at NYC's The Moth.

JANELLE BARNETTE (My Father, My Ghost)
...............................................................................................
Janelle Barnette lives in Vernon, New Jersey and cannot fathom ever leaving the state. She is currently a senior at Centenary College, and most likely will be selecting "student" as her occupation on forms for a few more years, or at least until she grows up and becomes a librarian. Despite what some may say, she is not a snob, just quiet. This is her first published piece.

TOM BARTLETT (A Beast in the Night)
...............................................................................................
Tom's writing has appeared in Slate, Muse, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Opium Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine and the New Yorker, among other publications. He blogs at www.minortweaks.com. He is the one writing this.

TAMARA BECHER (Stalking Santa)
.......................................................................
Tamara Becher has written no books, plays or poetry, as much of her time is divided between training to defend her Mexican Wrestling World Championship title and trying to beat expert mode on Guitar Hero II.

She has never been the recipient of a prestigious award, but is credited with being the only known survivor of Mexican Wrestling's most fatal move: El Suplex de Muerto.

Ms. Becher uses the wages she earns as a script coordinator for the Fox drama Standoff to keep herself well-supplied in Spandex.

RACHELLE BERGSTEIN (Not Alone)
...................................................................
Rachelle Bergstein's writing has appeared in Flashquake (www.flashquake.org) and 11211 Magazine, and she's a monthly columnist for Sugarzine (www.sugarzine.com). She graduated with a degree in English from Vassar College, where she won awards for her academic writing. She currently works at a literary agency and lives in Brooklyn.

Writing her first novel, Rachelle finds herself distracted by good food, fashion, eyeshadow, fun parties, singing along with the radio and reading great books.

PAIGE BERNHARDT (Little Dogs Humping: Buckets of Love);
(Save Me Now)
.......................................................................
Paige Bernhardt is a television writer and producer. Her work has appeared on various primetime network comedies including Two Guys and A Girl, Yes, Dear, What about Joan with Joan Cusack. A regular contributor to Sit & Spin at the Comedy Central Stage, she also appeared in Hollywood Hell House.

She was raised in North Georgia and has the twitchy neurons to prove it. Her interests include conceptual maximalism, hobos and nudity.

JENNY BICKS (One Single Christmas)
.......................................................................
Jenny Bicks was a Writer/Executive Producer on Sex and The City. She joined the show in the first season. Her work on the series has earned her an Emmy, multiple Golden Globes, Producer's Guild Awards and two WGA nominations. Before she joined the show she worked on a bunch of bad shows, and a few better ones, including Seinfeld and Dawson's Creek. In 2001, Jenny created and executive produced Leap of Faith, a single-camera half hour comedy that aired on NBC. She is currently the creator/Executive Producer of Men in Trees, an ABC dramedy in its second season.

Jenny also works in film. Her movie What a Girl Wants (Warner Bros.) premiered in April 2003, and her short film, Gnome, whch she wrote and directed (starring Lauren Graham), was selected to be in numerous festivals, including the Berlin Film Festival and the Aspen Comedy Festival. It won Best Short at the Savannah Film Festival, and the Audience Award at Maui. Jenny has also done numerous re-writes on films including The Nanny Diaries (Miramax), Beauty Shop (MGM), Serendipity (Miramax) and Never Been Kissed (Fox2000).

Before Jenny wised up, she worked in advertising, where she sold Clearasil and Maxwell House Coffee. She quit, joined the performing troupe of Gotham City Improv (The Groundlings, NYC), and realized once and for all that she was a much better writer than performer.

Jenny is a born and bred New Yorker who now splits her time between New York, Maine, and Los Angeles.

JOANN BIONDI (Sundays in Haiti)
.......................................................................
Joann Biondi started her journalism career as an obituary writer for the Miami Herald. Fortunately, she learned a lot from working the Dead Beat and moved on to write for many other publications including The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Islands, Cooking Light, and Salon.com. Her most recent book is Miami Beach Memories, a collection of interviews with 100 people from all walks of life -- strippers, comedians, bankers, bellhops, writers, photographers, waitresses, politicians -- that tells the tale of Miami Beach from the 1920s to the 1960s. Sexy, funny, poignant and brutally honest, it proves that Miami Beach was a hot and happening place way before Paris Hilton ever came to town. You can learn more about Biondi by visiting www.your-story.net.

JEWEL BLACKFEATHER (Becoming You)
...............................................................................................
Jewel Blackfeather is a mixed breed wild child with hair like Joseph's Technicolor dreamcoat. Her father was a highly decorated officer in the Army and a road warrior besides, so Jewel spent most of her childhood bouncing from one place to the next in her dad's beat-up Ford truck. She's lived in more places than she has letters in her name. She pretends to be normal, but she's everything your mama warned you about and nothing you want to take home, a modern brat with a penchant for wearing dangerous shoes and talking tons of jive. She wishes her stomach were a lily and her tongue a rosepetal. Instead, she's a blur of awkwardness and mussed hair. Eat her up (and eat her good) with a spoon at http://muse.livejournal.com.

Jewel is a published writer for a few publications and often feels weird discussing her readership or publishing life. You can walk into a major bookstore and find an anthology or magazine with her in it most days. For Numb Magazine she's interviewed a lot of famous and not-famous folks like Isabel Allende, Ernie Barnes, Noam Chomsky, Fatboy Slim, Janeane Garofalo, Spike Lee, Yoko Ono, and Floria Sigismondi. She gets into shows free as a press-person and she's hugged and chatted with Daniel Lanois and Lucinda Williams and written bratty letters to Peter Gabriel and danced drunkenly with Francis Ford Coppola. She's just trying to hang on and enjoy the bedlam that she calls home. As she does that in the Arizona desert, she eats flowers, writes love letters to thunderstorms, and chases coyotes with nothing but her bare feet. She loves her little life very much.

KEITH BLANEY (Crayons)
..............................................................
After graduating from Florida State University's School of Theatre, Keith went on to intern at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Back home in Miami, in addition to acting in commercials and films, he helped run a comedy theatre company and advertising agency. On stage there, he performed Wallace Shawn's The Fever as well as in City Theatre's popular play festival, Summer Shorts, before moving to Los Angeles in 2001.

On stage in LA, Keith was fortunate to play the role of Clown in the critically acclaimed West Coast premiere of The Lepers of Baile Baiste, and NURSE RU486 in Hollywood Hell House. He also performs at the acclaimed reading series Sit 'n Spin at the Comedy Central Stage.

Along with his writing partners, Charlotte and Adam, Keith has several film and television projects he carries around in a bag and leaves under unsuspecting car windshield wipers all over Los Angeles.

Since the big move West, Keith is very happy to have had acted on shows such as Scrubs and Entourage. He is currently working on a set of monologues called "My Name's Not Rusty."

FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK (Fashion Quest)
......................................................................
Francesca Lia Block is the acclaimed author of sixteen books including the bestsellers The Rose and the Beast, Violet and Claire, and Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books, as well as I Was a Teenage Fairy, Girl Goddess #9, The Hanged Man, Echo, and Nymph.

Francesca has received numerous awards, including citations from the American Library Association, The New York Times Book Review and the School Library Journal, and her work has been published around the world, translated into seven different languages. To find out more, visit her website: www.francescaliablock.com.

ROB BLOOM (Kick Me When I'm Down); (Relax, Mon!)
..............................................................
Rob Bloom is a humor writer, screenwriter, cartoonist, and connoisseur of
all things deli. He has written for the Cartoon Network, McSweeney's,
CRACKED, Monkey Bicycle, Funny Times, National Public Radio, and
the Travel Channel, among others. As the winner of Screenvision's Short
Script-Big Screen Competition, Rob's screenplay Suburban Bravery will
soon be produced by the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and shown on movie screens nationwide. He is also the writer of a regular humor column, which has been praised by the Erma Bombeck Writing Institute as well as by his parents who proudly display it on their refrigerator with magnets shaped
like fruit.

To read more of Rob's writing (or to recommend a good deli he should try),
visit RobBloom.com.

MICHAEL BOOKMAN (My Father and the Ghost of Bugsy Goldstein)
..............................................................
Michael Bookman grew up in Brooklyn in the '50s during the reign of the great Brooklyn Dodger teams. A New York advertising copywriter and Creative Director for 25 years, Michael produced TV and print campaigns for clients as varied as the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Opera, Kodak Film and Proctor and Gamble.

As an adjunct professor at John J College for Criminal Justice, he taught Creative Writing to inmates at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Michael has published two books, a novel, God's Rat and a collection of first person verse, Pomes, Short Stories in Verse. He lives with his wife Mona in Suffern, NY; they have two grown children and three grandchildren.

SHARON BORDAS (Fifteen)
...............................................................................................
Ms. Bordas is a television writer who was most recently employed on the critically acclaimed and promptly cancelled VH1 comedy So NoTORIous. She and her writing partner, Mr. Damon Hill, are currently developing a one-hour drama with The N/MTV Networks. A graduate of the MPW program at USC, Ms. Bordas has been published in West Magazine for the Los Angeles Times, as well as on a handful of websites under a variety of pseudonyms. Day jobs have included working as an editor for the Hollywood Creative Directory, freelance reading work for HBO, and writing a weekly column for a travel website. Ms. Bordas is deathly afraid of airplanes, global warming, snakes, unemployment, corduroy shorts, heroin and molasses.

MICHELLE BOYANER (Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?); (Lost and Found)
..............................................................
Although writer Michelle Boyaner would like her first Bold Face and Italicized Credit to appear right here in this first paragraph, it doesn’t. It won’t appear until the second paragraph because she spent too many of her “early years” working in the Fashion Industry as a Designer/Merchandiser/Court Jester for companies she doesn’t want to put in bold face type.

She returned to writing several years ago with a collection of personal essays, Oh, for God's Sake Whisper It, a chronicle of her Grandmother's battle with Alzheimer's.

She and Director Barbara Green formed Greenie Films and in 2003 produced their first short film, I Want You To Show Me, a fictional and humorous take on an hour in the life of Wynonna Judd. Another Greenie Films production written by Michelle is 2004’s You're Still Young, which has been an official selection at Film Festivals throughout the country, and has garnered awards. She's just co-directed her first documentary short, Tina Paulina: Living on
Hope Street, a brief glimpse into the life of a homeless gay woman.

Michelle continues writing screenplays and essays as well as rambling rants in her online blog, which has a large following of readers whose loyalty is both appreciated and mind-boggling.

ASTRID BOYLE (Dear Folks)
..............................................................
Astrid is the host of her own ham radio show, Just Chillin' on Channel 2478. She enjoys billiards, crochet, and America's Next Top Model. She also has a pet bird.

ART BRAMBILA ("No" Was His Only Answer); (The Night of the Pigeons)
..............................................................
Art Brambila grew up in the hard, working class barrios of East Los Angeles during the sixties and learned quickly to survive in the dangerous streets there. At 13 he was expelled from his local junior high school for gang activities and sent to a West L.A. school where he got his first glimpse of a potential for a better future. He attended Cal-State, L.A. and chose a career in Entertainment Marketing. Starting as a young executive at Capitol Records, he later became an independent music producer signing local Latino rock groups to major labels. His Hollywood contacts lead him to television production and to a position as Unit manager at ABC. After a stint there, he was named Director of Motown Latino. Brambila was later appointed Director of Special Markets at Universal Pictures.

He is currently owner/president of Brown Bag Records, a small, independent East L.A. label that records and distributes mostly bilingual Latino pop music. He write songs, and stories about the neighborhood he grew up in, the people he knew there, and the experiences he remembers. His first novel was Dying Young in East L.A., and he is currently working on his second, tentatively titled East of the L.A. River.

JAMES BRALY (Power Outage)
.......................................................................
Married to his college sweetheart, James Braly has spent the last twenty years researching life in a marital institution. He's performed his autobiographic stories on NPR and Marketplace, and at The Whitney Museum, Long Wharf Theatre, and The Moth, where he is the only two-time winner of the audience-judged GrandSLAM, and a featured performer on The Moth National Story Tour.

His autobiographic monologue LIFE IN A MARITAL INSTITUTION is currently in development with Hal Brooks, director of 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING). The book version of LIFE IN A MARITAL INSTITUTION will be published in 2008 by Algonquin. More info at www.JamesBraly.com.

KIMBERLY BRITTINGHAM (The Over-Gifting Affliction); (What's So Wrong With The Brady Bunch?); (Fat is Contagious)
...............................................................................................
Kimberly Brittingham was a delighted finalist in The Memoirists Collective's "Win A Shot at Getting Your Memoir Published!" contest in the summer of 2006. She is passionately immersed in writing her memoir, tentatively titled Parking Backwards (borrowed from her short story of the same name which won Permafrost's annual award for fiction in 2005). Her work has appeared in One Trick Pony, The Evergreen Chronicles, Mobius, The Advocate and Axe Factory. If you enjoy her essay Fat is Contagious, and want to practice similar mischief, blank books with Kim's original Fat is Contagious cover are available at www.cafepress.com/teeandsympathy.

LISA BUSCANI (Escort); (Idiot), (My End of the Line)
..............................................................
Lisa Buscani got her start in Chicago's performance poetry scene and ultimately became a National Poetry Slam Champion as well as a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has published one book of poetry, Jangle (Tia Chucha Press) and has produced three critically and publicly acclaimed solo shows, Carnivale Animale, At That Time, and Solid Citizen.

She has been featured in poetry anthologies such as Alive from the NuYorican Poets Café (Holt) and Word Up (Keyporter Books/EMI). She has appeared on HBO, CNN, PBS, Much Music and NPR. She is currently the executive director of The Poetry Center of Chicago.

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL(Three Little Words)
...............................................................................................
Rachel Kramer Bussel (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is the editor or co-editor of over a dozen anthologies, including Caught Looking, Hide and Seek, He's on Top, She's on Top, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am, Crossdressing, First-Timers, Up All Night, Glamour Girls, Sexiest Soles, Ultimate Undies, Secret Slaves; Erotic Stories of Bondage, and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2, and the forthcoming non-fiction collection Best Sex Writing 2008. Her writing has been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, Single State of the Union, and Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong. She's contributed to AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Gothamist, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, New York Post, Penthouse, Playgirl, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, and other publications. She serves as Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, hosts and curates In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her first novel, Everything But…, will be published by Bantam in 2008.

Her biological clock continues to tick loudly. When she's not obsessing over the babies in her life, Rachel can be found reading voraciously, walking across the Williamsburg Bridge, and blogging at Lusty Lady (http://lustylady.blogspot.com) and Cupcakes Take the Cake (http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com).

NANCY NEUFELD CALLAWAY (Tell You Later)
...............................................................................................
Nancy Neufeld Callaway began her illustrious career in 1980 as a member of the U.S. OLYMPIC RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS TEAM. And later that year, her career came to a cruel halt when President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the games. So after a ceremonial burning of her hoop and ball, Nancy gained a lot of weight and graduated from Yale. Shortly thereafter she became Vice President of Feature Production for 20th Century Fox. But a debilitating allergy to being an enemy to all creative types forced her to turn her back on the dark side and begin a third career as a writer.

Nancy wrote on IN LIVING COLOR, ROUNDHOUSE, THE EDGE, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN and a half-dozen other shows you've probably flipped past. And since bringing three poorly-mannered, yet incredibly funny children into the world with her painfully bald husband, she has reinvented herself yet again as a writer of family entertainment, including, JUMANJI, THE LION KING SERIES, DRAGONTALES, LIZZIE MCGUIRE, and most recently her launching of an internet family sitcom. Please check this paragraph again in six weeks to find out how much further she's fallen in her professional and personal life.

RICH CAPLAN (My Father's Penis)
.......................................................................
You may not have caught Rich Caplan's last "piece." It was written in the year 1967, and started with the words:

Dear Mom and Dad.
Camp is gud.

The underwhelming response resulted in him taking a break from writing for the subsequent 40 years (give or take). The technological advent of that thing on the computer that corrects your spelling mistakes for you has enabled him to finally resume his career, spawning not only this essay, but also the better part of a feature screenplay that no one other than his wife has ever seen, and even she hasn't looked at it lately although at one time she was very encouraging. In his spare time Rich is a partner in a talent agency that represents excellent Canadian actors. This is his first published piece

CINDY CAPONERA (My Emotionally Challenged Christmas)
..............................................................
Cindy Caponera, writer/actress, native Chicagoan and Second City Alum. In New York she wrote for Saturday Night Live. Guest wrote on Strangers with Candy. And also wrote and performed on Exit 57 with the Strangers' crew. She has been living in California for seven years writing/producing on many shows including, Norm, That '80s Show, Stan Hooper, Living wtih Fran, and My Boys. She's currently developing a pilot for CBS loosely based on her one woman show Cookies and Booze.

She has developed scripts for HBO, SHOWTIME, Fox, and CBS. She has also written and performed three critically acclaimed one woman shows. One of which, The Debutante Ball was performed at the Aspen Comedy Festival.

Cindy continues writing her pesonal essays and regularly performs at various writer's events including: Say The Word, Sit&Spin, Scratch It and Word-o-rama.

His plays have been presented at the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Vineyard Theater, Theater for the New City and numerous other venues. He received a screenwriting fellowship from the Chesterfield Writers Film Project at Universal Studios and has received grants and fellowships in playwriting and screenwriting from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Edward F. Albee Foundation and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Carl has an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University School of the Arts. He currently lives in midtown Manhattan, one block away from the building in which his mother was born 81 years ago.