SAOIRSE EMIKO is a mixed kid that makes comics, shoots film, eats and eats and eats. Her art is up at www.saoirsemiko.com.
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Jumbo Jibbles is also AMY BROWN, soft sculptor. She experiments with size and materials to change mundane objects into curiosities. In "Not For Rent" she turns the bland image of a rental sign into a shining tapestry. Amy moved to San Jose 4 years ago from Arkansas to enjoy a 300% rent increase. Follow her work on Instagram @JumboJibbles. She also sells giant fruit and vegetable pillows that will make you feel small in a good way at JumboJibbles.com.
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ELLIOTT SKY CASE is an LA native and San Jose newbie after a four-year stint at UCSC. Their work has appeared in Voicemail Poems, as well as two self-released zines, get home safe and dog star. Elliott is a Virgo sun/Libra moon and married to the sunset. You can find their writing at elliottskycase.tumblr.com and their bad Twitter jokes at @coolangstydad.
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LEIA DELABAHAN was born and raised in the south side area of San Jose. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, she returned to her hometown and now resides in downtown San Jose where she makes and sells her artwork under the moniker Happy Meeal. You can view her handmade goodies online at http://www.etsy.com/shop/theHappyMeeal.
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REBECCA DICKINSON is a black and white film photographer, born and raised in San Jose, CA. She develops and prints all her work by hand in a traditional film photography darkroom. In addition to photography, she also loves strong black coffee, reading, writing, roses, succulents, bicycles, and cats. You can find her photography work at: filmtastic.smugmug.com and on Instagram at filmtasticphotography.
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CHARLIE DULIK was born and raised in Palo Alto, but currently studies place and space at a college far from the Bay. He misses being in San Jose to work on farms, play basketball and bike along the Guadalupe River.
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KATE GEARY is is a writer and a mother whose narratives are centered around caucasity, queerness, and the cult of motherhood. Using pop theory and literature as a back drop, she is working on a memoir called Precious White Woman, where she connects her own life to the larger problematics of a fucked up colonial culture. Kate believes in the power of place, and looks forward to moving back to SJ in the fall.
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YOLANDA GUERRA is a visual artist from San Jose, California. Her most recent work has been with textiles and woodblock prints. Find her online at http://yolandaguerra.com or follow her on Facebook.
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ROBERT GUTIERREZ-PEREZ is a queer of color scholar, activist, and performance artist from San José, CA who currently resides as an Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research and life revolves around the goal of empowering, remembering, and advocating for queer people of color with a particular affinity towards the LGBTQ Chicanx and Latinx community. His work is published in academic journals, such as the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, and QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, as well in several books on race, performance, queer theory, and critical/cultural studies.
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SUZANA DE JESUS HUERTA is a composition writing instructor and poet. She dedicates most of her energy to the California community college system and its inspiring student body. A Bay Area native, Suzy was born in San Jose, California, and currently lives in San Francisco. She is VONA alum. Her work has appeared on La Bloga, The Packinghouse Review, Poets Responding to SB1070, Bordersenses and other journals.
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MIKE HUGUENOR is a musician and writer from San Jose. He attended Lincoln High School due to a prophetic childhood dream and currently writes for The Metro.
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KATIE KAPUT is a transsexual queer mama living in Portland, OR, where she writes, teaches, and makes a pretty badass home. She lived on 9th Street in San Jose for two years in the early 2000s.
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REBEL GREEN, known as Simone in real life, spent a majority of her childhood at Alum Rock Park and now lives in the East Bay. She makes zines and tries to rap.
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KAT BUCKLES LUEDKE is a person, woman, stay-at-home mama, nerd, San Jose native, vegan, librarian, aging punk and occasional artist and writer.
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You can follow CANDYSTORE O. MCCRITTER on Instagram @agaywhitemale. She / he / it was born and raised in San Jose, CA and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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KIRSTIN M. is an actual economist living in Portland, Oregon. She mostly grew up on the mean streets of Saratoga, California.
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ELIZABETH JIMÉNEZ MONTELONGO is a visual artist and poet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work revolves around themes of identity, transformation, and empowerment. She is intrigued by anything having to do with her indigenous Mesoamerican roots including: traditional dances, ancient architecture, native languages, and authentic pre-contact handpainted books (commonly known as "codices.") The ancestral ways have influenced both the ideas and visual aspects of her work and the way she chooses to present them. She shares her work for anyone who might find in it a moment of beauty, a connection, a truth, or be inspired to pursue their own creativity. For art and poetry, as well as a partial list of earthly achievements, please visit: www.ejmontelongo.com.
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CRISTAL OLIVAS is a musician, writer, and cantautora from San Jose, California. She says: I am a first generation xicana, constantly navigating the in-between-ness that I find myself in, trying to build connections between my current space and and the parts of me that have been alive for generations. I strive to encourage and help build creative spaces for myself and peers, family and youth around me in hopes of taking steps toward active healing.
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LESLIE PATRON was born and raised in the Alum Rock neighborhood of East San Jose. Her poems have previously appeared in Harp & Altar, La Petite Zine, Swine Mag, Weird Sister, and others. You can find her online at http://romancingthevoid.tumblr.com.
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RYAN X. PETERSON loves dogs, coffee, San Jose, and that's it.
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ANABELLA PIÑON was born in San Jose, California where she currently resides. She’s a self taught artist and has been painting since she was 10 years old. Anabella has taught youth fine arts for the past 10 years. She has taught at many local organizations: LGBTQ Youth Space - San Jose, the WORKS Gallery San Jose, Camden Community Center, Santa Clara County Juvenile Detention Center, and Childrens' Discovery Museum. Her classes focus on creativity, experimenting with new mediums and exploring sub-cultures with a focus on basic Drawing/Painting, Graffiti, Zines, Photography & Cultural Crafts. She’s an active member of the San Jose art community and has participated and curated many group shows around the bay area since 2001. In her free time, Anabella enjoys, dj'ing at art shows, collecting local art, enjoying live music, cooking, hiking, bike riding, shooting photography and traveling.
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MELINA RAMIREZ says I've lived in San Jose all my live and have a BA in art. I don't have a legitimate website for my art. That's because I don't really consider myself an artist anymore, but as someone who makes things to cope with the reality of living with depression in San Jose. I started making my FORGET IT, FATTY drawings because it's easier to express myself that way. I'm hella awkward. I'm kind of like a cat in the sense that I'm aloof and standoffish. Don't think that I hate you when I first meet you, that's just the way my face is.
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JOHN ROOT says "After ten years struggling as a solo musician i found a community of open arms in Olympia Washington where I wrote and played guitar in weird t.v. My bandmate Ben Trogdon had his punk fanzine, Nuts! I contributed often as did many friends from the local scene. 4 years later I moved back to San Jose to deal with a bad drug addiction. In SJ I finished College getting a degree in psychology while writing painting and making video mixtapes, all forms of expression dealing with aleatoric or chance, examples which can be found on my WordPress. I currently live in San Francisco and teach music at the School Of Rock in Palo Alto. I am vegan-straightedge, I practice vipassana meditation and I am a long distance runner. levelanchorage.wordpress.com@"
ERICK SÁENZ splits his time between Monterey where he teaches and San Jose where he writes. In 2014 he founded Lilac Press. In addition to several self-published chapbooks, his stories have previously appeared in Pinball and Hobart Pulp. You can find him online at ignorethedisclaimer.tumblr.com.
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YACCAIRA SALVATIERRA was born and raised in California. Her poems have appeared in the The Acentos Review, Huizache, Diálogo, MiPOesías, Puerto del Sol, and Rattle among others. She is a VONA (Voices of Our Nation) alumna, has received the Dorrit Sibley Award for achievement in poetry and is the 2015 winner of the Puerto del Sol Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net for 2015. She lives in San José, California with her two sons.
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JANICE LOBO SAPIGAO is a Pinay poet, writer, and educator born and raised in San José, CA. Her first book microchips for millions will be forthcoming from PAWA, Inc in Fall 2016. She is also the author of the chapbook toxic city (tinder tender press, 2015). Find her online at www.janicewrites.com.
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JOHN HUGO SCHMIDT is a zine maker from San Jose, California. His current zines are Helados and Before the Silicon.
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DANNY TRAN examines his past and processes the present through photography. He photographs from a distance, calling attention to the easily overlooked, approaching his subjects with a certain softness and presenting them in context with its surroundings. Isolation, otherness, and connection are recurring themes in his work.
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TORI TRUSCHEIT grew up queer and feminist in Dallas, Texas, then escaped for the wilds of New York City. Now she lives and works in downtown San Jose, organizing for food justice. She's at work a young adult novel set in San Jose. Find her on Twitter or Instagram.
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CARLOS VELAZQUEZ was born and raised on the mean suburban streets of wssj. He is an alum of the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture’s (NALAC) Leadership and Advocacy Leadership Institutes, as well as the Multicultural Artists Leadership Institute (MALI) in San José. He loves learning about San José, his family, and our collective roots.
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RIKKI LYNN VICK is currently majoring in Sociology at Santa Clara University and enjoys writing as a creative outlet. She spent the first half of her childhood in Downtown San Jose and hopes to be able to make San Jose her home base in the future.
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