Contrarians

Blog Anchor David Alm is a journalist and a part-time professor of journalism at Hunter College, CUNY, and at NYU’s School for Continuing and Professional Studies. He was previously the chief writer for a social issues and political blog sponsored by the fashion company Kenneth Cole, though he did not write about fashion. For several years he wrote about contemporary art and film, he was briefly a business reporter during the dot-com heyday, and more recently he has written about his favorite obsession, running, for Runner’s World. He earned his master’s degree in the humanities in 2003 at the University of Chicago, where he focused on film and English, and his bachelor’s in art history and literature at St. Olaf College, in 1997.

Fiction Editor Frances Badgett is a writer in Bellingham, Washington. She has a BA from Hollins University and an MFA from Vermont College. She’s currently working on her second novel, Cascadia.

Poetry Editor Shaindel Beers is a professor of English at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon. She also teaches in the Humanities in Perspective program at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute. Her poetry, fiction, and social commentary have appeared in Willow Review, Poetry Miscellany, Hunger Mountain, and numerous other journals and publications. Her first collection of poetry, A Brief History of Time, was published by Salt in 2009. She completed her Master of Arts at the University of Chicago in 2000 and her Master of Fine Arts in poetry at Vermont College in 2005.

Associate Editor Shevi Berlinger teaches English at the City University of New York and is at work on a book of poetry. She also runs a food conservation project, Egg in a Box.

Associate Editor Laura M. Browning is a freelance writer who focuses on art, the environment, and running. She lives in Chicago, where she complains about public transportation and the weather, with supercats Monte and Clarabelle.

Assistant Poetry Editor Helday de la Cruz is an Art Major residing in Hermiston, Oregon. His own work is influenced by Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa.

Associate Editor Dana Dunham is a lecturer in Depaul University’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse.

Review Editor Cynthia Newberry Martin lives in Columbus, Georgia—the home of Carson McCullers. In addition to Contrary, her writing has appeared, or will soon appear, in Gargoyle, Storyglossia, Six Sentences, Clapboard House, and Blogcritics. Both of her novels placed in the 2010 Faulkner-Wisdom writing competition, one on the shortlist for finalists and one as a semi-finalist. She is currently working toward her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts and on novel number three. She blogs at Catching Days.

Editor Jeff McMahon writes about green technology for Forbes. He has written for newspapers and the newfangled, including dailies in Arizona and California, alternative weeklies including New Times and Newcity, and online innovators including True/Slant, Forecast Earth, and The New York Times Company’s Lifewire syndicate. He was been a regular contributor, on writers and writing, to PEN International magazine. His commentaries have won a national first place award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and he was the first writer to win two Golden Quills for commentary from the International Society of Newspaper Editors. He also serves as Contrary‘s commentary editor. He teaches journalism, creative non-fiction, and academic writing at the University of Chicago.

Design Consultant Andy von Engel is the owner of engel design, a graphic arts firm based in Eugene, Oregon. Much of his work adorns the landscape of his former home, Central California, where his signs and logos politely accomplish their task without detracting from the green and golden hills around them. His work has illustrated many a publication too, where they politely accomplish their task without detracting from the words around them. He won’t tell you any of this himself. He’ll just say: “I’m a struggling freelance graphic designer, struggling like all your contributors trying to be heard.”