Courtney Delphinia Wilson, Contributing Writer
Delphinia was given her name by a china-blue beau in a stolen bouquet. Her work is inspired by the fantastic realities of life and the whimsical impossibilities of science. Having worked in the field of photography, publication, agriculture, and science, Delphinia captures her loves and passions between her teeth and passes them out in the form of the written word. She corresponds from Oregon.
Emily Roehl, Contributing Writer
Emily is a graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in American Literature. She moonlights as a stilt-walker and semiotic re-enactor of 19th-century U.S. history and is planning her escape from the chilly halls of literary academia for the arid plains of American Studies. She comes from a long line of horizon lovers from the Midwest and has recently become an amateur history museum and outsider art park enthusiast. She's never met a truck stop she didn’t like.
Us
Maddie Oatman, Contributing Editor
Maddie remembers first feeling accomplished as a writer when she was assigned to write a short story in third grade. What began as an imagined tale turned into a 27-page novella that took place in an alternate universe, complete with flying beasts and a fierce heroine. The desire to write has stayed with her ever since, and no matter what her current occupation, she always finds outlets for literature, words, investigations, and stories.
For her English thesis at Middlebury College, Maddie explored hybrid novels and the retellings of myths and legends. She’s interested in intersections, borders, interdisciplinary studies, and hybrid forms. Since college, she has written for expatriate newspapers in Argentina, educational nonprofits, an online cultural magazine, a board game company, and her personal food blog called Oats.
Currently, Maddie teaches at an afterschool literacy program and does PR and marketing at a board game company. Some of her professional goals include: pursuing a career in narrative journalism and magazine writing, continuing to be involved in education and literacy, travel writing when she’s on the road, learning more about poetry, and making use for her bizarre love of editing. She struggles with her affinity for San Francisco and her urge to live a rootless existence around the world. You will find her on her bike, experimenting in the kitchen, chasing snow and mountains, reading fiction and poetry, and expressing a consistent zeal for life and being in her 20s.
Staff
Contributors
Clayton Greenhalgh, Contributing Editor and Technical Support
A man of few words, Clayton is a student of mathematics and physics at UC Berkeley, a hobbyist grammar mechanic and lover of Shakespeare, whiskey, fast cars and nice shoes.
Ellis Scharfenaker, Contributing Writer
Ellis is a Denver based independent journalist, chef, and cheese maker. Ellis began his culinary career in Venezuela. He later became a Chef De Cuisine in Buenos Aires. Ellis is currently working in fine food distribution and artisan cheese making in Denver, CO.
Jacob Matilsky, Contributor
Jacob has been traveling and taking pictures since he was 15. As a teenager, he worked as a cowboy in Montana, off-loaded fishing boats in Alaska, and took pictures in all fifty U.S. states. Over the past ten years he has worked as a wildland firefighter for the Arrowhead Hotshots, traveled and photographed in 40 countries depending on how you count, and in May he graduated from Columbia University with a Degree in International Relations. he is currently traveling through South America and Asia, publishing photographs that argue for a more moral, internationally minded world.
Kwame Wade, Contributor
Kwame is a thinker and lover of the arts, people, and places. Also a graphic designer, and the man behind the UGE empire.
Questions? Comments? Want to pitch a story? Want to work with us ? Visit our Contact page.
Genevieve G. Walker, Founder, Contributing Editor
Genevieve received a BA in comparative literature: French and English, with a minor in studio art, from Mills College in Oakland, California. Journalism, especially narrative long form, has always been Genevieve’s preferred literary art form.
Genevieve is a little restless - her friends might say that she is always on to some new creative endeavor. She loves rooting out comfortable places to sit and write in the Bay Area. She prefers a thick brew of coffee with cream. Right now she is slightly obsessed with mystery shows from the 1970’s and 80’s. She is also embarking on a career as a mapmaker. You can see some of her other stuff at:
Jessi Hamel, Contributing Editor
Jessi grew up in the London suburbs and moved around a lot before settling in Santa Cruz, California. She got her BA in Art History from Northwestern University where she spent most of her time writing about photography and pretending that the "real world" didn't exist. A year of law school taught her a lot, including that she didn't want to be a lawyer, so she traded in a career with job security and regular paychecks for a life of job uncertainty and regular hand wringing. In the last five years, most of her jobs have been unpaid, including an internship at San Francisco's 826 Valencia, and a two month stint working on volcanoes in New Zealand. Actually, the volcano job paid her in food, so that was a pretty big coup. She supports herself by teaching the SAT while trying to break into the whole freelance writer/photographer thing. Currently she is writing a novel about Eighteenth Century Robot Pirates, which is sure to become the next great American novel. Probably. When she's not writing or procrastinating about writing, Jessi spends her time surfing. She plans on applying to grad school sometime, in the future, when she gets around to it. Until then, she'll be driving up and down the Northern California coast, looking for the best waves, and generally trying to stay out of the way of the sharkies. You can check out her portfolio at www.freewillandscurvy.com.
Michael Dekeyser, Guest Contributing Writer
Michael’s favorite things include: Bourbon, Disney, World War II, Las Vegas, Film Noir, Art Deco, old things, pony races, France, Benny Goodman, Cari Lee and the Saddle-ites, Casablanca, and Bladerunner. (Know him by his adjectives and nouns).
Emma Silvers, Guest Contributing Writer
Emma is a freelance writer, editor and Bay Area native who recently moved to New York to pursue a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. Her current projects include compiling narratives from women in the process of transitioning out of prison, as well as any story that involves eating as research.
Roberta Walker, Contributing Writer
Roberta is a landscape designer from the Sacramento, California area. She is the owner and biographer of Skipper Thomas Walker. She enjoys her morning walks through her garden, coffee with cream, reading historical fiction, winning at ping pong and seeing - and taking pleasure from - all the beauty in life. Here is her website: www.robertawalker.com
Alex Rinde, Guest Contributor
Alex is a die-hard lover of letterpress, books and any pretty thing she can get her hands on. She finds peace in calligraphic typography, thick cotton paper, a good sentence and strong tea. She currently helms the Aerialist Press with her co-captain and husband, Craig and enjoys the satisfaction that comes with making her clients squeal with joy. You will most likely find her with ink on her cheek, laptop glued to her wrists and caffeine close at hand. She is a graduate of Mills College and a reluctant law student at UC Berkeley and will do just about anything for good cheese.
Michael Kalish, Contributing Writer
Michael has spent five years working in the fields of apiculture, enology, cheese making, and Italian butchery in California and the Alps and plains of France, Switzerland, and Italy. He is currently enrolled in a cheese making institute in Northern Italy.
Michael grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco and graduated in Philosophy and Psychology from UCSB in 2005. He writes poetry and fiction while in transit. Much of his inspiration comes from his work and travel and much of his work and travel comes from his inspiration to write.
Patrick Kiley, Contributing Writer
Patrick is studying cheese making in Italy and exploring the countryside on bike, snowshoe, and/or train, depending on the terrain and time constraints. Currently he enjoys reading poetry by Blake and Keats and making collages out of Slow Food magazines. When he returns to the United States he looks forward to writing about young farmers and planting a huge garden with lots of herbs and flowers. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 2002 and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in 2005.
Walter Green, Guest Contributor
Walter Green lives in Brooklyn now for some reason. He only owns one pair of shoes and used to wear his sweaters too tight.
Richard Chiem, Contributing Writer
Above all he believes there are lovers. The co-founder of driving home press, an underground writer’s and artist’s collective in San Diego and a co-editor of Vertebrae, Richard is currently a director for a virtual reading series, the eye reading series, and a co-director of a real time reading series, the Friends in High Places Reading Series. He was selected to read in the New Writing Series in 2007 and won the UCSD Steward Award prize for poetry in 2009 and the DimeStories Competition 2009: SDSU vs. UCSD. You can follow Richard’s writing on his blog site: richardchiem.wordpress.com
Charles Kalish, Guest Contributing Writer
Charlie is an identical twin (his brother, Michael, also writes for the Purple & Gray) and globe trotter passionate about literature and writing. He grew up in Marin County, received his BA in English from UC Santa Barbara, and from 2008-2009 was a Fulbright scholar in Norway. He is currently living in Marin where he teaches part-time.
Jesús Castillo, Contributing Writer
Sometimes sound can hit a pitch and reach a peak-deafening threshold, and what ear cells die off are soon then replaced with song, damage, and a true nature in listening or how to behave. Jesús writes only from this threshold. He is the co-founder of driving home press, a San Diego writer's and artist's collective, and a co-editor of Vertebrae. He was a reader at the 2007 New Writing Series at UCSD and at the Oakland-based multi-media series Ekphrastic! in 2010.
Avery Monsen & Jory John, Guest Contributors
Avery and Jory met at a summer camp. They co-wrote "All my friends are dead." and "Pirate's Log," both published by Chronicle Books. Their websites are www.bigstonehead.net and www.nomorefriends.net.
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