Zhina Jalali: I cherish comradeship and not conversation. Positive lyrics and not bring-me-downs. I grew up listening to a mix of ethnic Kurdish sounds, classical and country - mainly Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. During my spare time, I write for the best website ever, and then strum my pretty blue guitar. I’m on a path to find that thing which will let me forget myself. I tweet - follow me. 
Brittany Wells Baugher is a published freelance writer/editor living in the mid-Atlantic region of the US. A self-acclaimed artsy fashionista, she enjoys spending her days writing for magazines, drinking Starbucks coffee, reading anything of value, shopping for the latest styles, and taking care of her gorgeous daughter.
Brittany now works as a journalist for SHARP OBJEX, the hippest, trendiest, most informative publication on the web. She is living her dream of interviewing famous people and writing stories. After graduating with a B.A. in English, minor in History, Brittany went on to work for publications and internships that led her to become a part of the SHARP OBJEX team. From an early age, all Brittany could think about was writing her own novel, which is in the works. She has been published in La Mode Dallas, and is currently working with SHARP OBJEX and DISfunkshion Magazine.
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Leila de Lara occupies a space in Hampshire in the UK. A precocious child, she usually answered future aspiration questions with the innocuous phrase, "I want to help people", and spent most of her teens puzzling over how to to do this. She now understands that you can help in many ways and it doesn't necessarily have to involve taking up a serious and worthwhile profession....She did anyway, being funny like that, and currently enjoys her studies at University. In her spare time she loves getting involved in things that will probably keep her irritable and exhausted fifty-one weeks of the year.
Leila grew up watching films from the 1940's - 1960's, and can pretty much name any Noir actor from this era. However, she is particularly fond of the horror genre with a focus on ghost stories. She likes nothing better than grinding B-Z list slashers- a choice which has almost cost her friendships, especially when announcing that Urban Legends II was the most enjoyable film she had ever seen.
She is inherently, a bit of a geek, and although she spent a while suppressing it playing at grown-up, she has finally admitted defeat and reads more comics than ever, and has started to write screenplays and her first novel. Leila is especially proud of successes in the entrepreneurial arena, and recent attempts at film-making. This year she intends to advance achievements by working on a publication company advisory panel, and learning to raise one eyebrow.
Fave things: Pyjamas, movies, pop surrealism, the seaside, illustrating, metal music, tea & biscuits, comics/books (horror/vertigo/dc/dark-horse), wit, wing-back chairs, making lists, giving songs aberrant lyrics, unexplored corners, cats, eccentric dancing, Hitchcock, bedtime stories, pulling awkward faces, admiring beards/sideburns, Norman Wisdom, looking after fatalistic animals, oddities, Talisman, Halloween decorations, bizarre hats, and talking about herself in the third person.
See more of my musings here: http://www.whimbiscuit.blogspot.com.
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Elana Steingart is a pink-and-blue-haired flower fairy princess who sings a cappella with an entourage of kitty cats. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2007 with an Honours Bachelor of Arts: specialist in archaeology, major in philosophy. This makes her highly employable in many practical fields. She is currently working two jobs - a comic book shop and a community centre - to finance her glamourous lifestyle of doing as much music and writing as possible (for free). She lives in the Queen West neighbourhood of Toronto. This also makes the two jobs necessary.
Rick Reed currently resides in Grand Rapids, MI, and is co-owner of COLLECTIVE STUDIOS. There he directs and edits short films and commercials. In Rick's eyes, JAWS is the best movie ever and also thinks that the best film school you could ever get is the SPY KIDS 2 commentary.
Jason Holton is a gamer as well as a short story and poetry writer living with his wife, a roommate and 4 cats in Grand Rapids, MI. He finds distractions from playing games and writing incredibly irritating unless they involve his wife, music, movies, booze or any combination of the four.
In video games he has a hard time relating to antagonists while in movies he can't stand protagonists (unless they are played by Kurt Russel). Thinking about this often keeps him up well past his bedtime.
Favorite Games: Call of Cthulhu, Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy XI, Homeworld, Warhammer 40k, Arkham Horror and Talisman.
Favorite Writers: Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, H.P. Lovecraft, Alice Munro, Dorothy Parker, Cate Marvin, Stuart Dybek, Neal Stephenson, Alexander Sozhenitsyn and Fydor Dostoevsky.
Favorite Movies: The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, Event Horizon, Call of Cthulhu (black and white), There Will Be Blood, Blade Runner, and Apocalypse Now!.
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Cara West is a New England native who is an author, painter, and published
Neal Halverson practices communication design in Toronto. Born in Thunder Bay, he moved to Toronto to study design at York University and Sheridan College, graduating in 2004. Moving back to Thunder Bay to build the corporate identity of an education franchise, he returned to Toronto in 2005, working for Stirred Creative and Entertainment One.
Tania Kazi: I consider myself a Passionista and a Fashionista. Passionate about everything in life and always ready to evolve, learn, improve and share. And like most of us girls, an incurable Fashionista. Like most of us, I too have lived many lives in this one lifetime alone. Amongst the prized role of being mom to my beautiful daughter, I have been a Business news broadcaster, Producer of a tele-fashion magazine in South Asia, An Ex-model, Marketing Executive of a Film production house, Political activist, Writer, and a Yogini,]]>
Ryan Lieske lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with two cats named Arbor and Karloff. He writes novels, short stories and screenplays. His movie reviews have appeared in dozens of online “magazines” and small-press rags. He is also a DJ and runs the internet-based radio station RADIOIDIC.